Two books about the Shan territories of Myanmar in the space of three weeks is surprising, to say the least. Hot on the heels of Daniel Mason's excellent novel The Piano Tuner (reviewed March 2) comes this travel book. They are very different in subject and feeling. Whereas The Piano Tuner is everywhere thoughtful on the implications of empire, this book wastes no words, tends to sum up complex situations in a few witty phrases and is frequently comic in tone.
It was initially inspired by a desire to follow the footsteps of an eccentric British Victorian, Sir George Scott, who introduced soccer to the region. It quickly becomes something much more serious, however, as the author comes face to face with what he considers the genocide currently being perpetrated by the Myanmar junta on its minorities.
Andrew Marshall, who was for several years a journalist based in Hong Kong, tells how he visited Myanmar seven times posing as a tourist. He was, he says, followed and harassed by the country's security forces, and writes in an Author's Note "Well, gentlemen, you were right all along: I was a writer posing as a tourist, and this book is the result. I hope you like it."
They are certain not to. Marshall is resolutely opposed to the country's current rulers. He exposes their crimes on many a page, and refuses to use the new names they have given many places on the grounds that they are part of an anti-minority campaign. He similarly refuses to use the name "Myanmar."
Unfortunately this book fails to live up to its early promise. The anger that the author feels at the actions of the military is never in doubt, but the narrative too easily gets side-tracked into jokes and only mildly amusing anecdotes.
Marshall's style can be appreciated from the following. After recording that the British allowed the local Shan rulers to continue to raise taxes and dispense justice, while the natural resources of the area became the property of the British crown, he goes on: "It wasn't much of a deal: you get to keep your royal spittoon bearers, your umpteen wives and your ceremonial yak-hair whisk; we get all your teak, jade, gems and silver. But then that's colonialism for you. And the Shan saophas [princes], fatally enfeebled by centuries of in-fighting, had no strength left to argue."
This brand of history, in other words, is reader-friendly, to put it kindly.
The account of Marshall's own travels is equally easy on the eye, not to mention the mind.
He visits Maymyo, now a couple of hours drive from Mandalay, and Taunggyi, capital of the Shan State, both former British hill-stations. "There is no hill station in India where there is so much room," George Scott had enthused about Tuangyi, "not merely for house-building but for race-courses, polo-grounds and public gardens." Marshall found it dominated by Chinese businessmen, the source of most of the economic life in the otherwise stultified and stagnating modern Burma.
This is in essence a light-hearted book. But because the author encounters tales of brutal repression, he has no alternative than to be outraged, and to temper his inclination to make fun of things, at least for limited periods.
In the latter part of the book he travels to China's Yunnan province to visit villages of the head-hunting Wa on the China-Myanmar border. The Wa had, and retain, a reputation for savagery. An American missionary in Thailand had advised Marshall: "If I were you I'd pray a whole bunch before I went up there. But if you're not afraid to die, then give it a shot."
In fact his experiences are uneventful, much though you feel he'd like to have had a few close shaves on the basis of which he could spice up his story. He does his best, relating that the Wa only finally gave up head-hunting in the 1970s, but in the event he finds them insanitary but good-natured. His narrative alternates with his re-telling of Scott's journey of a hundred years before. Scott opted not to introduce soccer to the Wa, he explains, as most of the men "were not only heavily armed but also profoundly intoxicated on opium and rice liquor -- conditions which were hardy conducive to explaining the offside rule."
The United Wa State Army make several appearances, and the Shan State Army an occasional one. Whereas for the first part of his travels Marshall took with him a Shan translator called Hseng, later he travels in the company of a young American called David, a Christian and an enthusiast for energy-giving fast foods.
Their final destination, a lake called Nawng Hkeo, is something of a disappointment. You feel Marshall needed some stirring conclusion to his travels, and that had to make do with this in the absence of anything better.
On the Myanmar situation generally he is intransigent, however. "Over 1,800 political prisoners still languish in jail," he writes, "among them students, doctors, teachers, lawyers, writers, farmers and housewives." And the military seems more powerful than ever.
This may not be the best travel book you'll encounter this year but it's good-natured and very easy to read. Andrew Marshall has discovered a region to write about that's little visited by even the most assiduous professional travelers, and he's in addition found an amusing historical character to bring back to life to parallel his own experiences.
The book is illustrated by black-and-white pictures, some taken by Marshall, others older ones taken by George Scott. These latter are far and away the more interesting.
And there are some choice quotations, such as British prime minister Lord Salisbury's maxim on foreign affairs: "Whatever happens will be for the worse, and therefore it is in our interest that as little should happen as possible." It's not difficult to wish this was still the UK's basic foreign policy principle.
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