Saving Fish From Drowning

Crossing into Burma Bibi comments on the arts, customs, foods, Buddhist religion and military government. Her descriptions are lovely and rich and I’m enjoying learning about life in tribal Burma. Except for the military dictatorship! I read a report last Wednesday, March 5, an update of the protest marches against the military led by Buddhist monks for a week last September in Burma:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/05/MN5RV2LFV.DTL&hw=Burmese+monks&sn=001&sc=1000

So the book has become for me more of a real political travel experience now, than an entertaining, fictitious comedy of assorted bumbling friends traveling together to a very foreign country.

Back to the story… Walter, the new guide, is Burmese and has much to teach the group about life in Burma. He tells the story about “saving fish from drowning.” What does it mean? I like the lively interaction between the friends as they explore the possible meanings of such a “brain twister,” something about moral justifications…

Walter talks about the Burmese belief in “Nats”—little spirits in nature, in fields, trees, and rocks, always tied to disaster, bad luck, or fate. “Beneath this visible surface was an earlier stratum of beliefs, the molton core and shifting plates belonging to animism:
http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/a/animism.htm

We learn that Walter, though highly educated, also believes in Nats and has a little shrine in his family home which is supplied with daily offerings… (shrines for Nats are found especially along roadways where accidents have occurred, and are well-tended… hmmm..) Walter believes that since Bibi Chen was murdered, she is a “distressed spirit.” We can guess that concern for Bibi’s spirit and Nats will appear again somehow. Finally in the chapter, we learn that Walter believes that his family is cursed.

The chapter ends with a large amount of apprehension, foreboding,and dysentery in the wings. How much worse can things get? Probably very…