Fiction and Fun in Burma

Episode #126: When Rose Metro sat down to write Have Fun In Burma, a novel set during the Rohingya crisis, she was already well aware that the country has long been viewed through an exotified, Orientalist lens. Being quite conscious of this past narrative, she wanted to draw attention to cultural conflict, using multiple perspectives. The protagonist, Adela Frost, is a politically progressive young woman. She interacts with diverse characters who represent common archetypes from the transition period in Myanmar. While this diverse cast of characters may well not communicate skillfully across cultures even in the best of times, their misunderstandings take on far more serious consequences, in a story built around the developing Rohingya crisis. Adela applies her values and perspective to the unfolding violence, unable to understand how the Burmese characters see the situation differently. Because they cannot even agree on a shared set of facts, let alone find a resolution, the tension mirrors the wildly divergent ways that the Rohingya crisis was covered by the media.

Rose also brings the subject of meditation into her narrative. Adela is taught a Mahasi style practice by the abbot of the monastery. For Rose, it was important that the meditation part of Adela’s journey, and its role in the wider Burma experience, did not happen in isolation, but was integrated into everything else taking place both at the monastery and in society at large.

“I think that's just the central tension. We have to have that balance of compassion and equanimity. That's so hard. How can you keep being open to feeling empathy for people when their suffering is so great? But also, how can you not just be like Adela and be like, ‘Okay, I'll fix it….’ If it has any chance of reducing suffering, either mine or someone else's, it's worth doing. I think that kind of humility is something that can take a long time to get to.”