1984/1989

Burma. Childhood reading gave me a romanticized view of this country now called Myanmar. Mandalay, Rangoon and the great Irrawaddy: the names conjure up visions of riverboats, rice paddies, steaming jungles, teak forests and golden pagodas. It’s an exotic place, sometimes even a dangerous one, but in a gentle, mesmerizing sort of way.

The real Myanmar is, of course, one of the world’s most isolated countries, ruled by an oppressive military dictatorship since 1964.

Foreign correspondents are not welcome in Myanmar, but Emma Larkin, an American journalist, born and raised in Asia, has been visiting and writing about the country for the past 10 years. Larkin (the name is necessarily a pseudonym), based in Bangkok, is fluent in the Burmese language and has developed many friendships there over the years.



In “Finding George Orwell in Burma,” Larkin reports on her travels throughout the country, visiting the places where Orwell once lived and worked and exploring the connections between what she encountered and his novels.

Orwell served as an officer of the British Imperial Police in Burma during the 1920s, and Larkin believes that it was then that Orwell’s commitment to freedom and social justice began. In fact, she reports, the Burmese people call Orwell “The Prophet” and claim he wrote three novels about their country — “Burmese Days,” “Animal Farm” and “1984” — describing life under colonialism, a failed socialist state and totalitarianism, respectively.

I had read “Animal Farm” and “1984” but not “Burmese Days,” and I soon abandoned Larkin to do so. “Burmese Days” tells the story of John Flory, a British timber merchant living in a remote hill station of the country. Life for the British there revolved around their Club, and in the waning days of the British Empire, pressure to admit at least one native to The Club is growing.

Flory is largely a loner, his one true friend a native doctor. Rendered shy and self-conscious by a disfiguring blue birthmark, loneliness drives Flory to the Club, though he finds the racism and general shallowness displayed there repugnant.

The plot revolves around his attempts to win the heart of Elizabeth, a young woman visiting her uncle at their remote station, and his growing realization that he must find the strength to stand up and support the admission of his native friend to the Club.

“Burmese Days” is a strangely wonderful novel, as bleak as can be and full of stock characters, but still a page-turner with moments of great beauty in description and one especially powerful scene where Flory attempts to explain his admiration of Burmese culture to the doubtful Elizabeth.

I returned to Larkin’s book and found it captivating and sad. Her juxtaposition of Orwell’s novels and her various stops in the country is compelling, even though Orwell died long before Burma became Myanmar.

The current government speaks and acts in true Orwellian fashion: According to a regime spokesman, “Truth is true only within a certain period of time. What was truth once may no longer be truth after many months or years.” History may be rewritten; lives may be erased.

The people of Myanmar believe that informers are everywhere and that the military government knows everything. Larkin was repeatedly stopped, questioned and followed. Still, the people wanted to talk to her and talk they did, in noisy teashops, attic rooms and bustling night markets.

Since 1992, the government has been promoting tourism to Myanmar.

Their efforts have been largely unsuccessful, but they have succeeded in creating a countrywide veneer that corresponds quite well with my youthful vision. But as Larkin found, “All you had to do, it seemed, was scratch the surface of one of the town’s smiling residents, and you would find bitterness or tears.”

But also and everywhere she found a proud people with a courageous spirit and the desire to speak the truth.

In 1989, the military regime began a systematic program of renaming places in Myanmar, from street names to cities to rivers and mountains. This was done, it was said, to erase the colonial corruption of the original true names. Mandalay, though, is still Mandalay.

Photo by Esme Vos (from Creative Commons)