Land of Jade

by Bertil Lintner

  “We’ve been waiting for you for months!” one of the officers exclaimed in English as he showed us around our new quarters. Thick quilts had been prepared for us, as well as a writing desk, a thermos flask of hot water, and a stock of coffee, sugar, condensed milk and packages of mong gyut—rusk-like biscuits that are the nearest one comes to bread in northern Burma.

  The extravagance of the welcome was due less to any personal fame than to the fact that we were the first foreign journalists to have reach Kachin State since the outbreak of civil war in 1961. But despite their enthusiasm, our hosts were sufficiently tactful to leave us alone for a few hours to settle in and relax after the long walk from the Naga Hills. For Ee Ying’s sake, Hseng Noung was also pleased we would be staying in a proper camp for some time. After a bath, we rested and changed into new clothes.

  We had dinner that evening at a bamboo table on the bank of the Tanai River together with the brigade’s senior officers. The commander, Lieut.-Col. Kam Htoi, was a resistance fighter in his mid-fifties with years of experience behind him. The 2nd Brigade area corresponds to the ‘Western Division’ in the civil administration of the rebel’s political wing, the Kachin Independence Organisation or KIO. The chief divisional officer, Sinwa Naw, was about 45, tall with strong features and punctuated the end of each sentence he spoke with a wide smile. We were served with food we had not eaten for months: fried fish, fresh vegetables, fried eggs and country liquor.

  The rock band put on a performance later that night in the brigade meeting hall. The entire building was packed with soldiers, villagers and hordes of laughing children. Women soldiers sang and danced, brandishing Kachin flags and rifles. In a fascinating mixture of sound and choreography, they mimed a victorious attack on the enemy to the beat of the band. In the dance was evident the influence of the Chinese ballets of the Cultural Revolution, but the music was Western in inspiration—and the lyrics entirely Kachin Christian. The entertainment over, I limped back to our house on a new, extra long pair of crutches an army carpenter had presented me with me earlier that evening.

  It was a relief to feel that finally we had reached a KIA camp in safe territory and were once more in touch with the outside world. News of our arrival had already been transmitted by radio to other Kachin camps, and on our second day at 2nd Brigade headquarters, two messages reached us. One was from KIO Chairman Brang Seng in central headquarters at Pa Jau near the Chinese border, wishing us welcome and informing us that the NDF meeting was over; but that all the delegates were still there, awaiting our arrival.

  The second message came from the KIA liaison post at the Thai-Burmese border in the south, sent by one of the officers with whom we had discussed our journey before leaving Bangkok. It was short and concise: “Congratulations on the success of your dramatic journey to Kachin State. We are happy you have made it.”

  We were even able to send out the film Hseng Noung had taken. The brigade leaders took our carefully sealed packets and two women who worked for the rebel organisation went in civilian clothes by car through government-controlled areas and then up to Pa Jau. From there, the film was to be sent by air mail through China to Bangkok. We also ordered more film and—owing to concern over the growth of fungus—new lenses.

  2nd Brigade headquarters was, in fact, the largest and best equipped rebel camp I had seen in any rebel-controlled territory in Burma. Much of the prosperity of the brigade depended on income derived from the Hpakan jade mines west of the Hukawng Valley, which lie within the brigade’s area of operations. Tax on the lucrative jade trade provides the KIA with a substantial income.

  Before reaching Kachin State, I had had a somewhat romanticised view of the jade mines and the trade generally. I was now quite surprised to hear people referring to Hpakan as a “mini-Hong Kong” because of its immense wealth, commercial zeal and the wide variety of consumer goods available there. Perfumes from Paris, French champagne and Hennessy cognac, American cigarettes, tinned New Zealand butter, Australian Cheddar and German pressure-cookers—everything and anything seemed to be on sale at this metropolitan oasis in the midst of the malarial Kachin jungles. Prices were exorbitant—but that appeared to matter little in a place where some people were said to have become millionaires by accidentally unearthing a big, green boulder while digging latrines outside their houses.

