Kachin Education Centre

Trickster Mangbya and Grandma

2010-07-31T20:21:00.000-07:00

By Zung Ring,

Long long time ago, there was a man known as Mangbya in a village. He was famous for being a trickster. Despite he was eloquent liar; the story did not mention that he cheated people for material or monetary profit but rather entertainment or fun. He spent most of his time fooling around for fun. Everyone knew that Mangbya was a liar but they all got fooled every time they met him.

One morning, a grandma returned from garden carrying vegetables with bamboo woven basket on her head. She met Mangbya in the middle of the village. “Mangbya, people said that you trick people all the time. Don’t trick me, I am carrying heavy basket.” suddenly said Grandma. “Right now, I have no time to fool people. I am so busy with watching fighting between sun and moon”, Mangbya replied. “Where is it?” grandma inquired. As soon as she raised her head to look up to sky, her basket fell off from her head and vegetables scattered on the street. So, Mangbya helped her collect scattered vegetables and put the basket on her head. Grandma headed home.

Quite a long time after the incident with grandma, Mangbya met a man. At that time, Mangbya was carrying a heavy food for firewood. The man said to Mangbya, “people claimed that you can fool people a lot. Why don’t you fool me as well?” “I forgot my secret fooling box at home. So I don’t have capacity to fool you at the moment. If you want me to be able to fool you, help me carry this wood so that I can go and get my secret box. Then, I’d fool you.” The man agreed. So Mangbya went home straight.

The man was waiting with the heavy wood on his shoulder. There was no sign of Mangbya’s return. The man began to wonder what have happened to Mangbya. After very long time, the man decided to follow Mangbya’s home to find out what have happened to him. When he arrived, Mangbya was sipping tea with great relax. The man got very angry but when he thought it over, he realized that he was fooled by Mangbya.

An Orphan Child and Arrogant Brothers

2010-07-31T08:35:00.000-07:00

By Zung Ring,

Once upon a time, in a village, there were egotistical brothers. They respected no one. They were afraid of no one. They were ashamed of no one. Basically they didn’t care anyone.

There was also a pitiful orphan in the village. He grew up under the care of his grandfather. They were so poor. They lived in a small tent outskirt of the village. The poor child faced the arrogant brothers’ bully on daily basis.

One day, the villagers were to clear bushes along roads. Collective labors were required. But on that day, the orphan could not go. So, he gave a pork leg for lunch to villagers who came to provide their labors for his absence. However, the brothers threw the pork leg to sidewalk instead of making it lunch. In the evening, the poor child became the subject of ridicule to the brothers and returned the pork leg saying that the pork leg didn’t do anything just sitting on sidewalk the whole day. The pork was now dirty with dirt and the poor child was in the state of embarrassment and intimidation from the superior brothers and hesitated whether to take the pork back or not.

Not long after that, the brothers invited the orphan to a trip for trapping birds. The poor child agreed to join. When they arrived in forest, they spotted a big banyan tree with full of fruits which draw all kinds of birds and herbivores. The brothers immediately monopolized the whole tree. They laid their traps on all of the branches giving no opportunity to the poor child. The lonely child was left with no good option so he just disappointedly laid his traps beneath the tree.

On the next morning, the brothers got up early and returned to forest to check their traps before the orphan did. As they approached to the site, a deer was caught in the orphan’s trap that greatly disturbed the brothers. In their traps however, only a hornbill was caught. They now decided to switch the preys out of jealousy before the poor child arrive. When the poor child arrived, he was very shocked by very unusual scene - a deer was hung in the air while a hornbill was caught in his trap on the ground.

The poor child knew that the brothers have exchanged the preys and felt being bullied. He demanded to give him the deer back. The arrogant brothers laughed at him saying “don’t you see that the deer was caught in our trap? It is ours. We can’t give it to you.” The lonely child argued with them but he was overwhelmed by the brothers. Finally, the poor child proposed to bring their case to the village council and to let the council decide. The brothers were delighted by the proposal because they believed that the council would decide in their favor for they know all of elders. All the village elders have received gifts from the brothers at least once.

For the judging day in the council, there was no shortage of supporters for the brothers since they were powerful and wealthy. On the other hand, it was already challenging enough for the unfortunate orphan to find even a supporter. But he eventually managed to find a very old man in the outskirt of the village who seemed willing to support the child. No one noticed his existence in the village because he was also poor and a man of few words but was wise. The boy told him the whole story and requested him to support him in the council on ruling day. The wise man agreed.

The day had come. Now, the proud brothers and their supporters were waiting for the poor boy in the village council. As expected the council was filled with the brothers’ supporters. Everyone was trying to mock the deprived boy. Time was running late yet the boy has not arrived. Some of the elders began to get angry and proposed to declare the brothers winners in the absence of the poor boy. However, the brothers insisted to wait for the boy because they wanted to humiliate him in front of the whole villagers in the council.

At the same time, the unfortunate boy went to the old wise man’s home and was waiting for him the whole morning. The wise man did not say anything whether he changed his mind or not. The little boy was timid and dared not to push him or told it’s getting late. So, he chose to wait for the wise man until he’s ready. About at noon time, the wise man said to the boy, “Now let’s go”. The boy was of course delighted for he was worried the whole morning. The wise man deliberately chose to be late for the council for his strategic purpose.

As the wise man and poor boy were arriving to the council, they were ridiculed by the brothers’ supporters. Inside the council, the elders (councilors) also condemned the twos for being late. As the meeting proceeded, one of the elders provocatively asked the old man, “You are old but you seemed don’t know our tradition that we solved such kind of case in the morning? Why you came so late?” The old man replied wisely as the following.

“Honorable councilors, I am sorry for being late. Please receive my sincere apology. I know that we have a unique custom of judging cases like this one in the morning. I have no intention to ruin our beautiful tradition. However, I was late for good reason. On my way the council, I have crossed a river. As I was crossing, I saw wild fire on sand bank. Thus, I collected water with my bamboo basket to extinguish the fire. That’s why I was late.”

The old man was immediately booed. The councilors ridiculed him by saying how foolish is it for you to say that there was wild fire on sand bank and collect water with bamboo basket to extinguish the fire. The old man paused and gently replied.

“Honorable councilors, yes you are absolutely right about that. It is foolish to believe that there is wild fire on sand bank and collect water with bamboo basket to extinguish fire. Don’t you also think that it is foolish to believe that deer which has no wings was caught in the trap which was laid up in the air? And hornbill which doesn’t live on the ground was actually caught in the trap laid on the ground?”

The whole council was dead silence. After the brief silence, an audience from a corner broke the silence with claps. The silence was soon replaced with tumultuous standing ovation. The councilors and brothers now blushed at their own arrogance, ignorance and stupidity.

Without further arguments, the council delivered its just verdict that the poor orphan was the winner and deer was also returned.

The dishonest brothers left the council with great disappointment and embarrassment while the poor boy left with victorious joy.

Moral Lesson:

Justice prevails.

Panglong Agreement not forgotten.

2010-02-05T02:40:00.000-08:00

By Wunpawng, 5th February 2010.

The spirit of Panglong Agreement is the key message of Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) on its 49th Anniversary today (5th Feb). KIO demands the military government to implement Pang Long Agreement which signed 1947.

In the statement by Lanyaw Zawng Hra, KIO Chairman, “We have to re-live the Panglong Agreement for building the genuine Union of Myanmar.”

The statement states that KIO’s bottom line is to have the right of self-determination within genuine federal union of Myanmar. It adds that if the military government genuinely wants to have national solidarity, the promises made in Panglong Agreement must be honored.

The military government has been forcing all the ceasefire groups to transform into border guard force (BGF) but KIO refuses to accept the proposal. Col. James Lum Dau said (on Thursday) it is a tactic of the government to take silent coup by reducing the number of KIA troops.

KIO has been under huge pressure from the military government to accept the government proposal – BGF. In this year’s Manau festival on 10th January, Kachin State Day, KIO was not allowed to wear uniform.

KIO was founded on February 5, 1961, by three brothers: Zau Seng, Zau Tu and Zau Dan after then U Nu government declared Buddhism as the state religion. Since its establishment, Kachin Independence Army (KIA) the arm wing of KIO has fought effectively against the government forces in Kachin State throughout in 1960s until the present ceasefire was signed in 1994.

The original aim of fighting for complete independence was changed in 1976 to remain in genuine federal union of Myanmar.

Since its establishment, leaderships have changed – Lahtaw Zau Seng, Maran Brang Seng, Mali Zup Zau Mai, Lamung Tu Jai, and Lanyaw Zawng Hra. However, it has not achieved much. But Col. James Lum Dau said if KIO did not take arm struggle, the situation of Kachin people would be worse today.

A village elder said, “the Burmese government does not dare to do whatever they wish to Kachin people because of KIA”.

KIO signed ceasefire agreement with the military government on February 24, 1994 to solve the political problems in peaceful means. KIO have had numerous meetings with the military government for political talk but failed to bring any political breakthrough.

The disappointments among Kachin community is widespread because the ceasefire not only failed to bring any desirable political result but lost controls over lands especially lucrative areas such as Phakant (jade is mined), Hu Gawng region (where timber, gold is rich).

Col. James Lum Dau said that some of the benefits of ceasefire are – children have more access to education and scattered family members are reunited.

How long the ceasefire will last?

This answer perhaps mainly depends on what the military government will do next if its BGF proposal to ceasefire groups completely failed.

Among the ceasefire groups such as KIO and UWSA already rejected the BGF proposal. From November 2009, KIA has been giving basic military training to civilians as village defense forces (VDF). According to a KIO official, it is a central policy of KIO to give the training.

According to a civilian who receives such training, the trainees can go back their villages. The training is mostly voluntary basis.

Junta Restarts Border Guard Talks

2010-02-05T02:36:00.000-08:00

By WAI MOE, Wednesday, January 27, 2010

The Burmese junta’s top negotiator with ethnic groups, Lt-Gen Ye Myint, is likely to meet representatives of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), one of big ceasefire groups, at the end of January.

This will be Ye Myint's first meeting with a ceasefire group in 2010.

Sources close to the KIA on the Sino-Burmese border said Ye Myint, who is chief of Military Affairs Security (MAS), formerly known as the Military Intelligence Service, is reportedly scheduled to meet with his Kachin counterparts on Jan. 29 to once again discuss Naypyidaw’s Border Guard Force proposal.

“During the meeting in December in Myikyina, Maj-Gen Soe Win told Kachin delegates they will hold another meeting early this year,” said Thailand-based James Lum Dau, the deputy chief of foreign affairs for the Kachin Independence Organization, the political wing of the KIA.

In 2009, Junta officials and Kachin representatives met about 10 times and discussed the border guard force issue, he said, adding that the issue is likely to dominate future talks.

The last meeting between Burmese officials led by Maj-Gen Soe Win and Kachin leaders was in Myitkyina on Dec. 30.

Kachin sources told The Irrawaddy that during that meeting the Burmese junta withdrew the deadline for the Kachin to join the border guard force program by the end of 2009.

The Kachin favored the spirit of the 1947 Panglong Agreement, which provided the basis for a federal union in the Southeast Asian nation, the sources said.

Other ceasefire groups such as the United Wa State Army (UWSA), the strongest militia with an estimated 20,000 troops based in northern and southern Shan State, as well as the National Democratic Alliance Army in eastern Shan State have yet to agree to the border guard force plan.

As the electoral law and the timetable for the 2010 elections have yet to be announced, the deadlock between the junta and the cease-fire groups over the border guard force plan is a critical challenge for the election.

After the junta launched a military offensive in August 2009 against the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, the Kokang ethnic army that rejected border guard force proposal, Burma watchers expected that other cease-fire groups would be the next targets.

“At the moment, the border situation is as normal—the Burmese army is not making preparations for war in the border area,” said Aung Kyaw Zaw, an observer of Burmese military affairs based in Ruili, in China's Yunnan Province.

“Both the junta and ethnic groups seems to be negotiating for a peaceful solution,” he said.

Last week was a busy time for Burmese military commanders who handle issues in the north, northeast and eastern Burma, where the ethnic ceasefire groups that have yet to agree to the border guard forces are located.
Lt-Gen Tha Aye, chief of the Bureau of Special Operations (BSO)-1 visited sites across Kachin State, inspecting infrastructure projects along with Soe Win, commander of the Northern Regional Military Command, while Lt-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, the chief of the BSO-2, traveled in Shan State.

The state-run New Light of Myanmar reported on Wednesday that Min Aung Hlaing along with Maj-Gen Aung Than Htut, the commander of Northeast Regional Military Command, visited state projects in Laogai, the Kokang capital, on Jan. 23.

The visit was one of various trips by Min Aung Hlaing’s to the Kokang area after junta forces overran the area, forcing the Kokang ethnic army to flee in August 2009. At the time the junta accused Kokang Leader Peng Jaiseng of involvement in drug and arms trading. Kokang officials and their allies in the UWSA denied the allegation, however.

