It is the ideal speed for the human senses. I hear the voices of children playing, but the scent of open cooking fires is less prominent. There are more streetlights now, and in the darkness lamplight shines from most of the huts. The economic development of recent years has brought electricity to many villages—electricity and trash. The country is fast on its way to becoming a dump. Everything that was previously wrapped in leaves or cloth is now packaged in plastic, the more the better, which is then carelessly thrown away. Considering that trash removal is available in very few cities, the people simply do not know what to do with all the plastic. They toss it into ponds and rivers, along streets and paths, or into their backyards. The sight of the landscape teeming with blue, green, or white plastic bags is sometimes hard to bear.
When I get to Kalaw, a friend asks me amazed why I subjected myself to the uncomfortable and tedious train ride. The flight would have taken only an hour. Or I could have taken one of the modern air-conditioned buses that now connect the country’s cities. In his eyes, I am an incurable romantic wallowing in nostalgia. I object. The train is neither comfortable nor efficient, but it offers the best opportunity to glimpse a different, more intimate side of the country.
Kalaw is changing, too. Tourists have discovered it. Instead of four hotels there are now about forty establishments ready to welcome guests, and more are under construction. There is a Mexican restaurant called Picasso and an Italian restaurant with a pizza oven and mozzarella on the menu. Many of the streets are freshly paved; there is a brand-new municipal trash collection service; traffic is picking up; mopeds have replaced the last horse-drawn carriages. And the property values have gone through the roof. Given its pleasant climate at an altitude of about forty-five hundred feet, the little city is a popular destination for the Burmese themselves. A friend tells me that a piece of land ten thousand square feet can cost half a million U.S. dollars. Come again? Half a million dollars? In Kalaw? He nods. Black-market cash. The military leaders have to sink their ill-gotten fortunes into something, after all.
That afternoon I stroll through a little park downtown, and just as before some young people are sitting under the pines, playing guitar and singing. They laugh and wave to me and invite me to sing along.
A few days later we visit a monastery in the vicinity of Taunggyi. An abbot founded it more than ten years ago and it has since grown to be one of the largest in Burma, financed entirely by private donations. It houses 650 novices, the youngest of them under age ten. On a separate campus there are about a thousand girls who are also able to attend the monastery school. Most of the young people and children come from the nearby Pa-O villages. On the walls of the abbot’s office hang class schedules and excerpts of lesson plans. They reveal an ambitious curriculum. Above all he wants to teach the children to think and act critically and independently. Psychology is one of the subjects, alongside Environmental Protection and History and Culture of the Pa-O.
“Do the folk tales of the Pa-O play any kind of role?” I ask, hoping to collect a new story or two.
“Folk tales?” The abbot wrinkles his brow, then smiles. “Hardly. We have trouble enough getting the kids to put their smartphones down. They’re forbidden in the monastery, but we see their influence. The students today lack concentration and are more easily distracted than ten years ago. Folk tales hold little interest for them, I fear.”
At the end of my journey I have a kind of reading in Yangon. My two Burma novels, having recently been released in Burmese, have found a wide readership. The publisher has organized an event with the press and a public audience. We are sitting in a café with a gallery in the city center. About forty people have turned up; aside from me hardly anyone is over thirty. I feel uncertain. I have no sense of how long I should speak, because I have no idea whether anyone will be willing to ask questions at the end. My publisher says to keep it short and not to worry.
I talk a little bit about how the novels came to be and then ask if anyone has any questions. Several hands shoot immediately into the air. And that is just the beginning. For two hours we discuss the books, Burma, and the process of writing novels. Their curiosity and thirst for knowledge know no bounds.
We even discuss the crimes of the military and the deployment of young men to clear land mines, a circumstance that plays a prominent role in the novel A Well-Tempered Heart. A woman stands up and asks me whether this is something I invented or whether it is based on fact. For a moment I am unsure what to say. It is not so long ago that the novel would never have been allowed in Burma and the young woman would have spent years in prison merely for asking such a question.
She is waiting for my answer.
I take a deep breath and tell her about the interviews I conducted years ago with men who had suffered these tortures. These stories were true, and the atrocities committed by the soldiers were probably much worse than I portrayed them. And while I am saying this and looking into the open, inquisitive faces before me, I decide that problems such as traffic jams and rubbish heaps are much less dire in the context of the triumph represented by the people’s release from fear.
Back in Yangon, shortly before my departure, I visit Than Htlun, a dealer in books and antiques who has been running a little shop in Scott Market for decades. Business has not been bad, he says. Thanks to the influx of tourists the demand for old Burmese handcrafts has grown, though good pieces are hard to come by. These days you have to travel to the remotest villages, and the prices get higher from week to week.
He invites me to dinner at his home that evening. His wife, Mimi, makes some delicious Burmese dishes. There are curries and Burmese wine.
I tell him about my journey and my observations and I ask him to recommend books about Burma and its culture in light of the changes in recent years. With the slightest hesitation he pulls three dusty old volumes of Burmese folk tales off the shelf.
“But these are all folk tales,” I object, surprised.
