“IF I can’t dance, then it’s not my revolution.” – Emma Goldman
Friday afternoon my classes are canceled for the FEC school singing competition. Two students from each class are chosen to participate. They remove their shoes and take their places in shaky blue chairs on the stage before their classmates. One by one, the contestants are called by the judge. Each, after perfunctory bows to their teachers and classmates, they draw a small piece paper. The paper lists a topic of which the student has to then create and sing a song for 3 minutes. The improvising gets rowdy applause and laughter from the crowd. The song topics include: Our Education, Winning the Revolution, My Homeland, How to Be a Good Leader, and my favorite topic – How to Keep Food from Thieves. Singing is part of the fabric of life in Mae Ra Moe. When people walk, enter a familiar place, or find themselves at work, they sing. Though I am fond of all the singing here, and especially the Burmese and Karen folk songs played on the mandolin, I am most amazed by the symphony each evening that forms as stars appear. It is as though I have season tickets to a concert each night. The symphony begins with the crickets taking the string section. Then, the croaking frogs as a bass, and then the lifting hum of nearby mothers who sing their infants to sleep, who sweetly call their ducks to eat. Then the flock of goats ring their bells in the hills, and the monastery bell, ringing four times, calling it “a day”.
Friday afternoon my classes are canceled for the FEC school singing competition. Two students from each class are chosen to participate. They remove their shoes and take their places in shaky blue chairs on the stage before their classmates. One by one, the contestants are called by the judge. Each, after perfunctory bows to their teachers and classmates, they draw a small piece paper. The paper lists a topic of which the student has to then create and sing a song for 3 minutes. The improvising gets rowdy applause and laughter from the crowd. The song topics include: Our Education, Winning the Revolution, My Homeland, How to Be a Good Leader, and my favorite topic – How to Keep Food from Thieves. Singing is part of the fabric of life in Mae Ra Moe. When people walk, enter a familiar place, or find themselves at work, they sing. Though I am fond of all the singing here, and especially the Burmese and Karen folk songs played on the mandolin, I am most amazed by the symphony each evening that forms as stars appear. It is as though I have season tickets to a concert each night. The symphony begins with the crickets taking the string section. Then, the croaking frogs as a bass, and then the lifting hum of nearby mothers who sing their infants to sleep, who sweetly call their ducks to eat. Then the flock of goats ring their bells in the hills, and the monastery bell, ringing four times, calling it “a day”.
