2 ... 2 ...Here's a clip of a story about a boy from Myanmar, the current hot spot of trouble in the world.
I wrote it after a boy, about 8 years-old, showed my friend and I the Yangon zoo.
Buddha Boy
North Americans had called him Buddha boy, a name he received during his daylong stays at the Mandalay zoo. Today was to be a fresh start, no more hippos nor elephants or apes, but now only mediation, a tranquil path to adulthood.
Buddha boy quickly got up and grabbed some sugar cane from the long tubes that were piled in the open-air kitchen of his house. He looked at the tubes, and then shuffled along the dirt floor to a large teak cabinet where his father’s machete was kept, a large knife that twinkled as he hacked the tubes into shippable slivers for the long trek to the monastery. After, he gathered fruit—papaya and citrus—and put them into a loincloth. Adroit slaps of the cloth enveloped the fruit inside the rough fabric, for the long haul to the monastery.
Buddha Boy’s day was a long one from dawn to beyond dusk, a time when he must cross a river to get back home, a shallow wade though thick mud and grass. Upon exiting through the cavernous hallway that led to the street in front of his house, he bid goodbye to his siblings and parents who’d been in the other room finishing breakfast. He paused briefly, to adjust the sack on his back so he could make a full stride when on the windy, slippery road uphill.
Min from Mandalay stood next to the sward for a moment as it dug a tiny hole in the dirt from the weight of his body on the handle where he leaned measuring up his strength to that of the tool with which he was about to chop. A lizard sleeping on a wagon wheel just outside watched as the boy took the tool and hacked at the cane tubes, hacking, then tossing each sliver into a hand-knitted cloth bay (knitted by his great-aunt as his mother and father were lost in a great flood).
Long ago the aunt—Aunt Ming Ming had left starting on her early rise to bring forth fabric to the people of the world, looming threads in a hot factory for 12 long hours before she’d show up back at home to feed Min Min. After the chopping was a success—Min Min had over fifty pieces of sugar cane tubes to take with him, as he was a missionary in his own rite on a mission to his most special holy place.
But before he begins his two-mile trek, Min (as I will refer to him) must check in to the temple, which could be seen from his home about a mile away (in the other direction to where he would end up). The stupa glistened in a pattern that set the surrounding rice paddy fields flood waters into a checkerboard of silver spirals.
After the boy wrapped his maroon robe around him, threw the sack of cane (into which he had slipped his fruit lunch also) onto his back and sauntered down a dusty road laden with smoke from passersby from trucks to bikes and people among wagon wheels pulled by horses of varying ages sorts and sizes, the younger ones traveling by furiously at the whips of their owners as the older ones lagged behind.
Min passed his neighbors, each meeting him with a friendly “mingalaba” a tropical hello of eternal warmth. In the distance he could see the orange gates making his gait grow more important, his head held up high and the pack on his back bob up and down with increasing speed.
Behind the orange sign that read “Zoo" the rhinos held their mouths open wide under their thatched canopies as if they were expecting a visit from some high animal authority one who knew of their pathos, those that went beyond mere hunger and thirst. The orangutans belted a tune that to some seemed ominous, but to the small Buddha boy down the road a sound that could be decoded pitch by pitch as a meaningful slogan of connection to the earth’s riches—the green of the tree’s leaves, the brown of the bark and the yellow of the sun above them. In fact, all of the animals sensed the boy, his enthusiasm, his wonder, and his love for them and with this before he entered the orange gate, each paced back and forth in anticipation.
The boy’s gait soon took off to a leap then a bound and before one could say mingalaba he took to the air. The horse’s heads, both old and young alike, tilted upward at the draping maroon that hung from above. The older horses moved faster keeping up with the younger ones. Swooping down the boy opened the gates to each cage, the blue gate of the rhino’s cage, the red gate of the orangutans and the yellow gate of the tiger as the animals stopped their pacing and moved outward onto the zoo grounds.
Sunday when the zoo’s attendance was up and the crowds mingled among the cages had never seen anything like a Buddha boy overhead and animals lingering about apart from their cages, roaming around the zoo’s gardens like they do. Alarmed they were not, surprisingly, and instead of running about in panic, did nothing as the animals did the same as they’d knew they were in the special small hands of the Buddha boy, the boy who visited the animals every day. And the boy who guided the people too, seeing that each animal and each human shared a memorable minglagaba.
Min took to the ground as all of the animals and people gathered round. “Ming,” he said as his smile widened seemingly the length of the zoo’s garden itself. “GA” a chorus of animals whispered. “LA,” the people said and with a BA the lion roared sitting calmly among the Sunday crowd, a crowd that whipped from near and far in each corner of zoo happy that the boy had showed them such a good time.
