Nearly two decades ago, when I came to the U.S., I left behind a world, a mythical place inhabited by a noble race. In that fabled land, women carried parasols, men wore sarongs, and shrimpy old ladies with sunken cheeks puffed homemade cigars wrapped in loose corn husks. Now and then, if I tiptoed into the attic of my psyche, I found myself under a mango-colored sky, sheltering rows of colonial mansions and glistening pagodas. If I managed to quiet my mind, I could still hear the tingles of the temple bells and the hymns of the rivers. But the noises from my present world--PR people on the phone, editors on email, ABC News and CSI: Miami somewhere in the back--drown out the echoes from my past.
But the ancient world came calling this week.
On Tuesday afternoon, my phone rang. When I picked up, my publisher was on the other end.
"So I'm sure you have been watching the news," he said.
He was referring to the events unfolding on the other side of the Pacific. In my homeland half way around the world, hundreds of thousands of maroon-robed Buddhist monks had taken to the street, forsaking the seclusion and safety of their monasteries to speak out against the military regime in power. They turned their lacquer-glazed begging bowls upside down. With that powerful gesture, they were saying, 'We are so disgusted with how you have treated the public, we are refusing to accept alms from you."
My past crashed into my present, through grainy YouTube footage of the mass demonstrations, through emails sent from dissident groups, through digital photos taken by shaky hands. On NBC, ABC, and CBS, almost nightly, anchors were filing special reports (many were still struggling to pronounce the name of the place properly, I noticed).
"It's all over the news now," my publisher observed.
"Every night," I said.
A similar scene took place in 1988, almost exactly at the same spot where the monks were matching. Wearing red armbands with peacocks (the country's symbol that predated the quasi-socialist junta's stars and cogwheel on the current flag), college students, civil servants, and private citizens from every walk of life marched through the same monsoon-battered streets, assembled before the City Hall and the High Court, and chanted the same lines:
What do we want?
Democracy, democracy!
When do we want it?
Now, now!
My voice was also in the mix. I was one of the protesters then.
It was troubling for me to watch the news, because history tends to repeat itself. A repeat of the uprising in 1988 meant, sooner or later, the government troops would fire on the protesters, using live ammunition. Those who survived the shots (which were meant to kill, not to warn) would be greeted by the batons and the bayonets that promptly followed.
"I want to ask you," said my publisher. "If I can get you on some radio shows, would you be willing to do a few?"
Four years ago, after my return from a brief visit to my homeland, I wrote a book, which he published. He knew I was one of the few people who could speak about the land, the people, the culture, and the current crisis from first-hand knowledge.
I told my publisher I was ready to go on the air, the same night if necessary. Fifteen minutes later, my phone rang again.
"This is the producer from The Jim Bohannon Show," a young man hurriedly introduced himself. "Can we book you for tonight?"
At 8 o'clock, I unplugged my TV, shut down my PC, poured myself a mug of black coffee, and sat next to my desk, staring at the telephone receiver as if it were a dead pigeon. Five minutes after the hour, the dead bird came to life with a loud shriek.
"Please stand by," said the producer. "Jim is wrapping up with the first guest."
I didn't bother checking the show's guest list for the night, so I had no idea whose act I was following. When I heard the tail end of the broadcast, I realized who it was. Alan Alda was recounting a personal anecdote, part of his latest book Things I Overhead While Talking to Myself (Random House).
Am I really going to follow Hawkeye from M.A.S.H?
My heart began to race, my palms began to sweat, and my throat began to close up. I suddenly felt the weight of what I was about to undertake. I was about to become the spokesperson for the brave monks defying the barricades and the rifles. Here's a summery of what I overheard when I was talking to myself: What if I choke on an important phrase? What if I couldn't untangle the messy socio-political web of Asia to explain the people's cause? Maybe Alan Alda should keep talking.
But Hawkeye had said his piece and was now saying goodbye to the host. The broadcast paused for commercials. I had a minute to collect myself before the host called on me.
And then I was on.
Words came pouring out of me. I spoke, not in the elegant prose I had hoped to use, nor in the steady voice I had maintained during my afternoon practice, but in the nervous gurgles of someone with too much to lose. The shaven-headed saints shuffling along the pavements in broken sandals--they had a lot to lose. They were putting their lives on the line; I was merely putting my voice on the air.
At one point, the veteran broadcaster asked: "So there was a story that just crossed the wire. Now, the troops have moved into the capital. They have surrounded the five or six monasteries where many of the protesting monks came from. What do you think of that?"
My heart sank. It was the dreadful scenario from 1988 all over again. It was the government's last-ditch effort to contain the crowd. If that failed, the commanders would order the soldiers to do the unthinkable.
"That doesn't bode very well," I told the host.
The hour went by fast. At the end of it, I had so much to say that the host had to wrap up while I was in mid-sentence (he did it rather graciously). Afterwards, I was spent--physically, mentally.
Later, at 3 A.M., I received an email from an exiled dissident. It had an attachment, a scanned image of a sheet of paper. The foreign script was still understandable to me. It read:
A Statement from the Monastic Order.
Our blood has been shed, right at the foot of the Great Shwe Dagon Pagoda. Five of our young monks lost their lives amidst tear gas and bayonet charges. We shall fight on for the fallen. We urge you to do the same.
That was only the beginning. In the following days, there were more emails, more protests, and more deaths. In a way, I suspect the monks knew this was going to be the inevitable outcome, just like the students knew in 1988. It was a press release written in blood and tear. It was a desperate population's plea for justice, long ignored by the UN.
My heart breaks, not for a poetry-quoting Bohemian girl as I have always feared it might, but for the hundreds of anonymous Buddhist monks in my homeland (image from http://asiatours.net).
(As I type this, I'm periodically rummaging through my closet, throwing shirts and pants into my luggage. Seven hours from now, I'll be on a plane bound for Paris, for a combination of work and sightseeing. My first trip to the City of Light is overshadowed by the knowledge that, while I tread the cobbled streets that lead to Hemingway's favorite cafe and Baudelaire's grave, the government troops in my homeland continue their crackdown. My eyes will trace the outlines of the Eiffel and the Notre Dame, but my spirit follows in the footsteps of the monks of Burma.)
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