Irrawaddy Literary Festival – Day 1

Irrawaddy Literary Festival is the first literary festival in Myanmar and is held from February 1 to 3. It is a great chance to Myanmar authors and fans to interact with international writers. Many of the discussions were happening at the same time so sometimes it was difficult to choose as I wanted to attend both discussions.

On the first day, I arrived at the Inya Lake Hotel before 10 am. The first thing I noticed as I got off from the taxi was a group of people circling around something. I got closer and found that Monument bookstore was selling some English books for 1,000 kyats each. Most of them are used books but are still in pretty good conditions so it was really worth buying. I wanted to pick some books myself but I only brought 10,000 kyats with me and I didn’t know how much I might need to spend for lunch.

Bookworms scrambling to get good books

Monument was also selling other books especially by the authors who are coming to the literary festival. The sales girl explained that the customers can buy these books and ask the authors to sign them. When I saw Sayar Thant Myint U’s “River of Lost Footstep” book, I regretted not bring my own copy. It was being sold for 14,000 kyats, which is not so bad because the last time I asked for the price of that book at Myanmar Book Center, it was around 16,000 kyats. I thought it was too expensive and my online friend gave the book to me as a gift when she visited Myanmar in December.

River of Lost Footsteps being sold at Monument

The opening ceremony was held at the Sunset Terrace and the first session started at 10:30 pm. I wasn’t interested in the first session so I just look around the place. I immediately saw Myanmar Book Center’s stall and went over to check it out. The bookshop was giving another book buffet where customers can buy paper bags worth 10,000 kyats or 20,000 kyats and pick as many books as they want as long as they fit in the paper bags. Again, I regretted not bringing more money to spend.

Book Buffet at Myanmar Book Center

At another stall, I saw some metal figures of General Aung San, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Thein Sein. A woman who was in charge of the shop said those figures are sold for $25 each while other smaller ones are $10. According to her, these metal figures can only be bought at the gift shop at the Inya Lake Hotel. I would love to collect these figures but the prices were a bit expensive for me.

Metal figures of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, General Aung San and President U Thein Sein

The second session started at 11:30 am and I attended the discussion about “Translation and Adaptation”. This discussion was conducted in Myanmar language by Myanmar authors who are from the field of translation. At first, I must admit that I was bored to death listening to the presentations because they were quoting famous translators from the Sar Pay Beik Man book, which contains term papers the author submitted for the translator seminar in 1967. No offense to the presenters, but I have practically memorized most of the words written in some of the term papers while doing a thesis on translation last year. I only became interested in the topic during the questions and answers session because the audience started discussing about the use of ‘thu ma’ (she) in Myanmar writing.

In the Myanmar language, we don’t really use ‘she’, ‘her’, or ‘hers’ as pronouns. We only have non-descriptive pronoun ‘thu’ to describe both male and female. However, there has been frequent use of ‘thu ma’ in the media and translated novels, short stories, etc. So, conservatives of the Myanmar language, particularly the older generation, disliked it a lot. They often quote how famous author Journal Kyaw Ma Ma Lay never mentioned the word ‘thu ma’ in her novel although it was titled “Thu Ma”. It was an interesting topic and I would have liked to hear more, but when I heard sounds of people clapping next door, I suddenly became aware that I was late for the next session.

For the next session, I went to listen to a very interesting topic by Sudha Shah and Sayar Thant Myint U. It was about King Thibaw, the last king of Myanmar who was exiled to Ratnagiri, India. The room was quite packed and I noticed that there were more foreigners in the room than local people. There weren’t any seat left but most of the people were still standing in the room and listening to the presentation. I stood still the whole time and recorded the presentations so I couldn’t take any photos.

Sudha Shah said she spent 7 years researching about King Thibaw and his family after he arrived at the royal residence in Ratnagiri. She said she was inspired by Amitah Gosh’s “The Glass Palace” to do this book and she was surprised that nobody has done a research about the king. She explained about her book using the slideshows and I felt sad that some of the items shown in the photo slideshows were in the possession of foreign museum although they had originally belonged to the royal family.