In an editorial on Wednesday called “Wipe the danger of narcotic drugs out,” The New Light of Myanmar highlighted the junta’s “drug elimination measures” along the border with neighboring countries.

The editorial said: “All global countries are trying their utmost to reduce and eliminate narcotic drug production and trafficking assisting each other in the fight against transnational crimes in border regions.”

Intentionally or not, The New Light of Myanmar put the report about Min Aung Hlaing’s trip to the Kokang area beside the editorial.

Kachin Independence Army Celebrates Anniversary

2010-02-05T02:33:00.000-08:00

By MIN LWIN , Wednesday, February 4, 2009

The 48th anniversary of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) will be celebrated on Thursday by its political wing, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), in Laiza on the Sino-Burmese border in Burma’s eastern Kachin State.

The KIA was founded on February 5, 1961, by three brothers, Zau Seng, Zau Tu and Zau Dan, shortly after Burma’s first prime minister, U Nu, ordained Buddhism as the state religion.

Two days later, Zau Tu and eight young Kachin attacked the government treasury in Lashio and made off with 90,000 kyat, which financed armed operations across northern Shan State and Kachin State.

The KIA launched effective actions against government forces in Kachin State throughout the early 1960s until a ceasefire was signed in 1994.

The ceasefire still holds, according to KIO Vice Chairman Dr Tu Ja. Dialogue was occurring “in a peaceful manner” between the KIO and the military government, he told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday.

Two major splits occurred within the KIO in 1969 and 1990, leading to the formation of the New Democratic Army-Kachin (NDAK), led by Zahkung Tingying, and the Kachin Defense Army (KDA), led by Mahtu Naw.

The KIA’s Col James Lun Dau said some members, such as Commander Zahkung Tingying from KIA’s 101 battalion, had sought the assistance of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB).

Members of the KIO came from Jinghpaw, Rawang, Lisu, Zaiwa, Lawngwaw and Lachyit ethnic groups, but experts say only the Jinghpaw hold any power in the organization.

“The 1969 split was not racist,” James Lun Dau said. “It was just politics. Later they sought refuge under the CPB’s military umbrella.”

The NDA-K, based in Pang Wa, was founded by former KIA Commander Zahkung Tingying and Layawk Zelum. The NDA-K was the first Kachin group to sign a ceasefire agreement with the military government in 1989, shortly after the collapse of the CPB.

The KDA was founded in 1990 by Mahtu Naw, commander of the KIA’s 4th brigade, based in Northern Shan State. After the breakaway from the KIA, the KDA signed a ceasefire agreement with the ruling military government and defected to Rangoon in 1990.

After 14 years, the KIA rebelled against the Rangoon government. In 1975, the KIO’s top leaders— Zau Seng, Zau Tu and Pung Shwe Zau Seng—were assassinated at the Thai-Burma border. Brang Seng, who negotiated the ceasefire agreement in 1994, took over as KIO chairman and appointed Zaung Hkra as KIO secretary.

The KIO entered into talks with the government of Gen Ne Win’s government in 1963 and 1980, but nothing materialized. On February 24, 1994, the KIO signed a ceasefire agreement with the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC).

KIO Chairman Zau Mai was ousted in February 2001 by a reformist faction within the party, in a coup at the KIO headquarters in Laiza. Since then, Lamung Tu Jai has led the KIO.

KIO leaders are often accused of treating the Kachin people no differently from the regime.

“The KIO hasn’t achieved autonomy or independence for the Kachin State and that’s depriving the Kachin people of hope,” said Aung Wah, chairman of the Kachin Development Network Group.

Ethnic sources in Kachin State also accuse the KIO of collecting taxes at border crossings with China and engaging in various business deals, including granting logging, mining and gambling concessions to local and Chinese investors throughout Kachin State.

“If they continue this way, we’ll never get what we want,” said Naw La, of the All Kachin Students and Youth Union.

မယ္လစခန္းရွိ ကရင္ဒုကၡသည္ ၉၀ ဂ်ပန္မွာ ျပန္လည္အေျခခ်ခြင့္ ရမည္

2010-02-03T07:46:00.000-08:00

03 February 2010, by VOA-Burmese

ထုိင္း၊ ျမန္မာနယ္စပ္ေဒသ ဒုကၡသည္စခန္းမွာ ရွိေနတဲ့ ျမန္မာျပည္က ဒုကၡသည္ေတြ ဂ်ပန္ႏုိင္ငံကုိ ေခၚယူေရး အစီအစဥ္ရဲ႕ ပထမ ေျခလွမ္းအျဖစ္နဲ႔ ဂ်ပန္ကုိယ္စားလွယ္ အဖြဲ႕ဟာ ဒုကၡသည္ေတြကုိ လူေတြ႕ သြားေရာက္ေတြ႕ဆုံ ေမးျမန္းခဲ့ပါတယ္။ ဂ်ပန္ကုိယ္စားလွယ္ အဖြဲ႕ဟာ ဒုကၡသည္ေတြကုိ လူေတြ႕ စစ္ေဆးေမးျမန္းမႈေတြကို ေဖေဖာ္၀ါရီလ ၂ ရက္ေန႔ကစၿပီး ျပဳလုပ္ခဲ့တယ္လုိ႔ ဆုိပါတယ္။ အျပည့္အစုံကုိ ဆက္သြယ္စုံစမ္းထားတဲ့ ကုိေဇာ္၀င္းလႈိင္က တင္ျပေပးထားပါတယ္။

ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံက ဒုကၡသည္ေတြကုိ ဂ်ပန္ႏုိင္ငံမွာ ျပန္လည္ ေနရာခ်ထားေပးမယ္ဆုိတဲ့ ဂ်ပန္အစုိးရရဲ႕ ပထမအဆင့္အျဖစ္နဲ႔ ထုိင္း၊ ျမန္မာနယ္စပ္ မယ္လ ဒုကၡသည္စခန္းမွာ ရွိတဲ့ ဒုကၡသည္ေတြကုိ ဂ်ပန္အစုိးရ ကုိယ္စားလွယ္ေတြက မေန႔ အဂၤါေန႔ကစၿပီး လူေတြ႕ စစ္ေဆးမႈေတြ စတင္ျပဳလုပ္ေနၿပီ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။

ဂ်ပန္အစုိးရ ကုိယ္စားလွယ္အဖြဲ႕ဟာ ေဖေဖာ္၀ါရီလ ၁ ရက္၊ တနလၤာေန႔ကတည္းက မယ္လစခန္းထဲကုိ ေရာက္ေနခဲ့ၾကတာလုိ႔ မယ္လစခန္းရဲ႕ ဒုတိယဥကၠ႒ မန္းထြန္းထြန္းက ေျပာပါတယ္။

“သူတုိ႔ ၁ ရက္ေန႔၊ တနလၤာေန႔ကတည္းက စခန္းမွာ က်ေနာ္တို႔ ေကာ္မတီေတြရယ္၊ သက္ဆုိင္ရာ ထုိင္းအာဏာပုိင္ေတြရယ္ လာေတြ႕ပါတယ္။ ညေနပုိင္းက်ေတာ့ သူတို႔ ဂ်ပန္ႏုိင္ငံကို ေလွ်ာက္တဲ့လူေတြနဲ႔ ေတြ႕ဆုံခဲ့တယ္။ သူတုိ႔ရဲ႕ အစီအစဥ္က ၂ ရက္ေန႔ကေန ၅ ရက္ေန႔အထိ ဂ်ပန္ကို တင္ထားတဲ့ မိသားစုေတြကုိ အင္တာဗ်ဴးလုပ္မယ္၊ ဂ်ပန္အစိုးရက။ ဂ်ပန္အစိုးရအဖြဲ႕မွာ ဆုိရင္ေတာ့ တရားေရး ၀န္ႀကီးဌာန (Ministry of Justice) က ၆ ေယာက္၊ ၇ ေယာက္ေလာက္ ပါမယ္။ ၿပီးေတာ့ Ministry of Foreign Affairs က ၃ ေယာက္ေလာက္ ပါတယ္။ အားလုံး ၁၀ ေယာက္ေလာက္ ပါတယ္။”

ဂ်ပန္အစုိးရအေနနဲ႔ ထုိင္း၊ ျမန္မာ နယ္စပ္ေဒသက ဒုကၡသည္ စခန္းထဲမွာ ရွိေနတဲ့ ျမန္မာဒုကၡသည္ေတြကုိ ဒီႏွစ္ ၂၀၁၀ ခုႏွစ္ကစၿပီး တႏွစ္ အေယာက္ ၃၀ ႏႈန္းနဲ႔ ၃ ႏွစ္ဆက္တုိက္ ေခၚယူ ျပန္လည္ ေနရာခ်ထားလုိတဲ့ အေၾကာင္း ၿပီးခဲ့တဲ့ႏွစ္ ႏုိ၀င္ဘာလထဲမွာ UNHCR ကုလသမဂၢ ဒုကၡသည္မ်ားဆုိင္ရာ မဟာမင္းႀကီး႐ုံးကုိ အေၾကာင္းၾကားခဲ့တယ္လုိ႔ ဆုိပါတယ္။ အဲဒီအထဲကမွ ပထမအသုတ္အျဖစ္နဲ႔ လူ ၃၀ ကုိ စတင္ေခၚယူဖုိ႔ အခုလုိ လာေတြ႕တာ ျဖစ္တဲ့အေၾကာင္း မန္းထြန္းထြန္းက ဆက္ေျပာျပပါတယ္။

“ဂ်ပန္ႏုိင္ငံက ပထမအသုတ္ အေနနဲ႔ လူ အေယာက္ ၃၀ ေခၚမယ္။ အဲဒီအတြက္ စိတ္၀င္စားတဲ့ လူေတြ တင္ၾကပါေပါ့။ အဓိက အေၾကာင္းရင္းကေတာ့ ဂ်ပန္ႏုိင္ငံက အာရွႏုိင္ငံ တႏုိင္ငံလည္း ျဖစ္တယ္။ ၿပီးေတာ့ ႀကိဳတင္ ျပင္ဆင္ထားတဲ့ ဟာေတြလည္း ေတာ္ေတာ္ေကာင္းပါတယ္၊ က်ေနာ္ သိရသေလာက္ဆုိရင္။ သူတို႔အစီအစဥ္ကေတာ့ ဒီ ၄ ရက္အတြင္းမွာ မိသားစု၀င္ေတြကို အင္တာဗ်ဴးလုပ္ဖုိ႔ စီစဥ္ထားတယ္။”

ဒီဒုကၡသည္ေတြ ဂ်ပန္ႏုိင္ငံကုိ ေရာက္သြားရင္ ပထမ ၆ လအထိ ဂ်ပန္အစုိးရက ၾကည့္႐ႈေစာင့္ေရွာက္ထားမွာ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ အဲဒီ သတ္မွတ္ထားတဲ့ ကာလ ေက်ာ္သြားရင္ေတာ့ ကုိယ့္ေျခေထာက္ေပၚ ကုိယ္ရပ္တည္ႏုိင္ဖုိ႔ အလုပ္အကုိင္ ရွာေဖြၾကရမွာ ျဖစ္ေပမဲ့ သက္ဆုိင္ရာ လူမႈအဖြဲ႕အစည္းေတြက စုစုေပါင္း တႏွစ္ခြဲေလာက္ အထိေတာ့ အတုိင္းအတာ တခုထိ အကူအညီေတြ ဆက္ေပးေနဦးမွာ ျဖစ္တယ္လုိ႔ ဆုိပါတယ္။

“က်ေနာ္တုိ႔ သိရသေလာက္ကေတာ့ ဂ်ပန္ႏုိင္ငံ ေရာက္သြားရင္ ၆ လက အစိုးရက အျပည့္အ၀ ကူညီ ေထာက္ပံ့ေပးသြားမယ္။ ၆ လေက်ာ္သြားရင္ေတာ့ မိသားစု၀င္ေတြက သူတုိ႔ဘာသာ သူတို႔ ေျခေထာက္ေပၚ ရပ္တည္ဖို႔အတြက္ အလုပ္ေတြ ရွာရေတာ့မယ္။ ကုိယ့္ရဲ႕ အိမ္ေတြဘာေတြ ရွာရေတာ့မယ္။ အဲဒီမွာ ေနာက္ထပ္ ၁ ႏွစ္နဲ႔ ၆ လ အတြင္းမွာေတာ့ သူတို႔ လူမႈကူညီေစာင့္ေရွာက္ေရး အဖဲြ႕အစည္းေတြက သူတို႔ကုိ အႀကံဉာဏ္ေတြ ေပးသြားမယ္၊ အကူအညီေတြေပါ့၊ အလုပ္အကုိင္ ရွာဖို႔ျဖစ္ျဖစ္၊ တကယ္လို႔ အလုပ္အကုိင္ ရွာလုိ႔ မရဘူး၊ အခက္အခဲေတြ ရွိမယ္ဆုိရင္ Social Welfare Program ေပါ့၊ အစုိးရက ေထာက္ပံ့ထားတဲ့ Social Welfare Program ေတြမွာ သူတုိ႔ကုိ ကူညီေထာက္ပံ့ ေပးႏုိင္ေအာင္ဆုိၿပီး သူတုိ႔က ၀ုိင္း၀န္း ကူညီမႈေတြေတာ့ ရွိမယ္ေလ။ ၁ ႏွစ္နဲ႔ ၆ လတိတိေပါ့။”

