14 - Family and Other Aspects of Life in Burma

Summary

It is indeed an honour and a privilege to have been invited to give a talk on “Family and other aspects of life in Burma”. In the next forty-five minutes or so, I'll try to justify the confidence thus reposed in me.

My aim is to inform as well as to induce reflection. My approach will be to deal briefly with Burma in relation to the Third World; describe the characteristic family; and, finally, within this framework, unfold other aspects of life by sketching an imaginary biography of one of its members, centred around the salient features of my life and my own observations, viewed both introspectively and retrospectively.

For our present purpose, “The Third World” means not all the developing countries that occupy the space between the capitalist Western bloc, including Japan, and the non-capitalist bloc of the East, but only those which share Buddhist culture – that is, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia.

Burma was a monarchical state from 1044 to 1886 when it fell into British hands. The Japanese occupied it from 1942 to 1945. It regained its independence in 1948. It is a tropical country, which has vast jungles and high mountains. It abounds in large rivers and fertile plains. It is rich in mineral resources, but is underdeveloped and underpopulated. Its size is more than three times that of Great Britain, yet it has a population less than half that of Great Britain. It is essentially an agricultural country, and the majority of the people are contented with their lot: their needs are modest compared to those of their counterparts in the West, and they need not exert themselves too much for what they want.

Due chiefly to adherence to the teaching of the Buddha and to underdeveloped technology, and the environmental set-up, life in Burma (and in other Buddhist countries too) meanders along, and people's standards and values are different from those in the West: materialism is subordinated to idealism; contentment takes precedence over dissatisfaction; and moral and spiritual attainment is preferred to intellectual achievement.