Thawtar Swe - Short Humor Stories 4

Friendship

He himself is a writer and a lover of literature, and I knew that he would give the opportunity to the Writers' Association as the Prime Minister, so we visited Mandalay once and Myitkyina once. Thank you. I hope to visit Shan State in the future, as I have never been there before.

When I returned from Myitkyina, U Kyaw, the gardener of the Sumava Garden, where my imagination blossomed, asked me to plant the Manawraung Myaingyan flower, which I had brought from Myitkyina, in his garden. (Oh... don't say it's too big, U Kyaw, let me brag a little.)

To tell the truth, I am not only traveling at the request of this young Mali Maung Kyaw, but also because of the grace of the Prime Minister, and I am responsible for repaying the grace of the state. Therefore, I have to write a letter with everything I know.

On the evening of January 5, 1951, after the Prime Minister’s tea party at the Prime Minister’s residence, I approached Thakin Nu and asked him to invite our writers to the Myitkyina Manao Festival. It seemed that he had already planned it. He immediately called Secretary U Thant and made arrangements, and at 11 o’clock the next day, twenty-six writers, including Shwe Mann and Shwe Gon, were given a Dakota aircraft. I was delighted when the Information Department announced that...

I have never been to Myitkyina, not even for a month. It is not because I have never attended the Manaw festival. I have danced there in 1947. However, this time, how can I get the goods from that place at a low price? I... I thought about how to sell the goods listed below at a high price, but now I want to go with the heart of a writer.

I, on the other hand, was a writer who ran away from home, having lost money and debts, and had no money to buy anything. In 1947, I took refuge in the village of Nandawkyun, on the other side of Mingun, and entered the literary world by writing dark and humorous novels.

Oh... Now I am going to this region of the Myitkyina River where I lived as a merchant as a writer. Myitkyina is more than eight hundred miles away from my hometown, and since I left last time, it has been difficult to reach any further. On the morning of January 3, 1947, while the snow was still blowing, I collected copper, I lost over ten thousand baht in a minute due to the sudden order of the government to “arrest the owner” (as mentioned in the novel Chit Pan Nin Khaing), and I wanted to stand for a moment on the platform in front of Myitkyina Station, where I was in a state of despair. I wanted to walk along the side streets where I had been hunting for copper and gold powder (Kin Shwe) with a group of friends. I wanted to look at the jungle people who were buying copper or gold powder (Kin Shwe) at a low price so that we could not get it at a high price, and I wanted to say, “I was stupid.”

In my writing career, like some writers, I have pen pals who I have never met in person but who I have become very close to through correspondence. When I decided to go to Myitkyina, I opened my notebook and looked up the addresses of two pen pals in Myitkyina.

First, Maung Tun Khaing, Kaung Phat Alcohol Company, Myitkyina.

The other one... is a girl, so I don't think it's appropriate to mention her address.

Maung Tun Khaing calls me the writer's older brother, and the girl calls me the younger brother.

We started dating (the girl is the first) for over a year, and although we haven't met in person, we've exchanged photos.

Maung Tun Khaing was a Chinese immigrant who worked as a clerk in a liquor store run by his mother and brother-in-law. He had written about me in my novels as an alcoholic, and he invited me to come over to his house and drink alcohol. Sometimes he would consult me ​​about his girlfriend.

My dear sister Mya Yi (half of her name has been changed) once wrote to me, “Why are you late in replying to my brother’s letter because I have a lot of marital responsibilities at the moment?” My brother said, “Oh… my sister is a virgin now, what do I have to do with my husband?” I guess I’ll think so since I wrote this. I’m talking about my brother’s marital responsibilities and being a husband. Out of the five siblings, Ari is the eldest, so I have to take care of the marriage when my mother is sick. My brother… Don’t get me wrong, Ari is only eighteen years old, and I haven’t even had a boyfriend yet. I don’t even think about having one. What… is it because my brother wants a husband? If he wants a husband, I can find a brother and send him a parcel from Yangon. Or, when my brother comes to Myitkyina, come and pick him up.”

(I often write to my pen pals in the city, saying that I will come and feed them one day.)

One day before I came to Myitkyina, I showed this letter and his photo to Ko Min Shin, who was going to Myitkyina with me.

"Hey... you're so cute. Hehe... you're the one who took me as a joke," he said. I smiled.

"You... I'll give you the world's treasure..."

At 7:30 a.m. on January 9, our Dakota plane took off from Mingalardon. The propellers whirred and twisted through the air. The fields under our eyes became smaller and smaller. Gradually, they became golden and emerald-colored sheets. When the plane finally stopped and hovered, they became golden bricks and emeralds. If you look at the small streams, they look like lines between emeralds and gold welded together. The big lakes are like big silver coins. The plane does not seem to be as fast as it looks from below.