  What few consumer goods Burma’s ramshackle economy was capable of producing domestically were the products of various state-owned corporations. These invariably bear the prefix “people’s” to remind the public that, in theory at least they are privileged to live in a socialist country. Beer comes from the “People’s Brewery”, lemonade; from the “People’s Ice & Softdrink Factory” and, neatest of all, there is toothpaste from the “People’s Toilet Industry”.

  On January 20, a very special event took place in our bamboo house by the river. That evening, Pan Awng and some of his fellow officers came to see us accompanied by a dozen villagers from Maji Bum, the area surrounding 2nd Brigade headquarters. Since our daughter had not as yet been given a name, they wanted to sponsor the necessary ceremony in the Kachin tradition. When everybody had sat down around the fire inside our house, the Major quietly announced that he had selected the name “Ja Reng” for our daughter.

  “That means ‘Precious Gold’ in Kachin,” Sinwa Naw translated.

  The assembled crowd nodded in satisfaction and there were appreciative comments from around the room. This was an unusual and beautiful name. The people said it suited the baby’s personality. Hseng Noung had been sitting with the baby cradled in her arms. She now smiled, hugged her tenderly and called her by her new name. Ja Reng was four months and one week old. In accordance with Kachin tradition, the women present began to pound a mixture of dried fish and ginger in bamboo mortars. Small heaps of the paste were scooped on to green leaves which were handed out along with balls of sticky rice to everybody sitting around the fire. The spicy dish was washed down with copious quantities of local rice liquor.

  The villagers then presented the proud parents with a longyi each. At Pan Awng’s suggestion, I limped into the bedroom, changed and came back wearing mine. The villagers were amused at the sight of a tall Westerner in a Kachin longyi. Pan Awng told us since it was he who had given our baby her Kachin name, this also meant all three of us had become honorary members of his clan, the N’Hkums. The villagers were delighted.

  “You’re part of us now. We’re all Kachins together,” an old man with a wrinkled, weather-beaten face exclaimed as he raised his glass of rice liquor. We all drank a toast to our daughter and her new name.

  The villagers began to drift away but the officers stayed on. We passed the evening discussing everything from different types of anti-aircraft guns to the war in Kampuchea and the future of ASEAN.

  Since we were considered prominent guests, our house was guarded and sentries were posted outside at night. Like most other Kachin troops we had seen, they were disciplined and well-trained. They wore smart, green fatigues with badges on their shoulders: two crossed Kachin dahs and the letters “KIA” superimposed on a red background. The Kachin privates were generally somewhat older than the Nagas, most in their late teens or early twenties.

  In accordance with the rules for inhabitants who live in Kachin insurgent territory, all the young men are liable to do a three-year stint of “national service” after which they can choose whether they want to remain in the military or return home. We were told the vast majority stayed—an assertion we had no reason to disbelieve. The Kachins are proud of their martial tradition and nearly all the soldiers we met had at least five or six years of service behind them.

  One night while I was sitting by the fire going through my notebooks and updating my diary, I suddenly realised a visitor had slipped into the room and had sat down in a deck-chair across the fire. From his uniform, there was no doubt he was a KIA soldier. But he was staring at me stoney-eyed. He seemed to be in his late thirties and his thin legs that were tucked back under his seat
appeared deformed. As he began to speak, I noticed some of his upper front teeth were missing.

  “You bastards! You let us down.”

  I was so taken aback, my reply was feeble.

  “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “Your name’s John Hamilton, isn’t it? British, I presume, or American?”

  “Neither. I’m Swedish. My real name’s Bertil Lintner.” I pulled myself together as I began to get an inkling of what lay behind his hostility.

  “Swedish? But, but…”

  Confusion replaced aggressiveness.

  “Swedish? Your name’s not John Hamilton?”

  “I assure you it’s not. John Hamilton was just a ploy to confuse the Burmese government. They know my real name quite well.”

