One rainy morning of a July day, I had a chance to walk up a hill at the centre of Ranong town, for the first time. Overlooking the plain the town sat on, the dark blue sea and green mountains on Burmese shores was visible.
From afar, in such peaceful moment, the picturesque landscape could even make me forget all the accounts of tragic reality the people there living with, under the totalitarian regime.
I then recalled to Emma Larkin's travelogues from Burma, in her book 'Finding George Orwell in Burma'. As she was given an analogy by a Burmese friend about invisible oppression...
"...Burma is like a woman with cancer...She knows she is sick, but she carries on with her life as if nothing is wrong. She refuses to go to a doctor for treatment. Instead, she swirls thanaka on her cheeks, puts fresh flowers in her hair, and goes to the bazaar as if everything is normal. She talks to people, they talk to her. They know she has cancer and she knows she has cancer, but nobody says anything." (p. 46)
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