Nonfiction
The Clanging Protest
Zion barks once, then twice, and then he starts to bark furiously. I stop typing and glance up: eight o’clock. He pauses briefly and I hear the clangs and bangs of people hitting pots and pans, a faint noise at first, and then growing into a raging roar.
I get up from my desk and walk over to my bedroom window. Shwedagon Pagoda is sitting far off in the distance, the floodlights shining ever so brightly onto the striking gold structure. The sparks of gold reflect onto the starless night sky, creating a warm cloud that melts into the background. There were times I would race up the stairs of the pagoda with my brother, holding onto my longyi with one hand to make sure it didn’t fall down as I grabbed the handrails with the other. There were times I would sit on the cool, white marble floor with my family, crunching sunflower seeds and delighting in the tranquility of the sacred ground. There were times I would roam freely and play hide and seek with my cousins among the labyrinth of towering pagodas despite our parents’ reproaching comments. And on my birthday each year, I would wake up with the sun, put on my best longyi, and skip to the pond on the pagoda grounds to feed the catfish that would grapple for my breadcrumbs. Now I gaze at Shwedagon Pagoda, unable to recall the last time I stepped foot onto its stairs.
The pagoda has been closed for a year now as a safety measure against the Covid-19 pandemic. If only I had used my wish more wisely the last time I prayed on the ‘Victory Ground’, the area of Shwedagon Pagoda where all wishes are said to come true.
How silly of her to have wasted her wish on getting an A on a test that she doesn’t even remember the contents of anymore. But how could she have known better about what was to come in a little shy of a year?
These grounds are where the anti-colonial campaign started in 1920. It is where the peaceful marches of Buddhist monks against the ruling military junta ignited in 2007. Now, it is locked away from civilians with barbed wire fences. Now, we bang spatulas on steel pots and smack tin pot lids together with all our might, concealed in the darkness of the night and in the refuge of our homes. A traditional ritual to ward off evil spirits has become a national movement. It is believed that when bad spirits hear loud clangs, they will flee in fear. Only this time, we are not warding off the supernatural. Rather, we are driving one inhumane force out of our country. The ones with the guns that shoot civilians, the ones with money that is drenched in the blood of our people, the ones with a ceaseless thirst for power: the military junta. The noise eases our anger, but only for a moment.
The shrill ringing of my mom’s phone interrupted my deep slumber on that morning, the morning of February 1st. Tired from an 11 pm virtual class I had the previous night, I quickly drifted back to sleep. A few heartbeats later, I heard my mom’s voice trembling. “They’ve captured Daw Aung San Suu Kyi?”
My eyes sprung open and my heart plummeted to my stomach. I stumbled out into the living room, rubbing my eyes.“Má mā, what’s going on?”
“The military detained Daw Suu and President U Win Myint this morning.” My head started to burn, like it does when I lose my mom at the grocery store.
That morning, our democratically elected leaders were supposed to attend their first parliament meeting since the election results came out. We were supposed to finally get closer to a real functioning democracy, not the lookalike version that we had been experiencing, with the military still having a large control over the decisions of our country. We had voted for our government, and the National League for Democracy party had won by a landslide.
After the tide of that morning had crashed and settled down, my dad gently knocked on my bedroom door and stepped in. “You know, I was 18 when this kind of unrest happened in 1988. Isn’t that funny? That you are also 18 now? And that it’s happening again?”
I wasn’t sure how to respond. “It is quite funny…”, I said, “how history really does repeat itself.”
My dad had been one of the thousands of brave students then. He had gone out to the streets to protest along with his friends, despite my grandmother’s objections. He had begun to run when they started firing bullets into the crowd. “People were getting trampled over.” he recounted. “Some younger students fell to the ground, but nobody could stop to help them because we were all trying to run for our own lives.” And during that run was when he fell down and was struck right in the jaw by a pair of big, black military boots. Out flew his four front teeth. He is lucky to be here today, but he is nonetheless scarred.
I rush out to find Zion running back and forth, desperately searching for the source of the noise that’s flooding his senses. To him, these sounds are not much more than a momentary disturbance. But to us, these sounds are the voice of our resistance.
