These days, people are very creative in celebrating the New Year. They launch their money into the sky and watch it burn, exploding into pretty patterns which they can admire for all of 10 seconds. And they get to strain their ear drums into the bargain. Since I don’t have money to burn, I just have to find other ways to be equally creative. This year, I spent the change-over from 2018 to 2019...
I have a habit of overthinking things to the point where sometimes my mind starts thinking by itself without me. Quite often, it has managed to circle the moon a few times before I notice that my mind has gone out of my body again and I have to heave it back to earth. In one of those moon trips that my mind took recently, it struck me that I can learn a lot from cats. They are one of my favourite...
I was flat on the floor with my head bowed, forehead nearly touching the ground and my legs tucked under me. I didn’t look up until the monks had sat down on the mat in front of the Buddha statues. It was my birthday. I was dressed in traditional Burmese clothes, sitting on the floor with my palms together in front of my chest, a gesture that I’d learnt ever since I was aware of my being. The...
One morning when I was in year 6, I managed to get my hands on a beautiful white rose. After poking my nose in it to take in the scent, I immediately knew who I wanted to give it to. I guarded the precious rose all the way to school. The most important thing at that moment was to reach the target of my adoration before anyone else beat me to it. I wanted to show how much I admired her. Giving her...
By this point in my life, I have taken for granted my everyday use of the English language as if I’m a native speaker. From time to time though, I’m reminded of the fact that actually I haven’t been using it all that long. For example, for quite a while, I had been telling people that I needed a pair of thongs to cook sausages. I didn’t understand the amusement on their faces. It turned out that...
Warning: this method will work only if you are white. I’m not sure if it’ll work if you are black or any other colour since it hasn’t been tested. Have you been trying hard to stand out from the crowd, but still keep getting blended back in all the time? To get attention, you may have tried going out in the middle of winter with gaping wide rips on your jeans so that the goosebumps on your...
“Here you are, this one is for you,” said my grandad as he cut the juiciest, biggest guava on the tree and placed it in my small, open hands. He had wrapped the fruit loosely in plastic to help it grow even bigger and to guard it against birds. Even the boss of the family (my grandma) wasn’t allowed to touch it. My mum, dad and I visited my grandparents every weekend. They used to live in...
One evening when I was about six years old, my family – grandad, grandma, uncles, aunty, my parents and me – were all sharpening our teeth to tuck into a big feast in my grandparents’ house. Covering the large dinner table, freshly cooked crabs, lobsters and fish were piled in a steaming display on my grandparents’ finest china. They lived near the sea in a small town in the west of Myanmar...
Barely 5 minutes till I had to dash out of the house. I flung my wardrobe door open and grabbed my dress. This was a new dress that I’d been looking forward to wearing for weeks. But the weather had always been so cold even my goose bumps had goose bumps. Today, the sun had shifted into top gear, with no wind at all. Even the huge tree at the bottom of my garden was unusually inscrutable. Jumping...
The other day, when I got to the bus stop, I looked up and saw a man I knew. I said hello and we chatted for a bit. Then we got on the bus. I walked all the way down the bus, hoping that he would go and sit somewhere else. I was starting to run out of things to say. Unfortunately, this man took an empty seat in the same row as me. So, the verbal exchange had to go on a little longer. He started...