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me about my work. I asked him to be careful. I told him some things that I did not want to go in the newspaper. I told him to be careful. For me. Because my government would be watching.” He falls silent.
    San Aung finishes. “The journalist published several articles, in Bangkok and Hong Kong, and he used Saya’s name. He interviewed other Burmese people, too, and used their real names. People were afraid of what would happen to them, because they had been critical of the government. No one wants to go to prison. Sometimes it’s hard for foreigners to understand how dangerous it is for the people here.”
    Now their reticence makes sense. “But I would not use anyone’s real names. I’m not even sure that I’ll write about meeting you.” I look around the circle of unimpressed faces. “I could pretend you were all potters.”
    Saya shakes his head. “Potters?”
    “They work with clay.” I knead the air. “And make pots.”
    “Political potters,” one of the young men says, nodding.
    In an attempt at non-threatening conversation, I motion toward the garden and remark, “Look how strange the light is.” Before anyone can respond, the electricity in the studio shorts out. We laugh. San Aung quips, “Yes, in Burma the light is strange.” Electricity shortages are a routine part of life here.
    Outside, the air seems washed with orange; the clouds are clamped over the city like a rusty lid. The baseball-cap painter makes his own pun.“It’s the new light of Myanmar.”
The New Light of Myanmar
is the name of the state newspaper.
    “No, no,” his colleague rejoins. “This is the old dark of Myanmar.”
    Saya says, “Let’s go into the garden.” When he stands, San Aung and I follow suit, and the three young painters spring into action, picking up the chairs and rearranging them on the rough gravel in the courtyard. They won’t allow me to lift my own chair.
    When we are sitting again, the young painters return, spontaneously, to the subject of censorship. One of them says, “When I was twelve or thirteen, I sketched some soldiers during the big Army Day celebration. There was something funny about the picture. I made the generals who were watching the march look like pigs. My father used to talk about the fat generals all the time, but when he saw my sketch he was angry. He asked, Did you take it to school? Do your teachers know about this? He made me tear it up. And he hates the government! But he was afraid of his son’s getting into trouble.”
    The baseball-cap painter adds, “Now we are adults, but our father is the Censorship Board. The board always says no and don’t, just like a father. That’s all they do. It’ so boring.”
    “Why do you think they want to control you?” I ask. “What are they so afraid of?”
    Saya speaks while waving away the mosquitoes around his ankles. “Oh, that is simple. They are afraid of us because we can see.”
    If the artist is a historian of the personal, the images he creates are artifacts—evidence of lives lived, lives broken. Subjectivity doesn’t detract from the reliability of personal history; it adds to it, makes it irrefutable truth. This happened to me, to my family, my people. Here is the record I have made.
    The third young man, who has been so quiet, speaks carefully. “They are even afraid of colors. The Censorship Board does not like red in our paintings. Or black. We try not to use red and black, but it’s hard.” He shakes his head. “They don’t like anything with strength or strong emphasis.If the pictures are not monks or elephants, if they are abstract, they accuse us of criticizing the government. Whether or not we are allowed to hang the paintings depends on their interpretation.”
    “Everything depends on their interpretation!” Saya exclaims, his tone betraying exasperation for the first time. And then irony: “Some of the generals are great artists.”
    “Some of the greatest in the world!” agrees the