From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey

by Pascal Khoo Thwe

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Product Description

In 1988, Dr. John Casey, a professor visiting Burma, meets a waiter in Mandalay with a passion for the works of James Joyce, and the encounter changes both their lives.

Pascal, a member of the Kayan Padaung tribe, was the first member of his community to study English at a university. Within months of his meeting with Dr. Casey, Pascal's world lay in ruins. Burma's military dictatorship forces him to sacrifice his studies, and the regime's brutal armed forces murder his lover. Fleeing to the jungle, he becomes a guerrilla fighter in the life-or-death struggle against the government. In desperation, he writes a letter to the Englishman he met in Mandalay.

Miraculously reaching its destination, the letter leads to Pascal's rescue and his enrollment in Cambridge University, where he is the first Burmese tribesman ever to attend.

From the Land of Green Ghosts unforgettably evokes the realities of life in modern-day Burma and one man's long journey to freedom despite almost unimaginable odds.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5 out of 5 stars

one of the top books about Burmese struggle for democracy, 2008-03-11
This book converted me from a skeptic of opposition politics in Burma to an ardent believer in the democracy movement there. I grew up in the magnificent Shan State with bitter distrust of urban Burmese elites and their political dominance. I was persuaded to read this book after finding out that for the first time I had a chance to discover someone from a village close to my home town. His book swept me away and brought me to understand and sympathize with the central Burmese people's courage and devotion to democracy and freedom. They have taught me to love as a human being in Burma amidst the poverty and deprivation. I owe my soul to that land and grateful to Khoo Thwe for his gift of writing. May he be strong enough to write many more books for Burma and the Kaya State.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

4 out of 5 stars

Good personal account, 2008-03-05
It's definitely well written, and it's a very personal account of the author's journey. It's not as dramatic as I thought it'll be but then, I guess that's real life at times. It's definitely as honest as it can be. It does give a good account of what's going on in Burma, especially in the rural parts too. I'll recommend it for those interested in learning about Burma from a Burmese person, and from the native's perspective. Easy to read but by no means a simple writer. It's a literary piece for sure.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3 out of 5 stars

Burmese Odyssey, 2008-01-12

Pascal, alias Khun Sa, has created an interesting autobiography of his life as a Padaung tribesman from the Shan States of Burma, who is picked up by a Cambridge don visiting Mandalay, where he is a student working in a restaurant. He later finds his way to England and Cambridge after his stint as an rebel insurgent - through the kindness and intervention of his British friend and the British embassy in Thailand.

He writes well in English when you consider that most of his youth was spent in Shan States of Burma where English was not his language. However, one can feel the strong hand of his English and religion instructors or perhaps his editor in the content of much of the book. His mentor, Dr. John Casey, admits in the foreword that he was `at first diffident' when asked to revise and cut the manuscript for publication, yet his input can be felt strongly in the final version. Pascal points out in one of the final chapters that Dr. Casey indulged in nostalgia for the imperial past of Burma. This prejudice comes through clearly when Pascal writes of becoming an insurgent to fight against the Burmese government which had replaced the `golden age' of the `old British Raj'. Burma/Myanmar has been involved in a civil war ever since the British completed their occupation of the country and several rebel groups would like to have the country return to the British colonial era or become Communist. This feeling comes through as Pascal consistently characterizes the government soldiers of Burma as the 'enemy'. His strong anti-government bias even comes through against the government of Thailand, which had protected him and his fellow insurgents in refugee camps there.

Pascal's Grandmother is hauled out to amplify the anti-government screed and tell us what a paradise Burma was during the age of the rule by the British. She says: "We were prosperous under the British, but when they went, they took the prosperity with them." She fails to point out that the British were replaced by the Japanese, who after a lot of killing were replaced by Nationalists looking for independence.

We learn early on that Pascal's family introduced him to the Christian God and the Catholic Church. From that point on his writing is peppered with Christian religious euphemisms and often his religion causes him to rebel against the culture of his tribe. You can almost spot when Pascal is writing in the voice of his religious teachers; he uses words like `ululation' "assiduous to novenas' `impeccably' or he pokes fun at his own culture and animist religion. When speaking in the voice of his Cambridge dons, he misses no opportunity to demonize the `regime' in Burma.

When Pascal writes in his own voice he can be quite down-to-earth and when he writes of his time as a young rebel soldier, shooting and being shot at, he is quite believable. As a poetic lament the book seems to be coming from Pascal, but as a political statement it seems more to originate from his handlers.

No good anti-Burmese government book would be complete without a mention of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, the wife of the late Michael Aris of Oxford. Pascal mentions her several times.

"from the land of the green ghosts' is a fine book, if read with a good knowledge of the history of Burma. May I recommend reading The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma as a preliminary to this work.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5 out of 5 stars

A beautiful book!, 2007-11-26
I just finished reading this book and I can't stop thinking about it, it is wonderful! It's beautifully written and reads like a novel. The only thing that I felt it was missing was some sort of follow up on the secondary characters. Since Burma is still struggling, I wasn't expecting a totally happy ending but I was curious if he knew what became of some of his friends. Other than that, this is a fantastic, beauuuutiful book!

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5 out of 5 stars

Extraordinary!, 2007-02-18
If you enjoy the pleasure of reading a fascinating autobiography written by someone with consummate skills in composition as well as an incredible story to tell- GET IT! This is one of the best reads of 2006 for me. Or, for that matter, of any other year.

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