Sayar Thant Myint U with the only surviving granddaughter of King Thibaw (Photo: Sayar Thant Myint U’s Twitter)

There’s more to write about this subject but I don’t want to bore my readers with long and winding passages. Perhaps I’ll write more about this subject after I get the chance to read this book. I tried to find it at the bookstores at the festival, but it’s not available. Sudha Shah said famous author Sayar Nay Win Myint will translate this book in Myanmar so it’s good news for the Myanmar readers. This author has also translated “The Glass Palace” a few years ago.

Sayar Thant Myint U and Caroline Courtauld from “The Future of Our Heritage Building” discussion

I also attended “The Future of Our Heritage Building”, “Blogging and Literature”, and half of “Writing under Censorship and the Future of Free Speech” in the afternoon. I won’t go into details about them because my post is already long enough. However, I do want to say that the session about blogging made me do some self-reflection about what I’ve been writing on my blogs since 2005/2006. I realize that I’m still nothing after all these years and people won’t ever describe my blog as a blog worth reading. Nowadays, I’m a little ashamed to call myself a blogger because I rarely write often.

I’ll write more about my experiences on the second day and the third day later when I have time.

My New Job

Despite my misgivings about my interview in First Impression, I got the job after all. I started my new job three weeks ago and I’m working as a translator for a leading news media in the country.

The working hour is from 9:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. For a person who used to work from 7:45 a.m to endless hours in the evening for the horrible 3 months six years ago, this is totally acceptable.

The office is actually quite near my house. It’s only about 10 mins drive by car/taxi and 20-25 mins drive by bus (depends on which bus I’m riding). I rarely ride the bus in the mornings as I can have my father or the driver drop me off on the way to his work. I only have to take the bus when the driver does not pick him up or he doesn’t feel like driving.

The work atmosphere is quite good too. I’m the only female in the translation department (and on the whole floor) and everyone is nice to me. My work consist of translating, editing, and uploading the news to the website. I’m in charge of uploading the news although others can upload them if they want to. It seems that my meager skills in web developing and all those years of blogging have finally paid off in the end. I’m not really familiar with Joomla, but creating new articles and editing old ones are not that difficult, due to my years of posting blog posts in blogspot and wordpress.

I have to work five days and a half a week. I get a half-day off at noon on Fridays and the whole day off on Sundays. I’m certainly pleased with the day off on Sundays as I can go out and see my friends (if I want to). I also can continue tutoring my student at home on Fridays and Sundays. However, there’s a catch. I have to work overtime on Saturdays and sleep at the office. Luckily, I don’t have to stay up the whole night and I can go to sleep around 12:30-1:00 a.m. I’m lucky that I only have to work overtime once a week. The others have to work overtime twice a week. But I don’t really mind staying up late although sleeping at the office is a bit uncomfortable. I’m used to staying up late at night, especially on the weekends and plus I can surf the internet while I work. Unless there are urgent jobs to do, I can relax and work slowly while listening to music. And of course, I get paid for dinner and overtime .

On my first Saturday at work, I slept with two other female staffs in the ladies’ sleeping quarter, but I had trouble sleeping in a suffocating room with no air-condition, a place where I can occasionally hear mice running around at night. I decided to sleep in our office instead. It’s relatively safe and much better than bunking with other people. I brought my own pillow, blanket, and bedroll with me and keep it in the office.

The only annoyance I had at work at first was the use of the toilet. There are only two bathrooms on the floor. The men used to using both men and lady bathrooms so during my first days, I often have to endure the long wait while the men are using the bathroom. I think the men prefer to take a shower in the female bathroom and they sure do take a long time to shower. Perhaps they have started to have consideration for me so the bathroom is not that often in use anymore. Or those were just coincidences and it’s just my wishful thinking.

