How the Plong (often commonly referred to as Pwo) Karen community in Hpa-an, the state capital of Karen State in southeastern Myanmar, live their lives in line with the conscious pursuit of a moral existence is the focus of Justine Chambers’s new book Pursuing Morality: Buddhism and everyday Ethics in Southeastern Myanmar. Focusing on how Plong Karen choose the most ethical and moral way to live, the book highlights the importance of Thout kyar, “a promise to maintain a particular ethic that people describe as fundamental to living in harmony with each other”, to many Plong Karen.
Myanmar
India’s western frontier with Pakistan may generate more headlines but India’s eastern border flanking both Myanmar and Bangladesh is arguably more complex. Both neighbors have long been unstable and have both at points in their history found their territory being used by rebels waging war against New Delhi. It is not just neighboring countries that pose a challenge: internal borders too are at play. The Indian government for decades has had a complex, often tumultuous relationship with its northeastern states. The inherent complexity of the region means a wider, more expansive approach to political analysis is needed. This is precisely what Avinash Paliwal’s new book seeks to do.
“Skies of Thunder: The Deadly World War II Mission Over the Roof of the World” by Caroline Alexander
The China-Burma-India (CBI) theater of the Second World War gets far less attention than the battles in Northwest Europe, Italy, the Eastern front, North Africa and the Pacific. Author Caroline Alexander in her new book Skies of Thunder presents a riveting, faced-paced account of the action there both on the ground and in the skies that would make for a best-selling movie.
In 2016, journalist Clare Hammond embarked on a project to study the railways of Myanmar—a transportation network that sprawls the country, rarely used and not shown on many maps, and often used at the pleasure of the country’s military.
Railways are major public infrastructural projects; one would therefore think it should therefore be easy to find out which rail lines exist and at what times trains are running. Not in Myanmar. Aside from the well-known main lines, Clare Hammond a myriad of smaller branch lines in remote parts of the country, with little information as to when the trains will run or if the lines are even operational.
Eric Arthur Blair once wrote that he was born into the “lower-upper-middle class”, having cachet but no capital. His father had been a sub-deputy opium agent in India, where Blair was born in 1903; his French mother was the daughter of a Burmese teak merchant.
Pwin-u-Lwin is a town in upper Burma, situated in the hills east of Mandalay, known for its cool climate. Yet for many, Pwin-u-Lwin is better known as Maymyo. Renamed in 1896 after the head of the 5th Bengal infantry, Colonel James May, Maymyo was the most famous hill station in colonial Burma. The British occupied Maymyo in 1895 and a military garrison was erected there in 1897. It soon became a popular holiday destination for those living in Burma. In 1900, following the construction of a train line to Mandalay, it became the summer capital for the British Raj in Burma, allowing colonial officials to leave steamy Rangoon behind until the heat and rains had subsided.