ဒုကၡသည္ေတြထဲက ဘယ္သူ႔ကို ဂ်ပန္ႏုိင္ငံလာဖုိ႔ လက္ခံမယ္ဆုိတဲ့ ေနာက္ဆုံး ဆုံးျဖတ္ခ်က္ကေတာ့ ဂ်ပန္အစုိးရ အေပၚမွာပဲ မူတည္တယ္လုိ႔ UNHCR ေျပာခြင့္ရပုဂၢဳိလ္ အန္ဒေရ မာေဟျခစ္စ္ (Andrej Mahecic) က ေျပာပါတယ္။

“တကယ္လုိ႔ အားလုံး အဆင္ေျပ ေခ်ာေမြ႕သြားရင္ေတာ့ ဒုကၡသည္ေတြ အေနနဲ႔ ဂ်ပန္ႏုိင္ငံကုိ ဒီႏွစ္ စက္တင္ဘာလေလာက္မွာ စတင္ ထြက္ခြာႏုိင္ၾကမွာျဖစ္ၿပီး တႏွစ္မွာ အေယာက္ ၃၀ စီ ေခၚယူသြားမွာ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ထုိင္းႏုိင္ငံအတြင္းမွာ ရွိေနတဲ့ ျမန္မာ ဒုကၡသည္စခန္း ၉ ခုထဲက ဒုကၡသည္ စုစုေပါင္း ၅၅,၀၀၀ ေလာက္ထဲက ၂၀,၀၀၀ ေလာက္ကုိ တျခားႏုိင္ငံေတြမွာ ျပန္လည္ ေနရာခ်ထား ေပးႏုိင္ခဲ့ပါၿပီ။ ဒီအထဲက အမ်ားစုကေတာ့ အေမရိကန္၊ ၾသစေၾတးလ်နဲ႔ ကေနဒါႏုိင္ငံေတြကုိ ေရာက္သြားၾကတာ ျဖစ္ေပမဲ့ တျခား ႏုိင္ငံေပါင္း ၈ ႏုိင္ငံကုိ ေရာက္သြားၾကတဲ့ ဒုကၡသည္ တခ်ဳိ႕လည္း ရွိပါတယ္။”

ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံက ဒုကၡသည္ေတြကုိ အာရွႏုိင္ငံတခုက ျပန္လည္ ေနရာခ်ထားေပးဖုိ႔ ေခၚယူတာ ဂ်ပန္ႏုိင္ငံဟာ ပထမဆုံးႏုိင္ငံ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင့္လည္း တျခား အေနာက္ႏုိင္ငံေတြအျပင္ အခုလုိ အာရွတုိက္အတြင္းက ႏုိင္ငံတခု တုိးလာတဲ့အေပၚ UNHCR အေနနဲ႔ ႀကိဳဆုိေၾကာင္း ေျပာခြင့္ရပုဂၢဳိလ္ အန္ဒေရ မာေဟျခစ္စ္က ေျပာပါတယ္။

“ဒုကၡသည္ေတြ ျပန္လည္ ေနရာခ်ထားေပးတဲ့ ႏုိင္ငံေတြ စာရင္းမွာ ဂ်ပန္ႏုိင္ငံတႏုိင္ငံ တုိးလာတာကုိ က်ေနာ္တုိ႔ UNHCR အေနနဲ႔ ႀကိဳဆုိပါတယ္။ ဒီလုိ လုပ္ေဆာင္တဲ့အတြက္ တျခား အာရွႏုိင္ငံေတြကုိ အေရးပါတဲ့ အခ်က္ေပးလုိက္႐ုံတင္ မကဘဲ ထုိင္းႏုိင္ငံထဲမွာ ႏွစ္ေပါင္း ၂၅ ႏွစ္ေလာက္ ပိတ္မိေနၾကတဲ့ ဒုကၡသည္ေတြ ျပႆနာ ကူညီေျဖရွင္းေပးဖုိ႔လည္း ထုိင္းအစုိးရကုိ တဘက္က ကူညီရာ ေရာက္ေနလုိ႔ပါပဲ။”

ထုိင္း၊ ျမန္မာ နယ္စပ္ေဒသက ဒုကၡသည္စခန္းေတြမွာ ရွိေနၾကတဲ့ ဒုကၡသည္တခ်ဳိ႕ဟာ စခန္းထဲမွာ ႏွစ္ေပါင္းမ်ားစြာ ဒုကၡသည္အျဖစ္နဲ႔ ေနထုိင္ေနၾကရတာ ျဖစ္ၿပီး တခ်ဳိ႕ဆုိ ႏွစ္ေပါင္း ၃၀ ေလာက္အထိ ေနထုိင္ခဲ့ၿပီး ျဖစ္တယ္လုိ႔ ဆုိပါတယ္။

အခု ဂ်ပန္ႏုိင္ငံက ေခၚယူမယ့္ မယ္လ ဒုကၡသည္စခန္းက ဒုကၡသည္ေတြအေနနဲ႔ လယ္ယာစုိက္ပ်ဳိးမႈ တတ္ကၽြမ္းသူ၊ အသက္ ၄၀ ေအာက္ေတြနဲ႔ ကရင္လူမ်ဳိးေတြကုိသာ ေခၚယူမယ္လုိ႔ ဂ်ပန္ကုိယ္စားလွယ္အဖြဲ႕က ေျပာတဲ့အေၾကာင္း လူေတြ႕စစ္ေဆး ေမးျမန္းမႈမွာ ပါ၀င္ခဲ့ၾကတဲ့ ဒုကၡသည္တခ်ဳိ႕က ေျပာပါတယ္။

Hkaw Hkam Lu Ai Amyu

2009-10-28T13:43:00.000-07:00

from PangLai Hkrudu

Mungkan ntsa e hkawhkam lu ai mungdan ni hpe Kingdom ngu shamying ma ai. Ga shadawn Kingdom of Thailand, Kingdom of Cambodia, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Nepal (ya n'nga mat sai), United Kingdom etc. rai nga ai. Hkawhkam lu ai amyu ni nga ai hte maren hkawhkam n lu ai amyu ni mung nga nga ai. Nkau mungdan ni gaw maigan mungdan na amyu masha ni sa gasat dang la kau ai majaw hkawhkam shamat kau ma ai. Anhte Jinghpaw Wunpawng sha ni hta moi hkawhkam lu yu sai kun? n lu yu ai kun? hkrak n chye lu ga ai. Rai tim, Gumchying Gumsa du ni up hkang ai duwa prat ngu ai nga lai wa sai. Masha nkau mi gaw Jinghpaw Wunpawng sha ni hpe hkawhkam n lu ai amyu ni ngu nna yu kaji let kabye chye ma ai. Jinghpaw Wunpawng amyu masha hta na mung nkau mi gaw tinang amyu hpe yu kaji nna masha ni e Kachin ngu mu chye kau na pyi hkrit tsang ai majaw maigan amyu masha ni a lapran e du ai shaloi Roma du yang Roma ni zawn nga, bu hkawt kaw buhkawt, bu ren kaw bu ren nga nna gayau gaya makoi rawng mat chye ma ai. Ndai zawn re ai masha ni tinang a amyu masha ni a matu gade daram woi awn lu na ma ai kun?

Kabu hpa shiga gaw ndai Hkrismat shata hta mungkan masha ni a matu si hkam nna hkye la na shangai chyinghkai wa sai Madu Yesu hpe hkap la kam sham ai masha ni yawng Karai Kasang a kasha ni tai lu ai ahkang lu la ai lam rai nga ai. Chyum laika hta Karai Kasang gaw nga yawng nga pra hpe hpan tawn da ai nna up hkang nga ai hkawhkam rai nga ai lam tsun da ai. Madu Yesu hpe hkawhkam rai , n rai Pilat san ai shaloi, Madu Yesu gaw hkawhkam re ai lam htai sai(Yawhan 18:37). Hpang jahtum Madu Yesu gaw hkawhkam ni a Hkawhkam, madu ni a Madu tai na lam tsun da ai(Shingran 19:16). Dai majaw Madu Yesu hpe hkap la kam sham ai Jinghpaw Wunpawng sha ni gaw hkawhkam ni a Hkawhkam Madu Yesu a amyu tai wa sai. Dingla ugut gu nna n-gun lagaw yawm wa n chye ai, si mat n chye ai, maigan amyu masha ni e rim la nna daru magam aya n kashun la kau ya lu ai htani htana a hkrung nga ai Hkawhkam Karai Kasang a kasha ni tai lu sai. Myi man kaji na lam naw nga a ni? "Nanhte chyawm gaw, nsin kata de nna shi a mauhpa nhtoi de nanhte hpe shaga bang wa ai wa a dan hkung ai magam hpe shabrawg dat ya myit ga, lata la ai amyu, hkawhkam hkinjawng ni,chyoi pra ai amyu baw hte, Karai Kasang a lahku ang ai masha ni rai nga myit dai. Nanhte mung shawng e amyu rai nga myit dai n rai; ya chyawm gaw Karai Kasang a amyu rai wa manit dai; shawng e chyeju hkam la manit dai n rai, ya chyawm gaw , chyeju hkam la manit dai,"(I Petru 2:9-10).

Hkawhkam a shayi shadang sha ni hte hkawhkam a dinghku masha ni (Royal Family) tsun shaga ai ga gaw yu maya masha darat daroi ni tsun shaga ai ga hte shai nga ma ai. Ga shadawn: Myen hkawhkam ni gaw kawa hpe Aba shing n rai Ahpe n ngu ai sha hkami daw, kanu hpe mung ame, shing n rai me me n ngu ai sha, me daw, kahpu hpe ako shing n rai ko ko n ngu ai sha naung daw, kanau hpe mung nyi le n ngu ai sha nyi daw, kajan hpe mung nyima n ngu ai sha hnama daw, ngu nna shamying shaga ai lam mu lu ga ai. Hkawhkam wa shat sha ai hpe mung htamin tsa de n ngu ai sha tsa daw hkaw de ngu tsun ma ai. Hkawhkam wa yup ai hpe mung eik de n ngu ai sha tset daw hkaw de ngu shag ma ai. Hkawhkam wa si ai hpe the de n ngu ai sha, nat ywa tsan de ngu ma ai.Dai hte maren shanhte a shamu shamawt ai sat lawat ni mung yu maya mung masha ni a shamau shamawt ai sat lawat hte shai nga ma ai. Hkawhkam wa hte hkawhk a dinghku masha ni bu hpun sumraw ai bu hpun palawng ni mung yu maya mung masha ni bu hpun ai labu palawng hte shai nga ma ai. Dai hte maren hkawhkam ni a Hkawhkam Madu Yesu hpe lu la sai Jinghpaw Wunpawng sha ni mung Hkristan ni a tsun shaga, shamu shamawt ai sat lawat arawn alai ni hpe shani shagu na asak hkrung lam hta dan dawng shangu n ra nga ai. Jinghpaw ga sha rai tim wenyi hte seng ai Hkristan Jinghpaw ga rai ra nga ai. Shani shagu sha ai lu sha mung Hkristan makam masham hte nhtan n shai ai lusha hpe sha ra na rai nga ai. Bu hpun ai sumpan maren sha rai tim chywi hpun ai design gaw Hkristan makam masham hte bung pre ai design maka rai ra na rai nga ai. Dai hku n re ai sha, bu hkawt kaw bu hkawt, bu ren hta bu ren ngu nna n kam n sham ai amyu masha ni hte maren lu sha, bu hpun, tsun shaga, shamu shamawt yang hkawhkam n lu ai amyu zawn mu mada ai hkrum na rai nga ai. Dai zawn mu mada hkrum yang Madu Yesu a sakse kaja ntai lu nga ai. Kade a mara ngu na kun?

Politics Explained with Cows

2009-10-25T00:47:00.000-07:00

From About.com

A CHRISTIAN DEMOCRAT: You have two cows. You keep one and give one to your neighbor.

A SOCIALIST: You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.

AN AMERICAN REPUBLICAN: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So what?

AN AMERICAN DEMOCRAT: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being successful. You vote people into office who tax your cows, forcing you to sell one to raise money to pay the tax. The people you voted for then take the tax money and buy a cow and give it to your neighbor. You feel righteous.