  “Swedish?” he repeated. “And what are you doing here if you’re Swedish?”

  “I’m a correspondent. I’ve come here to write about you and your struggle. Haven’t your officers told you that?”

  “So they said. But I didn’t believe it. I thought a British or an American spook was on his way. And shit, I wouldn’t want any of those running around here. They abandoned us after the war.”

  I leant forward across the embers in the fireplace to offer him my hand. After a few seconds, he bent towards me and hesitantly took my hand in his. I called out to Hseng Noung in the bedroom to bring the bottle of rice liquor Pan Awng had left for me. I had not touched it so far because of the penicillin injections I was still being given. I poured him a glass and one for myself. I sipped the fiery spirit gingerly. He tossed his back in one swig.

  “My name’s Bawk Di,” he said. “It’s spelled dee eye in Kachin but I’m not related to Lady Di.”

  I could not help laughing. His excellent command of English and apparently wide general knowledge had begun to intrigue me.

  “Please tell me. Why don’t you like the Brits and the Americans? Nearly every old man I’ve met seems to feel the opposite. All of them have told me how they fought together against the Japanese during World War Two.”

  “That’s just it,” Bawk Di replied. Anger seeped back into his tone and expression. “Not only that war. Hundreds of Kachins also went to fight in Mesopotamia during World War One. At the victory parade in London after it, only the Gurkhas and the Kachins were allowed to wear their native weapons. The Gurkhas had their kukris and we Kachins our dahs. You must have seen them.”

  “Yes, indeed I have. The villagers in Nam Byu even gave me a dah with a silver handle.”

  He ignored my attempt at demonstrating what a friendly relationship I felt I already had with the Kachins.

  “My grandfather was among the Kachins who went to Mesopotamia. When I was a boy in Bhamo, he always told me about the war and his du kaba. Du or duwa means ‘officer’ in our language and kaba ‘great’. Much later, when I went to university in Rangoon, I came across a book called ‘Burmese Arcady’ by a British Major, Enriquez. It was about the Kachins who went to Mesopotamia and my grandfather was mentioned in that book. I brought it home to Bhamo and read it for him. My grandfather couldn’t read, you see.

  “I still remember how tears would come to grandpa’s eyes whenever I read out his name from the book. ‘My du kaba still remembers me,’ he’d say and went on feeling proud about it until his death some years later. And he was not the only family member who’d fought for the white foreigners. My father fought against the Japs during the World War Two and so did all my uncles.”

  Perhaps it was the liquor, perhaps he was really convinced I was a neutral Swede, perhaps a combination of both. But now there was no stopping him; he was in full flood.

  “We felt so proud of it. We’d served with the great armies of the world. We tiny Kachin people in our backwards hills had been recognised as real fighters. So when we took up arms against the Rangoon government, naturally, we expected help or at least understanding from the people we had once fought for. We had helped them in their times of crisis.”

  I listened fascinated, not willing to interrupt.

  “You see, I’ve got no teeth here.” He pointed at his mouth. “That’s thanks to the MIS—the Military Intelligence Service. That’s the military dictatorships’ most brutal institution. Foreigners think Burma is a country of golden pagodas and smiling people. They don’t understand it’s like the Soviet Union. Informers everywhere. Arbitrary arrests. Torture of political prisoners. Summary executions that are never announced.

  “I was in the student movement in Rangoon before I joined the KIA. That was when I lost my teeth. In the MIS’ interrogation room. When I was eventually released, I went straight to the British Embassy in Rangoon. I thought they ought to know what was really happening in this country. I took it for granted they’d listen to me. Two generations of my family had served with their army.”

  He paused for a while and spat on the floor. His face was flushed from the liquor but there was no trace of a slur in his voice. He continued with the vehement recital of a story which he had obviously kept bottled up inside him for years. “I went to the reception desk and said I wanted to talk to the ambassador or the military attaché. Some snotty receptionist asked me who I was. I told him I was the grandson of a Kachin warrior who had fought for the British in Mesopotamia and that my father had served with the British against the Japanese during World War Two. And what do you think the response was? They threw my out! I wasn’t allowed to meet anybody. Bloody betrayal! They might as well have stabbed me in my back. We fought for them for what? To be treated as scum?”

