Bad But Good

Inspired by the title of Miss A’s first single, I started to get ideas about people who seem bad but actually good inside. The song, “Bad Girl, Good Girl” describes a girl who dislike being discriminated based on her outside appearance.

That reminds me of “An Evening with the Cursers”, a short story written by Jue. In this story, a married couple went to see a football match one evening. The wife was quite annoyed at a group of men sitting near them because they kept swearing at the football players and she couldn’t stand their insolent manners. As she was leaving the stadium, she took a quick look at them and judged quickly that they are of a lower working class. She was quite pleased to be away from their presence, but to her dismay, they waited at the same bus stop with the couple and also got on the same bus. The couple were able to get seats on the bus while the men had to stand. The whole time the bus was moving, their voices were the loudest in the bus and the wife was blaming herself being stingy to take a taxi. After a while, the bus stopped suddenly and the conductor asked the passengers to help push the bus to start the engine. The insolent men along with other men who were standing got off the bus to help push the car. She wanted her husband to go out and help, but he didn’t even seem to interested. She later found out that he didn’t get up in fear of losing his seat. She was extremely ashamed of herself, her husband, and all the men who were sitting on the bus while those men who she had looked down were willing to help and didn’t even blame the selfish men sitting on the bus. At the end of the story, she tried to assure herself that if the situation was reverse, maybe they might not be willing to help, but it’s really difficult to predict of course.

So, just because they appear to be ill-mannered does not mean that they are bad people. So, how about those people who appear to be good on the outside, but don’t have good characters on the inside. Let’s just say A is a multimillionaire tycoon who has donated millions to needy places, but he does backdoor handling such as bribery, etc to get special favors and business deals. In such case, should we consider A as a bad person? If so, how about all the good deeds that he has done? Do they account for nothing at all?

Meeting Jue

Baldwin Library Club consists of a group of writers and young readers who have been interested in improving their English through the reading of fiction and non-fiction books every month since January 2008. The book club discusses a book selected each month by club members. They meet at 4:30 on the last Wednesday of each month in the library.

I read about the above mentioned book club from a pamphlet and I decided to join the club to expand by my knowledge by reading selected books instead of limiting myself by only reading fantasy, crime, action thrillers, and science-fiction. However, there was no discussion about books that day because of the panel discussion in English with famous Myanmar writers and the award ceremony to celebrate the second anniversary.

I didn’t know which authors were coming, but I was overjoyed to see my favorite author, Jue, sitting among the other judges. There was also Dr. Khin Maung Nyo, Phay Myint, and Grace who is also known as Swe Zin Htike. She wasn’t an author, but she was one of the judges. I don’t mean to be bias, but my main attention was focused on Jue and I even noted down what she had said.

When she introduced herself, she said that she has been called many names including living together writer, feminist writer, and plastic bag writer. She has gone through phases in her writing periods. At first, she wrote love stories. Then she wrote about gender issues and social issues after seeing many women being faced with domestic violence and domestic influence. She wanted women to become independent and speak their inner voices. When her first novel, “Remembrance (A Hmat Ta Ya)” came out, critics wrote that her writings were poisonous. But due to these criticisms, she became more famous. She later on moved on to environmental issue and then education. She’s in her fifth phase now and she’s focusing on humanitarian projects. She has been writing for more than 20 years, and her last novel was written two years ago. Now she is in the process of writing a new novel.

One of the audience asked her a question concerning with a quote from one of her short story. He wasn’t quite sure of the title, but the author recognized it as an extract from “Mya’s Moon (Mya Yae La)”. In that story, Mya commented to her husband that in his city, when people smile, their eyes don’t smile and only their lips smile. (Mya was from the countryside and she was living in the city with her husband.) The questioner asked Jue whether this extract was based on a theory by a French professor. She replied that what Mya meant in the story was that people in the city don’t smile from their heart. Mya’s feelings were reflected from her own feelings and also from her friend’s feeling. So, Mya was both she and her friend, but she’s not sure which side of Mya was she and which side was her friend.

Another person asked her where she got her encouragement when she was living in a narrow-minded community. She replied that she got her encouragements from books. She was influenced by Journal Kyaw Ma Ma Lay’s “She (Thu)”, Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex”, and Kyi Aye’s novels. Likewise, Jue’s stories have influenced Myanmar women. I haven’t met anyone aside from my mother who doesn’t like Jue. My mother doesn’t hate her, but she’s not a big fan either. She always says that we are wasting money by buying her novels. We used to collect her books whenever we could find them. We now have 26 books, if “Yay Hmaw Thee”, which has only two short stories, is also included. We only need a few more books to complete our collection, like the great novel “Women Who Are Like the Sea (Pin Lae Hnit Thu Taw Main Ma Myar)”. I also need to buy “Remembrance” which had been republished many months ago. There are some of her books that I like, but I didn’t want to buy because they are about movie reviews. Even so, those reviews were well written and my own reviews that I use to post in my Myanmar version blog had been influenced by her.

Jue is my idol and her stories have often influenced my way of thinking. Not all of her books are about love stories. Some like “My Beloved City”, “My Beloved Country”, and “My Beloved World” made people become more aware of environmental issues. Jue commented that people usually think that she is the pioneer to write about environmental issues, but there had been other writers before her. She said that she wants to give a message to young readers to become independent and speak out their inner voices. I think that’s why she wrote “(I) Didn’t Tell You That I Would Be Waiting (Saung Nay Mae Lo Ma Pyaw Lite Buu”.

Even though I really like Jue, I didn’t ask her any questions nor introduced myself as her big fan because it’s in my nature to watch from afar without saying anything. Well, I did have a question to ask, but the discussion had ended and I didn’t want to ask her personally since it wasn’t that much important. I only wanted to know whether the authors were interested in writing children novels. I have been thinking of writing for children, but I don’t know how to write novels and I lack creativity. I think I am better suited for writing translations. I’m not a good translator so I need to practice a lot.

I made a new friend that evening. She was sitting next to me and she didn’t have anyone to talk to. She told me that she has only read two books by Jue. I recommend her to read “(I) Didn’t Tell You that I Would Be Waiting” since she wants to work for NGOs. I’m going to meet her again on Saturday at a conversation club. She is afraid to go on her own and I was planning to join anyway.

The description for the Baldwin Library Club has been taken from “American Center Clubs” pamphlet.