A COMMUNIST: You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk.

A FASCIST: You have two cows. The government seizes both and sells you the milk. You join the underground and start a campaign of sabotage.

DEMOCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE: You have two cows. The government taxes you to the point you have to sell both to support a man in a foreign country who has only one cow, which was a gift from your government.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE: You have two cows. You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE: You have two cows. The government takes them both, shoots one, milks the other, pays you for the milk, then pours the milk down the drain.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when the cow drops dead.

A FRENCH CORPORATION: You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon and market them World-Wide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

A BRITISH CORPORATION: You have two cows. They are mad. They die. Pass the shepherd's pie, please.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You break for lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 12 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION: You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you. You charge others for storing them.

A BRAZILIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You enter into a partnership with an American corporation. Soon you have 1000 cows and the American corporation declares bankruptcy.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You worship both of them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported on them.

AN ISRAELI CORPORATION: There are these two Jewish cows, right? They open a milk factory, an ice cream store, and then sell the movie rights. They send their calves to Harvard to become doctors. So, who needs people?

AN ARKANSAS CORPORATION: You have two cows. That one on the left is kinda cute.

English Laika Hti Ladat (Rapid Reading English)

2009-10-19T08:59:00.000-07:00

By Myihtantu

Manang langai mi tsun yu ai: "Inglik laika hti gaw chye hti ai law, n chye na ai sha ra ai," da. Mungkan ntsa e hpaji amyu myu hpe English laika hku ka da ai majaw English laika hpe chye hti yang manu dan ai sutgan amyu myu bang da ai sadek zaw amyu myu hpe mai hpaw ai zaw lagut lu da ai hte bung nga ai. Dai hta n-ga English laika amyu mi hpe atsawm sha chye yang kaga ga amyu 10 chye ai hta grau akyu rawng nga ai. Mungkan Wunpawng hpung a Amu Madu kaba (UN General Secretary) tai lai mat wa yu sai Myen mung na U Thant gaw Myen ga hte English ga amyu lahkawng sha chye ai wa rai nga ai.

English laika sharin hka ja ai masha langai mi hku nna loi ai laika buk paper back edition ni lu hti na matu Englsih ga hkum 2000 daram hpe chye tawn ra ai. Dakkasu hpaji janmau bachelor degree a matu gaw tinang sharin la nga ai subject hte seng ai English ga hkum 4000 daram chye tawn ra ai. Master degree hte doctorate degree a matu gaw tinang la ai subject hte seng ai laika hkum yawm dik 6000-10000 daram chye tawn ra ai majaw n chye ai n nga ai daram rai ra sai.

Bachelor degree lu sai ni mung English laika hti lawan na matu gara hku shaman la ra a ta? nga nna san chye ma ai. American Gumsan magam tai lai wa sai Bill Clinton gaw laika man 300 rawng ai laika buk langai mi hpe minute 30 hte lu hti ai lam chye lu ai. Laika hti lawan ai gaw hpaji langai mi rai nga ai. Laika hti lawan ai masha ni gaw tinang hti ai laika hpe grau chye na ai hta n ga grau mung matsing nga ma ai. Laika hti lanyan ai masha ni gaw hpang daw de hti nga yang shawng daw de na lam ni malap kau ai majaw laika buk mi hti ngut ai hpang dai laika buk hta hpa baw ka da ai hpe bai san yang kaang hkup pyi n lu tsun dan ma ai. Dai hta n ga laika buk hta ka da ai lam ni gayau mat nna shi na hte shi hkrak hkrak bai n chye tsun nna kapik kapawk rai nhti n htang bai tsun dan ma ai. Docotral degree a matu shana shagu laika man 25 (single space) research paper man man ka ra yang laika buk 10 hte 20 lapran hti ra ai. Laika hti lanyan ai wa a matu nhtoi garai n htoi yang gara hku paper ka shangut lu na rai ta?

Laika hti lawan ai ngu ai gaw tinang chye tawn chyalu ga baw subject hte tinang myit lawm ai ga baw subject hta madung rai nga ai. Jawng laika hti yang grai lanyan ai numsha langai mi sumroi laika, sumrai laika ni grai lawan hti lu ai n rai ni? Chyum jawng sara langai mi gaw Karai hpaji Theology) hte seng ai laika buk hpe lawan wan hti nna atsawm chye na tim, tsi hpaji (medicine) hte seng ai laika, shing n rai gaw gap hpaji (Engineering) hpaji hte seng ai laika, shing n rai hpungtang hpaji (nuclear science) hte seng ai laika hti yang grai lanyan na sha rai nga ai. Dai gaw shi chye tawn da sai ga baw subject hte seng nna ka da ai laika ni hpe grai chye na lawan nna hti lawan ai rai nga ai. Bill Clinton gaw mung masa laika hpe lawan wan lu hti tim hpungtang hpaji hte seng ai laika hti yang grai lanyan na rai nga ai. Shing n rai Myen laika hti shangun yang grai lanyan na rai nga ai.

Dai majaw English laika hpe lawan wan chye hti nna atsawm chye na mayu yang:

(1) Tinang myit lawm ai laika hpe lata hti ra ai. Ga shadawn: ginsup ai lam hpe myit lawm yang shata kru daram ginsup ai hte seng ai laika, magazine, articles, shiga news ni hpe sha shani shagu laika man langai lahkawng man man hti ra ai. Dai shata kru laman kaga laika ga baw subject hpe gayau hti yang bawnu kata de gayau mat nna gara mung a tsawm n chye ai byin wa lu ai. Lit baw ai zawn bawnu kata de atsawm sha baw bang yang she bai shaw jai ai shaloi hkrak hkrak bai pru wa ai. Gayau gaya baw bang yang gayau gaya pru wa nna laika hti lanyan ai hta n ga atsawm n chye na ai lam byin chye ai. Dai hta n ga tinang myit lawm ai ga baw hpe hti shaman yang grau chye na magang grau chye jat mayu magang rai nna myit gang ai n-gun grai ja nga ai. Tinang myit n lawm ai ga baw subject hpe hti yang, grai kadawng lung ai zawn nga nna myit daw loi nga ai.

(2) Dictionary kaja hpe akyu jashawn ra ai. English laika gaw grai dam lada ai rai nna shani shagu ga si ga hkum nnan ni jat nga ai. Dai majaw English mashsa ni pyi dictionary (ga htai chyum) hpe ayan e hpaw hti nga ai hpe anhte mu lu ai. English n re ai anhte gaw grau nna dictionary galam na n mai lagawn ai. Dictionary mung htat magang kaja magang rai nga ai. Nau hpa, nau kaji ai dictionary ni gaw tinang ra ai laika hkum n lawm chye ai. Dai hta n-ga nau na sai dictionary ni mung ga hkum nnan ni n rawng ai majaw akyu nau n pru nga ai. Hpang jahtum dip shapraw ai Webster's Dictionary, Randomhouse Dictionary, Advanced Oxford Learner's Dicitonary zawn re ai ni gaw hpaji hka ja ai jawng ma ni a matu grai akyu rawng nga ai. Dai hta n-ga, tinang hka ja nga ai hpaji hte seng ai dictionary ni hpe mung chye lang ra ai. Ga shadawn: Bible Dictionary, Dictionary of Modern Philosophy, Environment Dictionary, Glossary of medical terminology, zawn re ai ni hpe mari lang chye ra ai.

(3) Laika hti ai shaloi ahkyak lareng ni hpa baw re ai hpe tinang hkrai ga san san nna matsing tawn ra ai. Laika buk a shawng daw de ka da ai malawm ni hpe yu ra ai. Laika ka sara wa a lam hpe mung hti da ra ai. Laika buk a shingdu maga kata na laika man shing n rai. laika buk makawp hkan e laika ka ai wa a lam kadun hku ka da chye ai. Laika ka ai wa a lam chye jang shi gara maga masa hta tsap nna dai laika hpe ka da ai tau chye lu na rai nga ai.

(4) Tinang hka ja nga ai laika hte seng ai laika buk law law hti ra ai. Dai hku nna ga baw (subject) langai mi hte seng ai laika buk law law hpe hti wa ai shaloi, tinang bai hta hti ai laika buk nnan ni hta rawng ai lam ni gaw, mi shawng daw de hti ngut sai laika ni hta rawng ai lam ni bai kahtap rawng ai hpe mu mada na rai nga ai. Myit nshat idea nnan lahkawng masum sha mu hti jat na rai nga ai. Shaloi ahkyak ga lareng key words ni hpe tam hti yang dai laika buk hta rawng ai lam ni hpe aloi sha matsing la lu nga ai. Key words ni hpe gaw laika buk shingdu jahtum maga appendix shing n rai wordlist shing n rai glossary ngu ai daw hta ka bang da ai mu lu nga ai.

(5) Laika hti ai shaloi n-gup n galem ai sha myi hte hti ra ai. N-gup galem nga yang laika hti grai lanyan na rai nga ai. Lata layung madi nna layung hpe hkan ai hku hti yang mung laika hti lanyan na rai nga ai. Laika hti lawan ai ni gaw pai de nna hkra de n hti ai sha, laika man lahta maga de nna lawu de dingdung hku hti ma ai. Shing rai nna, shi laika, magazine ni hpe dingdung hku hti mai na matu, laika man mi hta column kaji lahkawng shing n rai masum garan nhtawm dip ai rai nga ai.

(6) Laika hti ai shara gaw nhtoi atsawm leng ai shara rai ra ai. Myi atsawm n mu yang mung laika hti lanyan chye nga ai. Mai byin yang Karai Kasang jw ai nhtoi (natural light) gaw kaja dik rai nga ai. Myi set set ai ni mung tinang a myi hte hkrak ai myi set degree rai ra ai. Hkauna htu ai wa gaw na hpru na jawn ni hpe kaja dik mari jahkum lang ai hte maren, laika hti ai ni mung myi set atsawm hkrak re ai lahkawng masum mari jahkum lang chye ra ai.

(7) Laika garai n hti yang hte laika hti ngut ai hpang tinang hpa baw hti la nga ai ai lam myit sumru chye ra ai. Shaloi she tinang hti ai laika hpe garai n malap yang bai shalum ai tai nna grau matsing nga ai. Ga shadawn: kadai gaw kadai hpe hpa baw tsu ai, hpa majaw dai hku tsun ai, kaga lam hku gara hku naw mai tsun ai, tinang myit hkrum ai lam, hpa majaw myit hkrum ai, myit n hkrum ai lam ni gaw hpa majaw myit n hkrum lawm ai, tinang a matu gara mahtang akyu jashawn mai na, gara hku tatut jai lang na ngu ai lam ni hpe laika hti wa let e myit sumru mat wa ra ai. Tinang myit lu ai lam ni hpe mung notes kadun ni ka matsing mat wa ra ai. Ndai hku shani shagu man man htu shamna yang English laika sha n-ga Jinghpaw laika, Myen laika ni hpe mung lawan wan chye hti nna atsawm lu matsing na rai nga ai.

Masha Hkum Sat

2009-10-19T08:30:00.000-07:00

by Baptist Preacher

Mungkan ntsa e makam masham nkau mi gaw nhtu hte sasana galaw nna Chyoi Pra ai majan ngu shamying ma ai. Hkristan ni mung dai masa hpe hkan nang nna Crusade majan gasat lai wa masai. Gaja wa nga yang, Hindu makam masham, Bukda makam masham, hte Hkristan makam masham gaw gumshem nna jahkrit shama ai ladat hte n re ai sha (A SHIM SA) non-violence ladat hku sasana galaw ai makam masham rai nga ai. Tara Kanu 10 hta Masha hpe hkum sat et nga nna ka da nga ai (Pru mat 20:13). Madu Yesu mung dai Tara Kanu 10 hpe n jahten kau ai. Mahte 5:21 hta, Masha asak hpe sat lu na n rai nga ai ga hpe nanhte na yu manit dai, ngai mahtang nanhte hpe teng teng tsun made ai gaw Tinang a kahpu kanau wa hpe masin pawt ai wa kadai mung jeyang ai hte ging dan nga ai, nga nna tsun da ai. Shing ran 21:8 hta Masha sat ai ni gaw wan hte kan grung ai nawng hta ari hkrum lu na mara ai nga nna ka da ai. Hpa majaw ta nga yang, masha asak hpe sat ai wa kaw na asai hka hpe asak madu Karai Kasang bai hpyi na rai nga ai.

