ARTS & ARCHITECTURE349backing band for the poppier stuff of other singers. One local afi cionado
explains: ‘There’s no competition between a band’s many singers. They
help each other. Our rock singers don’t throw TVs out the windows. On
stage they jump around and all, but off stage they’re very good-natured.’
Female singers like Sone Thin Par and actor Htu Aeindra Bo (www.
htunaeindrabo.com) win fans for their melodies – and looks – but the
most interesting is rapper Phyu Phyu Kyaw Thein, a sort of ‘Sporty Spice’,
who has fronted both Iron Crossand Lazy Club. Other rappers include
Min Min Latt’s son, Anega, now busting beats with other big-name rap-
pers Barbu, Myo Kyawt Myaung and heart-throb Sai Sai. Songs often
deal with gossip, or troubles between parents and kids. Thar Soe is a
popular hip-hop singer whose 2007 hit ‘I Like Drums’ merged nat music
with trance.
Yangon is the best place to catch a show; look out for advertisements
in local publications and on billboards and leafl ets.
Literature
Religious texts inscribed onto Myanmar’s famous kammawaa (lacquered
scriptures)and parabaikk (folding manuscripts) were the fi rst pieces of
literature as such, and began appearing in the 12th century. Until the
1800s, the only other works of ‘literature’ available were royal genealo-
gies, classical poetry and law texts. A Burmese version of the Indian epic
Ramayana was fi rst written in 1775 by poet U Aung Pyo.
The fi rst Myanmar novel Maung Yin Maung Ma Me Ma, an adaptation
of The Count of Monte Cristo by James Hla Kyaw, was published in 1904.
Eric Blair (aka George Orwell) worked in Myanmar from 1922 to 1927
as a policeman, an experience that informed his novel Burmese Days,
fi rst published in 1934. Sharply critical of colonial life in the country, it is
one of the few English-language books still widely available in Myanmar
(unlike Orwell’s 19844 and Animal Farm, political works that are not to
the generals’ tastes).
More recently, Myanmar-born Nu Nu Yi Inwa, one of the country’s
leading writers with at least 15 novels and over 100 short stories to her
name, made the shortlist for the 2007 Man Asian Literary Prize with
Smile As They Bow. The story, set at the Taungbyon Festival held near
Mandalay, follows an elder gay transvestite medium who fears losing his
much younger partner to a woman in the heat of the week-long festivities.
For other novels in English set in Myanmar see p 290.
CENSORING THE MUSICIt’s not just journalists who can fall foul of government censors in Myanmar. Writers of
fi ction, movie makers, performing and visual artists and singers all have to watch out,
too. Back in 1988, popular singer Mun Awng, originally from Kachin, was forced into exile
after participating in anti-government demonstrations. His Battle for Peace album was
recorded in Thailand in the 1990s and he contributed to For the Lady, a 2004 benefi t CD
in support of Aung San Suu Kyi that also includes tracks by U2 and the Indigo Girls.
Rap band 9mm was briefl y detained in 2004 for performing political songs written
by an anonymous prodemocracy group of exiled and local rappers called Myanmar
Future Generations (MFG; http://www.mmfg.netfi rms.com/index2.html).
Sometimes the Big Brother tactics of the censors verge on the ridiculous. In 1998 blues
singer Nyi Pu had to rename his debut Everything’s Going to Be Good to Everything’s Good;
a few years later, Iron Cross’ Myo Gyi changed his Very Wild Wind album to a tamer Breeze.
And when censors wouldn’t go for a literal translation of Eminem’s lyric (‘shake that ass’) in
Sai Sai’s cover version in 2007, Sai Sai sang ‘shake that water pot’ (o lay, hloke pa ohn!).The U2 song Walk
On from the 2001
album All That
You Can’t Leave
Behind is about
and dedicated
to Aung San Suu
Kyi.AUNG SAN SUU KYI