“I know,” he replies with a laugh. “It doesn’t matter. Folk tales reveal a lot about a country and its people, its culture, its values.”
“And what about all the changes I’ve encountered during my visit?”
There are no books about that yet, he tells me, and say what you like about Facebook, the change has not begun to affect the old roots of the culture. “Every country changes, Burma included. It was changing before, too, though more slowly. There was a time when the men covered their bodies with tattoos and wore their hair in long braids. Neither is the practice now. What matters is deeper than that. And the soul of a people, as it is described in folk tales, does not change so quickly.”
Yangon, spring of 2017
Acknowledgments
umerous people have helped us with our research in Burma in various ways over the years. We are deeply indebted to all of them. Without them this book would not exist.
Particular thanks go to Winston and Tommy in Kalaw.
Ma Ei, Hans Leiendecker, and Bert Morsbach at the Aythaya Winery have generously and repeatedly supported Jonathan and Janek for months at a time.
Yeyint Kyaw, Tin Htun Aung, and Nee Nee Myint provided Lorie Karnath invaluable service as translators.
Ursula Bischoff translated Lorie’s texts into German.
Maung Htin Aung, the former rector of the University of Yangon, engaged deeply with the folklore of his country and published collections of Burmese tales in the forties and fifties of the previous century. These, too, were a source and inspiration for us.
Authors
JAN-PHILIPP SENDKER is an internationally bestselling author born in Hamburg in 1960. He was the American correspondent for Stern from 1990 to 1995, and its Asian correspondent from 1995 to 1999. In 2000 he published Cracks in the Wall, a nonfiction book about China. His first novel, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats (Other Press), is an international bestseller, and the sequel, A Well-Tempered Heart (Other Press), appeared in 2014. His third novel in the He
artbeats trilogy is set to be published in 2019. He lives in Berlin with his family.
LORIE KARNATH is an author, explorer, and lecturer. She was the thirty-seventh president of The Explorers Club, and founded The Explorers Museum, a not-for-profit entity dedicated to preserving and fostering scientific exploration and discovery. She has written numerous books and articles on the sciences, exploration, and the arts.
JONATHAN SENDKER spent a gap year in Myanmar, traveling, doing volunteer work, and collecting stories for this book. He now studies Liberal Arts & Sciences in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Translators
LISA LIESENER has been translating for almost twenty years and took special pleasure in embarking on a journey filled with spirits, dragons, and talking animals. She holds an engineering degree from the University of Applied Sciences in Stuttgart, Germany, and currently directs children’s programs for a nonprofit organization she cofounded to promote education and connection with the natural world. She lives in Connecticut with her family.
KEVIN WILIARTY has a BA in German from Harvard and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. A native of the United States, he has also lived in Germany and Japan. He is currently a Web developer at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and two children, and also plays bass in a string band.
Also by
Jan-Philipp Sendker
THE ART OF HEARING HEARTBEATS
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
“An epic narrative that requires…a large box of tissues.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“[A] rare novel that tells the story of a young blind man’s journey. Sendker renews one’s faith in the possibility of real, pure love. I finished the book in tears.” —SHAWNA YANG RYAN, author of Water Ghosts
“[The Art of Hearing Heartbeats] is a love story set in Burma…imbued with Eastern spirituality and fairy-tale romanticism…Fans of Nicholas Sparks and/or Elizabeth Gilbert should eat this up.” —KIRKUS
A poignant and inspirational love story set in Burma, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats spans the decades between the 1950s and the present. When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter, Julia, has any idea where he might be…until they find a love letter he wrote many years ago, to a Burmese woman they have never heard of. Intent on solving the mystery and coming to terms with her father’s past, Julia travels to the village where the woman lived. There she uncovers a tale of unimaginable hardship, resilience, and passion that will reaffirm the reader’s belief in the power of love to move mountains.
www.otherpress.com
Also by
Jan-Philipp Sendker
A WELL-TEMPERED HEART
THE SEQUEL TO THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING NOVEL THE ART OF HEARING HEARTBEATS
“Sendker is a mesmerizing storyteller.” —KIRKUS
“When Sendker penned the sequel to his international bestseller The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, romantics worldwide breathed a sigh of relief. In this book readers have the chance to follow Julia Win, a Manhattan lawyer who stumbles upon a journey of self-reflection while picking up the pieces of her personal life. This story of love, loss, and understanding is sure to leave an impression on your heart.” —LADIES HOME JOURNAL
“An absolutely transcendent novel…about love, unspeakable loss, and coming to know what really saves us in life…To say I loved it is pure understatement.” —CAROLINE LEAVITT, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You and Is This Tomorrow
Almost ten years have passed since Julia Win came back from Burma, her father’s native country. Interwoven with Julia’s story is that of a Burmese woman named Nu Nu who finds her world turned upside down when Burma goes to war and calls on her two young sons to be child soldiers. This spirited sequel, like The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, explores the most inspiring and passionate terrain: the human heart.
www.otherpress.com
The Long Path to Wisdom Page 19