Karai Kasang mung masha sat nga ai n rai ni? nga nna masha nkau mi san chye ma ai. Karai Kasang gaw Hpan Madu re ai majaw dibu sama wa zawn, shi hpan da ai shinggyim masha ni hpe shi kam ai hku galaw lu nga ai. Anhte gaw asak madu n re ai majaw kam ai hku n mai galaw ga ai. Karai Kasang hpe jeyang na kadai n nga sai. Karai Kasang gaw shi sat kau sai masha ni hpe bai jahkrung lu ai. Anhte gaw anhte sat kau sai masha hpe n lu jahkrung ai. Madu Yesu lahkawng lang bai du ai shaloi RAPTURE ten hta Chyoi Pra ai ni ngu ai shi hte kam sham ai ni hpe jahkrung sharawt la na rai nga ai. Dai hpang shaning 1,000 lai nna Satan hte shi a salung sala ni hpe nsin htawng kaw na bai shapraw la ai shaloi Satan hte Madu Yesu a hpungni gasat hkat na rai nga ai. Dai hpang n kam n sham nna si mat ai ni hpe bai jahkrung sharawt la na rai nga ai. Ndai lang bai hkrung rawt wa ai ni gaw sumsing lamu mungdan de shang na n rai. Shanhte hpe tinang a mara hte maren je yang nna, byet mung n si, wan mung n nyip, wa wudik wurin ai shara, wan hte kan grung ai ngarai mung de jahkrat kau na rai nga ai. Madu Yesu gaw shi a sape ni hpe, hkum hkrang hpe sha zing-ri sat lu ai hpyen ni hpe hkum hkrit mu, hkum hkrang hpe sat nna wenyi hpe ngarai mung de jahkrat kau lu ai Karai Kasang hpe hkrit nga mu, ngu nna htet da sai.

Masha nkau mi gaw matai htang ai lam hpe grai sharawng ma ai. Yuda makam masham hta mung Myi a matu myi, wa a matu wa - An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth nga ai tara hte maren hkan sa ma ai. Hkristan makam masham hta gaw mara dat ai lam hpe madung dat nga ai. Tinang hpe hpyen ai wa a mara hpe dat kau yang sha anhte a shut hpyit mara hpe Karai Kasang dat kau ya na matu hpyi mai nga ai. Tinang mung kapaw si, kaga masha law law hpe mung si shangun ai gaw masha sat ai mara amyu lahkawng lu nga ai. Tinang a asak hpe tinang n madu ai, Karai Kasang she madu nga ai. Tinang hkum hpe sat ai mara hte kaga masha hpe sat ai mara amyu lahkawng kap nga ai. Yuda Iskarut gaw Madu Yesu hpe dut sha ai mara lu dum nna tinang hkum tinang dau si mat ai. Dai lam hte seng nna Madu Yesu gaw Shi n shangai wa yang shi a matu grau kaja na rai nga ai ngu na tsun da ai. Dai majaw tinang shangai ai kasha ni hpe mung n mai sat ai. Tinang a hkritung na ma hpe jahkrat kau ai mung masha a asak hpe sat ai sha rai nga ai. Htingbu wa hpe si na de shawk bang kau dat ai mung masha sat ai mara hte maren rai nga ai. Tinang a myu, buga hpe maga ai ngu nna mung shawa masha si ai baw woi galaw ai ni mung masha sat ai lam sha rai nga ai. Tinang a htingbu wa hpe masin pawt ai mung masha sat ai mara hte maren re ai lam Madu Yesu tsun ai. Kadai wa masha sat ai mara kaw na lawt lu na rai ta?

Wudang ntsa e Madu Yesu a makau jen hkrum ai damya lahkawng Gystas and Dysmus gaw prat tup masha sat nna asak bau ai yan rai nga ai. Rai tim marai langai mi gaw si ningtawn e Madu Yesu hpe kam sham nna Dai ni jang nang ngai hte rau Hparadisu e nga lu na ndai ngu ai ga sadi hpe lu la nga ai. “To us is human, to forgive is divine” ngu ai ga malai hte maren shut hpyit ai gaw shinggyim masha shagu hta n lawt lu tim, myit malai lu nna tawngban yang, sanit shi lang htam sanit tim mara dat ya mai ai ngu sharin ya ai Madu gaw anhte hpe mara dat ya na rai nga ai.

Karai masa ga san(Theological and Christian ethical question): N kam n sham ai masha lahkawng hta na marai langai mi gaw kaga langai mi hpe sat kau sai. Sat hkrum ai wa gaw Madu Yesu hpe n kam sham ai sha si wa ai majaw yubak ngarai de shang na rai nga ai. Rai tim, masha sat ai wa gaw myit malai bai lu nna Madu Yesu hpe hkap la kam sham ai hpang asak ugut gu ai hpang si mat ai. Masha sat ai wa mahtang myit malai lu nna Madu Yesu hpe kam sama i majaw Hkye hkrang la hkrum nga ai. Ndai gaw chye na yak ai Karai Kasang a lam rai nga ai. (Salvation is a mystery of God).

N lagu, N lagawn, N laban

2009-10-06T23:47:00.000-07:00

by Panglaihkrudu

Myen mungdan hta BA,BEd janmau gup ai jawng sarama langai mi a shata shabrai gaw lap 6000-7000(US$ 6 hte 7 lapran) rai nga ai. Sarama gaw shi lu ai shata shabrai kaw na nta shap rawng ra ai, shat mari sha ra ai, jawng sa jawng wa motorcycle sau mari bang ra ai, tsi mari sha ra ai, mare buga hte makam masham hpung de alu bang ra ai, si hkrung si htan machyi makaw hkrum ai jinghku jing-yu ni hpe karum ra ai.Dai jawng sarama a jawngma tai yu sai lawu tsang jawng n lung shangut la lu ai numsha langai mi Thai mungdan kaw nta nchyang ma (mae baan) galaw yang shat mung lani mi ma masum hkru hkru lu sha, nta mung n shap rawng ra, tinang du nga ai Thai buga de alu n bang ra ai(nta madu ni bungli galaw lakmat a matu gumhpraw bath 3800 bang ya ai), nta madu ni a maw daw jawn ai majaw motorcycle sau n mari bang ra ai, machyi makaw hkrum yang tsi n mari ra ai, tsi rung rawng ra yang Baht 30(Lap 800 matsat tsa) hte machyi mai hkra tsi tsi la lu ai. Mae Baan (Housemaid) langai mi a shata shabrai bath 3,000 (lap mun sanit 7,000 kaw na 8000(lap sen lahkawng 200,000) rai nga ai. Malaysia de lu sa ai ni shabrai htam masum(Baht 15,000) lu ma ai. Japan de lu sa ai ni shata shabrai lap sen 10 kaw na sen 20 lu ma ai. American shabrang lagai mi shanhte mugdan hta shata mi amu galaw nna lu ai gumhpraw hte Thai kaw shata kru amu n galaw ai sha majoi mi sa dung sha lu ai nga tsun ai. Mungkan ntsa e Myen mungdan a npu e nga ai mungdan lahkawng sha nga sai. Anhte a mungdan gara hku byin wa sai kun?

Prat ram ai Jinghpaw Wunpawng sha ni n-gun lagaw garai n yawm yang, masha ni kaw gumhpraw naw mai tam yang, tinang buga hpe gan kau da nna maigan mungdan ni de pru sa wa ra sai. Majoi shingra bum sin nga nna nta masha yawng matsan si na malai lu su nga mu nga mai ai prat dep ai mayu sha ni hte jighku hku nna matsan nhkun kaw na lawt pru lam tam ra sai. Tinang buga hpe kadai mung tsaw ra ai. Nam maling na awoi lagang pyi shi a nam shalawng hpe n ja ai. Sinat lang ai ni sha myu tsaw myit rawng ai n rai. U myi pai pyi n chye gap ai wa mung myu tsaw myit gaw sinat lang nna masha gap sat ai wa a myu tsaw myi hta n yawm na re. Myu tsaw myu tsaw ngu nna shada da asak gyam hkat, mung tsaw mung tsaw ngu nna buga kata hpun lawk kashun sha hkat, lungseng nhkun kashun sha hkat, ja nhkun kashun htu hkat nga ai hta, masha mung n sat, mung masha ni hpe mung n zing ri shingtsang ai sha, buga lamu ga hte nhprang rai mung n jahten shama kau ai sha, maigan de hpaji shakut, kan bau bungli sharin, gumhpraw tam, kanau kasha ni hpe bau maka, jawng shalun, kanu kawa hpe gumhpraw shagu n jaw, tinang a buga hte nawku hpung a matu alu bang ai gaw, grau nna myu tsaw mung tsaw myit hpe tatut madun dan ai rai nga ai. Ya prat hta n-gup hku myu tsaw mung tsaw ai hpe kadai n kam sai dum ra ai. Masha sat ai myu tsaw masa hpe mung mung shawa masha hkyet rung wa sai dum ra ai.

Dai majaw Jingpaw Wunpawng ramma ni, laika hpaji n sharin sana rai yang kanu kawa tam ai sha n mai la sha dung nga sai. Mungdaw mung dan sutgan kashun htu sha nga ai lauban ni a mayam n mai tai ai. Dai gaw mungdan hpya sha ai hpe n-gun jaw ai sha rai nga ai.

Majoi shingra bum hpe kade n ja tim ji wa ni tawn da kau ra sai. Mahkawn shabrang maigan sa, ama ni hte gumgai dingla nta nga. Maiggan du nga sai ni yak ai ngu aput angun n mai tsun ai. Mungkan ga gaw tinang buga n re ai majaw lusha nga shara, kanawn mazum lam gara kaw mung yak ai sha re. Tinang buga pyi yak nga ai n rai ni? Atsawm chye nga yang gara kaw mung tinang buga sha re. Karai Kasang gaw mungkan masha yawng a matu ndai mungkan ga hpe hpan da ya sai re. Masha a ginru ginsa hpe kadai hkum pat da lu na rai ta? America mungdan mung sumsing lamu mungdan n rai. Japan mungdan mung sumsing lamu mung dan n rai. Du ai shara kaw astam htum hkra shakut shaja nna ja gumhpraw, hpaji hparat, kan bau bungli sharin la na n mai lagawn ai. Dik shale gumhpraw n lu tim, Inglik ga Inglik laika, Japan ga Japan laika, Malaysia ga, Malaysia laika Thai ga Thai laika chye hkra sharin la ra ai. Ga amyu myu sharin chye la ai majaw myit malai lu ai nhtoi n nga na re. N sharin la kau ai majaw chyawm gaw lani mi myit malai kaba lu na rai nga ai.

Rai tim, maigan du ai ramma ni n mai lagu ai. Lagu ai masha hpe bungli madu ni n ra ai. Lagu chye ai masha hpe shaning tup kadai mung n bau da lu ai. Lagu ai wa gaw shi a lam shi pat la ai sha rai nga ai. N mai lagawn ai. Maigan mungdan hta mung shanhte mung chying sha ni pyi bungli n lu nna yak nga ai. Dai kaw anhte sa yang shanhte madu bu ni n kam galaw ai bungli hpe shawng sa galaw ra ai. Three-Ds ngu ai Dirty, Difficult, and Dangerous jobs (matsat shabat amu, yak ai amu, hkrit tsang ra ai amu) galaw ra ai. Lagawn ai wa a matu kanang kaw mung bungli n nga ai. America mungdan hkan e gumsan magam a kasha rai tim jawng n lung ai ten shi jai na gumhpraw shi tam ra ai. Democracy ngu ai gaw majoi mi dung sha, lagu sha, masu sha na mung masa n rai. Masha yawng rap ra ai akyu hkam sha na matu yawng jawm shakut shaja ai masa she rai nga ai. Maigan du ai Jinghpaw ma ni tinang buga zawn nawn nna kam ai hku wang lu wang lang nga chye ai. Ndai bungli grai yak ai, wora bungli n kam galaw ai, nga nna ya sha ya sha bungli lata, bungli htawt rai chye ma ai. Aten ma hkam, taxi shabrai ma hkam, phone shabrai ma hkam nna bungli matut ya ai manang ni hpe pyi mara shagun chye ma ai.

Tinang a buga e nga yang laning lap mun mi pyi n tam yu ai ni maigan du yang tinang a aprat hpe malap mali rai chye ma ai. Nkau mi tinang lu ai shata shabrai hpe beer, tsa man man lu nna ginlut kau chye ma ai. Kade ning na wa tim, nta de gaw pyek mi mung n shagun ma ai. Dai gaw akyang laban ai ngu ai rai nga ai. Dai majaw maigan de sa mayu yang, Inglik ga, Inglik laika sharin , Thai ga Thai laika hpe sharin, Malaysia ga Malysia laika hpe sharin, Japan ga Japan laika hpe sharin, computer hte ta dip jak typing sharin, dik shale Miwa ga hpe sharin da nna shajin ra ai. Mana zawn zawn, ma-a zawn zawn hpa ga mung n chye shaga, hpa bungli mung n chye, hkam kaja lam mung n nga, tsa chyu lu, malut hkayawm chyu lu, kun-ya chyu sha, gumhpraw hpe majoi mi hkawyawm nna nat kau kau rai, kani hte nang hpam lu sha mung n kabai kau lu, lagu sha, masu sha, akyang bai laban, kadai hte mung n chye kanawn n chye hku hkau, pyaw daw kadaw sharawng rai yanag gaw maigan de sa tim manang ni hpe myit ru shangun, ruyak jamjau jahkrum lit shali na rai nga ai majaw, apyaw sha tinang a dai daw dai hpang buga sin nga ai mahtang grau kaja na rai nga ai.

