tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57007411689994942492024-03-13T19:13:18.577-07:00Burma RichardFaces and Facets of Burma...Adventures..
People..Culture..Gemstones.....RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-36866878733930885752022-11-26T21:11:00.000-08:002022-11-26T21:11:54.435-08:00Gem Dealer<iframe class="BLOG_video_class" allowfullscreen="" youtube-src-id="1oifT07d11E" width="320" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1oifT07d11E"></iframe>RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-91089600109604856062021-11-19T00:57:00.000-08:002021-11-19T00:57:13.610-08:00Painting Exhibition from 2005<iframe class="BLOG_video_class" allowfullscreen="" youtube-src-id="y3P9UcoqvJI" width="320" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y3P9UcoqvJI"></iframe>RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-38607167069905128942021-11-19T00:25:00.001-08:002021-11-19T00:25:30.768-08:00The Making of Salome<iframe class="BLOG_video_class" allowfullscreen="" youtube-src-id="lC9Qs5uQCcY" width="320" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lC9Qs5uQCcY"></iframe>RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-18307630139896304112021-11-19T00:09:00.000-08:002021-11-19T00:09:19.084-08:00Kamayut Media Broadcast on Burmese Television of Richard Diran's Photo Exhibition<iframe class="BLOG_video_class" allowfullscreen="" youtube-src-id="caeX0_ppqBU" width="320" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/caeX0_ppqBU"></iframe>RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-49375883865029651392021-11-19T00:02:00.000-08:002021-11-19T00:02:26.234-08:00Aung San Suu Kyi opens Richard Diran's Photo Exhibition of Burmese Tribes, Yangon, 2013<iframe class="BLOG_video_class" allowfullscreen="" youtube-src-id="M-Os10PREBs" width="320" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/M-Os10PREBs"></iframe>RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-16276911801492153092021-07-13T19:33:00.001-07:002021-07-13T19:36:46.271-07:00Introducing The Vanishing Tribes Of Burma Apple Interactive ibook <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bLC5uKoiRqA/YO5HxDYQI2I/AAAAAAAAAhs/Q63nRUogpbAtT8Nvuak08QMjUg6U9ArsgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1139/IMG_4390-2.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="1139" data-original-width="877" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bLC5uKoiRqA/YO5HxDYQI2I/AAAAAAAAAhs/Q63nRUogpbAtT8Nvuak08QMjUg6U9ArsgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_4390-2.jpg"/></a></div>Dear Friends,
I see my Blog Burma Richard has surpassed 100,000 page views!
Many Thanks!
With so much world interest in Burmese current affairs, the Coup d'etat
of February 1st 2021, the killing of hundreds of innocent citizens, the strength
of the Civil Disobedence Movement and the universal resistance of nearly
everyone to a return of military rule, my Apple interactive ibook deserves a
serious look.
Finally the Burman majority understands the conditions the ethnic
minorities have suffered in their tribal lands for many decades. Has the time
finally come for a common purpose to join together in overthrowing the brutal
military dictatorship once and for all? Will a federal system and democracy
finally be allowed to florish? How many more will need to die before Burma
becomes a "Failed State" during the worst pandemic in 100 years?
My Apple interactive ibook "The Vanishing Tribes of Burma" contains text, the most
complete set of photographs of the ethnic groups, songs, a video of Nobel
Laureat Aung San Suu Kyi opening my photo exhibition in Yangon, and an interview
with Ma Ha San, the Prince of Vingun, one of the last human headhunters from Wa
State discussing which heads are best for agriculture.
There is a link below to purchase my book for $4.99.
Unfortunately Apple ibooks is only available in 51 countries, so I hope you are able to order.
I promice you will not be disappointed!
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-vanishing-tribes-of-burma/id944279906
RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-64931286038164480012016-05-14T05:15:00.000-07:002016-05-14T05:18:25.508-07:00Mexico 1966<div style="text-align: justify;">
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Today in this politically correct, modern, absurdly protected bubble world for children where there are advisory labels on TV shows that tell you that they are not suitable for viewers under the age of 16, a world where you are notified that you can't even ride a goddamn elevator alone at that age, diving boards have been removed from pools, for fear of injury, and helmets are required to ride bicycles, I was taking my first magnificent road trip, driving throughout Mexico with a fifteen year old friend, both of us armed to the teeth with pearl handled, shiny chrome, Smith and Wesson 38 caliber revolvers and thousands of rounds of ammunition.<br />
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That trip was my first epic journey which really opened my eyes to a new world of unrestrained travel in a country far outside the comfortable, predictable, American middle class harmony I had known all my life, that fantastic crazy road trip we took throughout Mexico.<br />
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At sixteen years old, after the 11th grade, I and a friend of mine named Loren Jones, who was fifteen at the time, bought a 1955 baby blue Ford Woody Station Wagon for $200 bucks off of a used car lot in Burlingame California near by to where we lived about 15 miles south of San Francisco.<br />
Loren was still to young to have his drivers license, but I did. <br />
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We spent most of the summer in 1966 traveling throughout Mexico, East to West, North to South, through the rugged volcanic mountains of the Sierra Madre Del Sur, through steamy poisonous jungles digging hidden stone tomb ruins of ancient empires long forgotten, we drove nearly all the way to the Guatemalan border and all the way back home.<br />
In spite of the fact that we had our own money, his from being rich, mine from working for $1.25 an hour popping popcorn at sporting events at the Cow Palace where my father was Manager, we were determined to go.<br />
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Our parents helped us financially to deter us from our first plan: to go to the Galapagos Islands,<br />
Charles Darwin's field location for his book, "The Origins of Species".<br />
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The Galapagos islands are 650 miles off the coast of Ecuador. We had written to the government of Ecuador asking permission to visit and weeks later had received official permission for "Urine Jones and Richard Diran to travel there. At that time there was only one boat, the Christobo Columbo, which would have sailed from the port of Guayaqil and dropped us off at the main island Isla Isabela and picked us up one month later. In 1966 nobody was going to the Galapagos Islands.<br />
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Our parents caught wind of this adventure and thinking perhaps correctly that we would never be heard from again, essentially bribed us to go no further than the Guatemalan border for $1,000 dollars each.<br />
Ok, we relented, no further than Guatemala.<br />
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50 years after we took that vacation, I have come across my original journals which I have had in storage for over 20 years and will now recreate some of the highlights from that fantastic journey. <br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XjtjA8WAhpU/VzcKhVNmS6I/AAAAAAAAAWo/fN-Os7R0_cEdRYDfpHjt7cc1-fi1fAP0gCLcB/s1600/Detailed%2Btrain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XjtjA8WAhpU/VzcKhVNmS6I/AAAAAAAAAWo/fN-Os7R0_cEdRYDfpHjt7cc1-fi1fAP0gCLcB/s320/Detailed%2Btrain.jpg" width="320" /></a>A couple of hundred miles from home, we blew a few blistering retreaded tires somewhere outside Needles California in the Mojave desert clustered with rattlesnake nests and angry cactus. There we spotted a Southern Pacific train wreck which was crushed and scattered from a long forgotten derailment. By the looks of it it had been there for years. Tires changed, we reached Phoenix Arizona and checked in to a pale pink motel with a kidney shaped pool and a vacancy sign on the highway. There were a pair of lovely young blonds who were also inexplicably staying it turned out, in the room next door to ours. We invited them over to drink beers. After several cold ones they seemed very amenable, it was, after all, the year before the "Summer of Love" with free sex and raging teenage hormones.<br />
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The girl I liked best soon showered naked behind the blur of the glass door. The water rivulets ran down the transparent window, as she arched back and rinsed suds from her golden hair. God she was beautiful. They were our age, I guessed, about sixteen, and alone, what the hell were they doing here in this seedy motel?<br />
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After a delightful night of raucous romance and bed board bashing, I slowly woke up next to my golden teen angel. She smiled faintly, as she opened her eyes and drew a sheet around her naked body. We drank coffee, and I kissed her goodbye.<br />
We were on a mission.<br />
Loren and I left the motel on the 4th day out heading for New Mexico. We passed through some town called Gripe Arizona that had one gas station.<br />
After 1212 miles on day 5, we drove through El Paso Texas and somebody pointed out the house where Bobby Fuller had lived. Fuller sang the song "I fought the Law", (and the law won). Fuller was just found dead, we knew, in L.A, murdered, having gasoline poured down his throat. We passed through the border to Ciudad Juarez with letters of permission for travel to Mexico from our parents, and entered gritty Mexico with a radiator grill clogged with monstrous flying insects.<br />
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The liquor stores here have no problem selling us beer and we bought a dozen Dos Equis. There was a family who welcomed us to stay with them. There were 15 kids who had never seen binoculars. Slept outside on the porch in a lightning storm. The poverty here is extreme. Along the road was a dead cow with a dozen black vultures, tearing away at what remained.<br />
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After about 1,800 miles in the Chihuahuan Desert there was a massive migration of orange poisonous centipedes several yards wide crossing the road for as far as you could see in either direction from horizon to horizon. Came to a town called Jimenez where dirt poor people lived in crumbling orange brown adobe houses. One young woman in a dusty shawl nursed a kid in the road. Loren and I had 6 tacos, 2 plates of frijoles and beers for 62 cents.<br />
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Day 6: Woke up in the station wagon under 3 concrete fading chipped walls in a Pemex gas station where swallows zoom in and out from every angle. Had breakfast and turned on to highway 49 to Torreon. Single human graves with white cross markers line the roadside near where a very thin horse had died of exhaustion. Tonight we will stay in Torreon in a nice room for 100 pesos or $8 bucks. We found a night club with very tough swarthy mustached Mexicans watching several strippers on stage, undulating in colored lights, dressed in dazzling sequins. One girl was about 18 named Sylvia. I got her address. We didn't get back to the room until 3:30 am.<br />
Sylvia was an angel with a pony tail.<br />
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Left the hotel at 1pm and went over to find Sylvia who stayed with her mother in an adobe house.<br />
She and her mom dressed in long skirts and modest aprons which brushed the ground. How different from last nights attire! Her mom made us some tortillas and beers and after a bit of innocent flirting, we left Torreon for Tampico. Loren didn't put any water in the radiator and it blew up 25 miles out of town along with a snapped fan belt in the middle of some nowhere desert. We patched the radiator holes with soap and it seemed to hold water. Soon the car completely stopped dead and some truck came along and pushed us 6 miles into some small town.<br />
The whole village came out to help and yanked out the radiator with the help of the head lights from<br />
the same truck which had pushed us.<br />
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Finally we got the car running again and after a hundred miles or so the countryside became refreshingly green. We went swimming in a cold swiftly moving river. Back on the road some truck swerved to miss hitting a cow and nearly smashed into us. Got to Ciudad Victoria and slept there. Woke up sick from the lousy food and went back to sleep.<br />
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On the 9th day we left for Tampico and crossed over the Tropic of Cancer. The countryside is lush sticky and emerald green. Thousands of multi colored butterflies swarm. Tampico was a shit hole so we left to go to Mexico City. Somewhere along the route we stopped in a town named Zimapan at some very old colonial style hotel with a stagnant green algae filled fountain in the court yard inlaid with locally mined opals.<br />
The interior of the hotel was dark and spooky with thick walls and an empty fireplace so large you could sleep in there. Some lanky guy in a shinny black suit came in and asked for our order. I said something like "Oh, how about a 1961 Chateau La Tour" as a joke. Ten minutes later he returns from the shadows with the dusty bottle. A 1961 La Tour! Where did he find this very rare wine? He twists out the cork pouring in to the crystal, and says "Will the two be staying the night?" Guy Is creepy.<br />
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We said that we wanted to check out the rooms first and went upstairs where there was a rotting moldy overstuffed chair pushed up against wall, the only thing keeping it from falling to pieces. It seems no one had stayed here for years. Down the dusty hallway where nobody had walked in ages was a room on the right which we entered. The bed was unmade as if someone had just thrown off the covers and climbed out. There was a cigarette still burning in an ashtray on the side table. If anyone had been in this room recently there would have been footprints in the thick dust.<br />
There were none.<br />
How the hell did this happen?<br />
Loren and I went downstairs where the spidery waiter said again in English, "will the two be staying the night?". We finished off the last drop of that magical vintage and man, we peeled out of that place with gravel flying off the back of our tires.<br />
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Passed by a another dead rotting horse with a cautious dog chewing its carcass. We rose into the high mountains through the clouds skirting cliffs with no road barriers to keep you from crashing over. Came around a turn too fast and heard this horrible squealing as I ran over a pig, ripping the exhaust pipes from the engine. In the rear view mirror I could see the pig tumbling along on the road with the hot tail pipe.<br />
It began to rain and coming around a turn too fast, I crashed into the mountain. Suddenly people appeared from banana groves above the road as if they expected us, and plied the left side front of the car up like a wing so the car wheel could be steered. Surely if we had not crashed in to the mountain but went over the other side, we would have been goners.<br />
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We checked into one of the best hotels in Mexico City for a night of well deserved sleep. Loren ordered a tray of fancy cocktails with little umbrellas and we drank all of them. The next morning we drove off to our auto insurance company Sanborne to have the car repaired. Loren was driving and the gas petal got stuck. Mexico City is congested and terrible for driving. Stalled out again and a huge truck rammed into the back of us without even slowing down and pushed us aside like scrap metal.<br />
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In 1964 my father booked a group of magnificent sombrero clad Mexican cowboys called the Charros for the Grand National horse show at the Cow Palace. Their leader was a very prominent businessman from Mexico City named Senior Antonio Gil Ortega. My father wired him 26 air tickets<br />
for the men and women, and sent the horses by rail. 1964 was the year my father brought the Beatles to San Francisco as well as the Republican National Convention.<br />
At the conclusion of the shows, Senor Gil rode several times around the arena in full gallop, saluting and waving his sombrero. They had been a smash hit and every year thereafter, my father would find a gold embossed Christmas card in the mailbox.<br />
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Naturally we contacted Senior Gil soon after arriving in Mexico City. From the 14th day in Mexico City till the 21st, we stayed and were royally treated at Senor Gil's opulent house with his family. At meal times each one of us had a personal servant standing behind their chair. Somewhere I acquired a very old weathered human skull.<br />
When we left Mexico City Senor Gil gave each of us a chrome plated, pearl handled 38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver with hundreds of rounds of ammunition, the perfect gift for two underage juvenile delinquents heading south with a human skull rolling around the back seat.<br />
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Driving out of town I decided to try out my new pistol. I shot through the open window of our speeding car at a vulture tearing apart the carcass of a desiccated dog corpse. I missed. We drove through Puebla and walked through the market place both of us wearing our guns.<br />
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On day 23 we woke up and had a pineapple for breakfast and drove off to Oaxaca. In some little town we filled up the tank out of some gas cans by flashlight.<br />
In Oaxaca we walked around the market place with our loaded guns and two guys grabbed me by the arms and said they were police and that we couldn't just walk around armed. They asked for money and Loren pulled out his biggest bill, a 100 peso note or $8.00. They removed the bullets from the cylinders and gave us our guns back. It didn't matter, we still had hundreds of rounds in the car.<br />
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Outside Oaxaca were the pre-Columbian ruins of Monte Alban and nearby Mitla, the place of the dead, an ancient Zapoteca site. Although we were told we would not be able to find anything, we found pottery shards and several stone and ceramic carvings crawling through the tunnels. At that time there were no guards, no tourists, and nobody to tell us that removing artifacts was illegal.<br />
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Afterwards we drove up the mountains and chased a terrified cow for a mile or so. The road was so narrow the poor cow had no place to go until the road widened.<br />
I turned off the engine and we coasted 12 miles down hill on a dirt road. We stopped at a small town three and a half hours from our destination, Puerto Escondito on the coast and had a few beers. Very humid. We have traveled 3,600 miles. Somebody told us that the roads are flooded below. The engine blew a spark plug attached to the cable right out of the motor. Fixed it and were off again. There are many landslides here in the mountains making the road near impassable.<br />