I get up from my desk and walk over to my bedroom window. Shwedagon Pagoda is sitting far off in the distance, the floodlights shining ever so brightly onto the striking gold structure. The sparks of gold reflect onto the starless night sky, creating a warm cloud that melts into the background. There were times I would race up the stairs of the pagoda with my brother, holding onto my longyi with one hand to make sure it didn’t fall down as I grabbed the handrails with the other. There were times I would sit on the cool, white marble floor with my family, crunching sunflower seeds and delighting in the tranquility of the sacred ground. There were times I would roam freely and play hide and seek with my cousins among the labyrinth of towering pagodas despite our parents’ reproaching comments. And on my birthday each year, I would wake up with the sun, put on my best longyi, and skip to the pond on the pagoda grounds to feed the catfish that would grapple for my breadcrumbs. Now I gaze at Shwedagon Pagoda, unable to recall the last time I stepped foot onto its stairs.
The pagoda has been closed for a year now as a safety measure against the Covid-19 pandemic. If only I had used my wish more wisely the last time I prayed on the ‘Victory Ground’, the area of Shwedagon Pagoda where all wishes are said to come true.
How silly of her to have wasted her wish on getting an A on a test that she doesn’t even remember the contents of anymore. But how could she have known better about what was to come in a little shy of a year?
These grounds are where the anti-colonial campaign started in 1920. It is where the peaceful marches of Buddhist monks against the ruling military junta ignited in 2007. Now, it is locked away from civilians with barbed wire fences. Now, we bang spatulas on steel pots and smack tin pot lids together with all our might, concealed in the darkness of the night and in the refuge of our homes. A traditional ritual to ward off evil spirits has become a national movement. It is believed that when bad spirits hear loud clangs, they will flee in fear. Only this time, we are not warding off the supernatural. Rather, we are driving one inhumane force out of our country. The ones with the guns that shoot civilians, the ones with money that is drenched in the blood of our people, the ones with a ceaseless thirst for power: the military junta. The noise eases our anger, but only for a moment.
The shrill ringing of my mom’s phone interrupted my deep slumber on that morning, the morning of February 1st. Tired from an 11 pm virtual class I had the previous night, I quickly drifted back to sleep. A few heartbeats later, I heard my mom’s voice trembling. “They’ve captured Daw Aung San Suu Kyi?”
My eyes sprung open and my heart plummeted to my stomach. I stumbled out into the living room, rubbing my eyes.“Má mā, what’s going on?”
“The military detained Daw Suu and President U Win Myint this morning.” My head started to burn, like it does when I lose my mom at the grocery store.
That morning, our democratically elected leaders were supposed to attend their first parliament meeting since the election results came out. We were supposed to finally get closer to a real functioning democracy, not the lookalike version that we had been experiencing, with the military still having a large control over the decisions of our country. We had voted for our government, and the National League for Democracy party had won by a landslide.
After the tide of that morning had crashed and settled down, my dad gently knocked on my bedroom door and stepped in. “You know, I was 18 when this kind of unrest happened in 1988. Isn’t that funny? That you are also 18 now? And that it’s happening again?”
I wasn’t sure how to respond. “It is quite funny…”, I said, “how history really does repeat itself.”
My dad had been one of the thousands of brave students then. He had gone out to the streets to protest along with his friends, despite my grandmother’s objections. He had begun to run when they started firing bullets into the crowd. “People were getting trampled over.” he recounted. “Some younger students fell to the ground, but nobody could stop to help them because we were all trying to run for our own lives.” And during that run was when he fell down and was struck right in the jaw by a pair of big, black military boots. Out flew his four front teeth. He is lucky to be here today, but he is nonetheless scarred.
I rush out to find Zion running back and forth, desperately searching for the source of the noise that’s flooding his senses. To him, these sounds are not much more than a momentary disturbance. But to us, these sounds are the voice of our resistance.
Author’s Note
At the time of the publishing of this piece, the conflict is still going strong in Myanmar, and citizens are risking their safety and wellbeing every day in fighting this fight. This piece captures the author’s personal account of the issue and does not aim to educate about the conflict.
For more information and updates, go to https://mohingamatters.com/
For more information and updates, go to https://mohingamatters.com/