Cherry

Kuthodaw Pagoda, Mandalay

"Excuse me, miss, are you from Thailand?" came a woman's voice in perfect British-inflected-Burmese English.

I looked down at myself.  I wore a 3500 Kyat white graphic-wanna-be-punk t-shirt from Toungoo, over my two hundred baht lavender linen-esque capri pants, a desperate purchase made in Bangkok to gain entry into the Grand Palace (No camisole tops or skirts shorter than the ground allowed!), and for the final touch: a men's white plastic wristwatch with a Crayola green dial that had faux digital numbers on it, a watch that my constant fear of it not working at any given second spawned one of many nightmares during my trip.

Cherry,  Kuthodaw Pagoda

I turned, to find a shriveled elderly woman standing in the shoe drop-off area (shoes are not allowed inside pagodas or in your hotel room for that matter), peering intently at me.  Her skin browned by the Burmese sun resembled the leather sole of a common flip flop found on many a Burmese man's foot.  My father, uncle, and cousins have all owned a pair (or dozen) of these flip flops in their lifetime.  She wore a white cotton blouse, with black capri pants.  Slung over her shoulder was a black nylon "Prada" bag.

"No, I'm actually from San Francisco."

"Oh, San Francisco!  You're from the hometown of my grandmother."

"Have you ever been there?" I asked.

"Are you kidding me?  Of course not," she chuckled.

With that short statement came an unsaid understanding.  Cherry and I became fast friends.

Cherry is one of 52,000 (thank you Wikipedia) Anglo-Burmese people that became stuck in Burma after 1962.  She is part of a distinct Eurasian community that resulted from the British colonization of Burma and the ensuing European settlers.  Her father, a German soldier, fell in love with her mother, a stunning Burmese beauty.  Cherry reminded me of an Anglo-Burmese character in Emma Larkin's novel, Finding George Orwell in Burma.  I forget now the character's name, so let's call her Strawberry.  Larkin met Strawberry during her search for Orwell's relatives in Maymo.  And here I was in Mandalay, (near Maymo!), meeting my very own Strawberry.  The parallels in their stories awed me.  Both Cherry and Strawberry live in the outskirts of Burmese society, not fully accepted due to their mixed heritage, yet unable to leave because of  the regime that took over in 1962.  I tell her about Strawberry and asked her if she had ever read this book.  Stupid question.  

She told me she isn't allowed access to books because of "you know who" and points her finger upwards. 

She whispered, "Do you have a copy of the book with you?"  

I didn't.  I had been warned that you could be searched when going through customs, and I didn't want to bring any type of controversial reading material with me that might hinder my entrance.  She asked me if I would give it to one of her American friends that would be visiting in the future.  I said I would and gave her my email address.  Satisfied, she reached into her Prada bag and pulled out a wrinkled copy of Reader's Digest from 2007 and offered it to me, kind of like an exchange.  I gently declined.

To be continued...