Finally we got into Puerto Escondito, good beach, crashing waves and warm water.<br />
We swam and then slept on the beach.<br />
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The next morning we went to have breakfast and were told the road was definitely washed out. About 15 minutes later we came to a river, the Rio Grande. It was about three and a half feet deep. We convinced a truck driver to try and pull us across for 50 pesos. Half way across the rope broke and water began to leak in under the door. Retied the rope, started pulling, and it broke again. Finally we made it across and soon found another river, the Rio Verde which was not as deep but much wider. The current is much too strong to attempt a crossing. We drove to another part of the river which we were told is more than 20 feet deep and 50 yards across. Tomorrow supposedly there is a raft capable of transporting a car and will come and take us across. The raft is called La Balsa.<br />
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The water was rushing very fast. We woke up when six or so Mexican men were leaning on our car talking loudly. We went to the pier, no boat. Everyone says Manana. We are hot and sweaty and there are many mosquitoes. The raft, La Balsa, seems to have gotten stuck about a mile and a half up river from here.<br />
Told again it comes tomorrow. Manana, Manana. The car runs fine except there is no power steering. There is a small basic cafe with hammocks where we will sleep tonight. The air is aglow with fireflies.<br />
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On the 29th day we woke up at about 8am. There were many birds in the trees. I grabbed my gun.<br />
Loren caught a snake, some kind of constrictor. There was a bird above me with a long flat beak.<br />
I shot it. We tore the antenna off the car, peeled off the feathers and cooked the bird over a fire.<br />
We made friends with a Mexican man named Pablo who lent us 20 pesos because we are broke.<br />
Finally La Balsa arrived but was on the other side of the river. We have got just enough money to get across but not enough for any food. We went to some outdoor movie, projected on a sheet, the credits began to roll but the generator that powered the projector ran out of gas.<br />
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Tonight we slept in a jeep. Woke up sore all over. Had a terrible cup of coffee with a thick layer of mud on the bottom, then drove 10 miles of bad dirt pot holed road back to camp where there were now many trucks waiting for La Balsa. My guts hurt badly, probably that scrawny jungle bird I ate. I fell asleep on the hood of our car exhausted and sick. We have been here in this rotten jungle for four days. I lost consciousness apparently and Loren continued to write the journal.<br />
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Leaving our car, Loren and Pablo carried me, out cold, to a small boat which took us across the river to a town where there was a doctor. I came back to consciousness with my trousers bunched around my ankles, two nurses holding me up under my shoulders, and the doctor, his knee in the small of my back pulling a bent syringe out of my ass. The nurses thought it was hilarious.<br />
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29th Day:<br />
Soon I felt OK again. We took the small boat back across the Rio Verde and found that somebody had broken into our car stealing our travelers checks. We are broke again. La Balsa still wasn't running so we left our car locked up inside Pablo's truck, took the small boat across the river again, and caught a bus to Alcapulco. I can't stay here any longer, this jungle is killing me. We got as far as Pinotepa Nacional a town about 4 hours from Alcapulco and would catch another bus tomorrow. All the dogs down here are in terrible shape, missing legs, tumorous bumps, one eye, no hair or all the above. One poor critter got his back run over by a truck tonight, awful scream. We slept in a cheap hotel, no soap, rainy with a leaking roof. One bed for the three of us.<br />
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Finally caught the bus to Alcapulco along with Pablo and a bunch of squawking chickens. Loren is sick. As we sat there, some old woman shoved a tray through the window into Loren's face shouting, "enchiladas", and he vomited. Pablo's place in Alcapulco was on top of a hill. Took the first shower in 5 days by candle light in cold water. I called my mother and she said she would wire $50 bucks. <br />
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31st.Day:<br />
We went to a restaurant high on a cliff where incredibly brave men dive into the ocean. There is a small altar with a crucifix and the divers kneel, say a prayer, and wait for an incoming wave to dive into. Survival is all in the timing. The place is called La Perla. It was very expensive so we left to find a cheap bar. Tried calling Loren's dad but the phone lines were down. Got drunk and met a complete crazy named Jesus Krump. Says he is past Kripes, his nephew is is Crunch and John the Baptist stole his pants because they wanted to "straighten things out" at the Ritz lobby but couldn't because John had to leave to baptize guys in the street. He told us about the vigilantes who burned down his house on the beach because of his nude pictures.<br />
He says he moved up with Campbell Soup and Batman but got mad at them and put them in a crate jail and feeds them beans once a day every thirty days. The reason he is down here is because the government threw him out. He gets a pension check and asks for a raise. He likes President Johnson because he got it, of course Eisenhower recommended it because he wanted an extra $9 bucks a month.<br />
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The phone lines were back up so I called up my dad to help Pablo get into the USA. He said that he would send a letter stating that Mr. Pablo Besaril Ramos has work if he can enter the United States. Pablo almost cried. Later that night we bought a fifth of vodka and a bottle of orange juice. We went to an open air cafe and drank all of it. We got completely drunk. Loren got on a swing and cracked into the side. We limped down the street and I ran into a construction sign, fell into a hole, climbed out and fell into the gutter. Took a taxi and I threw up on the side. Got back to Pablo's and slept.<br />
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Day 35:<br />
Lost a few days somehow. Pablo left to return to the jungle and get our car. The lady next door is terrific. She fixes our breakfast, washes our cloths and cares for her 9 kids. Pablo got back the next day with our car and Loren went down to pick up $150 bucks his dad sent. Just outside Alcapulco is a beach called Piedra la Questa where big waves roll in and it is perfect spot for body surfing. I was swimming quite far out when a wave returned from the beach pushing me backwards in to the sea. I looked up at a huge wave, 15 or 20 feet tall that came crashing down on top of me. It churned me around and held me down under the water, washing me up on the beach, my swimming trunks filled with sand, like discarded driftwood. Scared the hell out of me.<br />
<br />
The next morning we would leave for Taxco. Counted our money and were short. I must have lost some in the ocean. We have gone more than 4,000 miles. We picked up a hitchhiker and his girlfriend. They had no money. I asked them how they made it and he said she sells her body to rich Americans. We drove through the mountains pouring rain which comes in through the door. Taxco is a beautiful city with cobble stone roads. Near the center of the city, the Zocalo, is the famous church. Checked into a hotel for $3 bucks and had the first hot shower in many days.<br />
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Day 38:<br />
We visited many small jewelry shops. Silver is the reason for Taxco's wealth from the time of the Spaniards in the late 16th century. We bought several pairs of earrings, silver plates and rings. We left Taxco for Cuenavaca and all along the road Mexicans sell a variety of animals. Loren bought an armadillo and I bought a long green iguana. We drove through a check point and my iguana jumped up on the windshield. We had to pay 5 Pesos extra and got through. Now he just sits in the back of our station wagon and gives me the evil eye. So here we are with less than $2 bucks going into Mexico City. Broke again. A car was tailgating us and honking. As they passed by we flipped them off. They were four very tough looking guys who began swinging metal pipes out the window. I loaded up my 38 for trouble. We bombed up the highway trying to get away and as we passes them, I leaned out and fired off a few shots at the front their car. I must have hit something because their car slowed down with steam coming out of the hood.<br />
<br />
We got into Mexico City but there were too many of us so Senor Gil put us up in a fine hotel, two rooms. The next morning we went off to Senor Gil's for breakfast. He told us we couldn't get the guns through the border so we returned both of them. Too bad I had really become attached to mine. Although Loren's armadillo didn't do much, my iguana was lead around the streets on a leash. We said goodbye to Senor Gil and his wonderful family and thanked them for their kindness. In the meantime the letter my father sent offering a job to Pablo had arrived.<br />
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We left Mexico City for Guadalajara about 10 hours away. Driving through forests, instead of Smoky the Bear, the Mexicans have Simon. The country turns to corn fields and it began to rain. Passed through Toluca and Pablo told me about his life. His parents abandoned him when he was very young. He got married and has a four year old daughter. When his wife left him she took any saving he had, he was broke except for an old truck which he drove day and night. He doesn't smoke or drink and prayed for a saint to end his life of misery and bad luck when into his life Loren and I came along. We passed through Morelia which has many ancient aqueducts. I wanted to take pictures but it was too late at night. I drove through Zamora at 4:30am. The road was curvy and dangerous but I want to make it to Guadalajara.<br />
<br />
40th Day:<br />
Finally made Guadalajara and went into a place to eat. A very young woman looking very old and grey asked if we were American. "Yes", we said, we are. She said she was broke so we paid for her meal. She said she needed money and when I looked at her arm I noticed what for. She had abscesses and chicken tracks from injections. She stashed the money in her bra and scuttled away. Poor woman.<br />
On the outskirts of town is a glass blowing factory. They use glass from huge bins of broken coke bottles. I bought Mom a green decanter with 6 matching glasses.<br />
<br />
We left for Mazatlan. a few hours out in the state of Nayarit is the town of Tepic. To the east of here in the Sierra Madre are a tribe of Indians called the Huichol. The Huichol are known for their peyote rituals and for their multi-colored intricate embroidery. We pulled in to a gas station to fill up and an old Huichol man in a straw hat ringed with feathers came over and offered me his shoulder bag lovingly made by his wife. I bought it and have it till today.<br />
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We drove through some black lava fields from an ancient volcanic eruption. Pablo drives through the treacherous mountains with rain so hard that it was difficult to see. Torrents ran off the sides of the hills. We stopped and fed Loren's armadillo some water and corn. We have almost no shock absorbers and the exhaust pipe was torn off by that pig I ran over. On the plains palm trees sprout up.<br />
The sun sets red and orange behind the tattered black rain clouds behind us. We have driven over 5,000 miles. Slept in the car.<br />
<br />
41st. Day:<br />
We left the beaches of Mazatlan in the morning and crossed the Tropic of Cancer. The rains began again and as I passed some trucks, mud flew off them splat on the windshield blinding me. Loren hung out the window and wiped it off with a tee shirt. I was driving 80 miles an hour when a tarantula stepped out of the dashboard. We pulled over and let Loren's armadillo go. Poor guy is getting weak. The engine keeps stalling out. I have driven 500 miles today through Culiacan, Los Mochis, and Guaymas, I just want to get home. Sick of Mexico. We have about 300 miles left to the border at Nogales. <br />
<br />
42nd Day:<br />
Just woke up with only $10 bucks to our names. We won't eat today only enough to keep the car on the road. We drove to the border at Nogales and they wouldn't let Pablo across. We walked around for hours asking people how we could get him into the States. I showed them my fathers letter but we were denied.<br />
Turns out we can't.<br />
We all cried. Pablo had surely saved my life in that jungle. I held him and patted his back. We gave him all the money we had along with my address. Passed the border and got to Tucson with only 2 pesos and no American money. Mom wired me $50 bucks, enough to get home.<br />
<br />
I figured we could drive all the way. First I got a ticket for no tail lights, no brake lights, and another for speeding. We lost the car registration so they checked us for a stolen car or to see if we were wanted. We weren't but had trouble starting the car. Finally it starts and we are off to California.<br />
Suddenly the radio just stopped. We pulled in to a gas station and the car started rolling backwards in park with the emergency brake pulled back. Our transmission is bad cause we have a leak. Fill her up with fluid. Got stopped again by the police. He was going 110 miles per hour and almost crashed into the back of us as we have no tail lights. Somehow he let us off.<br />
We rolled in to another gas station in Indio and we stalled out again. Some cop came over to check us out. He radioed in and another 2 cops come. Soon another squad car pulls up and all 5 of them ordered us out of the car. They tore the car apart looking for the big find but all that they found were a few firecrackers. They weren't interested in the sun bleached human skull.<br />
They huddled together deciding what to do. One of them told us to follow him and he escorted us to a place to get our brake lights fixed.<br />
<br />
Day 43: <br />
We passed San Bernadino California as the sun rose. The car can only go 35 miles per hour top speed on the freeways.<br />
Before reaching Fresno a rear tire ripped apart. We bought another retread for 5 bucks.<br />
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Finally after 43 days and more than 8,000 miles, we got back home safe and sound from our first thrilling adventure. The question "What did you do this summer", could be answered enthusiastically.<br />
Who would believe us? Getting back to high school a few days later, we were the envy of our friends and for those skeptics who didn't believe our stories, we had the photographs to prove it.<br />
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<br />RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-75464988642099850962014-11-23T20:08:00.000-08:002015-08-29T20:18:59.036-07:00Crossing paths with Headhunters in Burma<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Who hasn't opened an old issue of National Geographic when they were a kid and looking with utter fascination, disgust and wide eyed amazement at the shrunken heads taken by such tribes as the Jivaro of the South American Amazon?<br />
What kid hasn't wanted one of those creepy heads for themselves?<br />
You kidding? Where can I get one?<br />
<br />
Replicas were so popular that hobby shops sold shrunken rubber heads with stitched lips and eyelids.<br />
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In former times perhaps as little as one generation ago, two very different ethnic groups chose to<br />
hunt human heads in Burma. One group are the Naga tribes of Burma's north west whose settlements straddle the border of India. Particularly the Konyak Naga were feared for taking heads in combat as a way to display their fierce courage. Arrows were driven through the eye sockets to prevent the spirits from finding their way back home.<br />
That is one impressive set of trophies on your wall, Buddy.<br />
Beats the hell out of bowling.<br />
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The other group of headhunters are the Wild Wa from northern Burma bordering China's Yunnan Province whose autonomous region boasted of whole villages whose walkways held human heads in various degrees of decomposition in stone lanterns. One such village was said to have an avenue of 300 such heads. Was it still there? Was it possible to visit?<br />
Of course I had to find out if it was possible to find them.<br />
<br />
Years ago in 1984, I was invited to a meeting by Abel Tweed the Foreign Minister of the Karenni Tribe deep into the jungle close to where the Moei River meets the mighty Salween River. Four hours in an 8 wheeled truck led to a river bank, the last outpost before we needed to take a long tailed boat maned by armed camouflaged soldiers up the turbulent river.<br />
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Karen children ran on the banks amidst fluttering butterflies with lengths of yarn hanging out of their earlobes.<br />
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Arriving at the camp, I was told that every one of the rebel leaders was here at this meeting of the National Democratic Front. General Bo Mya of the Karen, Brang Seng leader of the Kachin Independence Army and Ma Ha San the Prince of Vinghun, the leader of the Wa.<br />
I wanted to meet him and to ask him to write me a letter of introduction so I could take photos of the Wild Wa.<br />
I was told who to contact.<br />
Every member was there.<br />
"And he is here?".<br />
"Yes, really".<br />
"If you want to meet him now you can go along, he is staying in the house of my brother".<br />
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Walking over to a bamboo hut raised on wooden stilts, I walked up the stairs and entered a room silhouetted with figures sitting cross legged around a small fire drinking tea.<br />
I sat down with my interpreter and was offered a cup.<br />
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Turning on my Sony Professional recorder I asked permission to record.<br />
What followed was a remarkable interview with Ma Ha San, President of the Wa, one of the last living headhunters. <br />
<br />
For those of you who have my book "The Vanishing Tribes of Burma", a new interactive edition has been published in Apple ibook. Utilizing the latest technology, we were able to combine 70 photos of more than 35 diverse Burmese tribal groups along with explanatory text from the Exhibition Edition<br />
which was launched by Nobel laureate Aung San Su Kyi in Rangoon and combine that with short audio clips of tribal music including the 11 minute interview with a headhunter as relayed above.<br />
Also the ibook has video clips of Aung San Suu Kyi's speech, and my speech at the opening of the exhibition as well as a video of me visiting the source of the Worlds Finest Gemstones, Mogok Burma in March 2014.<br />
<br />
The brand new interactive ibook, The Vanishing Tribes of Burma can be purchased here for $4.99.<br />
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Order one now for the experience, the sights and sounds of a cultural world, which has, in many ways, already vanished.<br />
Enjoy! <a href="https://itun.es/us/Ifjs4.l" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1416800685401_2125" target="_blank">https://itun.es/us/Ifjs4.l</a><br />