I wrote it after a boy, about 8 years-old, showed my friend and I the Yangon zoo.
Buddha Boy
North Americans had called him Buddha boy, a name he received during his daylong stays at the Mandalay zoo. Today was to be a fresh start, no more hippos nor elephants or apes, but now only mediation, a tranquil path to adulthood.
Buddha boy quickly got up and grabbed some sugar cane from the long tubes that were piled in the open-air kitchen of his house. He looked at the tubes, and then shuffled along the dirt floor to a large teak cabinet where his father’s machete was kept, a large knife that twinkled as he hacked the tubes into shippable slivers for the long trek to the monastery. After, he gathered fruit—papaya and citrus—and put them into a loincloth. Adroit slaps of the cloth enveloped the fruit inside the rough fabric, for the long haul to the monastery.
Buddha Boy’s day was a long one from dawn to beyond dusk, a time when he must cross a river to get back home, a shallow wade though thick mud and grass. Upon exiting through the cavernous hallway that led to the street in front of his house, he bid goodbye to his siblings and parents who’d been in the other room finishing breakfast. He paused briefly, to adjust the sack on his back so he could make a full stride when on the windy, slippery road uphill.
Min from Mandalay stood next to the sward for a moment as it dug a tiny hole in the dirt from the weight of his body on the handle where he leaned measuring up his strength to that of the tool with which he was about to chop. A lizard sleeping on a wagon wheel just outside watched as the boy took the tool and hacked at the cane tubes, hacking, then tossing each sliver into a hand-knitted cloth bay (knitted by his great-aunt as his mother and father were lost in a great flood).
Long ago the aunt—Aunt Ming Ming had left starting on her early rise to bring forth fabric to the people of the world, looming threads in a hot factory for 12 long hours before she’d show up back at home to feed Min Min. After the chopping was a success—Min Min had over fifty pieces of sugar cane tubes to take with him, as he was a missionary in his own rite on a mission to his most special holy place.
But before he begins his two-mile trek, Min (as I will refer to him) must check in to the temple, which could be seen from his home about a mile away (in the other direction to where he would end up). The stupa glistened in a pattern that set the surrounding rice paddy fields flood waters into a checkerboard of silver spirals.
After the boy wrapped his maroon robe around him, threw the sack of cane (into which he had slipped his fruit lunch also) onto his back and sauntered down a dusty road laden with smoke from passersby from trucks to bikes and people among wagon wheels pulled by horses of varying ages sorts and sizes, the younger ones traveling by furiously at the whips of their owners as the older ones lagged behind.
Min passed his neighbors, each meeting him with a friendly “mingalaba” a tropical hello of eternal warmth. In the distance he could see the orange gates making his gait grow more important, his head held up high and the pack on his back bob up and down with increasing speed.
Behind the orange sign that read “Zoo" the rhinos held their mouths open wide under their thatched canopies as if they were expecting a visit from some high animal authority one who knew of their pathos, those that went beyond mere hunger and thirst. The orangutans belted a tune that to some seemed ominous, but to the small Buddha boy down the road a sound that could be decoded pitch by pitch as a meaningful slogan of connection to the earth’s riches—the green of the tree’s leaves, the brown of the bark and the yellow of the sun above them. In fact, all of the animals sensed the boy, his enthusiasm, his wonder, and his love for them and with this before he entered the orange gate, each paced back and forth in anticipation.
The boy’s gait soon took off to a leap then a bound and before one could say mingalaba he took to the air. The horse’s heads, both old and young alike, tilted upward at the draping maroon that hung from above. The older horses moved faster keeping up with the younger ones. Swooping down the boy opened the gates to each cage, the blue gate of the rhino’s cage, the red gate of the orangutans and the yellow gate of the tiger as the animals stopped their pacing and moved outward onto the zoo grounds.
Sunday when the zoo’s attendance was up and the crowds mingled among the cages had never seen anything like a Buddha boy overhead and animals lingering about apart from their cages, roaming around the zoo’s gardens like they do. Alarmed they were not, surprisingly, and instead of running about in panic, did nothing as the animals did the same as they’d knew they were in the special small hands of the Buddha boy, the boy who visited the animals every day. And the boy who guided the people too, seeing that each animal and each human shared a memorable minglagaba.
Min took to the ground as all of the animals and people gathered round. “Ming,” he said as his smile widened seemingly the length of the zoo’s garden itself. “GA” a chorus of animals whispered. “LA,” the people said and with a BA the lion roared sitting calmly among the Sunday crowd, a crowd that whipped from near and far in each corner of zoo happy that the boy had showed them such a good time.
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