US to talk to Burmese military, BBC

2009-09-24T01:37:00.000-07:00

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says Washington will engage directly with Burma's military rulers in a bid to promote democracy there.

Mrs Clinton said sanctions alone had not changed the government's behaviour.

The new approach follows a review of US policy towards Burma initiated after President Barack Obama took office.

Burma's hardline regime has refused to release political prisoners, including Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, despite international pressure.

Mrs Clinton's announcement came after talks with international diplomats on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. The talks were chaired by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

"We want credible democratic reform, a government that responds to the needs of the Burmese people, immediate, unconditional release of political prisoners... serious dialogue with the opposition and minority ethnic groups," she said.

"We believe that sanctions remain important as part of our policy, but by themselves they have not produced the results that had been hoped for on behalf of the people of Burma.

"Engagement versus sanctions is a false choice in our opinion," she added.

"So, going forward we will be employing both of those tools, pursuing our same goals. To help achieve democratic reform, we will be engaging directly with Burmese authorities."

Existing US sanctions against Burmese leaders would remain in place, Mrs Clinton said, but could be eased if "the core human rights and democracy issues that are inhibiting Burma's progress" were addressed.

US officials said that Congress would be briefed on specifics of the new policy of engagement on Thursday, the Associated Press news agency reported.

Next month a Burmese court is due to give its verdict on Ms Suu Kyi's appeal against her extended house arrest.

Ms Suu Kyi was sentenced in August to a further 18 months' house arrest after a US intruder stayed at her home.

She has spent 14 of the past 20 years in detention and the extension will keep her out of elections next year.

အဂၤလိပ္စာ ေလ့ လာ ၾကမယ္

2009-09-11T07:32:00.000-07:00

Love

(noun, verb) = ခ်စ္ျခင္း။ ခ်စ္သည္။ I love you. (မင္းကိုငါ ခ်စ္တယ္)

Hate

(verb) = မုန္းသည္။ eg. I hate pork. (ငါ၀က္သား ကိုမုန္းတယ္).

Late

(adjective) = ေနာက္က်ေသာ။ ဥပမာ- ဒီမနက္ ငါေက်ာင္း ေနာက္က်ခဲ့တယ္။ This morning, I was late for school.

ေနာက္က် (nouk kya), stress the last syllable when pronounce.

Official Bandits: Bribe and you shall pillage freely

2009-09-01T06:04:00.001-07:00

People in the Kachin State, especially women, constantly live in a state of alarm because of the government police and soldiers patrolling the Sadung area.

Traditionally people from neighboring villages would come to Sadung Pa for shopping every Saturday. However, over the past few years people have started shopping there every day because the market in town has grown in size.

A border town with China, it is common for people in Sadung Pa to use two currencies – Kyat and Yuan (RMB) interchangeably. The Sadung region is also known for opium cultivation in Burma (Myanmar).

Despite the fact that the authorities—the military government, National Defense Army-Kachin (NDAK) and Kachin Independence Organization (KIO)—destroy opium fields every year, opium continues to be a major source of income for the local people. It is still common for people to keep opium in small quantities for medicinal purposes.
Policemen and soldiers (sometimes without soldiers) in the Sadung region harass women and search them for opium and Chinese currency. If they find either Chinese money or opium, they threaten and rob them.

The latest case happened on July 9, 2009 near a Shan village between Sadung Pa and Sagapa village. A woman from Sagapa village (name withheld) went to Sadung Pa for shopping and was stopped near the aforementioned Shan village by two men in plain clothes armed with pistols and handcuffs. They searched her but they only found 9,000 Kyat. Fortunately, they did not confiscate her money but subjected her to interrogation, demanding to know where she came from and for what purpose she intended to use her money.

The woman was in shock as she recalled this experience and recounted that she felt goose bumps all over her body. She was alone and does not speak Burmese.

Local people informed me that the police force (essentially lawless bandits) only ambush people if they are women and only one or two.

When asked if they were aware of this situation, heads of local villages said that they have heard such stories numerous times. However, they do not know the names of the perpetrators which prevents them from reporting these instances to the concerned authorities.

Since most of the women in this region, especially those in their 40s or above, do not speak Burmese and have little formal education, they are easy targets for these bandits.

Many believe that these robberies are sinister in more ways than one as there is reason to believe that they are organized as shady business deals between officers and subordinates. Subordinates have to give 300,000 Kyat to officers each month in order for the officers to allow the subordinates to rob innocent women freely without repercussion.

Confiscation and Compensation in Kachin State: What's a Farmer supposed to do?!

2009-09-01T06:02:00.000-07:00

9^th August 2009, Kachin State, Myanmar by Mangshang

A lion tirelessly chases and catches a prey. But before it can taste the fruits of its arduous labor, a flock of hyenas robs it and all it can do is helplessly look at the perpetrators. Such is a common example we often see on television programs aired on Animal Planet.

Just like the poor lion, Mr. Lahpai Gam (a pseudonym) has had to abandon his well-tended farm after the National Defense Army-Kachin (NDAK) confiscated his land.

On his nearly five acre farm, Mr. Lahpai Gam has already grown numerous crops such as rubber plants, walnut trees, hardwood trees bearing a pungent smelling edible fruits (locally known as Tanyin Tee) and pineapples. He has already invested a lot of money, four years of time, passion and effort in the farm.

Since 2004, farmers have engaged in slash-and-burn cultivation to sustain long-term gardening in the area. They knew that the new road which is part of the Ledo Road (also known as General Stilwell Road which was used during WWII) will pass along the Sadung river. This gave them incentive as they dreamed of easy transportation. The road will be a major commercial route connecting India and China in the future. It was already completed in 2007.

As usual, farmers do not have land ownership permits (Land Grant) because they do not know whether it is wise to apply for land owner permits from the government. In fact, no one applies for land ownership permits in Sadung Township areas. Since they did not apply for land ownership permit, the areas are essentially free land before the government.

NDAK later also came to start large scale farming covering hundreds of acres in the areas. They applied for land ownership permits from the government and as a result local farmers’ lands have now fallen under the control of the NDAK and their newly acquired land permits.

NDAK then confiscated land from local farmers and gave them a measly 50,000 Kyat each (approximately US$50) as compensation. There are about fourteen farmers so far whose land has been confiscated.

Since losing their land in 2008 to the NDAK, farmers are now opening up new lands for farming nearby. Everyday they can see the plants they cultivated before having their land confiscated and feel deeply saddened for losing them.

When asked why the farmers were compensated so little, an NDAK official in Sadung Pa town who has knowledge of the story (he asked to remain anonymous) dared not comment on the subject.

The NDAK signed a ceasefire agreement with the Burmese military government in 1989. It attended the government-orchestrated National Convention which drafted the constitution that was ratified in the 2008 referendum. Recently, under government pressure, the NDAK has also agreed to transform itself into a border security force.

When asked why he did not complain to the officials, Mr. Lahpai Gam said that he is afraid of being recognized and subsequently targeted.

Sadung area is under the control of three officials – the military government, NDAK and Kachin Independence Organization (KIO). Sadung area became a new township in 2008.

As a result, there are now more government offices such as immigration, labor department office, telecommunication and fire station, in addition to a police station and military base. According to sources, these offices were built on private land and compensation for confiscated land was far from satisfactory.

A local resident complained that none of the three authorities are fulfilling the needs of the people who now have to serve three masters.

Rising Asian Stars

2009-05-04T09:34:00.000-07:00

Name	Country	field/Area
Jackie Chan	China	Hong Kong,Hollywood Action Movie star
Jet Li	China	Hong Kong,Hollywood Action Movie star
Donnie Yen	China	Hong Kong,Hollywood Action Movie star
Zhang Ziyi	China	Hong Kong, Hollywood Movie star
Lea Salonga	Philippines	Multiple awards winner, singer
Shilpa Shetty	India	Bollywood movie star
Manny Pacquio	Philippines	Boxer, World Champion in 6 divisions

Note! This is incomplete. Please add your comments. You can mention other Asian stars I left out. Thanks in advance for your input.

Top 10 Most and Least Corrupt Countries in 2008

2009-05-04T09:20:00.001-07:00

Ranking of Top 10 Least Corrupt Countries 2008

1 Denmark
2 New Zealand
3 Sweden
4 Singapore
5 Finland
6 Switzerland
7 Iceland
8 Netherlands
9 Australia
10 Canada

Ranking of Top 10 Most Corrupt Countries 2008

1 Somalia
2 Myanmar
3 Iraq
4 Haiti
5 Afghanistan
6 Sudan
7 Guinea
8 Chad
9 Equatorial Guinea
10 Congo, Democratic Republic

Source: Transparency International.

Smart Kid/ လိမၼာေသာ ကေလး

2009-04-25T12:18:00.000-07:00

In a village, there were a grandpa and a grandson. During the day time when all the villagers out for works, the two killed a neighbour's goat and ate. Of course, grandpa warned his grandson not to tell anyone about their feast.

When their neighbour returned, they found one of their goats was missing. So, they went to inform village-head. Since the grandpa and child were in village for whole day, the village-head went to see them (without any sort of suspicion) but merely with a hope of getting some clues about the goat.

As the village-head arrived their home, the grandpa gave a blink of eyes to his grandson in order to remind him not tell about the event. When the child saw his grandpa's blinking eyes, he suddenly said, "Hey look! grandpa's eyes really look alike the goat's dying eyes which we ate today."

Smart Kid/ လိမၼာေသာ ကေလး

2009-04-25T11:41:00.000-07:00

တစ္ခါက ရြာတစ္ရြာမွာ အဖုိးႀကီးတစ္ေယာက္ နွင့္ ေျမးတစ္ေယာက္ ေနၾကသတဲ့။ တေန႕ေတာ့ ရြာသူ၊သားေတြ အလုပ္ထြက္သြားခ်ိန္မွာ အဖုိးအုိႀကီး က သူ႕ေျမးေလး နဲ႕အတူ အိမ္းနီးခ်င္း ရဲ့ ဆိတ္ တစ္ေကာင္ကုိ ခိုးသတ္စား ၾကသတဲ့။ အဖိုးအိုက သူ႕ေျမးေလးကို ဘယ္သူ ကို မွ မေျပာျပရဘူးလုိ႕ေကာင္းေကာင္း တုိက္သြန္းထားတာေပါ့။

ညေန အိမ္နီးခ်င္း က အလုပ္ကေနျပန္လာေတာ့ သူတို႕ ဆိတ္ေပ်ာက္တာသိတာေပါ့။ ဒါနဲ႕ သက္ဆိုင္ရာ ရပ္ရြာ လူႀကီးေတြကို တိုင္ၾကားတာေပါ့။ သက္ဆိုင္ရာလူႀကီး ေတြလည္း အဲဒီ အဖိုအို နဲ႕ ေျမး က အိမ္မွာေန တယ္ ဆိုေတာ့ သတင္းရလုိ ရျငား သြား ၿပီး ဆုံစမ္းတာေပါ့။

သက္ဆိုင္ရာ လူႀကီးေတြလည္း ေရာက္ေရာ အဖိုးအို က သူ႕ေျမးေလးကို ဘာမွမေျပာဖို႕ မ်က္စိမိွတ္ျပလိုက္သတဲ့။ အဖိုးအိုရဲ့ မ်က္စိမွိတ္ ျပတာကို ၾကည့္ၿပီး သူ႕ေျမးေလး က - ေဟး! ဟိုမွာ အဖိုးရဲ့ မ်က္စိက ယေန႕ သတ္စားလိုက္တဲ့ ဆိတ္ေသခါနီးမွာ မိတ္တုပ္မိတ္တုပ္ လုပ္တဲ့ မ်က္စိ နဲ႕တူတယ္ လုိ႕ေျပာလိုက္ သတဲ့။

မူႀကိဳေက်ာင္းတစ္ေက်ာင္းမွ ပုံျပင္တစ္ပုိဒ္

2009-04-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

ေက်ာင္းမွာ၀န္း ကေလးတေတြ သူ႕အဖြဲ႕နဲ႕သူ ကစားေန ၾကတယ္။ ရုတ္တရက္ ကေလးတစ္ေယာက္က သူ႕ကစားေဖာ္ သူငယ္ခ်င္း ကုို ေျပာလုိက္ပုံက - လြန္ခဲ့တ့ဲအပတ္က နင့္အဖြားဆုံးၿပီး မုန္႕ဟင္းခါး စားတာ ငါ့ကိုေတာင္ မေခၚဘူး၊ အခုငါ့အဖုိးလည္း အသည္းအသန္ ျဖစ္ေနၿပီ။

A story of two kids

In a kindergarden, children are playing. Among them, two children were playing together. One of them suddenly told his friend - "last week, you didn't invite me for noodle on your grandma's funeral. Guess what! My grandpa is now also seriously ill."

