<b>iWeekly</b>
Burma was in the spotlight for a historic election, and as early as the 1930s, the British writer George Orwell set his sights on this bizarre southeast Asian land. Following in his footsteps, leaving behind the political disturbances, I inadvertently discovered that Myanmar was so beautiful.
Katha, a small riverside town 350 kilometres north of Mandalay, was George Orwell's last stop as the Royal Indian Police in Burma, where he wrote Burmese Days a few years after returning to Britain.
The protagonist of "The Burmese Years," the young John Flory, is almost a portrait of the author Orwell, who angrily denounces his life as "sitting in a cramped club year after year." The book depicts a group of Britons who gather at the Europeans Club and spend their days drinking to dispel their unspeakable loneliness.
The European club mentioned in the book
The white-only club, which is named "Kyauktada" by jesha in the book, is now a farming cooperative, and the beautiful customs of the novel are still staged in this quiet town.
Orwell House
Orwell notes in The Burmese Years that Jesha is "a very typical northern Burmese town, which did not change much from the time of Marco Polo until 1910, and if it were not for the convenience of the place as the end of the railway, I am afraid that I would have slept for another hundred years in the middle of the Night". Today, Jesar is still a small, isolated northern city, and unlike other popular tourist cities in Myanmar, it is one of the most difficult places to reach, which makes it rare for foreign tourists.
Women on country lanes
Teenagers coming home from school
Jesha Riverside village
Many of Orwell's loyal readers take occasional cruises to and from the Irrawaddy River to Jesha, and they are pleasantly surprised to find that they have harvested unexpected beauty on the mother river of Burma. The endless hills on both sides of the river are covered with exuberant thorns and anchovy bamboo, revealing a sense of recklessness in the silence.
In 1924, Orwell was sent to the Irrawaddy Delta to take charge of crime scene forensics and investigations. The villages by the river, rarely disturbed, seem particularly clean. Most people here make a living by fishing, and the finless porpoises in the Irrawaddy River also help fishermen catch fish, and when fishermen pull the nets, the finless porpoises will bite the fish that are trying to break free and share the fruits with the fishermen.
Fishermen on the Irrawaddy River are fishing
Finless porpoises appear from time to time on the surface of the river
After arriving in Jessa by boat, you will find that many of the scenes are exactly the same as those written in the book. Orwell wrote of a morning market where "grapefruit hangs on rope like a green moon," "crisp dried fish tied in bundles," "cut ducks smoked like ham," and "chirping chickens in wicker cages." Now, there are many more such morning markets in Jesha.
A fish stall in Jesha's morning market
Children who help guard stalls at the farmer's market
There is also a simple Jesha Temple next to the Kachin town of Jesha, which is not overly grand, but has been waiting for the good people in this land. The temple has only one or two monks, and although the temple is small, the carvings are exceptionally exquisite.
The interior of the temple shines with gold
Located in the Jesha Temple, the Jesha Pagoda embodies the most devout faith of the people of the village. Every villager who comes to the temple will bow to the pagoda.
Jesar Tower Top
But life in small towns is long and tedious, and Orwell once lamented in the book: "Oh, how joyful is the trip to Yangon!" Race all the way to the bookstore to search for the latest novels from England, and enjoy a big meal at the Anderson Hotel, with steaks, butter, these eight thousand miles of ice across the ocean, and wonderful wine! ”
Yangon is a modern city full of oriental ethnic colors, with modern buildings and traditional wooden houses with white spires and black cypress paint. Pagodas and temples are scattered around, among which shwedagon Pagoda is known as a landmark building in Yangon.
Shwedagon Pagoda, cast in pure gold, topped with more than 7,000 gemstones
In addition to the Shwedagon Pagoda, strolling the streets of Yangon, many citizens wear colorful sarongs and slippers, and vehicles make way for the sacred birds and crows. There is little hustle and bustle of the big cities here, and there are flowers and greenery everywhere.
A Burmese girl in a sarong
In her book Finding George Orwell in Burma, the writer Emma Larkin says that Orwell is not just a novel, but that his trilogy of novels, "Burmese Years," "Animal Farm," and "1984," predicted the trajectory of Myanmar. Orwell made more people curious about this mysterious Southeast Asian country.