  He lapsed into bitter silence. I poured him another glass of liquor. I had some too, and thought to hell with the foot.

  “Bawk Di,” I said solemnly. “I’ll let the British and the Americans know what you’ve just told me. I’m not British myself, but I’ll pass it on.”

  I clinked my glass to his and it seemed as if years of anger and disappointment evaporated immediately.

  “I’ll call you Bertil, all right? You’re a real bastard! But if you’d been American or British I’d have beaten you up with my crutches.”

  I suddenly noticed two wooden crutches lay beside him and I looked at his mutilated legs. Since he was a soldier, it seemed natural to ask him about it.

  “Wounded? In a battle with the Burmese Army?”

  “No, not them. The CPB. Those bloody communists. A hand grenade did this to me. I can’t walk. We fought them for eight bloody years when they tried to take over our area. From 1968 to 1976. I was wounded not long before we signed the cease-fire with them. The truce made sense politically. We couldn’t go on fighting a two-front war. And since both of us were fighting the same government, we made peace. But how do you think I feel? My legs are useless! And, of course, I got first-class medical treatment in China because we’d signed the pact with the CPB.”

  He gave a caustic laugh. To divert him from his bitterness, I steered the conversation towards his soldiering days. Half an hour later, he left, considerably calmer than when he had arrived.

  The following day I made a few enquiries about Bawk Di. An officer told me he had been a good fighter. As a non-combatant now, he taught English at the rebel-run school at 2nd Brigade headquarters. I said I would like to meet him again but the officer seemed unsure.

  “We heard from our sentries he wasn’t polite to you. He talked so much rubbish.”

  “No, he didn’t,” I insisted. “He had every right to speak as he did.”

  Bawk Di stumped over to our house on his crutches that night and I asked if he could teach me Kachin. I had tried to pick up a few words during our trek from the Naga Hills, but without much success. The first Kachin word I thought I had learnt was ‘preekop’. I took it for granted it meant ‘rest’ or something similar since it was the order the section commanders gave before the soldiers fell out.

  It took several weeks before I realised it was actually English: ‘break off’. There is no “F” sound in Kachin and “B” and “P” often sounds the same. A second Kachin word I had pic
ked up also proved to be English. Whenever the soldiers at the camp were assigned to non-combatant duties—to build a trail, a bridge, a house or a barrack—they were called to ‘hpatick’, pronounced in a staccato manner. One day the light suddenly dawned; the order being given was ‘fatigue’.

  We began our Kachin lessons that night. Bawk Di was an excellent teacher and we soon got on well to the extent that even his handicap became a joke between us. I was still on crutches myself and the two of us became known as the crippled duo of 2nd Brigade headquarters. One day, with Hseng Noung assisting me, I even managed to make it over to his house at the other end of the camp. He had a large vegetable garden and a few bee-hives on which he lavished painstaking care. Inside his house were stacks of old issues of Time and Newsweek, sent from the Hpakan jade mines.

  We clumped around his garden on our crutches, Bawk Di explaining what kind of vegetables it was possible to grow in the hot climate of the Tanai River valley. He also began telling me stories of his childhood in Bhamo.

  “We had two cinemas there when I was a kid. The Starlight which was run by a Chinese and showed Western movies and the Moonlight with Indian and Burmese films. That one was run by an Indian. We especially liked Alan Ladd Westerns and war movies with Geoffrey Hunter. We kids used to play war games, too, with stuff the various armies had left behind. We had British, American and Japanese steel helmets as toys. And there was still plenty of Japanese occupation currency around. Our sisters used to play at being shopkeepers. We boys used to buy pretend khao soi noodles from them with this valueless money.”

  Bawk Di smiled at these memories.