In Memory of Daisy

“The Way is not in the sky;
the Way is in the heart.”
(Gautama Buddha)

 

Khin

Sometimes life violently bursts into the plots of fantasy and destroys everything. Recently I realized that coincidentally (if they exist), Burma often came to me, a country that has never been a priority in my studies and interests in Asia, except by sideway because of the Rohingya question.

Despite having collected photographic and historical books on Asian countries for years, Burma has always remained on the corner. The only moment of real contact was during my years in Penang, Malaysia, where I visited the Burmese Buddhist temple several times.

Then came the beautiful novel “The Burmese bride” by Journal-Gyaw Ma Ma Lay (ObarraO Edizioni): reading it catapulted me into a world totally unknown, if not for the pages of Terzani's diaries and the photographs seen in the books.

To the reading of that novel were added the stories of a dear friend of mine about what he considered the most beautiful journey of his life: Burma, in fact.

In the same period, surfing on Instagram, I came into contact with profiles of people who lived in Burma, starting from the cause of the Rohingya which however led me to those who were trying to document the revolution taking place in that country against the army.

Among these people, I met the one who would become the Daisy of my story: Khin Cho Cho Win. It was June 14th.

She had nothing to do with revolution or politics – she was a simple resident of Yangon who, like many in that city, tried to show her affection for Aung San Suu Kyi.

Day after day we started talking; thanks to her I came to know, in a direct way, of that culture that had deeply fascinated me during the reading of the novel by Ma Ma Lay, even if not too far from the Thai one but with its differences and peculiarities.

An intense friendship was born, Khin was so happy that I was interested in learning about her culture, so every day she told me about her habits, her routine.

Her paternal grandfather was a foreigner, an Italian who arrived in Burma during the Second World War, her father was called Michael and married a Burmese woman: so her official name was Khin, but her father always called her Daisy.

Books remain essential for learning about the traditions and different aspects of peoples and countries, but the only way to really deepen them is through direct contact: to experience on your own skin.

It's impossible for me to travel and visit Burma – and who knows when it will ever be, until this pity nation finds peace – but thanks to Khin's stories, slowly, I began to feel it closer and understand better.

She not only told me in great detail from the food to the clothes one wears, or the modalities of Buddhist prayer, but she also sent me photographs of what she saw from her clothing shop for monks, the protests of the people against the army, the notices of the American embassy which monitored the situation in the various cities: Yangon, Mandalay...

All this melted in my mind and I wanted to write a story, obviously also inspired by the novel I had just read. A short story, which has always been one of my favorite literary genres – I am thinking of the short stories by Dino Buzzati, Mario Tobino, Marco Lodoli, Kafka, Chekhov, Murakami, or Carver.

It was an experiment because I had not written a story for decades, having then accustomed all my blog readers to articles on photography, art, or the story of the places I had visited.

Thus was born the “Little Burmese Story”, which is a light and platonic love story, in the romantic style of the film “In the Mood for Love”, with the background of the clashes between the population and the army that inflame the city.

It was absolutely not easy because I have never been to Yangon and it was a completely new cultural tradition for me.

But I had Khin-Daisy telling me the names of the streets, the monasteries, the food. She helped me to understand and imagine well, when I did not understand, with the help of her photographs, how it was about the thanaka of which I did not know the origin, then she sent me the photo of the bark from which the yellow pigment used as a cosmetic.

I think the choice of the song was the most difficult but also the most mysterious part. I honestly admit that I have never heard a Burmese song before, but I am a methodical type in my research.

I liked the idea of a song becoming the leitmotif of the story, so I went to Youtube and looked for Burmese classical singers and the first name at the top of the indexing was May Sweet, with the song “Maung”.

I asked Khin if she was famous and she told me it was a popular song classic.

So, I went and looked for the lyrics on a Burmese song lyrics site, I copied it and translated – at random – a single verse, which was absolutely perfect for the mood of the story: that is how that first story was born.

Of course, it had nothing to do with Khin's real life, but many of the details of her, from the job to her daughter, to certain habits, as well as her name, belonged to Khin.