<br />
Many thanks,<br />
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Richard K. Diran<br />
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<br />RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-13138934506745124122014-06-03T21:36:00.001-07:002014-06-14T21:00:55.963-07:00ScandinaviaAfter the Ethnographic Exhibition in Rangoon Burma which was opened by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on September 28, 2013 was complete,<br />
<br />
thevanishingtribesofburma.com<br />
<br />
all 70 photographs were donated for permanent display in the National Museum of Burma/Myanmar, so it was decided that a new set of the 70 photos should be printed and travel to Stockholm Sweden, and then move to Oslo Norway for new exhibitions.<br />
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We arrived in Stockholm on a direct flight from Bangkok on the 2nd of May 2014. The event would not begin until the 6th of May, so we had a few days to relax at the Helsten Hotel, a beautiful elegant old hotel in the center of town.<br />
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We had called our old friend Andy Mccoy formerly the guitar player with a fantastic band called Hanoi Rocks and asked him and his wife to come visit. They were living in Helsinki Finland.<br />
We had met Andy and the band years ago in Japan, then saw them perform in Bangkok Thailand.<br />
After that we toured with them in England and watched them at the Lyceum Theater in London.<br />
Andy came to stay with us in San Francisco, and I stayed with him in L.A in his house formerly owned by Rock Hudson. There he gave me a plexiglass guitar which Keith Richards had given to him, the one Keith played on the album Goats Head Soup. <br />
<br />
It was wonderful catching up with him again. There is a statue of him in Finland and he is soon due to be issued on a postage stamp!<br />
Walking the streets of Stockholm it was evident that many people recognized him. He later came over to our hotel with an acoustic guitar and played flamingo music like a gypsy.<br />
Fantastic!<br />
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Andy came to the Stockholm opening where I gave my speech. He was accompanied by his friend a photographer named Oskar Ohlson who had photographed Lemmy from Motorhead, Johnny Winter,<br />
Mink Deville and of course Andy. There were 150 Vanishing Tribes posters put up all over Stockholm for the event which opened on May 6th 2014.<br />
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After Stockholm our friend from the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society, the oldest peace society in Sweden founded by a Nobel Laureate, packed up all 70 photos in a van and we drove towards Norway. We would stop on the way at our project manager's father-in-law's farm. There were a few Burmese traveling together with us who were also speakers at the events. One young woman who is incredibly courageous named Zin Mar Aung was a former political prisoner who spent 11 years in prison, 9 in solitary confinement.<br />
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In 2011 she received the Clinton and International Women of Courage Award. She has a great sense of humor and a compelling story. We were treated to home baked breads and barbecued moose.<br />
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After 2 nights in the glorious countryside of Sweden, our caravan drove off to Norway,<br />
The event in Norway was hosted by Partnership for Change. My photos were set up in an opulent hall where the speakers included the former Prime Minister of Norway Kjell Magne Bondevik and Leymah Gbowee Nobel Peace Laureate 2011 whose role during the Women Liberia Mass Action for Peace movement was pivotal in ending the Liberian civil war in 2003. I also was able to give a short speech at the event which opened May 13th 2014.<br />
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After the Oslo event ended on May 15th, the photos were taken to Gothenburg, but my wife and I decided to have a look at Norway. Leaving by train from Oslo through beautiful scenery, we arrived at Flam a small town at the end of a 200 kilometer long fjord with towering snow covered mountains and lusty waterfalls. Flam also brews some very fine beers. We stayed overnight in Flam and departed by ship sailing west down the fjord. <br />
Occasional villages dotted the way, miniature below the towering snow covered peaks far above tearing at the incessant lumbering storm clouds. Followed by screaming sea gulls and leaping dolphins we arrived at a town called Gudvagen. From here we took a bus on the Stalheimskleiven Road twisted with astonishing hairpin turns. It was May 17, Norwegian Independence Day. The streets of Voss were filled with families of flag waving revelers all dressed in traditional costume as if they had stepped out of a centuries old oil painting.<br />
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After a few hours in Voss we caught a train to Bergen. My wife's research had landed us the best hotel room in Bergen, the only one directly on the water. The old town of Bergen is a scene from a fairy tale with rows of pastel colored store fronts which are hundreds of years old. There is a fish market dating from 1296. Passenger liners, old sailing vessels, fishing boats, and expensive yachts line the waterways, and at night the ebb and flow reflects the sparkling colored lights of Old Bergen.<br />
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From Bergen we went directly back to Oslo, traversing Norway by train. Many of the mountain passes were still covered in a thick blanket of snow with temperatures of 4C. The next day we caught a direct flight from Oslo to Bangkok arriving at about 8am May 22nd. Bangkok was 37C or 100F. A few hours later martial law was declared, and then the army announced the coup d' etat with a country wide curfew from 10pm until 5am.<br />
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Never a dull moment!<br />
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<br />RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-82490941623606887082014-04-12T20:46:00.000-07:002014-04-12T20:46:07.690-07:00Mogok the land of Rubies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The first thing that we do coming into this world is scream to be heard and then try and stand to be noticed.<br />
It is the nature of being human. <br />
<br />
Early in March 2014 I arrived back in Burma now known as Myanmar with the intent of traveling to Mogok,<br />
fabled land of the world's finest rubies.The first order of business was to visit the Shwe Dagon Pagoda rising majestically above Rangoon, gold covered, gem encrusted, legend infused, whose construction is said to have been started during the life of the Buddha, 2,500 years ago.<br />
Walking around the massive bell shaped pagoda clockwise I stopped at the animal which represents the day of the week I was born. When you ask a Burmese citizen their birthday, they will answer a day of the week, in my case, Thursday represented by the Rat .Rats are industriousness, intelligent and always seem to be the first creatures off a sinking vessel. <br />
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I had been assured by friends in Yangon that it would be "No Problem" to go up to Mogok although I thought that I would need special permission. I assumed that what I was being told was correct.<br />
My old Burmese friend and I flew up to Mandalay from where the last kings ruled Burma. It was from here<br />
that King Thibaw was deposed and sent by the British into exile in India. He croaked in penury. <br />
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From the airport we drove to a cave pagoda called Datdawtaung near a town called Kyaukse which was isolated and a few hours drive down unpaved dirt roads. There were no signs and when the road would fork we had to wait for someone coming along to give us directions .Finally we arrived at the base of the hills and began to climb. climb and climb. Some of the bricks in the stairway were large tablets of the same era as the Pagan period proving that this place had been visited for many centuries. After several hours climbing ever upwards we came to the entry way of the natural cave with long dripping stalactites and huge stalagmites. Below was a gold covered reclining Buddha at least 75 feet long. Other than a monk and a friendly dog, there were no other visitors.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p-NGGYspS2Q/U0oC2vT_J_I/AAAAAAAAASA/ZIecajjjEy0/s1600/IMG_6263_10_1_1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p-NGGYspS2Q/U0oC2vT_J_I/AAAAAAAAASA/ZIecajjjEy0/s1600/IMG_6263_10_1_1.JPG" height="320" width="213" /></a>The next morning we drove out of Mandalay on the new road to Mogok. About 40 miles out, a remote controlled bomb had injured 3 people a week ago including the Chief Minister of Mandalay General Ye Mying. I had heard that this road was closed but clearly it is not. We stopped at a Shan Restaurant and I had a Myanmar beer and soft boiled eggs served submerged in a bowl of hot water. A Shan girl peeled a banana and ate it out of the skin with a spoon.<br />
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After several hours the driver told me to lay down in the back seat concealing myself. This didn't sound good. We stopped at a check point which was serious. "No Foreigners Allowed Beyond This Point" read the sign. A young guard with a G-3 machine gun opened the back door of the car where I lay down hiding.<br />
"Bad stomach",says I.<br />
"Yeah right'.<br />
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The driver and my Burmese friend were escorted into Mogok where they were told that I needed to apply for the proper paper work to gain entry to <br />
Mogok<br />
"No problem" became "big problem". and we were forced to return 6 hours down the hills back to Mandalay. $150 bucks up, $150 back.<br />
I again checked in to the Shwe Phyu Hotel and sent my Burmese friend back to Rangoon to apply for the proper papers.<br />
This left me with several days of nothing to do but to explore Mandalay. I found an old friend, a Shan who accompanied me to the Mandalay Jade market. The Chinese buyers will take a day trip from Yunnan, buy their jadite and return the same day. I was looking for multi-colored pieces, but there were few to be had and the prices were crazy. Like so many of the stones in Burma, the Chinese had inflated the prices of jade beyond the world market. <br />
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I went to see the Mahamuni Buddha taken from Rakhine State centuries ago. The faithful press sheets of pounded gold leaf on the statue which is now several inches thick.<br />
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It began to feel like "Ground Hog Day" where waking up is a repeat of the day before. I found a reliable motorcycle taxi driver named Win who would drive me around Mandalay and see the sights. In the afternoon when it became really hot, we would go down to the port and watch the boats unload clay jars and screaming hogs.<br />
<br />
In one area of town all the shop houses were engaged in the carving of a pure white marble lending an eerie<br />
ghostly layer of white powder over everything including the carvers. The subject of the carving was almost entirely that of seated Buddhas. I asked about where this marble was quarried and was told there was a marble mountain about an hour and a half drive from here in Mataya Township.The mountain did indeed have a massive seam of pure white marble being quarried by earth moving machines.<br />
<br />
I spent time looking at over priced stones of mediocre quality, but I did see a large optically clear piece of<br />
quartz crystal with an interesting inclusion of hexagonal crystal inside which was probably just dark quartz. Even for this the owner asked $5,000!<br />
<br />
There was a traditional dance show which I photographed, and I had such traditional culinary offerings such as chicken anus, luckily unstuffed.<br />
<br />
Finally after 10 days of eating Mandalay dust, and fighting mosquitoes as big as birds, my Burmese friend called from Rangoon to tell me that the permission papers were complete, and that he would fly back to Mandalay with them the next morning. Promptly at 9am we left Mandalay. <br />
Hours after leaving the sizzling plains, and climbing into the mountains, the temperature dropped and became refreshingly cold. Having my paperwork in order, immigration was a breeze and we passed into Mogok, fabled land of the world's finest rubies, sapphires, peridot and bright red spinel.<br />
<br />
I had completed photographing more than 45 different tribal groups out of what the government says are a total of 135. This erroneous number is perhaps from General Ne Win himself who altered the number from 142 to add up to his favorite astrological number 9. 1 plus 3 plus 5 is 9. Even 135 is wrong as even the Chin themselves are listed as 53. Fifty tribes out of 135?<br />
Baloney.<br />
<br />
Now a census is being done in Myanmar. This census is to determine how state funds should be allocated to the various groups. There are 41 questions on the census. One is of religion. Animist is a choice, the box I would check. One is of ethnicity. In Kachin State the Kachin Independence Organization will not take part.in this census. How can they grant access to their territory when they are at war?<br />
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This will not be done. There's 2 million missing from the list.<br />
Karen State government refuses to allow villagers evicted from their homes by the Burmese military to move into rebel held territory. A census here can not be done.<br />
Same with the Northern Shan State, North East Kachin State or Karrini State, the Chin Hills or Nagaland.<br />
<br />
Hello Konyak Naga, how many in your household? Aggha, don't cut off my head! Good luck there.<br />
<br />
Wa State will take their own census.<br />
The Rohinga can only be listed as Bengali. Unlike the Maramagji, the Shakama, the Mro, and Daignet who live in Arakan State and are listed as distinct ethnic groups, the Rohingya are not on the list. What do you check if you are not on the list?<br />
Are they not part of the fabric of what is Burma?<br />
<br />
No ethnic group can choose more than one ethnic category. What category shall the Rohingya choose?<br />
What about a mixed heritage?<br />
A Maru and a Jinghpaw?<br />
A Khaku and a Lashi?<br />
A Burman and a Azi?<br />
Some groups are listed twice under different names. Other groups like the Banyok of Kayan State who were described by Scott in 1900, a tribe that used to bind the heads of their children to appear as cone heads have vanished.<br />
<br />
What if Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is barred from running for president next year 2015 because she had married a foreigner, and has children with British citizenship. Will she be barred from contesting the election and to not be able to complete a Mandella like transformation from political prisoner to head of State?<br />
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I will not speculate. I ain't on the census. Honkey ain't a category. <br />
<br />
Ethnographic inclusion to the Union of Burma is part what got General Aung San, Daw Suu Kyi's father assassinated only six months after concluding the Panlong agreement in 1947 giving certain tribes autonomy under a federal system. Ethnicity. A very touchy subject in a country where the diversity of tribes are perhaps the most varied in the world. <br />
<br />
Beside wanting to look at the source of the best stones in the world, to visit Mogok, is for a gemologist as necessary as a Muslim entering Mecca,<br />
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I was also interested in seeking the local tribes of that area. Our driver is a Lisu and knows of a village nearby of Shwe Palaung, the Golden Palaung. Previously I had photographed the Pale Palaung close to Kalaw in Southern Shan State, and the Silver Palaung near Kengtung. The Shwe Palaung do not wear these cloths everyday, as those other groups do, but they are stored at the monestary and only worn during the festival days. The blouse is incredibly ornate and stiched with tiny glass beads. The girls were very playful and aware of their own beauty.<br />
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High in the hills of Mogok close to a huge sapphire mine is a village called Stone Elephant. The rock formations here are of weathered marble jutting out of the earth like sharp teeth.There was an old Lisu woman I found in her kitchen boiling water. Her dress was also particular to this area near north west Shan State. Other Lisu I had photographed such as the smiling girl on the cover of my book, Vanishing Tribes lived near the Thai border of south east Shan State. Another style of dress was that of the Bhamo Lisu with broad stripes who lives in north east Shan State. And then there was a lovely girl who is a Lisu from Putao, northern most Kachin State. She and her dance troupe happened to be visiting Mogok and was eager to be photographed.<br />
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Mogok is indeed a magic place with fog filled valleys and huge trees. The incredible diversity of gem stones mined here and offered in the gem market everyday has been happening for many hundreds of years.<br />
It will I suppose continue until Mogok has given up the last of her treasures.<br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_1409781878"></span><span id="goog_1409781879"></span><br />RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-8062939936310373252014-02-16T16:57:00.002-08:002014-02-16T17:04:44.503-08:00Winter in JapanOver the New Year celebration my wife and I went to Japan. Deep in the mountains of the Japanese Alps<br />
is a very ancient town called Hida Takayama. Some of my wife's family lives there and some of her school friends. <br />
Neolithic stone implements can be found there proving that it has been an inhabited for thousands of years.<br />
During the Heian Period, two powerful clans, the Genji warrior clan, and the Heike who were a more of an aristocratic clan fought a war which saw the Genji defeat Heike in 1185 AD. Many of the Heike fled from Kyoto, their former seat of power to the Hida Takayama area and<br />
continued their artistic culture.<br />
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The town has many beautiful and original buildings from the Edo Period from 1600 to 1868.<br />
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Close to Takayama is Shirakawago which is a world heritage site, a very mountainous and cold region. Until very recently Shirakawago was extremely remote but tunnels were bored through the mountains making access to that region easy.<br />
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There is a Japanese style inn run by an eccentric old man with a wispy white beard who owns the mountain where bear still roam. He brews his own sake. He sprays water on the trees creating a crystal ice forest one frozen layer at a time. If the temperature is sub-zero, he will step outside and make soap bubbles which freeze instantly and float through the forest like glowing orbs. At minus 10 degrees Centigrade, the large flowing bubbles crystallize as dancing glass spheres reflecting the colored lights hidden in the ice.<br />
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End. RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-64510558037593952542013-11-04T20:43:00.001-08:002013-11-04T20:43:21.891-08:00The Vanishing Tribes of Burma<br />
