Na Win Myint - The lake is cold every time

Mandalay

Room one

The sound of the roaring sound rolled across the plain, the silvery Irrawaddy winding its way towards the western wall of Mandalay. He knew for sure that there was only one person in the small shop. Not one of the few who could be trusted. A young boy, no more than eleven years old, named Kumar.

The sound was a strange, unusual sound. It was a loud explosion from afar, accompanied by a faint, intermittent, old-fashioned crackling sound. Sometimes it was like the sound of a tree breaking and breaking, or the sound of a tree grinding, and it was not continuous. It would appear suddenly and unexpectedly. When the loud sound suddenly came out, accompanied by a strong, loud roar, the small restaurant would shake, and the soup pot that had been placed on the table would also make a cracking sound.

Inside the small restaurant, there were two long benches called hermits’ huts. The customers were crowded together. The weather was cold, as was the beginning of the short winter in central Myanmar, and the sun had not yet risen high enough to burn the emeralds that hung in the riverbanks. After the initial explosion, the restaurant was silent. After about a minute, a stream of questions and answers began to pour out. Everyone was staring at the waiter with bated breath. What was going on? What was going to happen? At that moment, Kumar’s excited voice broke through the loud, monotonous chatter.

"English cannon"

Kumar spoke in a fluent but very fluent Burmese.

"They're shooting from somewhere upstream...they're shooting in that direction."

"Hey"

The person who said that was a young servant. And a young man from another country. His teeth were as white as his eyes, and his skin was as smooth as a piece of wood that had been varnished. When such a dark-skinned young man said that, some of the customers' faces turned into unwelcome shadows. The young man stood in the middle of the shop, holding a large porcelain plate.

Despite his age, he was shy and shy, and smiled shyly. His name means a prince. However, his bare feet, his wide, fat, and skinny legs, his loose, flabby waist, and his wide, fat, and fat-colored clothes showed that he had no trace of the royal family. Whenever people asked him how old he was, he would answer that he was fifteen. Sometimes he would say eighteen or nineteen. There was a reason for his answer. He felt that he had gained some kind of strength when he said that he was a little older, both in terms of his physical structure and his thinking. He wanted to grab the reins like a grown man. In fact, he was not much older than a child. In any case, people would believe him even if he said that he was twenty. He was a big man. He was tall. He had broader shoulders than some people. It's hard to say whether he's a dark-skinned person or not. Except for the fair-skinned children, there are some young people.

Kumar's presence in the golden city of Mandalay on that November morning was his destiny. In reality, he was just a "boy" who had to work on a cargo ship that was sailing up the Irrawaddy from the Bay of Bengal. The ship he worked on was sailing up the Irrawaddy.

The situation was already dire when the boatman told him that it would take a month and nine weeks to load the boat, and even longer if the weather was bad. Kumar was horrified. It was difficult to keep the crew fed for long periods of time during the loading period.

The boatman had to make a decision. Some of the boatmen on the boat had to get off the boat, find work, and earn their own living. Kumar walked inland, about two miles away, towards the Golden City. He had to find a woman named Ma Cho in a market on the west side of the city wall, opposite the wall. Ma Cho was a woman with a black beard and a small shop. Ma Cho offered him a small job. .

Thus, eleven-year-old Kumar, who was walking towards Mandalay, the capital of the country, saw a long, straight tar road, and on either side of it were bamboo huts, palm-thatched houses, rotting animal waste, and large piles of garbage. However, along the long, straight tar road,

The streets are lined with cobblestones, making them look like a wall that cuts through the rough sea. The streets are so straight that you can see the Golden City from every angle. The great wall of the city

From the bright, azure-colored walls, you can see the white lotuses hanging from the mountain range, all the way to the pagodas of Mandalay in the distance.

Kumar has traveled far beyond his years. The merchant ship he works on is a coastal ship, and he generally travels by sea. He has traveled along the long coastline of Burma and Bengal. Kumar has visited major ports like Chittagong and Pathein, as well as small towns and villages. However, in all his travels, there are no roads like Mandalay. All the towns and villages he has visited are narrow, winding, and winding, so that it is difficult to see the next one after passing one bend. The main roads of Mandalay, the golden city, are all one. There are no turns, no changes, and it is as if the horizon has been brought into the residential areas.