happy. But if you had failed the examination, how could you be happy?
In Burmese popular prose as 'How could I be pleased while others are
happy.'
Sometimes, although you passed the examination, you are not happy
because your friend had failed. How could you be entirely happy while
your friends had failed?
So, the happiness as I have told above, I am interested in second kind
of happiness. One has to be happy for one's success. But one cannot be
entirely happy although passed with credit while others had failed. So
it was not good for showing one' happiness while others were in the
state of misery. When my friend had failed the exam while I passed, I
warned myself not to show my happiness before my friend. She or he
would feel more miserable while others showed their joy a lot.
One day I asked my grandmother about their life in 3 years under the
Japs. I heard from my grandmother about how they met days of terror
and nights of horror under bloody Japanese regime. But I was curious
to know that even though they met horrible experiences during these
days, they could have fun in the Burmese festivals each month? I
thought that at that time people were not happy and they were always
afraid of Japanese' arrested. Some were treated badly in prison. Some
young people met hard and bloody training at Japanese officer cadet
school. How hard and outrageous at the Kimpetai Camp was! Why these
Burmese people were enjoying themselves at these festivals without
considering others' feeling? They had to be careful about it.
Enjoying happiness in the festivals during under the Japs was not a
good thing, I thought. My grandmother smiled and replied. Our Burmese
people were happy-go-lucky person. If we were not that kind of person,
the cruelty of Japanese could make us mad. We knew that others
suffered in prison or treated badly by the Japanese while we were free
outside. And we did not want to lose our traditional festivals during
the Japanese regime. It was not the propaganda for the Japanese for
showing our happiness during the festivals. The happiness bear in
these festivals sharpened our blades of swords to against them. The
songs we sung in the festivals flamed our heart to fight for these
intruders. Our dances were burnt with hatred to those who tortured us.
We took advantages during these festivals to unite our blood. Do not
misunderstand us for having fun under the Japanese regime. I was very
sad after hearing this explanation from my grandma. The happiness bear
in Japanese regime was more serious than what I was thinking.
Nowadays we have more chances to have fun in many events and there are
more and more pleasures around us. I wonder what kind of happiness we
bear in our age.
(This article was translated into English from my article in Burmese
which was published in AtwayAmyin(Thought) magazine in 2008 January in
Burma. The original title was 'We were happy, but..' )
--
'J'
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