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<a href="http://vimeo.com/76498280">httm/</a><a href="http://vimeo.com/76498280">p://vieo.co</a><a href="http://vimeo.com/76498280">m</a><a href="http://vimeo.com/76498280">7498280</a><a href="http://vimeo.com/76498280">6 </a><br />
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"I want to thank all of you who made this exhibition possible, and particularly, Mr. Richard K. Diran<br />
for bringing beauty into my life at an unexpected time".<br />
<br />
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi<br />
September 28, 2013 <br />
<br />
<br />
In 1980 I was only two years from having graduated from the Gemological Institute of America.<br />
I decided to travel to the source of the world's finest colored gemstones, Burma. Burma produces the<br />
finest rubies, sapphires, jade, pearls, peridot and rare stones in the world. As I began doing business<br />
in Rangoon, I thought that I would travel further afield upcountry, closer to the mining areas to increase<br />
the selection of goods, and reduce the prices.<br />
<br />
In 1983 I flew in to Heho Airport in Shan State in between Kalaw to the West and Taunggyi to the East.<br />
Landing there I noticed a group of women standing outside the gates dressed in black tunics with coils of<br />
brass rings around their ankles, and heads piled high with turbans. They were completely unlike the Burmese<br />
I had encountered in Rangoon, or the tribes I had seen in Thailand. I discovered that they were called the Taungyo and had villages in the hills not so far from here.<br />
<br />
I decided to find a guide who could lead me there and thus began my 25 year journey to record on film<br />
and on tape all known tribal groups of the most ethnically diverse nation on earth, Burma. Nearby where<br />
the Taungyo lived were villages of Palaung, Pa-o, Shan and Danu, along with the Intha leg rowers of Inlay Lake.<br />
<br />
Researching the old literature of Lowis in 1919, Major C.M. Enriquez 1923 and Stevenson in 1944, I came across a British commissioner called Sir George Scott who was ordered to compile a list of all<br />
known tribes, their customs, languages and traditions. His 5 volume series of thick books called "The <br />
Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States" was published in Rangoon in 1900. His book became my<br />
tribal bible, and I was determined to follow in his footsteps and record all known tribal groups.<br />
<br />
At that time only a 7 day visa was extended. Travel was difficult, roads scarce and turned to deep mud in<br />
the rainy season. Communication was nearly impossible with crackling phone lines operated by red and black phone wires plugged into a switch board by hand, not having changed since the 1930's. Phones were<br />
so scarce that a phone number may have been only 2 digits, like 45. I also communicated by telex machine which had a huge spool of yellow paper maybe an inch wide which you fed into a machine that punched holes for letters. This ribbon of paper was then fed in to the machine and came out on the receiving side in words.<br />
<br />
Often I would have to use the 7 day visa to set up contacts for the next trip, return to Bangkok, obtain<br />
another visa and go upcountry where my contacts would take me to the tribal groups I wanted to photograph .Lucky for me the gem business was lucrative and financed my ethnic journeys. I became<br />
known as a purveyor of fine gem stones. At that time my wife and I lived in San Francisco, she running<br />
a very successful Japanese restaurant called Fuki-Ya, a country style place that was the first robata-yaki <br />
type eatery in America.<br />
<br />
In March of 1988 I was in Rangoon when some local students clashed with local people over which<br />
music was being played in a teashop. A fight ensued and one student was injured and the culprit arrested.<br />
The next day March 13, the culprit was released and a few hundred students marched down to the People's Council office to protest. Riot police clashed with the students and one student Maung Phone Maw was shot dead. In the following days thousands of students were arrested and scores killed. This was the beginning of' the unrest. Soon thousands would be killed, and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi would return to Rangoon to attend to her dying mother. I left Rangoon on March 17 1988 and did not re-enter until July 1989 when the visa period was extended for 14 days.<br />
<br />
<br />
I rented a large colonial style house on Kaba Aye Road with a circular entry way, hardwood floors which<br />
my staff polished with motor oil and coconut husks to a gleaming luster. There were only five colors of paint to choose from in the shops, so every one of the five bedrooms was painted a different color. Martial law was still in place with a curfew at 9pm. Anyone on the streets after that hour risked being shot. We set up a sound system with huge speakers and a Chinese amplifier playing Motor Head which could be heard 2 blocks away. Oh the parties. Anybody at the parties was compelled to stay over night. Somehow the authorities left me alone. My rent was $1,000 USD per year.<br />
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My wife and I kept the Rangoon house for 3 years, 1989, 1990 and 1991. <br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2_biDc0Opqs/Unh00fHGgAI/AAAAAAAAAP4/WIg9MMDWm7c/s1600/IMG_0002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="464" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2_biDc0Opqs/Unh00fHGgAI/AAAAAAAAAP4/WIg9MMDWm7c/s640/IMG_0002.jpg" width="640" /></a>We sold the restaurant in 1989 after 10 years of successful business just before the San Francisco <br />
earthquake in October 1989. In 1993 we packed up nearly everything in the San Francisco house and <br />
moved to Thailand. The commute was getting to be too long. I continued my travels to Burma and continued buying fine gemstones. I met a local businessman who was the son-in-law of the Burmese strong man U Ne Win who had ruled Burma for 25 years. He had married General Ne Win's favorite daughter became my direct sponsor. I was then allowed to obtain visas to Burma for one year after visiting the Embassy and raising my hand to swear that I was "free of political taint". <br />
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It was this I suppose that kept the authorities from preventing my travel to remote areas of the country, the fact that they knew I had no interest whatsoever in their politics. On one trip to Kayah State or Karrini State as those who live there call it, my airplane landed in Loikaw the capital. I was there to meet a friend who was arranging to bring some of the ethnic minorities closer to where I could freely photograph them since Karrini State was clearly an insurgent area. Even being allowed to fly there was highly unusual. Everyone on the plane, all of whom were Burmese were ordered to disembark. The seats were bent over horizontal and the aircraft was loaded with wounded soldiers fresh from the battle field, some missing limbs, some with half a face missing from shrapnel. They would be transported to Taunggyi Hospital only 97 miles away.<br />
I dared not even take a photograph.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-f-XULmXUUDE/Um0sBHieg4I/AAAAAAAAAPE/L76xueYaN-k/s1600/NAGA-blog_001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-f-XULmXUUDE/Um0sBHieg4I/AAAAAAAAAPE/L76xueYaN-k/s400/NAGA-blog_001.jpg" width="265" /></a>By 1996 I had nearly completed my list of tribes in nearly <span id="goog_1052747427"></span><span id="goog_1052747428"></span>every corner of the country. I returned to Rakine<br />
State or Arakan State, Kachin State, for more photos, and then to the Naga Hills when the government for the first time allowed foreigners to witness Naga New Year. Walking into the hills around Khamti I heard in the distance cries of warriors who were running, screaming carrying ox hide shields and long spears wearing woven cane hats with monkey fur, hornbill feathers, wild boar tusks, strands of human hair and chins ringed with tiger claws. They wore belts and aprons of cowery shells. Some of these men had certainly taken human heads as trophies in the not too distant past.<br />
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In 1997 Lord Weidenfield and Nicholson agreed to publish my book, "The Vanishing Tribes of Burma"<br />
which was launched at the United Nations London for "The Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples".<br />
It was widely recognized to be the most complete and comprehensive ethnographic study of the tribes<br />
of Burma since Scott nearly one hundred years ago. The book was later published in New York by Amphoto and then in France by Grund. In 2000 Vanishing Tribes came out in paperback.<br />
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In 2000 a journalist who was working for Time Magazine called me and asked<br />
if I would like to go find a mysterious lake called Nawng Hkeo in the Wa Autonomous Region in Burma near the Chinese border together with him. This lake was in Wa folklore the place where the Wa people emerged as tadpoles and had not been seen since V.C Pitchford in 1937. Although we were unable to find that fabled lake, we did see where it was, shrouded in clouds. Later he did return and was successful. I did<br />
however get some pictures of Wa women with long silver drums in their ears looking exactly as Scott had seen them 100 years earlier.<br />
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By 2001 I took a trip up the Kaladan River to Mrauk-U in Arakan State. From there I rode a jungle boat up the Lemro River to its source where I had read accounts of another group of tattoo faced women called the M'Gan. Although listed in literature there were no photographs. I believe that I was the first to photograph them.<br />
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Earlier this year my wife had a vivid dream about holding an exhibition of my photographs in a huge room where Daw Aung San Suu Kyi would be in attendance. The room was completely packed with spectators and media. When she woke up she suggested that I do the exhibition. I spoke to one good friend who like me has spent many years in Burma. Currently he was working with a major oil corporation who it seemed were willing to sponsor such an exhibition. The funding was contingent upon them completing a deal in what is now Myanmar for oil terminal facilities. I spoke to another Burmese lady who knew Daw Suu personally. I asked if it was possible to have Daw Aung San Suu Kyi commit to attending the event. She was. Years earlier, in 1998 when Daw Suu was still under house arrest I asked a certain embassy to bring her a copy of my book "Vanishing Tribes". Daw Suu wrote me a beautiful letter saying that she hoped someday that we could meet.<br />
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Unfortunately the oil company could not finalize their business at that time, and the exhibition date was cancelled. Another dear friend from Sweden, put together a proposal for the exhibition which was submitted to the Swedish Postcode Lottery who funds humanitarian and artistic endeavours. They in turn funded the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society, the oldest peace organization in the world established by another Nobel Prize winner in 1883.as an organizer of this event. I would have preferred to hold the event in November, but as Parliament would be in session, Daw Suu would have to be in the new capital. We asked for a firm date.<br />
I received word that she would be available on September 28th 2013.<br />
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Preparation time was very short. We selected 70 photographs on Kodachrome 64 slide film and I had them scanned to disk at 100mb. I found a publisher here in Bangkok who did quality work and sat down with them day after day to lay the new book out. We found an event coordinator who did award winning events like MTV Asia, Mercedes Benz etc... The only venue for the event was the Ballroom at the Inya lake Hotel since it was opulent and monumentally huge, with 50 foot tall ceilings and a fluted cupola in the top. The room is circular with a raised and lower area. Built by the Russians in 1958, it was perfect. The event coordinators walked in to the ballroom and instantly had the complete vision of design concept. In the center of the ballroom a big tree would be erected and painted white. The tree would link to the ceiling. Fog machines would be installed, music, lights dimmers, not just a gallery show, this would be drama.<br />
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The 70 images were printed on the highest quality paper 100cm X 65cm and hung on grey panels. Each image would have its separate light. Invitations were printed, emails sent to embassies, ambassadors, business people both local and foreign. The media was notified trough press conference television, newspapers, magazines.....<br />
Two full days were spent setting up the event. Billboards were erected on Prome Road and on Kaba Aye Road. "The Vanishing Tribes of Burma" with the image of an Akha girl on a black background. A striking image, it was the same one used by the United Nations in London, but this one was huge!<br />
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We walked through the event with Daw Suu's cousin and security team. It was agreed that rather than having her walk down the long hallway from the hotel's front entrance, her car could be taken around to the back near the lake and she could enter the waiting room. On the morning of September 28th at 11:30am, Daw Suu's convoy drove up to the entrance of the waiting room. Outside the guests were packed in the hallways, and outside at the terrace, many dressed elegantly for the opening. My wife and I were in the waiting room with Swedish Peace people and organizing staff. Some of them had flown in just for the occasion. Daw Suu entered the room and walked directly over to my wife and I.. She was radiant. Holding both of my hands and looking in to my eyes, I said, "Well it has been 15 years since you said that you hoped one day we would meet, and now that day has come". "Ah so you got my letter", she said. Until then she had not even known that I had received her letter. <br />
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I, along with Daw Suu and the chairwoman from the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society walked through the curtain and around the room to the front. Crowd of film media were already assembled in the ballroom. Each of us were given a pair of gold scissors, and on queue, held a section of ribbon and cut, opening the exhibition. People flooded into the ballroom, cameras flashed and the crowds jostled for space. The three of us then walked up to the podium. Chairwoman was the first to speak, and then introduced me. I gave my speech and she again stepped up to the podium and introduced Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Daw Suu Kyi gave a speech about peace and national reconciliation. She also said "Thank you to Mr. Diran for bringing beauty into my life when it was least expected". My hair stood up!. I then presented her with a new copy of "Vanishing Tribes" and my wife presented her with a bouque of yellow and red roses. My wife wore yellow silk as did Daw Suu.<br />
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When the speeches were finished I led the way around the exhibition with Daw Suu holding my wife's hand. Daw Suu's security team tried to keep the photographers and spectators from crushing us, but it was a mad scrum with everyone wanting to be close to her. Who could blame them. A congressional gold medal recipient who was also a Nobel Prize winner. Perhaps the most widely recognized woman in the world.......<br />
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At one point the panels holding the photos almost came over with three people pushing from the other side to keep the wall from going over. Daw Suu was completely composed. As we walked around the event, she commenting on each photograph, asking details about which English King was portrayed on a silver coin around a girl's neck, about the long years of wear of a yellowing tiger tooth worn by a Naga warrior.<br />
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The crowd continued the crush as there were perhaps 500 people all trying to get close to Daw Suu.<br />
At one point near a portrait of a young girl with extraordinarily long hair nearly sweeping the ground. Daw Suu turned to my wife and I and said that when she was young she used to have hair down to about here, marking a place near her knee. At that she looked down and said, "Oh somebody lost their shoe".. Indeed somebody had, there were that many people scrumming. I got lost twice and found my bearings only by remembering which picture was in which part of the ballroom. <br />
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In all Daw Suu Kyi spent a full hour with us walking around the exhibition looking at and commenting on each and every picture. When we had completed walking around both levels of panels, looking at each of the 70 images, Daw Suu, my wife and I walked her through the curtains to her convoy of three vehicles, and entering, she sped away.<br />
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The next day and the day after the event was open to the public for free, and the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society through their local staff arranged for bus loads of school children, hundreds of monks, deaf kids and college students to be brought in. Some of the students sat on the carpet taking notes of the names of the tribal groups and in which part of the country they lived. So many people both young and old thanked me for showing them the diverse people who lived here within the borders of Myanmar.<br />
They had never seen them.<br />
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At the conclusion of the exhibition on the third day, the Minister of Culture and the Director of the National Museum were presented with the entire set of the 70 photographs for their permanent collection in a hand over ceremony. The photographs will be displayed in the National Museum on Yangon for the Myanmar people to study the ethnic groups and their traditional culture comprising this country for future generations.<br />
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<br />RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-12915430501621070902013-04-04T05:28:00.001-07:002013-04-04T05:32:55.789-07:00Meeting President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka<br />
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When we arrived in Sri Lanka on March 17, 2013, we were given our invitations by some very influential friends to attend the opening of the new international airport at Hambantoda on the following day. My camera was inspected upon entering the grounds and a yellow sticker was attached which read :'Checked Presidential Security Division". <br />
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We walked around the new terminal in the blinding heat of the morning to the VIP section B. There were thousands of people assembled and tens of thousands more behind the ropes for a glimpse. The Chinese built control tower loomed high in the background with the same architecture as the Chinese Olympic stadium in Beijing with its birds nest design. <br />
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Everyone was given a brown greasy bag with a hot dog inside, and a bottle of water. On the stage sat a dignified assemblage of orange clad Buddhist monks, politicians and business men. Speaker after speaker took to the podium to acknowledge this grand achievement. <br />