Now we are moving on a golden and silver-plated kambala. Every now and then, a white cloud of cotton wool comes to our eyes. Some of them greet us from the side. I want to go among them and hide from the world. I want to call one of them. Will you follow me, mother...

"Hey.. that's.. that's Baguio."

About half an hour after leaving Yangon, a man pointed to the left wing of the plane. Yes, the trees were moving rapidly, high and low. In Lower Burma.

A mountain that provides rain to create emeralds and golden fruits, a mountain that is home to new trees.

From the sky, our Myanmar looks even more beautiful. Emerald green mountains, golden fields, and silvery streams.

The population is still very small in terms of land area. I estimate that if our country, Myanmar, develops peacefully and in a disciplined manner, not to mention the current population of 17.5 million, more than 50 million people could live in prosperity.

Land for growing crops, forests for cutting down trees, highlands for raising livestock, and places to mine for treasures.

Hey... look at Mogok.

Our plane arrived at Shwe Mann Chan Myat Thashi Airfield at 9:30 a.m., and after resting for half an hour while the Shwe Mann writers loaded their bags, we continued our journey at 10:00 a.m. At 11:00 a.m., we saw the town of Mogok, a village built on the side of the Inya Lake on the mountainside.

A city in Burma where rubies are mined.

Hmm... Now that the dogs have been taken away for over fifty years, will there be many left when we get our land back?

"Oh... don't bother with mining in Burma."

My mind is now looking down on Mogok from an altitude of over seven thousand feet, and on December 27, 1946, at around noon, I reach the rooftop of U Saw Naung's house, not far from the Mogok Station, on the road directly west of the station, and I imagine U Saw Naung's words again.

"We have a lot of resources. Do you want to find gold? Do you want to find oil? Do you want to see coal? I can show you now. Right now, people in our area are only digging the jade mines they found before, and they haven't expanded the areas yet..."

U Saw Naung is a chieftain from Moe Kaung. We know him through the chieftain of Moe Kaung Kyaw Dwin, La Maung Saw Taung. As we speak, La Maung Saw Taung is sitting with us. However, he cannot hear anything we say. Because he is not only very hard of hearing but also has a voice, if we want to talk to him, we use the small stone tablet and stone stick that he has with him. He speaks Burmese well. It is known that he was shot in the chest during the revolution and died like this. A Burmese military officer once told me that he was one of the arms of General Aung San for Moe Kaung Shan during the revolution against Japan. La Maung Saw Taung is descended from a chieftain recognized by the king since the time of the ancient Burmese kings, as is evidenced by the silver medal hanging on his chest.

La Maung Saw Taung became my friend thanks to the kindness of Ma Than Yi and Bo Myint, the women's leaders in Myitkyina. At that time, I was a merchant and business enthusiast, so I was in the company of La Maung Saw Taung to expand my business in the Moe Kaung quarry. However, talking to him was not easy, as he wrote and erased his broken slate. He also knew this situation, so he brought me from Myitkyina to Moe Kaung and asked U Saw Naung to speak on his behalf.

“If you... work for me for a pittance... I will give you our land,” U Saw Naung continued. “It is also our responsibility to find workers…”

“How much money do you think you’ll need to start?”

At that time, I, who had over ten thousand rupees in my hand, asked.

“Ha.. this is... it can be a little, it can be a lot. The working principle is like this, for example, if you hire ten workers for one shift, or two shifts, you have to buy rice, oil, fish paste, and dried fish for these workers to eat. They will dig in the place you sent them to, every day. When you get stones, you and they get half of the shift. If you are lucky, you can get good stones and you can be rich in a month. If not, what will your workers do with the money they earn?

"You will lose their livelihood if you don't get any stone, but no matter what place we choose, we will have to find a type of stone that will cover the workers' livelihood until they become rich."

U Saw Naung has secured the bail.

"How much do you think it would cost in a month if there were ten people working together?"

I asked.

"Ha.. not much. Four or five hundred is fine. Five hundred at the most. Right now, we have few people who can invest that kind of money, so we have enough workers. You... If you can manage one or two shifts in that quarry, or maybe even a hundred people, I'd like you to give up the place where you can get gold."

"Why does a gold mining site need so many people?"

"Oh... This place is far from the people, so we'll have to build new villages and settlements there, and we'll have to spend about five thousand a month."

"How many months will it take to be based?"

"You can't tell the time when you're looking for treasure in the ground. Maybe you'll find it in a month, maybe in two months, maybe in a year. Well, if you start, you can expand it and gradually it will become a big city."

As U Saw Naung spoke, my eyes filled with joy, and I not only earned myself the title of gold-mining magnate, but I was also building a gold-mining city, “Moeung Taung,” to rival the ruby-mining city of “Moe Kot” and the jade-mining city of “Moeung Kaung” in Upper Burma. (You may know that I had been thinking of taking the pen name “Moeung Taung” before I took the name Thaw Ta Swe.)