I’m still inexperienced in translating and editing is more difficult for me. My job requires me to edit the news and rewrite it to attract readers. It is a bit difficult to edit if the whole article is written in quotations, but I think I’m getting the hang of it now. I’m also doing self-study at home if I’m in the mood.

An Undecided Jobseeker

While reading back my old post written in 2006, I saw this and had a great laugh at myself because I have been working as an English tutor for nearly 4 years and so far, I haven’t gotten into any fights with any students yet

My father said why you are going to still attend classes at this age while others who don’t even know half of what you know are making money teaching English. I can’t teach kids. I don’t know how to and I’m pretty impatient with kids. I can even imagine myself getting into fights with them.

I’ve been searching for a job after finishing my MA course and I’ve received a phone call from a school this morning. I’ve already sat for the interview and they told me that I will be informed if I get hired. I think it’s a nice school but the problem is that I only asked 1 lakh for the salary. I’ve been cursing myself ever since I said that ‘cuz at the time, I was desperate for a job. Now I want better salary. My previous salaries (aside from that part-time job) was around 1 lakh so I should be getting more now, even if I’m new to this job. Since I have only myself to blame, I will have to call them back and let them know that I’m not coming tomorrow.

Ever since I started working as an assistant teacher 4 years ago, I told myself that teaching will be my profession from now on. So, my first choice after finishing the MA course was to apply for teaching jobs. Now I’m not so sure anymore. A week ago, my father told me to consider translation field as my profession. Of course, I can still work as a teacher if I want to, but he rather wants me to work as a translator because it is a well-paid job in most cases unlike teaching jobs which are mostly not well-paid. Ever since the conversation with him, I started wondering whether I should work as a teacher or a translator. I like teaching but I’m not really much of an outgoing person.

There’s also another reason. I know some of you may laugh at this and think I’m being silly, but I want to do something that will benefit the country. I know I sound like one of those people from political videos. I don’t mean to offend anyone, but I start to doubt whether teaching privileged children at international schools will actually benefit the country or the people. There was this time when a teacher ask her students what they will do in the future in a school I worked 6 years ago. You can pretty much guess what they answered – go abroad to study or work. I’m not saying that everyone from international schools live abroad, but so far, most of the people I know are abroad. I know I’m not really a very patriotic person, but I want to do something that will benefit the people, not a selected few, without having to work for the government while at the same time get a nice salary. Most importantly, I just want to make a difference.

Whereas, I can be something if I work as a translator. It’s not actually a new field for me. I don’t know if I have mentioned before but I did some freelance translating for some international news journals 10 years ago, using this penname ‘madyjune’. At that time, I knew nothing about translating, but I only did it because of my father’s encouragements and also because of the extra money. I stopped translating after he got busy with other works since he was the only who brings the jobs to me and my sister. After I started participating in forum discussions, I started translating Korean drama summaries, purely out of interest, but I never considered translation to be my profession. I always told myself I’m bad in Myanmar so I will never become a good translator instead of working hard to become one due to laziness.

I saw this job vacancy for a news journal with a well-paid salary for translators. I’m going to apply for it this week and I’ve been practicing some translation whenever I’m in the mood. I thought that I would be better in translating from Myanmar to English since I feel confident about my English skills but so far, it’s not going too well. There are still many things I lack knowledge of. Just a couple of nights ago I had to translate some last-minute documents for my father but I only managed to translate a single page while my sister finished ahead of me after translating 2 pages. It is quite depressing that my translation skill is still poor. On a happier thought, my father only had to edit some words before he hands over the translated documents, which btw is a free job. My sister and I translated the 3 pages with LED lamps and I had to stay up until 1 PM last night to type them as the electricity only came back before 11 PM.  This is the second time we have to translate with LED lamps. Lousy people, they kept asking for help at the last minute without paying us. Why is it that governmental offices don’t hire any translators? One certain ministry always have the teachers from the English department of a certain university to translate for them and I doubt that they get paid although they get scolded if they don’t like the translation. Sometimes, my father is asked to translate the documents and speeches. Usually, my father takes care of unpaid translation at his work, but when the job comes late at nights, he often ask us to help him. I used to stay out of the business, but I’m gonna start helping him from now on, even if it’s a unpaid job because I need experience.