Affirmative Actions in Dilema

2009-04-17T16:34:00.000-07:00

Summary Outline

This paper is divided into three main parts to address the given question. Part (1) will define Affirmative Action (AA) in historical context so that to enable us understand better why AA becomes necessary in social policies such as education and employment. Part (2) is to attempt presenting some reasons why AA can never be sufficient enough to compensate the loss of the victims of past discrimination and thus, should not be seen as compensation but rather as recognition of the past misconduct. In part (3), it is explained why implementation of AA does not violate the principle of equality. Part (4) provides few examples of AA in practice provides in some countries. Finally, part (5) concludes with a brief summary of the paper.

Part One: Definition of Affirmative Action in Historical Context

In human history, perhaps, there are more dark sides than bright ones as far as racial/gender/sex matter is concerned. For example, white people traded black people as slaves; women were treated as second class citizen, social caste system in India where people from low caste were discriminated for generations. As result, black people were dominated by white people both politically and economically for generations; women were unable to vote and access to higher education; low castes were denied for higher education. These inequalities become the source of political and social tension/conflict.

In realizing the conflicts, a new social policy called Affirmative Action (AA) was introduced in USA in the 1960s. Stanford Encyclopaedia defines ‘AA’ as “positive steps taken to increase the representation of women and minorities in areas of employment, education, and business from which they have been historically excluded. When those steps involve preferential selection - selection on the basis of race, gender, or ethnicity.”

In short, ‘AA’ can perhaps, be viewed as a social policy to offer preferential treatment to the victims of the past discrimination or disadvantaged groups with a hope of enabling them to compete with the mainstream fairly and building more equitable society.

The AA however, has never been free of controversy. Politicians, scholars, social activists have been arguing back and forth about the subject but the debate is far from over. In fact, it seems that debate over AA issue intensifies in recent years. In April 2003, The University of Michigan and The University of California were brought to The US Supreme Court by a few white students accusing the universities of being racially biased when they were rejected for admission. Their case was not only supported by many white republican congressmen but also the president, George W. Bush. However, the court allows the universities to consider racial factor for admission. The officials of the universities said that preferential treatment is the only effective measure to bring multi-ethnic students into the campus.

Part Two: Can Affirmative Action Compensate the Loss of the Victims of the Past Discrimination?

A short answer to this question is ‘No’ because the losses are so great and beyond measure that no AA is significant enough to compensate those losses. If look back history, it will be clearer.

People were sold as slaves, served as slaves for generations without any benefit, died in vain, lost their human dignity, people being treated very badly (attended in segregated school with limited and poor quality resources) and were exploited every possible ways. Women and minorities were treated as second class citizen, their basic human rights were violated and voices were silenced for generations.

For example, South Africa was ruled by minority white people until 1994. Despite they were (still is) being minority, they have total domination in all sectors from education to economy since they were the rulers. White children were able to access to best education of the country from segregated schools (White only schools) and took up all the important professions. On the other hand, black children were prevented from getting quality education and obviously they cannot compete with the whites. Consequently, they were and are still in disadvantaged position due to the past discriminatory policies.

In 2004, I was able to join in a regional conference on human rights in Asia held in Chiangmai, Thailand. I still remember an Indian conference panelist describing a typical story of caste system in Indian society. She said that if you were born to a low caste (also known as untouchable caste) family, it is extremely difficult to access to higher education and find a decent job regardless of your qualification. She added, if you were also happened to be a woman born to such low caste, it is virtually impossible to get education especially with limited resources.

The point is, there is abundance of examples how people were discriminated and exploited. The lists can go on endlessly. The losses are beyond measure. Therefore, it is very inappropriate to look at AA as compensation because no AA can and will ever be sufficient enough to be able to compensate those losses of the victims of past discriminations and ill-treatments.

Part Three: Does ‘AA’ Violate Principle of Equality?

As presented earlier, the issue of ‘AA’ is controversial. It is hard to find an outright answer to argue that ‘AA’ does or does not violate the principle of equality. Critics argue that AA is reversal discriminatory policy and violates the equality principle. On the other hand, supporters of AA argue that principle of equality is not violated in implementing AA and even if there is violation of principle of equality involved, it is fair and good for the whole society for the future. Thus, it would be fair to look at some arguments both for and against the ‘AA’.

Arguments against Affirmative Action

One of the most common arguments against the ‘AA’ is that ‘AA’ creates reverse discrimination against one particular group (e.g., former discriminators or of their new generation). The argument is something like ‘why should I be now punished for the crime I did not commit?’

Jain, Sloane & Horwitz (2003, p-17) also mention a series of some negative impacts of AA (a) it is difficult for civil services to maintain image as impartial and politically neutral because political decisions are constantly made base on ethnic consideration rather objective criteria, (b) AA can perpetuate and even strengthen ethnic division, (c) AA also tends to create conflicts within the preferential groups themselves because only small section of people can benefit from the AA programme, (d) it is argued that once AA is introduced, it becomes permanently rooted in the political system serving the interests of small group.

Dani and Haan (2008, p-233) point out negative impacts of AA – it is inefficient, only “creamy layer” of the few benefit from the AA, largely remain unbenefit. AA also reaffirms the individual identity as deprived or minority (people may suffer labelling effect).

Arguments for Affirmative Action

Supporters argue that it is fair to give preferential treatment to marginalized groups because they have historically been discriminated. For example, white people today in general are better off than black people because they have been historically able to enjoy institutional supports – able to go to best colleges/universities and get high value professions. They continue to be in dominating position. If the two groups are to compete openly, marginalized people will surely be left behind because of the unequal starting point. AA is to make the starting point equal/fair.

Without AA, disadvantaged/marginalized/minority people continue to remain in disadvantaged positions. Social division or class and income gap will be widened which can result social instability. Thus, implementation of AA is the best interest of all members of society.

US President Bill Clinton is among the strong supporters of AA. He asserts that the job of ending discrimination remains unfinished; strongly defends AA. "Mend it, but don't end it," he says.

Dani and Haan (2008, p-233) conclude that the effect and impact of AA is so great – people many people from deprived group accessed to education and find decent job improve their social status and boost self-confidence.

Part Four: Affirmative Actions in Practice

Nowadays, Affirmative Action (AA) is not only used as recognition of the past discriminatory policy but also as to reduce extreme poverty by providing education and employment opportunity as well as to create social harmony in society in order to reflect cultural and social diversity. In another word, it is used to give equal opportunity to formerly marginalized groups in order to enable them compete with the mainstream. Scholars describe this as nation building or state formation policy – intends to include all members of society into the mainstream. AA may be controversial but many governments are adopting it. The followings are some of the real examples.

Northern Ireland: Schapper and Burns (2007, p-369) Northern Ireland was torn apart for decades by the civil war between Protestants and Catholics. British Prime Minister, Tony Blair orchestrated peaceful settlement programme between the two communities. In order to maintain the fragile peace, it is imperative to draw Catholic candidates into the (Protestants dominated) police force and other civil services. It enables Catholics to find jobs much easier.

South Korea: On 30th October 2008, BBC reported that a South Korean law which states that only the visually impaired can be licensed masseurs has been upheld in the country's Constitutional Court. The Court’s reason is that "Massage is in effect the only occupation available for the visually handicapped and there is little alternative to guarantee earnings for those persons." Such kind of state intervention/ preferential treatment should be welcome because it recognizes the needs of visually impaired and gives them a sense of hope and shows that they are still part of the society. In addition, the law gives blind people a chance to make their living, without such law, they would have extremely hard time to find job in other business fields.

India: Indian constitution guaranteed equal opportunity. Dani and Haan (2008, p-230) “The State shall promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people and, in particular, of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, and shall protect them from social injustice and all forms of exploitation” (Directive Principle of State Policy, article 46).

However, people from untouchable class (low caste) were left behind for generations. In 1990, the government launched ambitious reform – preserving and reserving places in government jobs and state fund colleges and universities.

Currently, 22.5% of the seats in state-funded educational institutions are reserved. With an additional 27% of seats set aside, the total caste-based educational quota will be raised to 49.5%.

Currently, 27% of government jobs are reserved. Prime Minster Manmohan Singh has now suggested that companies too should take up this action plan and extend the percentage .

Nethralpal Singh, 29, is one of the millions who has benefited from the reform. He is from low caste group and has accessed to higher education through AA, and is now a lecturer in Dheli University (one of the top universities in the country). He says “people from socially disadvantaged sections are very often also financially disadvantaged. The quota system is the only way they can break free” .

Part Five: Conclusion

Affirmative Action is viewed as one of the most effective social policies in building more equitable society. Many people have accessed to higher education, enable them to have decent jobs and boost self-confidence. AA may not a perfect policy but it is widely reported it has brought millions of people out of the extreme poverty.

However, it is still divided among the supporters and critics of AA. The two groups cannot agree whether affirmative action make things better or worse. One thing is certain - the debate rages on.

References:

Anis A. Dani and Arjan de Haan (editors), “Inclusive States: Social Policy and Structural Inequalities”, The World Bank, 2008.

Ashwini Deshpande, “EQUITY & DEVELOPMENT: Affirmative Action in India and the United States”, World Development Report 2006. (Paper available at:
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTRANETSOCIALDEVELOPMENT/Resources/Affirmative_Action_India_Ashwini.pdf)

Harish C. Jain, Peter J. Sloane, and Frank M. Horwitz, “Employment Equity and Affirmative Action: An International Comparison”, M.E.Sharpe, USA, 2003.

Jan Schapper and Prue Burns, “The Ethical Case for Afﬁrmative Action”, Journal of Business Ethics (2008), Springer 2007.

Nic Paton, “Accentuate the Positive”, Personnel Today, 4 November 2008.

Does Globalization Reduce Poverty?

2009-04-17T16:21:00.000-07:00

Summary

Nowadays, the term ‘globalization’ is a buzzword. It is often described as a process of internationalization – easy communication regardless of geographical boundaries due to advance technologies, easy and fast financial capital flow across the globe and countries become more interdependent particularly in economy. It is believed that globalization provides consumers with variety of choices with affordable price. So, is the globalization reducing or increasing poverty? This paper will attempt to briefly answer this question in the following orders.

The paper includes (I) defining globalization and poverty (II) globalization reduces poverty, (III) globalization increases poverty, (IV) other reasons contribute to poverty, (V) roles of The World Bank, IMF and WTO in developing countries, (VI) who benefit the most from globalization? and (VII) conclusion.

(I) Defining Globalization and Poverty
“Globalization” has been defined in various dimensions. Among many established definitions, these are some of them. ‘Globalization as internationalization’ in which is viewed “as simply another adjective to describe cross-border relations between countries”; ‘Globalization as liberalization’ which refers to “a process of removing government-imposed restrictions on movements between countries in order to create an ‘open’, ‘borderless’ world economy”.

Defining poverty is controversial. Definition of poverty in developed countries may not be applicable to the one in developing countries. However, United Nations and World Bank define poverty line as living on less than a $1 and $2 a day for low income countries. Sociologists define poverty “a lack of essential items – such as food, clothing, water, and shelter – needed for proper living” .

Since “Globalization and Poverty” is a huge and very broad topic, this short paper is to attempt looking at one of the heated debate questions on whether globalization reduces or increase poverty. Numerous studies on this issue have been carried out. However, the findings are conflicting.

(II) Globalization Reduces Poverty
Neoliberal economists widely believe that globalized trade benefits not only the affluent but also the poor through trade integration. “Neoliberal economic theory––more open economies are more prosperous, economies that liberalize more experience a faster rate of progress” Wade (2004, p-567). The belief is that as countries open up their economy such as by slashing down the trade barriers for instance tariff, custom duty and quotas, price of imported goods will be affordable for the poor; foreign direct investments come in and create jobs in local economy. Consequently, this increases export growth and GDP. Millions of poor people’s living standard improves because of jobs created. China, India and Vietnam are often cited as good examples for success of globalized economy.

(III) Globalization Increases Poverty

On the contrary, many economists are unconvinced by the neoliberal economists’ view that globalization reduces poverty. Pilger (2001) in his TV report on Indonesia presents that despite investments from multinational corporations (eg. Nike, Levis, Reebok Classic, Calvin Klein Jeans, Adidas, Gap Inc.), poverty remains unchanged in Indonesia. On average, Indonesian workers are paid only slightly over Rupiah 9,000 (US$1) per day which is just over half of a living wage.