That story had a strong impact, many readers really liked it so much and it was so “real” that not a few people asked me in amazement about when I visited Yangon, since I had never talked about it before.

This enthusiasm gave me the impetus to write a series of short stories, always short stories of women for a country in Asia that was most dear to me: Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, and Thailand.

My “Asian Tales”, with the hope of publishing them one day here in Italy.

Naturally, Khin was happy and moved by that story, even if it did not speak of her personally: but there was her name, her culture, her everyday life. And then that song was chosen by pure chance, but which spoke of the cycles of life that she – as a devout Buddhist – firmly believed.

We have never stopped talking since then, every day, even if only for a greeting, a how are you, or an update on the political or health conditions of her city.

I had now reached the last tale of the six.

In the last week Khin started to have a fever, to be weak, despite this she could never stop going to work.

She reassured me, she said not to worry, even though I felt that she was not well. On Saturday evening we said goodbye and I was happy because on Sunday I would go, after years, to the Buddhist monastery and I told her that I would send many photos to show her.

Khin told me that the fever was very high but that she was still happy for me. She was suffering from a very severe headache and was weak.

The next day, as promised, I sent her many photographs of the monastery and the monks by message.

And then, nothing. She was no longer online. Every day I went to check but she was no longer active.

I never got her phone number because the army – she told me – checked the phones and no phone calls were allowed beyond national borders, also forcing people, in the street, during searches to show to the soldiers their photos and social profiles to see if there was any content against the army or in favor of Aung San Suu Kyi, and in the case, one could even be arrested.

For a week I didn't have any messages from Khin and already part of me feared for the worst. Then, on July 31, I got a message from an unknown name. It was her daughter who wrote to me telling me that she was Daisy's daughter and that her mother had died of covid that afternoon.

For me, it was a trauma. Too many items all together at the same time and I was also on the subway to go to dinner with some friends.

Khin was dead – she asked her daughter to let me know if something bad happened to her – she introduced herself as the daughter of “Daisy”, which is the name of the character in my story.

A few days have passed by now but I'm still sad, so I decided to write because keeping inside means never getting rid of it: the words on paper help to drag away at least some of the blood even if the wound remains and will remain.

Her daughter is 19 years old and all she does is cry and tell me how much she misses her mother, that she talked to her very often about me, about the Italian fascinated by Burmese culture and who had made their daily life a story that many liked.

She asked me to be her friend because her mother told I was a good person and she sent me pictures of her mother's face and her funeral. Not only that but also an old photo of her little girl in the arms of her still-young mother.

It looks like one of those faded photo postcards I have in so many Asian photography books, but this one has a profoundly different meaning: it's Daisy. I know her thoughts and her habits. It's a photograph that hurts just as much as it is sweet and carefree.

Our photographs always lack the sense of the future “project” of our lives precisely because they are moments frozen in time.

In photographs there is never “death” because as long as we are portrayed it means that we are alive and we will be forever in that image; then there's the picture of her face on the pillow with her eyes closed and tubes in the nose and you know that's death, even though the childish part of me damnably wants to believe she's just sleeping.

That photo of the two of them is sweet because it ignores the future. Her daughter gave me permission to show it to you with other of her childhood, as well as the one from her funeral.

It’s never talked about, but now in Burma people are dying every day at home, the army hijacks all medicines from civilian to military hospitals, doctors cannot go to their homes to visit. The bodies of the dead are piled up and burned along the roadsides.

The smoke coming out of the smokestack behind the daughter is that of Khin's cremated body. 

For sure, if I ever publish these stories one day, they will be dedicated to her. So, I know she died peacefully because as May Sweet sang, there is always the next cycle of lifetimes.

Thank you for introducing me to your culture through your life.

In memory of Khin Cho Win Win – Daisy Kyawwin

R.I.P.

Yangon. 30 October, 1972 - 31 July, 2021 (4.30 p.m.)

Khin young and with her daughter

Yangon, 1 August 2021

Italian version