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Debilitating hours later with people actually fainting from heat stroke, some carted away in ambulances, an announcement was broadcast that the president would soon arrive. On several big screens his passenger jet aircraft was shown on approach, monks were loudly chanting, until his jet with a rubbery screech landed. President Mahinda Rajapaksa was the first passenger to disembark at this, the Rajapaksa International Airport. As he strode across the tarmac in his signature white tunic and burgundy scarf, the crowd erupted in cheers.<br />
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Another speech, and then another, one being translated from Chinese to Sinhalese, hundreds of costumed dancing girls with their burning bare feet, the military bands, the flyover in formation by the air force jets ripping low over head creating a massive sonic boom, and then the president took to the stage and spoke. Several other international jets landed from a variety of countries. After this, the opening ceremony was over and everyone filed out to the parking lots.<br />
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Our three cars were brought up and we all retired to Dixon Dela's the Sri Lankan Ambassador to the Maldives who has a bungalow on the Indian Ocean near Yala National Park where leopards roam, and peacocks dart through the foliage.We took a rest before lunch. Dixon showered and dressed in perhaps the loudest shirt I have ever seen since Jimmy Hendrix sang "Purple Haze" at the Fillmore.<br />
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We then drove to a resort called "The Safari" which served a buffet of mostly curries, which I am sick of eating, so I had fish and chips.<br />
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Later in the evening we also had invitations to dinner and cocktails at a private reception inside the new airports terminal. After a few glasses of fine red wine, and numerous finger foods and fudge brownies, President Rajapaksa entered and walked around greeting everyone.<br />
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A very impressive fellow, he like so many other world leaders carries a blinding aura of power and invincibility. Hey, any time you are eating dinner with the guy whose face happens to appear on the money you are spending, it is all is a bit overwhelming.<br />
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<br />RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-90973711215270755552012-07-29T19:21:00.000-07:002012-10-06T20:28:24.829-07:00Saga of the Marble SkullCreation for me has always been a solitary exercise. Writing. Sharpen your pencil, pick up the notepad, decide on your subject, and put the lead to paper.. Oil painting. Stretch the canvas, roll out the sable brushes, pour the turpentine, lay the colors on a palette and begin the sketch. Photography. Find the subject, frame the picture, note the light and snap.<br />
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Casting bronze was my first artistic collaboration. Working the black wax with my fingers and delicate dental tools to create the forms, then taking the figures to the foundry where a mold is made, placing the mold with the wax figures inside a roasting furnace, and filling the melted void of wax with molten bronze. The mold is then removed from the furnace, broken open and the now bronze figures removed. The figures are assembled together, with my instruction and a patina is applied.<br />
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I began thinking about marble. I sent my Burmese friend up north to Mandalay and then on <br />
to Sagaing where pure white marble is quarried. He returned to Rangoon with a block about one foot square, no cracks or imperfections with the fresh maw marks still evident on the sides. The quality of the marble was as fine as any Michelangelo or Bernini has ever brought from Carrera Italy.<br />
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I knew of a master carver in the outskirts of Rangoon and brought the block of marble to him. I had photographs of human skulls and even a real one which my friend a medical student procured from his medical studies. I visited many times to inspect the progress and finally after eight months when the skull was complete, even being hollowed out with thin walls of marble, it looked real. So real in fact that customs in Burma made me remove it from the case where I had it packed to show them that it was stone and not bone.<br />
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A crown of interlocking nude women in decreasing sizes was made in wax, and then I had a jeweler who had worked at Cartier Paris cast all twelve of them in sterling silver. The combined weight was 1,750 grams or one and three quarters of a kilo of pure silver. The smallest figure would have her legs curving into one of the eye sockets and the largest reclining woman laying back with her arms out stretched would be holding on to something. All of the twelve figures would encircle the marble cranium.<br />
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The other eye socket should contain a replica eyeball. I found a Brazilian gem dealer in Hong Kong who had a spherical star rose quarts of 97 carats. I bought it. The crystal was perfectly clear rosy pink with a strong golden star. To create the effect of an eyeball I needed a cornea and an iris with a pupil. I had a polished eyeball quartz agate which I had purchaced years ago in Brazil. Every eyeball in the agate had an extending crack except one. I had that one cut out, drilled the rose quartz, and anchored the eyeball agate into the rose sphere. It was set so perfectly a fingernail could not detect a ridge.<br />
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Then I molded a wax eye socket with upper and lower eye lids, cast it in silver and then plated it in over 15 grams of thick pure gold. The edges of the eyelids were lined with white tapered baggette diamonds, and another row of black diamonds to emphasize the shape of the eye. In the corner of the eyeball I set a pear shaped ruby.<br />
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The largest of the twelve reclining naked women with her arms out streched would hold a double phantom quartz crystal from Sri Lanka. The dark black double phantom within the crystal imitated the outer hexagonal pyramid shape. I polished the quartz crystal as clear as glass. Then the crystal was sunk into a silver bed of fifteen Japanese sea pearls.This silver bed of pearls was then gilded. I made a stalking panther in sterling silver encrusted in African orange sapphires and bright green Tsavorite garnet eyes. I had the jeweled panther roaming across the bed of pearls at the base of the phantom crystal. <br />
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My biggest collaborative effort to date, more than two years in the making, from the quarrymen to the carver, the molder, the metal casters, jewelers, stone setters, gemologists, conceptualists, dreamers, and madmen, here you have one of the most remarkable works of art ever assembled. Welcome.<br />
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<br />RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-58560744050961114622012-05-05T06:30:00.000-07:002012-05-05T06:32:27.409-07:00Dangerous SongkranSongkran is the lunar New Year water festival held in April, the hot season. It is celebrated in many countries in this region, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Burma and Yunnan China, as well as far away Sri Lanka. Songkran is essentially a fertility ceremony offering water as a blessing for the upcoming monsoon rains in the hopes of an abundant rice crop. Scented water is poured over the hands of parents, teachers, and the elderly, as well as rose petaled water poured over the images of the Buddha.
Lately however, at least in Thailand, the emphasis has changed from a gentle event into a raucous street party packed with drunken revelers throwing buckets of water on everyone. It is fun. It is also dangerous. For three days Thai music is played continually. Girls scream with glee, high powered water guns spray in water warfare. Open trucks drive by with hoses shooting those on the sidewalks. People put talcum paste on your cheeks. Children shoot sprays of water in to your face. The inebriated crash on the roadsides after being struck in the head with ice cubes.
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My friend, his girlfriend and I were on Soi 22 at the corner of Washington Square getting soaked and throwing buckets of water. The girls look great in their wet tee shirts hugging their well rounded contours. Last year three teenage nubile dancers stood up on the back of a truck, stripped off their tops, egged on by the crowd and danced undulating glistening topless.
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Now as we stand drinking beer, buying rounds, soaking wet in the hot sunshine, all of a sudden across the street, four or five swarthy Thai men come running down the sidewalk chasing another Thai man. They knock him down and begin kicking him in the ribs. Brandishing guns, they point the pistols in the air, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam. Everyone is paralyzed. Nobody moves. Some car pulls up like in a cheap "B" movie and they throw the guy inside and take off. One of the men, thick and serious, walks past us with his chrome pistol stuffed in the back of his belt. When it was over seconds later, everyone continued to drink and party as if it never happened. I pick up a 9mm copper casing off the sidewalk and plunk it in my pocket.
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When I got back to my room, I took off my drenched black tee shirt which I noticed has a talcum powder hand print outlined on the back in white. I put the bullet casing on the void of the hand print and took these photos looking like something between the gangster John Dillinger meets Christ's last bathrobe, the Shroud of Turin.RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-38716863274098579002012-04-04T03:06:00.000-07:002012-04-04T03:06:02.440-07:00Mayhem in KataragamaThe day we arrived in Sri Lanka, February 14th, Valentines Day, we heard news that some crazy Iranians accidentally blew the roof off their rented house in Bangkok fifteen minutes from our house with C4. Two guys ran out and one was caught. Then another staggered out, dazed and confused, he tried to catch a cab, but nobody would stop, so he lobbed a grenade at a taxi which exploded. The police came and he threw another grenade at them which bounced off a tree, ricocheted back, and blew off both his legs. Silly terrorist.<br />
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The news in Sri Lanka was that a road crew digging a new highway hit pockets of fine sapphire crystals near Kataragama and the gold rush was on. Thousands of ants marched to the honey jar. Fights broke out between the locals and the interlopers. Broken arms, bloody noses. My partner along with a minister went to have a look. They managed to get 415 ct.of glassy blue crystal before the army came in with rifles. <br />
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Today we drove back to Kataragama from Balangoda. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it also put a man on the moon. We wanted to see the area of Thammannawa where the crystal came from. My wife and I as foreigners were not permitted to enter, and by recent court order our Sri Lankan friends found that neither were they. <br />
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All of the hotels in the area were full, from five star to no star, there was no accommodation. However, our friend, who is the Sri Lankan Ambassador to the Maldives, has a beach bungalow nearby Yala National Park, just a few kilometers from Kataragama. Yala has the largest number of wild leopards per land mass in the world. <br />
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Fifty meters from our friend's door is the warm Indian Ocean with shell covered white beaches. I found a cowerie shell with the top missing. All that was left was the bottom opening which looked like a toothy smile. Our friend unfortunately is away in the Maldives where they are having a coup after removing the president at gun point. <br />
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The bungalow is very funky with matching deer heads outside flanking the chairs on the verandah hung with kerosine lanterns and a monkey skull impaled on one long horn. The window slats are painted blue, yellow, red and green stripes. There is a black carpet of flies at my feet and needless to say the wife is not thrilled. The wind rips off the ocean but flies are tenacious.<br />
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Some of the boys walked to a local fishing village and bought 6 kilos of lobster. One friend won't eat them because he saw them crawling around on the porch. We drove back around sunset in a three vehicle caravan of high speed land rovers on thin roads through tiny villages when suddenly a pebble flew off the tire ahead at about 140 kilometers per hour, hit our windshield and cracked it. My partner slowed down and we lost the convoy. <br />
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"Anybody got a sapphire crystal" I asked. A strange question except with this group as, naturally, everyone did. I took one sharp crystal from Manju, got out and cut a circle around the crack to keep it from spreading. Unfortunately it didn't work as the glass was laminated and the crack increased like a spider web. <br />
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Things heated up in Kataragama as the court order was still in place barring entry to everyone. The government Gem Authority had the idea to auction off small parcels of land but that fell apart quickly. Our partner went out again with the minister who is from that area, and has clout. Yesterday the army was overwhelmed and withdrew. 25,000 people streamed in to the area and they expect that number to double. An article was published Thursday February 16th in a newspaper called "Lanka Truth" regarding our friend the minister titled "Wijeyamuni Soysa declares war to plunder a gem mine". The article goes on to say that he is infamous for gem rackets and is engaged in illegal gem mining in the area. Apparently the newspaper is communist. <br />
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Back in Balangoda, the minister lay outside in a hammock tethered to palm trees with his servant fluffing his pillow. My partner was sitting in a chair on top of a grassy knoll. I came out to join them, sat down sideways in another hammock and fell out on my back with my legs sticking straight up in the air. A moment to relish. <br />
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This morning my wife is putting on her makeup when a scowling fang baring macaque came to the open door upstairs, raising his intimidating eyebrows, and threatened to come in. She screamed and I chased him off. Got to get a baseball bat. Now at dusk the downstairs living room is filled with flying termites. The two German shepherds, Blackie and Bulla run around snapping at the air. If you google attractions in Balangoda, you will find there are none. No museums, no movie theaters, not even a damn bar. Each buffalo here seems to be assigned one and only egret as a personal valet to pick off ticks and other undesirables.<br />
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The government land auction for potentially gem bearing land is back on for tomorrow February 24th. My partner along with many of the major gem players will attend. The 49 allocated plots were auctioned off each being about 3,000 sq feet, some plots sold for more than $200,000 each. The plot that my partner bought was supposedly the lot where the land was first removed for the road, and the original blue crystal was found. The gem authority sold all the plots for a total of $2,700,000 dollars.<br />
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Now we wait and see if there is anything actually there. Since there is no source for water, the soil all must be moved to a place where it can be washed. We will know in a few weeks what if anything is found.RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-64125853898936961002012-01-18T02:25:00.000-08:002012-01-18T02:57:51.482-08:00Sri LankaSri Lanka, how easily it rolls off the tongue. Ceylon until 1972, before that Taprobane and also Serendib where the word serendipity comes from, meaning to find something wonderful unexpectedly. <br />
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Sri Lanka is truly a magical island. Hanging like a baroque pearl at the bottom of India. To the West is the Arabian Sea, to the East, the Indian ocean, and to the South the first land mass one would encounter is Antarctica.<br />
In the south-central part of the country are the towns of Balangoda, Pelmadula and Ratnapura, literally Gem City. All are geologically rich gem areas yielding hexagonal crystals of sapphire in every color, stars, catseyes, zircons, spinel and garnets. <br />
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Much of this gem crystal has been washed away from the primary sources by millions of years of monsoon rains into rivers which, over the course of time, have shifted direction and left the alluvial water tumbled stones in gem bearing gravels called illam which are the sedimentary gem gravels. From this illam stones are mined. <br />
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King Solomon was said to have gotten his gems here as he wooed the Queen of Sheba. Marco Polo describes this gem land in his travels. Sinbad the Sailor was lifted high into the air by a giant bird called the Roc which left him in a deep valley with walls so steep he could not escape. This valley was filled with rubies. Gem merchants threw fresh meat into this valley where no man had ever set foot. The meat rolls over the precious stones which stick to them. Eagles pounce on the meat and carry it away in their claws to their nests. The merchants run to the nests, frighten away the eagles and collect the rubies.<br />
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Sinbad thought that he would never get out of this valley, but then he had an idea. He gathered the biggest rubies and filled his pockets. He went to the largest piece of meat in the valley and tied himself to it. An eagle came, picked up that meat in his strong claws and took him away to the mountain top and left Sinbad in his nest. Sinbad escaped the eagle's nest and in this way made himself rich. <br />
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Sri Lanka has an abundance of gems. In fact, Sri Lanka has the highest density of gems (compared to its landmass) in the world.<br />
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Earlier this year in August, I decided that I should get back into doing one of the few things I was really good at, gems. We traveled back to Sri Lanka to re-establish old contacts and become involved again in the business.<br />
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I first came to Sri Lanka in 1980 and met a very influential man and his father, both of whom were land owners and gem miners. At that time the influential man's son was an 8 year old boy in short pants. The grandfather built a beautiful ginger bread house with carved eves and moldings high in the foggy hills of Balangoda in 1924. Human bones of Homo Habilis found in caves near here prove that Balangoda has been inhabited for 70,000 years. <br />
