Thu Maung - The Guardian Spirit of the Tree and Other Short Stories

Why am I so rich... why?

I don't hurt anyone. I didn't get rich by taking advantage of anyone. There's no magic in my wealth. My parents are honest and free.

I made a fortune by trading. I don't know how I'll make a living if the kyat falls again.... I don't dare to play the lottery, I win every time I play. Don't believe me, I've won the lottery seven times now. Three times I won a million. Here you go.

Sometimes I get angry with myself, saying, "Why am I... so lucky?"

There's one thing. I don't really understand karma. I only understand things that happen by chance.

I just won the lottery, didn't I? Everything I've done has been successful. I'll tell you one thing: medicine.

One day... my mother went to the temple. The reason she went was for a prayer.

My mother was in her fifties when she developed glaucoma... an eye disease. She was hospitalized and underwent surgery.

It's gone, but it's not very pretty. Tears flow spontaneously. Because of this, my mother never felt sad. (Not like when my grandmother passed away.) So one day, while visiting the Shwedagon Pagoda, I prayed for the speedy recovery of this eye disease. Yes, yes, no, no... I pray with a woman's heart.

Anyway, what I want to say is that my mother's prayers were fulfilled that day.

Coming down from the west gate of Shwedagon Pagoda, my mother accidentally picked up a piece of ancient Burmese medicine written in ancient handwriting at a certain point on the sloping stairs. The medicine was called Devasakkhuu.

Let it go. Anyway, as my mother said earlier, when I tried this medicine with a woman's heart and faith, I saw that eye diseases were cured. So when my mother asked her relatives to eat it, they also found that their eyes were cured. So, if the news of this medicine spread like wildfire, it would not only cure eye diseases, but also other diseases. Let's say it cures ninety-six diseases.

A movie actress close to us has a skin condition that causes her skin to peel off every two to three months.

The skin is not as soft as skin, but as hard as tree bark. So, during those days, you can't go out. You can't film.

So, by chance, he came to our house. My mother also made him take his medicine, and later his illness completely disappeared.

I got an idea.

The beggars in our house, the people in the poor neighborhoods, and the people who are forced to work, are asking for medicine... Wouldn't it be good if we could make a lot of this medicine, pack it in small packages, and send it to nearby betel shops to sell it? It's a good idea for us to do it ourselves and for the common good, and it's a good idea to cut two in two.

I tried it.

When we started... we just made a small batch and sold it for about a quarter. It was a success.......

So within four or five months, my medicine became a well-known medicine in Yangon. In other words, this medicine increased my income. I am not a big spender. I drive a car and spend three gallons a day (ten and five thousand). I drink alcohol. But I prefer white alcohol. A half-liter bottle of white alcohol costs three kyats (three kyats).

Sixty) (government price). Average cost of food for breakfast and dinner (three hundred). Roughly speaking.... I can make about one thousand baht a month. This is not the only one. I am talking about the boiled kalimatu that I cook at home, and the Daw Awba that I ask for from the street vendors. But the medicine business alone leaves me with about three thousand baht a month. The workers who prepare medicine, pack medicine, and deliver medicine also earn two hundred or three hundred a month. That's all I can say. But as I said earlier, I don't know if it's luck or coincidence. I'm talking about small things. A friend of mine wanted to dig a fish pond in Twante and raise fish, so I put in five thousand baht, so I did it. It didn't take long, and after a year, he said that he was half as good, and he started giving me profits.

I said, “Keep that profit and keep doing it.” I didn’t really care about the five thousand baht. If I had a small fish pond in Twante, a small guava farm, a small farm that I owned half of, I could go there whenever I wanted to take a break. I could get away from the cramped urban atmosphere of Yangon and have some freedom of mind. Anyway, that fish pond has brought me tens of thousands of baht in profits in three or four years.

I don't know why I keep getting so much money.

There's one more thing. Movie.....

A childhood friend. He was a film director. Just an artist. He didn't have enough money. He came to me for help. The idea was that I would invest the money, he would organize his education and business affairs, and we would make a film. Like that, at first I didn't like the hassle and refused.

Then it became a business through friendship. I was shocked to see how they were spending their time in the film industry. This time, the money they had invested was not small, it was in the hundreds of thousands. I also gave them my car to use for business. When the actress went to pick her up, she couldn't drive my car... My car was not the latest model, but it was a clean car with a (F) number. So I said no, because I would rent a clean car, but it happened again. I didn't know much about this world, so I didn't understand what it meant... Later, the actress said that she would come in her car. That was good. I thought that if she came in her car, it would be easier for us.

Hey...hey.....it's not over yet.

After filming, Ma Shwe Princess got into her car (number D) and went back and forth at night, asking for her fare. Fifty. .

I was really upset. Not because I had to pay fifty bucks. But because he came in his own car and demanded fifty bucks for the ride, even though he promised to rent me a car worth more than fifty bucks.

"Is your film industry like this?" I asked my friend, and he nodded with a big smile.

Oh..... Making a movie costs money. I understand that money costs money for many reasons. Anyway, I thought it would be a good idea to do it anyway, so my friend gave me money. If I didn't give it, I wouldn't give it. And that's how the movie ended.

I don't know if I have to wait a year after the censors give permission... or what. It was only a year after the censors gave permission that my film was allowed to be shown in downtown Yangon.

Look... I don't need to say that this car became a result of my investment. It was my friend's skill that made this car a success. It made a profit of more than twice the amount I invested.

So why do I have to go into detail about increasing business income, from small things to big things?

Because now that money is accepted as a social issue, I have to deal with the problems that arise around money in various ways. In other words, the more money I have, the more problems I have.

For example, a friend of mine who went to university with me came to me from another world. After graduating from university and working for my parents, he became an officer in a government department... I don't know how he lost his mind from there. He said, "Being an officer is not the right life, I want to be an artist." He tried selling ice cream sticks, working as a bus repairman, and finally, when he had enough to eat, he came running to me.

“I've sold ice cream sticks before, friend.”

"Huh... why are you selling ice cream when you're given a small concession because you're so busy?"

"That's how life gets."

"Life is not good, it is a blessing"

"Hey... people like you who have money will say it's not good, but in reality, life hurts, art hurts."

"Not art, my friend. I don't think pain is bad, no matter what. I can't even stand pain in my flesh."