Events that are monumental for the adult world do not usually have great impressions for the world of the children. It would not be totally wrong to say that they live in two separate worlds. A couple of years earlier before I was an angel (in the school concert), an event that had enormous consequences for my country had taken place. One late afternoon in July 1947, I saw groups of people talking and deep in discussions on the road in front of our two storey house in Thaton. I asked my father why, and he replied that Bogyoke (General) Aung San (father of Aung San Suu Kyi who was then about two years old) had been assassinated along with his colleagues in the Cabinet while they were having a meeting in the morning of that day. I’m ashamed to say now that it was the first time I had heard of his name, the architect of our country’s independence. Children and adults do live in two separate worlds.
Then came the year 1948. One day (4 January) my father told me that our country had at long last regained independence from Britain, its colonial ruler. I remember asking my father what that would mean, and he explaining in simple terms that the country would now be governed by the elected representatives of the Myanmar people, and that the fate of the country from now on would be decided by Myanmars and not by the British. But for us children life went on with no difference whatsoever. Independence for adults, we said to each other at school.
One memorable event for me personally as a child that year was the birth of my sister June in June.Yes, that’s right, June in June. We three siblings were born in three different eras of our country. I was born while the country was under the colonial rule of the British before the Second World War touched our country Myanmar. My sister May was born when the country was under Japanese occupation during the War and the second sister June was born after Myanmar regained independence from Britain after the War.