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I was in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka in July 1983. In the north of the island near Jaffna, a Hindu Tamil girl had apparently been raped by a Buddhist Singalese soldier.<br />
In reprisal, a convoy of Singalese soldiers was ambushed and 13 were killed. In revenge, the Singalese went on a killing rampage in Colombo, hacking Tamils dead in the streets, burning Tamil businesses, some of which had employed them. I saw a bus which had been petrol bombed with people at the windows screaming in flames. Horrible. That smell of burning flesh never leaves your nostrils. <br />
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The killing spree went on unabated for 4 days and nights without intervention. This was the beginning of a civil war which would last 26 years and claim at least 100,000 lives. The war was only ended in 2009. <br />
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The young son had moved his family away to Australia after a bomb had exploded near his family. They left for a few years to escape the violence and had only just moved back to Sri Lanka.<br />
So, when I came back here to re-establish myself in the gem trade, the timing could not have been better.<br />
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The cut and polished end of the gem business had lost its allure for me. The stones that I was interested in, the really fine natural fantastic beauties that I loved buying and selling had become difficult to obtain and prices doubled and redoubled with new players coming into the market such as the Indians and Chinese flush with cash. Demand far out-striped supply.<br />
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Meeting the younger son's children, I had now known the family for 4 generations, and was in a sense a part of it. <br />
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Mining is exciting. It is the most exciting aspect of the business. You never know what the earth will release to you. Much of mining is luck, and my luck has always come from the earth. <br />
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The son introduced us to two of his partners from the nearby town of Pelmadula. They were young men of great luck who had uncovered 10 million dollars worth of sapphire crystals when they had excavated the foundations of their house. <br />
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In September, we all traveled together to Hong Kong for the Gem Show to view stones and develop a common gem language of color, beauty and what constitutes value. The slightest difference of hue can mean thousands of dollars of value and spell the difference between success and failure. <br />
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In October, my wife and I had been in Japan and only returned to Thailand in early November when Bangkok and our house was threatened by floods. Our house manager and other friends laid sand bags, as did most businesses and residences in central Bangkok to protect from possible floods, which had already inundated outer Bangkok with water up to 2 or 3 meters. By late November central Bangkok had been spared from the worst, and by early December we removed the sand bags to the shed, and returned to Sri Lanka.<br />
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December 10th 2011. <br />
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We woke up to the sounds of Buddhist chanting, rhythmic and continuous from somewhere far below the hills we were on top of in Balangoda. I pushed the mosquito net open and looked at the river down below which was swollen from yesterday's rains. From the verandah we are surrounded by fruit trees, jackfruit, guava, mango, and bananas. Birds flit through the branches like living jewels, orange, yellow and red. Some birds are so thick and fluffy as if covered in fur rather than feathers. Groups of macaques come to forage fearlessly and stare back at us. Then the drums begin. It is a full moon tonight and there will be an eclipse. <br />
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The dogs came in tonight after being outside by the river. Small pools of blood glistened on the white tile floor where thick grey leeches which had attached themselves to their paws, inch across the floor and looked for a way back to the foliage. A gecko on the ceiling, walking upside down, lunged at a luminous firefly but missed. <br />
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We drove out of Balangoda in the Landrover where many prehistoric monitor lizards scampered into the jungle. A long cobra slithered away. We stopped near a water fall below which were narrow terraced mud rice fields which we slowly walked over toward a river. Occasionally crystals of sapphire, blues, yellows, pinks, violets and the rare orange could be found on the banks of this river after heavy rains. <br />
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Huge circular wrinkled indentations showed where wild elephants came to forage at night. The miners had built a rather large concrete box shaped structure with a pit in the center which they jumped into and hid when challenged by marauding elephants. When the elephants trundled back into the forest, the miners raised themselves out of the pit with the help of over hanging branches. <br />
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Back in Balangoda, I showed my partner an old Dutch coin that I kept in the coin pouch of my thick ostrich skin wallet. I bought the coin in Colombo and it was dated 1791 during the time when the Dutch occupied Ceylon. My partner said that his father had dug up a clay pot with many coins like this and he wanted to show them to me. From the safe he brought out a bag weighing several kilos which he poured out jingling on to the table. They were all dated from the early 1700's to the late 1700's, the newest dated 1789. Many were covered with a green patina so thick that the dates couldn't even be read. <br />
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Late in the afternoon the marauding band of macaques swing through the trees, jump on the verandah upstairs and try and force open the doors of our bedroom. The sky explodes with thunder and rain as black as steel and make over ripe jackfruit, thorny and rotten red at the stem, drop to the ground with a mushy thud like swollen basketballs. <br />
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Early the next morning I noticed that there had been a migration of thousands of pure white egrets which had all landed together about a kilometer from here. Looking out at them, it was as if the jungle had been covered with snow.RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-551708447121146292011-08-05T18:31:00.000-07:002011-08-05T18:56:02.682-07:00A Man of His WordDennis Rosner was born in Rangoon in 1920 of German immigrant parents who were dairy farmers from the time of King Mindon (1853-1878). Few men have had such an impact on the Kachin State as Rosner. He was a farmer who introduced new crops to the state; he was a British soldier who led his troops into battle against the Japanese; and a teacher who taught thousands of students the English language. I have met young people from all part of Burma who speak flawless English because of his teaching, many of whom became teachers themselves.<br />
<br />
In 1941 Rosner was commissioned in the British Army at Meiktila, south of Mandalay, in central Burma. That year the Japanese took Myitkyina, and by 1942 they controlled much of the territory in the Kachin State. At that time Rosner and 25 other officers were sent to Putao, where thousands of civilians were leaving for India to escape the war. The commander of Rosner's unit was a major H.N Stevenson, and he sent twenty of the officers west to India with provisions and money for other units. Trekking through the Hukawang Valley, the Naga Hills, and the Ledo Road, nineteen of the twenty died of cholera and the twentieth officer was court-martialed for desertion. Rosner and five others had been ordered to stay behind near Sumprabum.<br />
<br />
Rosner was 22 years old in 1942, and his major said that they had better learn the Jinghpaw language because they didn't know how long they would be in the area. Rosner learned Jinghpaw and was promoted to captain, and all of the land from Sumprabum to the Naga hills fell under his command. <br />
<br />
Rosner's scouts informed him that 150 Japanese were coming to attack his unit of fourteen men and himself, so they went with Bren guns to Kumon Pass in the Kumon Range and selected a spot above where the Japanese would approach. They dug trenches, aiming the brens in a crossfire ambush. suddenly, down from the mountains, came three Jinghpaw girls of fourteen, fifteen and seventeen years old. Rosner asked them where they were going, and they answered that they were going to get salt.<br />
<br />
"You can't go. There are Japanese coming up the valley", Rosner said.<br />
"Who are the Japanese?" the girls asked.<br />
"they are our enemies".<br />
"They are just people", the girls replied. "There is no danger from people".<br />
"They will come and shoot us and you".<br />
"Why? we haven't done anything to them".<br />
"If you aren't afraid of the Japanese, there are tigers". One of Rosner's men had previously been dragged away by a tiger. His companion had shot the beast, but also killed the man.<br />
<br />
The girls said, "We are not afraid of tigers. We will chop the tiger with our machete. Let us go and get salt".<br />
"There are wild elephants", Rosner said.<br />
"Elephants! We are used to elephants. We will climb a tree until they go away".<br />
"Not afraid of the Japanese, not afraid of tigers or elephants..........<br />
you come back tomorrow and I'll give you all the salt you want".<br />
<br />
The girls went back to their village, and soon after that, Rosner and his men saw the Japanese coming up the valley with their provisions on two elephants and on mules. He instructed his men not to shoot the elephants. When the Japanese got to within meters of the ambush point, Rosner and his men opened fire, killing 85 of them in the first attack. The Japanese withdrew and Rosner's unit captured the elephants and went back to camp. Later, he was inside his tent making his report when the three girls arrived, asking for their salt.<br />
<br />
"Sir, those three girls are here and they want salt", one of his men informed him.<br />
'Yes, yes, give them all they want", Rosner replied.<br />
<br />
Next day, the girls returned.<br />
<br />
"Sir, those three girls are here again".<br />
"Why?" Rosner asked, annoyed. "Do they want more salt? Didn't you give them their salt?'.<br />
"No sir, it's not that. They have brought presents-baskets of pumpkins, eggs, rice cucumbers, and beer".<br />
"Oh, well, ask them to come to come into the tent", Rosner said.<br />
<br />
It struck him that these girls were both grateful and brave. The seventeen-year- old who was leading them wasn't afraid of the Japanese, nor of tigers or elephants. Rosner told his sergeant to tell her parents to come along and see him. <br />
<br />
Two days later, a half dozen members of the girl's family came to inquire what was happening. Rosner told them that he wanted to marry her.<br />
<br />
No, he was told. No white man had ever married a Kachin. "No, you will leave her". they protested.<br />
"No", Rosner insisted. "I promise that I will stay. I will marry her for life".<br />
<br />
The family discussed the proposal and said that if he married her, he would have to pay double the bride price. The dowry was to be so many buffalo, Chinese long coats, gongs, and guns.<br />
<br />
"I haven't got buffalo or gongs, but I can give you as many guns as you want, and I can give you money", Rosner told them.<br />
<br />
Rosner was paid 900 rupees per month as a captain, and that had not been paid in a year. His troops received sixteen rupees per month. Over the radio he asked to draw his money, and the silver rupees were airdropped by parachute. In 1943 Rosner paid 7,000 rupees for his bride. Buffaloes and pigs were sacrificed for the ceremony, and Rosner was married.<br />
<br />
In 1948, at Burmese independence, Rosner was given the choice of going back to England or staying and becoming a Burmese citizen. He chose to stay. In 1950 he began to teach English at St. Columban's in Myitkyina.<br />
<br />
One day he was on his bicycle when he met an Indian man who asked him if he wanted to buy a plot of land. The Indian took him to the land, which was overgrown with bushes.<br />
Rosner asked how much, and the Indian asked for 300 rupees.<br />
"I'll give you 250", Rosner replied.<br />
<br />
The Indian agreed, and after they had signed the papers, Rosner asked the man why he had sold so cheaply.<br />
<br />
"I have your money and you have my land, so I'll tell you the truth, and please don't get angry", the Indian replied. "Every night, three Japanese soldiers march by my window with their long swords dragging on the ground".<br />
<br />
Rosner wasn't afraid of ghosts, and began to clear the land. Underneath the overgrown bushes he found bomb craters three meters deep. During the war the Americans had held Myitkyina's airfield and the Japanese had held the town. Rosner's land was in between the two, where many bombs had fallen. Clearing the land, he dug up 21 skeletons, which he gathered together and buried in one grave near a bamboo grove at the back of his land.<br />
<br />
When I visited Dennis, he was growing strawberries, which he had introduced from Maymyo, near Mandalay; also many kinds of vegetables and orchids. I brought him tomato seeds from my father's own garden, which would yield him fruit of more than a pound each. He planted them the very next day.<br />
<br />
Dennis spoke fluent Jinghpaw, English, German, and Burmese. He had twelve children, all of whom he delivered himself after his wife had prepared boiling water and laid down to give birth. His last two were twins. At each birth, his wife told him to measure the baby's umbilical cord to its knee, cut it with a sliver of bamboo, tie the end, and dip it in saffron powder with ground nutmeg paste and Kachin liquor.<br />
<br />
Dennis had 33 grandchildren, 26 of whom lived with him on his productive farm. Of the twelve children and 33 grandchildren, all looked like Jinghpaw, except one, a granddaughter, who looked like Dennis-a lovely little girl with curly blonde hair and blue eyes.<br />
<br />
At the age of 77, Dennis still rode his bicycle every day from his farm into Myitkyina town, wearing his old straw hat, to tutor his students in English, to say a prayer at the church, and to sit down for a welcome cup of tea in one of the teahouses.RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-42118659372953606082011-06-18T21:18:00.000-07:002011-06-18T21:18:59.700-07:00To The Virtue of a ProstituteDelicious strumpet. Most worthy and most ancient profession, I salute you. Your perfume lingers on my fingers. I have been pondering your fortitude, self-denial, justice, ethics, simplicity and excellence since lately, whores form my most intimate circle of friends and are the class of people with whom I generally choose to spend my precious time, attracted as I am by the unmistakable knowledge of what the bargain requires.<br />
<br />
True, with a harlot there can be few conversations and discussions of Shakespeare or of macro-economic trends in disadvantaged countries of sub-saharan Africa or of the relative merits of nuclear versus neutron bomb superiority in a scenario of mutually-assured destruction, but these subjects make me puke, and anyway, I would much rather know what that girl, shifting her ass on that bar stool needs to spread her legs. <br />
<br />
Prostitute: A woman willing to have sexual relations with men for money. <br />
If that definition is reliable, then by that same definition, do not most women prostitute themselves, the only question being one of price? To paraphrase what George Bernard Shaw is said to have said to a woman sitting next to him at a dinner party:<br />
"Madame, would you sleep with me for a million dollars?".<br />
"Humm, a million dollars, yeah, I guess I would".<br />
"Well then, would you sleep with me for ten dollars?".<br />
"Sir, what kind of a woman do you take me for?".<br />
"Madame, what kind of woman you are has already been established; what remains is just to agree on a price".<br />
<br />
Jackie O says to Ari, supine on her yacht chair, "I'm a former First Lady, the nearest a person can rise to royalty in these United States of America. I am beautiful and a millionaire in my own right, perhaps the most desirable woman in the world, but ok, Ari, I will sleep with you, your ugly Greek, simian ass, for say, twenty million in Switzerland, and a bag of large diamonds".<br />
<br />
Does that make Jackie a whore?<br />
<br />
How about the girl next door in the blue gingham dress, which matches her sparkling eyes, and the golden corn-silk hair, pursed lips in the shape of a heart, who wouldn't let anyone near her 'secret place' and would probably deny even having one if somebody asked her, who winced when she had to touch it herself. She says nothing, but blushes red, but you know for certain that she will sleep with you at least once for forty years of marriage, emotional and financial support for life, and a degree of blindness on your part with regard to the cellulite that she will develop, as thick as a callous on the backs of her monstrous thighs. <br />
How different is this from the honesty of a girl who offers to screw you for a ten-dollar bill?<br />
<br />
Sigmund Freud had it all wrong with his theory of penis envy. Jack told Jill that he would show her his if she would show him hers. After seeing his dangling penis and inspecting the empty space between her own legs, she runs home distraught and cries to her mother a lament of her envy for his penis and how she wants to have one. Her mother, raising Jill's skirt, points to the dimpled mound between her daughter's legs and says, "Don't worry dear, with just one of these, you can have as many of those as you want". <br />
In the seventeenth chapter of "The Book of Revelation", from that worn out, dog-eared supermarket rag known as the bible, the Great Prostitute is described as a woman sitting astride a red beast that has wicked names written all over it. The beast has seven heads and ten horns. The woman is dressed in purple and scarlet and covered with gold ornaments, precious stones, and pearls. In her hand she holds a gold cup full of obscene and filthy things, the result of her immorality. On her forehead was written a name that has a secret meaning, "the mother of all prostitutes and perverts in the world". <br />
Until then I had not known that I had a patron saint.<br />
<br />
With all the vagaries concerning the good girl or the bad girl, we are told that the good girl will only let you have it after marriage and not before. The bad girl<br />
will give it to you or anybody else she fancies because she likes it as much as you do. Good girl, bad girl, the blur is as indistinct as a grey cat in the fog. I prefer to skip the ambiguity and hypocrisy entirely and to shoot fish in a barrel. True, the sport is missing, but the conclusion is sure. Let the deluded fool who said "money can't buy you love", spend some time with me and I will prove his conjecture to be as absurd and ridiculous as that of the fool who proposed the existence of phlogiston and the auto-combustibility of matter.<br />
<br />
