Burmese Days : Yangon Colonial Heritage

Burmese Days: I borrowed the title from George Orwell, who spent five years in the 1920s as a police officer for the Indian Imperial Police in Burma. He is ever present and widely available from street sellers in several languages together with other sensible goods like hats, umbrellas for sun protection or pants with elephant print to cover knees for temple visits. Literacy is said to be high. And though the military government has dispersed universities to areas outside of the cities to make student demonstrations more difficult, and once even closed down universities for three years and so trashed the education of a whole generation, a good education seems to be high on the list of most Burmese.

                                reading list

By the way, for further reading of Burma's history I can recommend  two books by Thant Myint-U: "Where China meets India" and "The River of Lost Footsteps", both very readable and leading through Burma's long and varied past up to the present time. Thant Myint-U founded the Yangon Heritage Trust with the aim to secure Yangons colonial buildings in the city architecture for future generations. Colonial heritage