Maybe I will get this job or maybe I won’t. Then, I will have to seek somewhere else. Since I’m still undecided about choosing my profession, I might also work as a language teacher. I don’t think I’ll want to work for international schools anymore. Maybe for a language academy, teaching 4 skills is my best option. After I gained enough experience, I want to teach at monasteries and language classes for free if I have some time. It’s only a wish, but I want do something for the poor students.

Attempting to Catch Up With My Studies

It’s been nearly two months since I started attending the M.A course. There are only four subjects and two of them are concerned with listening, speaking, and reading. The other two dealt with linguistics and translation.

Since most of the class work involves reading the textbook and rarely require note taking at first , I was lazing around by reading novels and watching dramas instead of revising on the lesson taught. But, now I have so many to catch up wtth . I have to write so many notes for many chapters. I’m trying to tackle Translation subject first. Then, I’ll work on Linguistics. Although both are based on theories, compared to Translation, Linguistics is much easier to understand. Maybe of my lack of interest in the subject, I have difficulties in comprehending the texts in Translation.

Although the other subjects are relatively easy (for me), I still need practice in note taking in listening activities. In the exam, one of the task involves writing a summary of a listening extract after listening for only three times. Knowing that it would be played by a cassette player (with those unclear and lousy cassette tapes) in a room rather than in a language lab, I need to practice ahead. So far, I’ve borrowed a listening activity book from AC, but I would need to practice with British English listening materials, not American English.

If these pressure are not enough, the professor announced that the M.A students would have to sit for TEFLAC, which is a Myanmar version of TOEFL, somewhere around December. I know that I can pass that exam easily, but still I have to practice ahead with the TOEFL books, which I don’t want to do since I have little time to spare. I have given up on reading novels (and I’ll only read the one assigned by the book club) and I haven’t watch much TV lately (includes kdramas, jdramas, and movies).

At the moment, while I’m not writing down notes, I’m practicing my reading skills with “Reading and All That Jazz” textbook, which I rented from the library. I prefer that book over the textbook used in my class for Advanced Reading subject. I absolutely detest that old book which has been published in the 1980, thirty years ago from today. Some of the ideas mentioned are so outdated (with extracts from journals/magazines published in 1977) and I dislike having to read these texts over and over again. Beside, it won’t be in the exam anyway. I rather practice summarizing skills or cloze passages. which are surely included in the exam. The textbook I’m using at home was published in 2007, but it was only added to the library collection in May this year, so it’s still in pretty good condition. (Oh. how I hate those books which have been written in by those inconsiderate people.)

A few days ago, my classmate asked me whether I live my life in a schedule because whenever she sees me, my nose is always stuck in a book, even when the teacher is absent from the class. I don’t really know why people consider me as a hard-working type just because they see me reading all the time. I always feel uncomfortable when they ask me what I do to improve my language skills because I have never really given it a thought until now. Are these all due to the amount of time I spent living in the States? I don’t really know, but I do know that I like reading novels, listening to music, and watching movies and TV series. So, I just told them to watch more movies and especially American TV series. I don’t know if that’s a useful advice or not. Since I don’t listen to much English music anymore, that’s all I can advice them since they are lazy to read English books. Some say it’s difficult for them to read English novels so they only read those abridged versions. For me, I try to keep the word ‘impossible’ out of my dictionary. It’s actually the willingness which counts the most. Nobody taught me to read English books, although I was encouraged by my teachers (like making me write weekly book reviews). It was the interest in popular fictions that kept me going, not for academic purpose.