A prostitute's genius resides in her meritorious response to the legions of men in need of love and understanding. She, the dedicated lover who reveals more truth and illuminates more hidden chambers in the dark hearts of men than all the libraries of psychiatry.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UsTj8J-XqqM/Tf13t43fV1I/AAAAAAAAAGw/af2usKuherY/s1600/IMG_7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="233" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UsTj8J-XqqM/Tf13t43fV1I/AAAAAAAAAGw/af2usKuherY/s320/IMG_7.jpg" /></a></div>RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-43405717214848017392011-04-28T05:41:00.000-07:002011-05-09T20:02:12.026-07:00Two Legs Are Better Than OneThe ancient, abandoned capital of Pagan had flourished from about the ninth century until-as one theory goes-the armies of Kublai Khan overran the city and its one million inhabitants for not paying tribute, thus causing the entire population to flee. Whatever the true reason for Pagan's demise, the city's thousands of magnificent temples, stupas, and pagodas were left to stand abandoned, silently and intact, for many centuries. The huge city-situated on a plain as flat as a drum, and bordered by the gigantic Irrawaddy River on one side, and mountains on the other-remains one of the great wonders of the world.<br />
I left Taunggyi in the Shan State heading for Pagan. There were at least 25 people crammed into every space of the truck. People hacked out the portals and they smoked nonstop, next to the gasoline drums; babies, held by their mothers, pissed from the tailgate and it flew back into our faces; and old ladies leaned on me and dug their bony elbows into my ribs. My ass felt as red and swollen as a baboon's from sitting on the truck's wooden bench for ten hours. All the while the eyes drilled me, and there were probing questions.<br />
<br />
"Are you a tourist? Where is your group?"<br />
<br />
"Have you been to Burma before? How many times?"<br />
<br />
"Where have you been? Where are you going?"<br />
<br />
I finally arrived in Pagan. Nearly two years before, I had ordered a lacquered table in five different colors from the best shop in Pagan. the table would take a full year to make, so I'd left a deposit of 1,000 Kyats. The lacquer ware of Pagan, in all of its applications, has been produced for centuries. The extremely dry climate is ideal for the drying processes, which must be undertaken for every layer of lacquer applied. Lacquer can be painted on teak furniture, applied to woven bamboo for utilitarian articles (such as monk's alms bowls), and even to woven horse hair that is so delicate and flexible that one side of a cup lacquered with it can be pressed to touch the opposite side. It can be etched and is waterproof. I paid the balance, and a final hand-polishing with petrified wood dust and teak charcoal made it gleam.<br />
<br />
I invited a group of local friends out for dinner to feast on fresh river prawns. <br />
One friend named Mya Mya had a sincere appreciation for Burmese arts and culture, and mentioned to me that several stone fragments of a Buddha statue dating from the late eleventh or early twelfth century had just been unearthed near the huge Sulamani Temple.<br />
<br />
The next day Jizshe and I drove on a dirt track lined with cactus and thorny scrub brush that could only be eaten by goats. We plodded on along a rutted track until he pulled his sweat-glistening horse to a stop at a lonely enclosure within sight of Sulamani Temple. Here, a long wooden table was covered with chicken-wire to protect artifacts that had been unearthed from near the temple. A family lived near this enclosure, a husband and wife with two daughters, whose sold job was to guard the relics. Their house was more like a temporary shelter built of bamboo.<br />
<br />
As I leaned forward to get a better look at the massive fragment of the Buddha's head-classic, with fine lines and curves, indicating that it was from the twelfth century-I noticed a girl with a radiant smile standing beside me. When I drew back to look at her, I saw that she used a crutch and was missing her left leg below the knee. I asked Jizshe to ask the family how this had happened, and they said she had simply been born that way. By the glow of her smile I could see that in no way did she see her condition as any particular impediment.<br />
<br />
Hkay Ti Win was twelve years old and had huge sparkling eyes. Something in her spirit inspired me. So many people with no handicaps defeat themselves in life, while this girl, hobbling along on one leg, was filled with hope. I took some pictures of her, some with the Canon and others with the Polaroid, which I gave to her. She was attending school and was obviously a bright student. I could clearly see her family's love for her, as they dressed her in the best cloths they could afford, and her sister tied ribbons in her hair. <br />
<br />
One of my dearest friends in Rangoon, then eighty years old, was Dr. Maung Maung Taik, who was the chief forensic pathologist in Burma. He estimated that he had conducted over 30,000 autopsies, in various cases, including one on his own son, who had died of a drug overdose years before, I couldn't even imagine a man conducting an autopsy on his own son! He had also performed the autopsy on General Aung San, Aung San Su Kyi's father, after he was assassinated in July 1947. Dr. Taik had trained hundreds, perhaps thousands, of doctors, and he was looked upon with the great respect that only a lifetime of service can merit. He was also a noted golfer, who still played several rounds a week. He used to play with General Ne Win, who in his paranoia, wore a metal helmet, even on the course, as he expected to be shot by his political enemies. <br />
<br />
Dr. Taik drank a few glasses of single-malt whiskey every day, and was one of the best cooks I know. He probably spoke better English than me, and during my visits we often debated the origins of words, consulting a dog-eared dictionary several inches thick. He would often invite me over for a dinner, and during the frequent electrical blackouts in Rangoon, would start up his 100-year-old gramophone with a hand crank, and we would listen to thick scratchy records.<br />
<br />
The beauty of the statue fragments I had seen in Pagan remained in my head, but Hkay Ti Win's family were the guardians of the pieces and I could never have compromised them because the archaeological authorities in Pagan would certainly have known about them. When I got back to Rangoon, I mentioned to Dr. Taik that I had met a girl of twelve years old near the Sulamani Temple, and that she had been born without the lower half of one leg. he asked me where the leg ended, and I told him just below the knee. the joint at the knee functioned perfectly and the upper tibia and fibula were present, ending in a blunt stump. <br />
<br />
Dr. Taik mentioned that one of his former students was now the superintendent of the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Rangoon, and that he would be happy to introduce me, as they could provide a prosthetic leg for young Hkay Ti Win.<br />
<br />
I immediately arranged to have her and her mother come to Rangoon for treatment. It was the first time she had ever left rural Pagan. the journey took twenty hours because the bus blew five tires on the way.<br />
<br />
The hospital had open windows and overhead fans that didn't work. In a courtyard scores of patients awaited new limbs or learned to use their new prosthetics with nurses assisting them. Hkay Ti Win, her mother, and I were shown into the superintendent's office, where Dr. Taik introduced us to Dr. Min Lwin Ramu, who examined Hkay Ti Win's leg. <br />
<br />
Dr. Min Lwin Ramu said that they would be glad to provide the new prosthesis and the training to walk on two feet. They would also provide lodging for Hkay Ti Win and her mom, as well as food. Dr. Taik said that if I didn't have the money, it wasn't a problem since they would provide all of this for free. I said thank you, but no, I was willing to pay. the entire cost was only a few hundred dollars, which I happily paid. <br />
<br />
I learned later that Hkay Ti Win and her mom had stayed at the hospital for a few weeks, and Dr. Taik and some of my Rangoon friends visited often, bringing cookies and magazines. The cast for a new limb was being transformed into a new leg, which she would be taught to use by the staff. With her new leg cast fitted, Hkay Ti Win was soon able to run and ride a bicycle for the first time in her life. I asked her for only one thing in return-the well-worn, well polished wooden crutch that her father had made for her. I have that crutch now, in Bangkok.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0FlreZUnbBg/Tblbwl-CWJI/AAAAAAAAAGM/eWfROCANKdE/s1600/IMG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="216" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0FlreZUnbBg/Tblbwl-CWJI/AAAAAAAAAGM/eWfROCANKdE/s320/IMG.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dgNYFRMQcOw/TbldAXeKUUI/AAAAAAAAAGU/2SlUPZR9ccc/s1600/IMG_0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="219" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dgNYFRMQcOw/TbldAXeKUUI/AAAAAAAAAGU/2SlUPZR9ccc/s320/IMG_0001.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HPq1DHEP-_c/Tbldr_yVXNI/AAAAAAAAAGc/Gz2ilXZpZAM/s1600/IMG_0002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="306" width="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HPq1DHEP-_c/Tbldr_yVXNI/AAAAAAAAAGc/Gz2ilXZpZAM/s320/IMG_0002.jpg" /></a></div>RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-76297832757970002742011-04-06T00:31:00.001-07:002021-09-13T23:45:52.319-07:00Salome<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lC9Qs5uQCcY?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
This youtube video was made by a friend who shot me painting, one time each week, for the 3 months it took to complete the painting.RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-58313808515913227762011-04-04T02:26:00.000-07:002011-04-04T02:30:12.382-07:00The Death of an Orange Sapphire<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mIe2QWYl91Q/TZk-WZkqHCI/AAAAAAAAAGI/st180Yw8GmA/s1600/IMG_3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="288" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mIe2QWYl91Q/TZk-WZkqHCI/AAAAAAAAAGI/st180Yw8GmA/s320/IMG_3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>It was virtually the last piece of fax paper to roll out of the machine, striped with red edges, the end of the roll.<br />
Since we were moving to a new house the next day, there was no use to put a new roll in the machine now. We would have a new phone number, and there is no such thing as a tape-recorded referral number in Bangkok. My old friend Dharmaratna in Sri Lanka, had he sent the fax just a few hours later, would not have been able to reach me. It had been five years since I had seen him, although I had briefly been in Sri lanka a year before, in 1996, shortly after the Tamil Tigers had blown up the Central Bank in Colombo, killing scores of people. I had had a specific job on that trip to deliver money and to pick up stones, I called nobody.<br />
The fax read: "Urgent, there is a rare gem piece with me. Please contact me or my son immediately". I called him right back and he laughed mirthfully as he described finding a large gem crystal with his own hands that very day. He said it was found in the rain-soaked earth of his mine near the mist-shrouded mountains of Balangoda in southern-central Sri Lanka.<br />
<br />
It was an orange sapphire of over 400 carats-clean, bright, and a deep orange. He had not seen a piece like this in thirty years of mining, and I could sense the confidence he felt in his luck. Knowing how very rare such a piece was, I wanted to be a part of it. I flew to Sri Lanka.<br />
<br />
When I arrived in Colombo, Dharmaratna came immediately to my hotel. In my room. I held the crystal, which was as large as a chicken egg, 425 carats in the rough, with three natural crystal faces from the original hexagonal six till evident, yet frosted as if alluvial and water worn. One side was a concoidal fracture that was glassy and allowed a transparent, if concave, window through which I could see into the interior of the stone. This view showed that the stone was quite clean with none of the inclusions such as 'strong silk' or 'liquid feathers' that could impede the passage of light and affect the brilliancy once it was cut. The few cracks that it did have on the surface did not seem to extend deeply into the crystal and could easily be removed by cutting. On one of the frosted faces there were three or four parellel lines of blue caused by minute traces of titanium remaining from when the stone was formed, but they were confined to the outer skin. The stone told an interesting geological history, confirming that it had not been treated in any way.<br />
The color was tangerine orange. Although not the salmon reddish-orange of a sunset, called padparadscha, it was surely colored by a combination of chromium and a slight bit of iron. On first inspection, the shape of the crystal seemed to lend itself to a 'cushion' cut, losing a minimum of weight while retaining the maximum of brilliancy and luster. The table cut seemed obvious, being the largest surface and slightly rounded, leaving room for graceful 'shoulders' and crown facets. What could become the pavillion, the bottom of the stone, already had its angles present, as if they had been formed into the crystal by Nature.<br />
<br />
The stone seemed like it was born to be a 'cushion'. However, cupping it between my thumb and fingers and viewing it down the side rather than through the open face, I could see I was wrong. The stone would display a richer orange and the body color could be multiplied by cutting the table in the opposite direction, although the yield would be smaller. I figured that it could be cut into a single piece of 120 to 140 carats. The potential was there to produce perhaps one of the world's largest orange sapphires.<br />
Dharmaratna only dealt in rough stones, since he was a mine owner, but I thought that if a cutter could just open a face, I could better determine the ultimate color and clarity. This however presented new problems. The first was the problem of secrecy. Could we find a cutter who would not betray to other dealers the existence of such a rare stone? Another problem was that after the stone had been opened, Dharmaratna would see clearly what the stone would become, and would thus raise his price if it exceeded his expectations. Not opening the stone presented the danger of finding some inclusions that could not be seen in the rough. Buying rough stones is a gamble, but uncut is where the big profit is, as well as the big loss.<br />
I decided it best to bring a buyer here to see the stone himself, in the rough, and have him decide what to do. the questions which remained were how large, how clean, how brilliant, and how much. <br />
<br />
Enter the buyers:<br />
<br />
Teddy Doyle, and Australian ex-SAS commando, married to the daughter of a high-ranking Indonesian general, and Lee Wolf, who had a gem company in Bangkok called Pacific East Trading. Teddy had spent several years in Indonesia before moving to Thailand, where he met up with Lee. They decided to work together, and in 1997 formed a new company called the Opal Factory at Khao Yai, northeast of Bangkok, at the foot of some beautiful mountains near the entry to the national park there.<br />
I found out later that the new company was financed by another Australian, a nerdy-looking guy named Max Green. Max, who I met several times at Pacific East Trading's office on Convent Road in Bangkok, turned out to have looted up to 20 million dollars from trust funds under his management. Of that sum, 10 million dollars was said to have been given to Teddy and Lee to run Pacific East Trading, the Opal Factory, and to purchase stones.<br />
All of the stone-cutters and polishers at the Opal Factory were handicapped men and women in wheelchairs, and Paul Elmer, the manager, built modified three-wheeled motorcycles for each of them to ride to and from work. Teddy and Lee were very generous. As a practical joke, Teddy had imported real Australian road signs warning drivers of kangaroos, and put them up on signposts on the country roads around the Opal Factory and the national park. The local authorities never even noticed, and the signs weren't removed. Unsuspecting visitors to the area were fooled into thinking that wild kangaroos were hopping around this part of upcountry Thailand. For all I know, the signs are still there.<br />
I called Lee from Colombo, and described the orange sapphire. Of course he was interested, he said, and was prepared to fly to Sri Lanka straight away to purchase the stone for cash.<br />
Lee had his first chance to see the stone, and offered 25,000 dollars, eventually raising the bid to 40,000 after the first round of negotiation. Dharmaratna must have been disappointed with this bid, as he returned to Balangoda and called me later that afternoon, saying that he had found a buyer for 70,000. I asked him to return to Colombo immediately and to bring the stone with him. He asked me if there was really a reason to return, as the trip was a three-hour drive. I assured him that there was.<br />
Calling him back again, he told me that a buyer in Ratnapura had offered him 90,000. Maybe he was bluffing, trying to drive up his price, but he knew we had cash and that we were scheduled to leave soon. His reluctance to return convinced me that he really did have that offer. I knew that if we did not get him back soon, the stone would be bid up beyond the gamble that we were willing to take.<br />
Dharmaratna returned later that evening and Lee canceled his return flight to Bangkok. For four hours we negotiated back and forth and, exasperated, Lee finally bought the stone for an even 100,000 dollars. Later in a Chinese restaurant out of Lee's sight, Dharmaratna gave me 10,000 dollars.<br />
What would happen now depended on what was inherent in the stone and the skill of the cutter.<br />
*<br />
Lee and I returned to Bangkok, where he and Teddy would decide what to do with the rough. They had paid for it, it was their stone and their decision.<br />
Lee, who is not a gemologist, was convinced by somebody that the orange color could be enhanced by burning.<br />
Burning a stone at a low temperature to remove 'silk' or to improve the brilliancy or color can be a way of completing Nature's process. It can also be a dangerous operation with unpredictable results. I cautioned them and said that, as it was, the stone would yield a flawless gem of over 100 carats and would be perhaps the finest of its kind in the world. My advice was ignored and they burned the stone.<br />
<br />
The result was that the rich tangerine-orange was burned out, and what remained was a golden yellow-lemon. Rather than having a fabulous gem worth over a million dollars, they now had at best a 50,000 dollar stone.<br />
Worse was to come later.<br />
In the meantime, I joined up with a couple of Japanese gem-dealers to assist them in their buying. We bought large, sometimes 100 kilo boulders of jadeite, in Burma. These huge white-and-green streaked monsters were shipped to the Opal Factory at Khao Yai to be hollow drilled into long tubular seals which the Japanese, having the characters of their names etched in the bottoms, use to sign legal documents for real estate and banking transactions. They are called hanko. Some had a very fine medium emerald green color.<br />
<br />
