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Three Pagodas Pass: A Roundabout Journey to Burma (Subway/UTP $19.95)
George Fetherling has some of the derring-do of his mentor, George Woodcock, who took it as a matter of pride to be able to write about anything, but whereas Woodcock was frequently funny in person and mostly dry in print, Fetherling is the reverse.
"Burmese politics,"; Fetherling writes in Three Pagodas Pass: A Roundabout Journey to Burma (Subway/UTP $19.95), "is the most complicated subject I know that actually doesn't involve math."; His self-educating memoir is part of an informal series that will include a follow-up based on his recent jaunt to Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
"Burma is a terrifying example of the present state of world affairs in the post-cold war era, because it combines the worst features of the excesses of communism and the excesses of the marketplace.
"The country is under martial law. Citizens who speak out against the junta, or might do so, are routinely imprisoned and tortured. Tens of thousands of Burmese are taken into indentured servitude to work on government building projects.
"Admittedly there is a fine line between corvée and slavery. What's practiced in Burma involves chains and is known by the old Asian euphemism porterage. Some civilians are used as human land-mine detectors.";
The murderous junta that was known as SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council) had a U.S. P. R. firm devise a less ugly name, the State Peace and Development Council, but the despair of their police state named 'Myanmar' remains. There aren't any known oil reserves to interest the so-called free world. Fetherling links ignorance and horror in the Chatwinesque, 20th century tradition of the loner who de-romanticizes his subjects.
Another B.C. writer, Karen Connelly, has long been at work on a book to be based on her more intimate knowledge of the country, concerned more directly with people and human rights. Meanwhile Fetherling's overview is heartfelt, entertaining and wide-ranging, coincidental with the release of his travel memoir, One Russia, Two Chinas (Beach Holme $22.95). Next publishing stop: Indo-China. Pagodas 0-9687163-2-6; One Russia 0-88878-433-3 (2003)
[Spring 2003 BCBW]
"Burmese politics,"; Fetherling writes in Three Pagodas Pass: A Roundabout Journey to Burma (Subway/UTP $19.95), "is the most complicated subject I know that actually doesn't involve math."; His self-educating memoir is part of an informal series that will include a follow-up based on his recent jaunt to Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
"Burma is a terrifying example of the present state of world affairs in the post-cold war era, because it combines the worst features of the excesses of communism and the excesses of the marketplace.
"The country is under martial law. Citizens who speak out against the junta, or might do so, are routinely imprisoned and tortured. Tens of thousands of Burmese are taken into indentured servitude to work on government building projects.
"Admittedly there is a fine line between corvée and slavery. What's practiced in Burma involves chains and is known by the old Asian euphemism porterage. Some civilians are used as human land-mine detectors.";
The murderous junta that was known as SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council) had a U.S. P. R. firm devise a less ugly name, the State Peace and Development Council, but the despair of their police state named 'Myanmar' remains. There aren't any known oil reserves to interest the so-called free world. Fetherling links ignorance and horror in the Chatwinesque, 20th century tradition of the loner who de-romanticizes his subjects.
Another B.C. writer, Karen Connelly, has long been at work on a book to be based on her more intimate knowledge of the country, concerned more directly with people and human rights. Meanwhile Fetherling's overview is heartfelt, entertaining and wide-ranging, coincidental with the release of his travel memoir, One Russia, Two Chinas (Beach Holme $22.95). Next publishing stop: Indo-China. Pagodas 0-9687163-2-6; One Russia 0-88878-433-3 (2003)
[Spring 2003 BCBW]
Submitted on June 2, 2003 in By David.