Harrison (2006) finds similar situation in Mexico. Mexico is a member of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signed in 1993 with Canada, Mexico and USA. If trade integration is to reduce poverty and benefit the poor as neoliberal economists suggest, poverty in Mexico should be declined. But, Harrison (2006, p-7) concludes that “poverty rates in Mexico in the year 2000 were higher than they had been ten years earlier.” This reinforces that neoliberal economists’ view on decline of poverty is unconvinced.

(IV) Other reasons contribute to poverty

Wade (2004, p-571) states that more than 1.2 billion people are still living on less than US$1 a day. The followings are some of the most recognized reasons contribute to poverty: lack of natural resources, natural disaster – long period of draught, corruption and sanctions imposed against specific country.

For example, according to United Nations, Cape Verde is one of the most stable democratic countries in Africa and the government is relatively mild in corruption. It ranks 49 out of 179 in Transparency International’s “2008 Corruption Perceptions Index ”. But due to cycles of long-term drought, lack of natural resources, shortage of water supply and lack of foreign investments, the state is still among the poorest nations on earth despite its good governance.

Countries with rich endowment of nature resources also remain in poverty due to wide spread corruption, bad governance, political instability and economic sanctions imposed by powerful countries. For example, my country, Myanmar (Burma) is still among the world’s poorest countries despite rich endowment of natural resources from oil to various gem stones. It is due to political instability, severe corruption, lack of reliable judiciary system, basic infrastructures and economic sanction imposed by The US. Consequently, unemployment rate is remarkably high and chance of economic success for big majority of population is slim unless economic and political reform take place.

(V) Role of World Bank, IMF and WTO on development in poor countries

The World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Trade Organization are widely known as driving forces of trade liberalization. Pilger (2001) interviews several former executive officials of The World Bank and IMF in his TV report on Indonesia. Those officials explain that the roles The World Bank and IMF have played in Indonesia’s economy and various criteria a country to comply with order to get loan from them.

World Bank and IMF are supposedly to help poor countries. In reality, powerful countries use the two institutions as tools to suck up resources from developing countries via multinational corporations, according to the TV report. To get loans from the institutions, a country has to reform its economy which mainly means to open up markets and allow multinational corporations to access to country’s resources and privatize industries. Thus, complying with the criteria implies serving the best interests of multinational corporations.

In addition to opening up markets for multinational corporations, the loans also come with so called ‘technical experts’ or ‘consultants’. So, significant sum of the loans go back to developed countries as salaries of those ‘experts’.

To get loan from the institutions, a country also has to have a good relationship with the US because it controls 16.77% of total votes in IMF and 16.39% of The World Bank’s total vote. For instance, N-Korea and Cuba cannot get loans from the institutions because of sour relationship with The US.

World Trade Organization (WTO) is another driver of trade liberalization. It forces member countries to open up their markets and eliminate trade barriers. New members are also required to fulfill these criteria. Members are required to comply with intellectual property laws which were mainly written by the big corporations.

WTO is widely criticized for being ineffective to protect the interests of developing nations. When trade disputes occur, chance of getting success in legal battle for poor country is very slim even if it has a good ground because the mechanism is so expensive and complicated. Besides, it cannot force developed countries to stop subsidizing agricultural industry because farmers from poor countries are unable to compete with those heavily subsidized farmers in developed countries. Thus, poor countries always have less advantage in global trading system.

(VI) Who benefit the most from globalization?

There is no doubt that globalized trades/economy benefits all the parties concerned. However, various studies show that advanced countries are benefiting from the trades more than poor countries. Yotpoulos and Romano (2007, P-21) state that free markets and free trade work best if there are supported by extensive institutional structure such as business infrastructures, reliable legal system and political stability. Thus, globalization is more likely to favour the countries which are wealthy and institution rich, at the expense of those that are poor.

On the other hand, developing countries with strong infrastructure base, political stability, dependable legal system and abundant labor forces also benefit from globalization. China, India and Vietnam are often cited as ideal examples. Furthermore, United Nation (2007, P-23) asserts that countries with bargaining strength are more likely to benefit more from bilateral trade agreements and impose more onerous terms on the weaker parties.

“We must ensure that the global market is embedded in broadly shared values and practices that reflect global social needs, and that all the world's people share the benefits of globalization.” Kofi Annan .

(VII) Conclusion

In short, it is hard to find convincing data to support either globalization reduces or increases poverty. However, it is clear that globalization is more beneficial to developed countries than to developing countries mainly because of wide spread corruption, bad governance, lack of necessary business infrastructures.

Unless world leaders share Kofi Annan’s concern “We must ensure that the global market is embedded in broadly shared values and practices that reflect global social needs, and that all the world's people share the benefits of globalization.”, the following remarks are unfortunately likely to continue to be true.

George Monbiot (Environmentalist) summarizes, “Globalization is used to suggest a coming together of people of all races, all countries. It will relieve poverty and distribute wealth. What is actually happening is precisely the opposite. The Poor become markedly poorer and wealthy become staggeringly wealthier.”

United States Space Command (1997, p-6) remarks “The globalization of the world economy will also continue, with a widening between ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’.”

References:

Ann Harrison, “GLOBALIZATION AND POVERTY” NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH, Working Paper 12347, Cambridge, 2006. www.nber.org/papers/w12347

John Pilger, “Globalization: New Rulers of the World”, Carlton Production, 2001. (TV report)

Pan A. Yotpoulos and Donato Romano (editors), “The Asymmetries of Globalization”, Routledge, USA & Canada, 2007.

ROBERT HUNTER WADE, “Is Globalization Reducing Poverty and Inequality?” London School of Economics and Political Science, World Development Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 567–589, UK, 2004.

United Nations, “The Employment Imperative: Report on the World Social Situation 2007” New York, 2007.

ပညာေတာ္သင္ေထာက္ပံ့ေၾကးဘယ္မွာရွာမလဲ။

2009-04-17T11:59:00.000-07:00

အခုေခတ္မွာ လုိခ်င္တဲ့သတင္း၊ အခ်က္အလက္ အကုန္လုံးနီးပါးကို internet ေပၚမွတဆင့္ အလြယ္တကူ ရွာေဖြရရွိ နိုင္ပါတယ္။ ျမန္မာျပည္ေက်ာင္းသူ/ သား မ်ားအတြက္ အေထာက္ အကူ ျဖစ္နိုင္တဲ့ internet websites အခ်ဳိ ့ကိုေဖာ္ျပေပးခ်င္ ပါတယ္။ ေအာက္ပါ sites ေတြမွာ ပညာေတာ္သင္ေထာက္ပံ့ေၾကး ေလွွ်ာက္ နုိင္တဲ့သတင္းအခ်က္အလက္ ေတြကိုရရွိ နိုင္ပါတယ္။
- http://www.myanmarstudyabroad.org/
- http://www.childsdream.org/
- http://www.thabyay.org/
- http://www.prospectburma.org/
- http://www.arakanera.com/intscholarship.html
- http://www.chevening.com/

Essay ေရးတဲ့အခါမွာ သိတင့္သိထိုက္တ့ဲ (tips) အေၾကာင္းေတြကို ေနာက္ မွာ ဆက္လက္ေျပာျပသြားမယ္။

Eulogy Speeches of Three People

2009-04-17T11:15:00.000-07:00

Once three people namely a politician, businessman and academic have a conversation in a tea shop. They ask each other about what they would want visitors to say about them on their funeral.

Firstly, the Politician wants visitors to say, "This man was honest and loyal to his people".

Next, the businessman also states his preference. He wants people to say that he was very generous in donations for community and kind.

Lastly, the academic puts forward his preference rather strange but interesting. He would want people to say, "Look! this person is moving again."

So, reader, what would you want people to say about you? Please leave your comment.

လူသုံးေယာက္ရဲ့အသုဘတရား

2009-04-17T09:48:00.000-07:00

တခါက, (politician) နုိင္ငံေရးသမား, (Businessman) စီးပြားေရးသမား, (academic) ပညာရွင္ တို ့လူသုံးေယာက္ လက္ဖက္ရည္ဆိုင္ မွာ စကား၀ုိင္းဖြဲ ့ၾကသတ့ဲ။ တဦးနဲ့တဦးအျပန္အလန္ေမးၾကတာေပါ့။ "ခမ်ားရဲ့အသုဘပြဲမွာ အမွတ္တရအတြက္ လာေရာက္တဲ့လူေတြကိုဘာေျပာခုိင္းေစခ်င္သလဲ" လုိ ့ နုိင္ငံေရးသမားက စၿပီး ပထမဦးဆုံးအေမးခံပါသတဲ့။

နို္င္ငံေရးသမားက- ဒီပုဂိၢဳလ္က ရုိးသားေျဖာင့္မတ္တဲ့အေၾကာင္း၊ သိစၥာရွိတဲ့အေၾကာင္း ေတြကိုေျပာခိုင္းေစခ်င္ ေၾကာင္း ေျပာပါသတဲ့။

ထိုနည္းလည္းေကာင္းဘဲ စီးပြားေရးသမားကလည္း အလွဴဒါနႁပုတဲ့အရာမွာ အလြန္မွရက္ေရာတဲ့ အေၾကာင္း၊ ရုိးသားတဲ့အေၾကာင္း ေတြကိုေျပာခုိင္းေစေၾကာင္း ေျပာပါသတဲ့။

ပညာရွင္ရဲ့အလဲ့မွာေတာ့တမူထူးျခားစြာနဲဲ ့ေျပာတာေပါ့။ "ၾကည့္ၾကပါအုံးဒီလူအသက္ျပန္ရွင္လာၿပီ" လုိ ့ေျပာေစခ်င္တဲ့အေၾကာင္းကိုေျပာပါသတဲ့။

စာဖတ္အေနနဲဲ ့ဆိုရင္ဘာေျပာခိုင္းေစခ်င္သလဲ။

When the work-life balance becomes a see-saw

2009-04-17T06:48:00.000-07:00

People working from home do many extra hours, and some earn just 73p an hour. Home-working is just one of the ways the work-life balance can tip in favour of work.

Whenever I work in an office, I always make sure that I take full advantage of the franking machine to send personal letters, and let's just say that I have never paid for a pack of Post-it notes or a roll of Sellotape in my life.

Of course stealing is wrong, but let's not forget that most employers - including all the ones I've worked for - "steal" from their workers on a systematic basis. How? By taking the extra time put in without paying for it.

The snatch is brilliantly simple: most people have an employment contract which stipulates an agreed amount of hours should be worked in return for a set amount of pay.

Yet a survey of 5,000 managers in the UK conducted by the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) has found that more than 91% of them work more than their contracted hours regularly, without a penny extra to show for it.

Matter of choice

More fool them, you might say, if workers put in extra hours. It is, after all, their own choice.

Homeworkers 'exploited' by firms

But it turns out that in many cases it isn't. The majority are forced to put in extra hours for nothing, according to Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology and health at Lancaster University, who carried out the survey in his time at UMIST.

"What you find is that about one-third of all people are forced to work long hours because of the culture of their workplace. A third are clearing a backlog of work because they are given more than they can do in their contracted time, and a third genuinely love working."

Companies may establish a work culture by making "jokes" when people leave early, or by providing employees with supposed benefits like mobile phones or fax machines in their homes - effectively putting them on call 24-hours-a-day.

Then there are after-hours activities which many employees are expected to attend: these can range from entertaining clients over drinks or meals, to sitting on the company table at industry awards ceremonies or going to football or golf tournaments at the weekends.

The evidence is that this sort of "always on call" work culture is widespread. Research carried out by the Royal Mail recently found 65% of UK workers have been contacted about a work-related issue during the weekends and 48% by a colleague during a bank holiday weekend.

LOSING TIME

Industry bash in the evening

Booking you on red-eye flights to Europe, returning late that same day

Remote access privileges to the company network for weekend working

Perhaps the biggest con perpetrated on me by an employer came disguised as a business trip to Amsterdam - a reward for some good work I had put in.

The trip turned out to involve getting up at 5am for an early flight, a full day's work, and a flight back the same day. I finally got home at 11.30pm, after 18.5 hours on duty.

I got paid my normal wage - my employer having the benefit of what would have been my breakfast with my wife and children and my evening's five-a-side football game.

Eye for promotion

Long-hour cultures help employers get workers' time for nothing, but they can also backfire by rewarding inefficiency, says Mr Cooper.

"What happens if I can get all my work done between 8.00am and 3.30pm? Someone else who does their work less well and takes more time but puts in the hours will get promoted."

Mr Cooper may have a point: Britons work the longest hours in Europe, but UK companies are not the most productive.

I'm among the many employees to have lost hours and hours over the years - yet few of us really complain.

The way I see it, there's an unwritten contract between me and my employers, and since we both understand it there have never been any problems. They are free to take my spare time without paying for it, and I don't expect to pay for stamps or Post-It notes.

Paul Rubens is a freelance journalist. He has never worked for the BBC.