One afternoon in March 1998, I was with Teddy, waiting for a new batch of hanko to be polished by his workers, when his mobil phone rang. Max Green was dead. He had been murdered in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in room 511 of the Sofitel Cambodiana. It was a very professional job. The hallway cameras had either been disabled or the film removed.Whoever had murdered Max was extremely angry. Stealing 20 million dollars would make many people angry. Max's head had been smashed completely. His gold Cartier watch, his cash, passport, credit cards were still in the room. Only his laptop was missing. He was so disfigured that he could only be identified by dental records. Later in Melbourne, by court order, he was exhumed to prove it actually was him. It was.<br />
<br />
So who killed Max Green? Who knows? I can say for sure that it was not Teddy Doyle, as the Australian press had suggested. I know because I was with Teddy at Khao Yai when Max was murdered in Cambodia.<br />
After Max's death, the money dried up, and the businesses were closed. Teddy was said to have gone to England. Lee was said to have gone to Pattaya to manage a bar. I lost the share I would have received from that unrealized magnificent orange gem, but at least I did walk away with 10,000 bucks.RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-91330471149017520182011-03-10T21:46:00.000-08:002011-03-10T21:46:23.012-08:00Elephant MemoriesThe first memory that I have of elephants, the great gray behemoth, is extremely vivid. Every year for about ten days Ringling Brothers Barnum and Baily Circus, "The Greatest Show on Earth" would roll in to town on the Southern Pacific Railway which stopped at the foot of Geneva Avenue near San Francisco. The road would be closed to all traffic as the animals, the horses, lions, tigers, monkeys and elephants, along with the acrobats, trapeze artists, clowns, sequented women, jugglers, midgets and dozens of carnies, the traveling carnival workers came marching up the road to the Cow Palace where my father was manager. I had access to all areas of that drafty colosseum where the circus set up. In the south hall the elephants were chained around the legs, wrinkled, grey and as thick as tree trunks. When the doors sung open and the 16,000 spectators flooded the mezzanine, some walked up close to feed the elephants peanuts from red and white striped bags.<br />
I must have been about 5 or 6 years old and between shows I went behind the barricades alone to feed them. <br />
One huge elephant quickly snatched me up in his trunk and lofted me up into the air, his trunk weaving back and forth above his head, warming up like a baseball pitcher, grasping me tightly. One of the handlers nearby came running up with a long wooden shaft that had a gaffers hook on the end, grabbing his trunk, pulling it downwards, he released me. I thought it was all great fun and only realized later, seeing the trainers terror that the elephant intended to hurl me against the far wall like ripened fruit.<br />
Until very recently, elephants could be found with their mahoots wandering around the neon lit streets of Bangkok begging money for bananas or sugar cane. One baby elephant of about 2 or 3 years old named Dodo was a cute little fellow who drunk as I was one evening thought it would be a great idea to own. I bargained with the mahoot and finally settled on ten thousand dollars for Dodo. When he called me the next day, truck ready to haul him over to our house, my wife said "no way, what are you nuts?". By then I had mercifully sobered up and knew she was right. Oh demon Irish whisky.<br />
There can be no doubt that elephants are highly intelligent social animals. They are the largest land animal in the world and eat 250 kilos of food everyday. The gestation period is about 22 months and babies suckle for a couple of years. At maturity they can reach 10 feet tall and weigh up to 6 tons. In their lifetimes they have 6 sets of teeth compared to the only 2 sets for humans. Could this be because until recently men only lived an average of 20 to 30 years while for many thousands of years the elephant lived to be up to 80? Several dentists in Japan who work on one of the world's oldest populations have told me that in several cases in their careers, they have had patients who at 90 or 100 years and over have begun to develop a third set of teeth.<br />
Elephants can recognize themselves in mirrors as has been proven. After looking over, under and around a mirror, they will, by a mark placed on the forehead touch that spot and realize that they are looking at themselves. They are self aware.<br />
They bury their dead with twigs and leaves and further grieve with the death of one of their members. Elephants give birth to twins very, very rarely and when they do the twins are usually still born. In 1993 in Thailand an elephant gave birth to twin sisters. One twin was born dead and the other desperately tried using her trunk to lift her dead sister to her feet, Seeing she was dead she became depressed and refused to eat.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-0R5q262fkHA/TXm02XDtxmI/AAAAAAAAAFk/zNgo9yyoxwc/s1600/afr_07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-0R5q262fkHA/TXm02XDtxmI/AAAAAAAAAFk/zNgo9yyoxwc/s320/afr_07.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-qfb8kXkGJ3o/TXm1qtOuhwI/AAAAAAAAAF4/13dtGV-BaRk/s1600/afr_12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-qfb8kXkGJ3o/TXm1qtOuhwI/AAAAAAAAAF4/13dtGV-BaRk/s320/afr_12.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-gUPW6rw6jFI/TXm1ApgrGLI/AAAAAAAAAFo/ohPj03pX-sM/s1600/afr_31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-gUPW6rw6jFI/TXm1ApgrGLI/AAAAAAAAAFo/ohPj03pX-sM/s320/afr_31.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-kNfa3wR8Ikw/TXm1ckYG3SI/AAAAAAAAAF0/rBGoRjWPGSA/s1600/white-elephant-thailand-phra-savet-adulyadej-pahon1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-kNfa3wR8Ikw/TXm1ckYG3SI/AAAAAAAAAF0/rBGoRjWPGSA/s320/white-elephant-thailand-phra-savet-adulyadej-pahon1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-zq7ZHJNUE9c/TXm2JqcMK0I/AAAAAAAAAF8/spyy1hZ8lBA/s1600/DSC00874_1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-zq7ZHJNUE9c/TXm2JqcMK0I/AAAAAAAAAF8/spyy1hZ8lBA/s320/DSC00874_1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>In September 2006, my wife Junko and I went to sub-Saharan Africa for the first time. In northern Kenya at a place called Shaba, exactly between the trees where Joy Adamson had her camp and was raising a leopard named Penny, her husband George wrote his diary. Joy would later take his notes and write "Born Free" a best selling book which later became a movie. We camped exactly on that spot. Joy Adamson would later be murdered by a disgruntled employee and there is a marker nearby.<br />
Shaba is a tented camp and at night if we needed anything we would have to call the front desk by radio phone and they would send a Masai warrior with a spear. We couldn't wander around outside because of the nocturnal lions. One morning I was looking across the marshy lagoon through binoculars and saw an elephant suddenly expel a huge torrent of liquid from between her hind legs followed by a massive pearlescent bean shaped form. I called out to Junko who was also out on the porch and told her to look through her binoculars at the elephant across the lagoon. All at once as she focused, another flood of liquid spewed out and another huge iridescent placenta fell out.<br />
We took the land rover with our guide to drive over and have a closer look. The elephant peeled back the shimmering tissue with her trunk and at a safe distance through my 400 mm lens, I began to observe and snap pictures. As in the account witnessed in Thailand, she began to prod the calves with her truck, trying desperately to awaken them, prodding them with her foreleg. <br />
They would not move.<br />
They were born dead.<br />
Some of her female relatives came out of the bush to join her, warding off the predatory animals who were beginning to gather. They swung their trunks at the vultures hovering in the air above, charging the hyenas and jackals. Lions growled deeply resonating in the distance. For three days we periodically watched her and her relatives grieve. Through the lens I could see her cry. A constant river of tears ran down her face, it was a heart breaking scene.<br />
Finally after keeping their vigilance the herd moved on to let nature take its course. The event was so rare that the elephant research department center sent out observers to investigate and document.<br />
In Burma elephants traditionally have always been captured and trained by the Karen people in the forests of Karen State to haul the golden logs of precious teak. That rugged terrain is virtually inaccessible and teak logs impossible to move without the help of the elephant. Top quality golden teak is worth many thousands of dollars per ton, and one log weighs several tons. Domesticated elephants are also used for human transport as there are few roads across the dark mountains and deep jungles of Eastern Burma. I had ridden elephants in rebel held areas of Karen and Karinni States going to visit remote tribes such as the Kayan whose women wear enormous hoops of black lacquered cotton ropes around their legs making their ability to walk difficult. My elephant was over 30 years old, a female with bright golden eyes. The saddle was a curved wooden basket slotted together which the mahout who rode on her spiky haired neck tied me securely into. I questioned the wisdom of this thinking that if the elephant were to fall over, I would be crushed. She flapped her pink and gray spotted ears against the mahouts knees as he directed her movements. She weaved between formidable trees which grew long thorns that could scrape off your skin like a cheese grater, avoiding them by inches. Clearly she knew her limits and this gave me confidence. The reason for being tied into the saddle became clear when we rode up the slippery face of a waterfall strewn with boulders, she rising up with a step then dipping down with another, I was thrown from side to side on her massive shoulder blades as she tested every step before taking it, higher and higher up the crest of the hill. She was far more sure footed than any horse could ever possibly have been.<br />
A distant cousin of the Asian and African elephant is the woolly mammoth which became extinct 10 to 12 thousand years ago.Japanese scientists have extracted DNA from a baby mammoth found complete and frozen solid in the Siberian wasteland. I have no doubt that the woolly mammoth will be the first completely extinct animal to ever be brought back to life.<br />
Elephants have always been revered. From the Hindu elephant god Ganesh, to Hannibal using them to cross the Alps and fight the Romans who in awe, later minted their images in to their coins 2000 years ago.<br />
In the royal courts of Burma not so very long ago, the sacred white elephant could only be possessed by kings, had their own musicians to serenade them, and were suckled by the most beautiful flawless young maidens from whose ample breasts poured milk. The girls would have had long braided coils of black oiled hair piled up on their heads with clusters of yellow padauk blossoms which nearly touched their bare shoulders They would fall to their knees at the leathery feet of the great white tusker, their hands with coral pink palms cupping uplifted breasts from which the pale pachyderm satiated his thirst.<br />
In the west the term white elephant has come to mean something completely useless and wasteful, perhaps because of the incredible costs incurred by maintaining one. <br />
Finally there is the elephant memory which I wear. The Perahera in Sri Lanka where a parade of up to 100 elephants dressed in mirrored satin and gemstones with gold rings on their ivory tusks are ridden by men beneath the bearers of umbrellas. The lead elephant, the largest carries a chest on his back which contains the sacred tooth relic of the Buddha. I have that image of that elephant from the Parahera carved as an intaglio in blue sapphire which was panned from the gem gravels in a stream near Ratnapura. I took it in trade from a Muslim gem dealer who had no interest in Buddhist artifacts. I mounted it in 22 karat gold ring. It is ancient.<br />
Its origins are completely unknown.RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-59527745958944029962011-02-05T03:28:00.000-08:002011-02-05T03:28:12.589-08:00Making Fire<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AG50E_OMDzY/TU0zdMmvYlI/AAAAAAAAAFY/PmfqWt-HlEo/s1600/afr_22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AG50E_OMDzY/TU0zdMmvYlI/AAAAAAAAAFY/PmfqWt-HlEo/s320/afr_22.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AG50E_OMDzY/TU0zorV1cII/AAAAAAAAAFc/8_SomQq3fWg/s1600/afr_23.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AG50E_OMDzY/TU0zorV1cII/AAAAAAAAAFc/8_SomQq3fWg/s320/afr_23.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AG50E_OMDzY/TU0zyuZ9CJI/AAAAAAAAAFg/E3DLju0SKnA/s1600/afr_21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AG50E_OMDzY/TU0zyuZ9CJI/AAAAAAAAAFg/E3DLju0SKnA/s320/afr_21.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>It is said that Prometheus defied the gods and stole fire as a gift to men. For this he was severely punished by being chained to a rock and having his liver torn out and eaten by an eagle everyday. Gods are never pleased when mere mortals usurp their power. Fire is the element that ends the life of the phoenix consuming him in a pile of ashes, and is the same power which resurrects him to a new life. Light is defined and separated from the darkness by fire, illuminating, silhouetting and expelling hungry carnivorous animals lurking at the porphyry of the unseen. Fire drives away evil spirits from a community and from the imaginations of men.<br />
Two million years ago a strike of lightening may have hit a tree or a dry bush, perhaps a volcano erupted and allowed paleolithic man to capture that stunning power and bring it home like a treasure. Who was that genius who recognized the power of fire?<br />
Power to be warm in the cold, power to distinguish your neighbors at night from your foes. Power to burn down your enemies settlements and steal their wives and goods. Fire to cook your meat to a crispy sizzling brown rather than that same old bloody raw carpaccio. <br />
So if your Zippo looses it's flame, your box of matches has gone soggy, and you just can't wait for that next strike of lightening, or for that rumbling volcano near you to explode, teeth chattering in the darkness, here is your solution brought to you by the Samburu tribe of Kenya and Tanzania. Home made portable, all purpose Fire.<br />
Try some today!RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700741168999494249.post-49080558452857195182011-01-30T21:06:00.000-08:002011-01-30T21:28:30.059-08:00The Strand Hotel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AG50E_OMDzY/TUY6k-fue7I/AAAAAAAAAFA/GTSmyQ6-vhM/s1600/IMG_0001_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AG50E_OMDzY/TUY6k-fue7I/AAAAAAAAAFA/GTSmyQ6-vhM/s400/IMG_0001_1.jpg" width="281" /></a></div><br />
<br />
In 2003, a book was published by Andreas Augustin simply called "The Strand Yangon". At the newly renovated bar he asked me what it was like staying there at the faded beauty years ago. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 made travel to Asia far easier and thousands of miles shorter. It was the age of opulent travel, steamer trunks and servants. The Sarkis brothers had already opened the Raffles in Singapore and the Eastern-Oriental in Penang. They were to open the Strand in Rangoon 1901.<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AG50E_OMDzY/TUY6vGpwYuI/AAAAAAAAAFE/gFtYoYB8OAE/s1600/IMG_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AG50E_OMDzY/TUY6vGpwYuI/AAAAAAAAAFE/gFtYoYB8OAE/s320/IMG_2.jpg" width="320" /></a>When I first stayed there in the early 1980's the Strand was entered through a thick beat-up side door just down the street from the Military Intelligence building. A well worn check-in desk polished by the historical elbows of the wealthy welcomed me. A telephone operator in a tight patterned sarong sat behind pulling out and plugging in red and black wires from the antique switchboard. The lobby was paved with black and white marble squares, all that was missing were the chessmen. Overhead fans swirled with wooden blades the size of which flew Lindburg over the Atlantic. At the long solid mahogany bar with local rum and gin, Mandalay Beer was served by dark Indian waiters in frayed collars and waxy scented oiled hair. You could feel the ghosts of gentlemen and elegantly dressed women from bygone era. Across the empty lobby was an Otis elevator made of polished brass piloted by a smiling midget, standing well below the levers, controlling by hand where the car stopped , sliding the grate open and closed, usually a foot higher or lower than the actual floor you intended. Legions of arrogant bats flew down the hallways and the occasional rat lurked in the shadows watching which room you were checked into for further reference. <br />
The room itself had a Victorian desk and chair. Each of the legs on your bed stood in a powdery mound of deathly bug killer to insure the creepy crawlies didn't scurry up and sleep with you. On one wall a framed mirror hung with a spiderweb of black, missing the reflective silver, in front of which you swiveled your head enabling you to see only portions of your whole face. The bathroom had a rain shower as big as a dinner plate, where if the water by chance did flow it was intermittently either cold or scalding hot but always without fail, a rusty orange. The toilet had a pull cord with a tank of water overhead. A room was about $25 dollars and the sheets smelled of tropical mold and the last sweat drenched occupants. The best food in town was served downstairs. The restaurant cooked huge lobster thermidor whose tails and legs spilled over the edges of your dish for $3 dollars.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AG50E_OMDzY/TUZAguGQMOI/AAAAAAAAAFQ/y9iy-gOuhZ0/s400/IMG_0002_1.jpg" width="262" /></div><br />
Some of the most intense days of my occupancy were during the uprising of March1988. Sitting in my recessed window sill looking through the old swirly glass on to Strand Road below, across from the jetty and the Rangoon River, tanks occasionally rolled by and dozens of canvas covered trucks carrying young soldiers hefting ancient machine guns, G-2's and G-3's, jumped from the back and fired down the street at protesters who scrambled through clouds of tear gas to avoid getting shot. Many were shot. Here at night was a major capital city in a country the size of France, standing silent, no movement, vacated, deserted, eerie. <br />
In the morning, I was greeted by the leathery doorman, "Good morning sir", as if all were just peaches and walked out into the street which was congested with hustlers, skimmers, scammers and shammers. The only market as usual was the black market.There were gem dealers, antique steelers, pineapple peelers, and money changers all desperate, hovering around watching, waiting, steeped in crimes and intrigue. More violence was expected, people were in the streets, angry. Spies were everywhere, who was who? Who was watching you? I don't know, I would never know, but the eyes would burn like lasers. I hit the streets with discretion and tried to avoid the expected uprising.<br />
Shortly after this any foreigners still in the country left voluntarily or were dispelled. Martial law and the curfew would be declared in June 1988. Soon Burma closed its doors to the world. The Grande Dame was left completely vacant of guests until 1989 when I along with a trickle of foreigners on group tours were once again allowed into the country and into the hotel to breathe her musty history.RICHARD K. DIRANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06796665335916369830noreply@blogger.com1