Day Five: Hero and Anti-hero on the same day (8 March 2014)

Today I am honored by a former Shan journalist U San Aung, 90. He couldn’t walk by himself and was accompanied by his son, a former lecturer from the Rangoon Institute of Technology (RIT).

He hails me as a hero and a worthy successor to him, he who had worked with the Myanmar ALin (The Light of Burma) from 1939 to 1962. At that time it was one of the biggest private papers in circulation, “second only to Bama Khit (Burma Times),” according to him.

“You are more than artists, more than missionaries,” he tells the journalists gathering for the third and final day of the Conference afterward. “You are crusaders of truth.”

He also tells them what he thinks about being a good journalist, not just being a journalist. “The skills can be learned, but not the gift,” he says. “It can only come from God.”

Well, if to him I’m a hero, a rising one in my old age, to some others, I have become a fallen one. They think I have forsaken my sacred ideals, and have chosen to become a stooge for people who are reaching for the stars by hobnobbing with the powers that be.

Only my Chinese teacher Sun Tzu (BC 551-467) will appreciate what I’m doing. Maybe not even he if everything goes wrong through mishandling. But I’m used to being misunderstood since my early years, and have so far survived the attacks while remaining friends with those who earlier thought I was a turncoat.

One friend asks me pointblank, whether I’m looking for an official position in the government or party. I have assured him I’d rather be a Gandhi than a Nehru, but I’m not sure if I have convinced him. My only hope is that time will do it for me, as it did in the past.

The conference ends by forming a task force entrusted to form an Ethnic Media Network (EMN). A young PaO is elected as a member to represent the Shan State.

This evening I have a good time visiting a friend whom I knew since 1990, instead of joining the farewell dinner party for the conference participants at the hotel.

I’m sure I’m going to meet them again soon.

I spend the next two days visiting old friends: Sao Yunpeng of Zamka, whom I had known in my younger days as Gilbert Hti and Col Sai Lu aka Liang Hsai of Mark Kieng People’s Militia Force (PMF) who has been supporting a Shan school project for marginalized youths in Namzang township.

I was back in Thailand on 8 March.