From 2010 to 2017, there was a thing called #AseanCitizen that we Aseans started as a grassroots movement. We were all bloggers from across, well, #ASEAN or South-East Asia.
Some of us joined together to produce one of the best multi-authored regional blogs. We talked about our cultures, write about what makes the region awesome. As well as, try to address the oftentimes silly and sometimes heated debates.
It's all gone now. Forgotten. The blogs dead or offline. We all grew up, got busy with our personal lives, and moved on separately. And the important reason? We lost interest in it as we started to see ASEAN was, is, and will never be for the grassroots.
That was the end of what was once a vibrant grassroot ASEAN Citizens effort. We did it all voluntarily. Without a single recognition from the top-down organisation that is ASEAN.
But today? ASEAN is still a top-down organisation. They kept trying to get the grassroots involved, but they are always failing. Why? Because it is a top-down organisation, as simple as that. They will never understand until they shift their mindset and approach to bottom-up.
(P.S I want to restart this grassroots movement, but I just no longer have the spark. Give me a very good reason why I should give it another chance. Or, at least, guide the new generation.)
I’m still fixing up my website. I have decades of posts and things to improve.
But almost exactly a decade ago, I was in Yangon and Mandalay half the time. The 6am Jetstar flight would take me to Yangon. I would go to get mohinga at Tin Tin Aye directly from the airport. I would go to meetings. It was a weird time in a beautiful country.
Mandalay’s James Beard award is well-deserved. I think they are the best Burmese restaurant in San Francisco. Also the least gentrified and most like the food I had in, well, Mandalay.
@1dalm In a non-fiction example, in Amitav Ghosh's "The Great Derangement" the author points out that many of the compontents of fossil fuel consumption like the use of oil and coal are actually much older than we think and were used heavily in places like Burma and China. So the point is that things could have gone differently with different circumstances.
The fighters seized large quantity of weapons: PW-78 recoilless gun, 122mm rocket launcher, M2 machine gun, rare modern "MA-S" sniper rifles and many more.
"Each dish helps me reclaim my identity, making a safe place where memories of home live on. The taste speaks louder than forced silence, a reminder that our culture survives even in a new place," she said, adding that these dishes being served on foreign tables are also "stories of survival and resilience."
Opium Queen is the true story of the widely mythologized genderqueer Burmese opium-pioneer of noble Chinese descent, Olive Yang, who secretly ran an anti-communist rebel army supported by the CIA in the 1950s heyday of the Golden Triangle.
While the world’s eye has shifted from #Ukraine to #Israel and #Palestine, a gentle reminder that the civil war in #Myanmar (or #Burma) continues to simmer. This video (from 2 days ago) shows members of the Burmese army fleeing to my state in #India, #Mizoram after being chased by members of the PDF. That river is the one I posted some months ago. Locals say that #China has changed its strategy from supporting the ruling Junta to the People’s Defense Armed Forces (PDF). #NoAgendaPost but informative, so sharing - with @mastodonindians too. If true, China’s strategy to support the PDF instead of the ruling Junta could mean a lot for #India - strategically and economically.
Today in Labor History September 18, 1988: The 8888 Uprising in Myanmar ended. Students started the protests in Yangon. As the protests spread, hundreds of thousands of monks, children, university students, housewives, doctors and common people joined the movement to overthrow the military dictatorship. Up to 10,000 people were slaughtered over the 6-month protest movement.
For all those that see the violence of the military dictatorship in Myanmar but think they cannot do anything because it is so far away:
You are giving each day money to companies that continue doing business with these slaughters.
"The Dirty List names international companies doing business with the military in Burma. The list also includes international companies involved in projects where there are human rights violations or environmental destruction."