![]() He meets difficulty after difficulty, from being robbed on his way to university, to finding himself in the middle of social protest and a military crackdown. His performance encourages them to sponsor him, though the road to university is still immensely difficult for such a poor young man from a poor family in a poor village. ![]() He somewhat dishonestly tells the priests at his school that he wants to go to seminary, which means he needs an advanced education. The turning point for Thwe is when he earns the opportunity to continue education beyond the 5th or 6th grade. We gain insight into how the locals worship, somehow merging at least three religious traditions–Christianity, Buddhism, and pagan animism–into a cohesive practice, and we learn much about the people’s relationship to their government, which at the time was a kind of military socialism. He invites the reader into the customs and the trials of his family and their small community. Thwe begins his odyssey as a child in his home village. ![]() ![]() Pascal Khoo Thwe’s memoir, From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey is a powerful and powerfully-written representation of Burma just before the war for independence (the rise of Aung San Suu Kyi and establishment of Myanmar). ![]()
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