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Authors: Emma Larkin
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unpredictable currents. The roads and bridges that did exist before the storm were deteriorating rapidly under the traffic of aid convoys and the constant rain.
I kept thinking back to the shopkeeper’s question: With nothing, how will they survive?
AT A WET MARKET somewhere in Rangoon, a fishmonger reached into a bucket of still-writhing fish. His expert hand moved patiently through the mass of bodies, stroking scales and caressing wriggling bellies. When he found a fish the size and weight he was looking for, he slid his fingers tightly around the tail and lifted it out of the bucket, slapping it onto a wooden chopping block that was already slippery with fish gut and varnished pinkish red with blood.
With well-practiced delicacy and speed, the fishmonger slipped the sharp point of his knife into the fish and cut a fine slit along the silvery underbelly. A fist-sized tangle of innards plopped out onto the chopping block. As he swiped his knife to one side of the pile to dispense the unwanted parts into a waiting bin, he discovered something that should not have been there. Amid the quivering mound of steaming fish gut, he saw a human finger.
This being Rangoon, word spread quickly. A finger has been found inside a fish. The fish, people said, was a freshwater fish. It was assumed that it must have come from one of the many waterways coursing through the delta. The fish had probably been swimming along the creeks where thousands of dead bodies were still floating. The bodies were disintegrating in their watery graves, and fish were beginning to nibble on the loosened appendages.
As this story of the human finger found inside the belly of a fish was passed on, it was rapidly transformed from rumor into fact. People stopped buying fish. In restaurants there was uncomfortable laughter when someone suggested ordering fish; most people shook their heads emphatically. People also abstained from eating crabs, lobsters, or prawns—it became another much-touted fact, a fact that everyone seemed to have always known, that crustaceans feast on the flesh of the dead.
And the dead were now everywhere. They had found their way out of the delta and into the city.
AS THE STRANGLEHOLD on news was drawn ever tighter, it became increasingly tricky to sort fact from fiction. Every day I heard unverifiable tales that began, in my mind, to take on the elements of myth.
In the hard-hit township of Kunyangon, just a few hours from the city, thousands of angry women had surrounded a police station demanding that the officers cowering inside release food and shelter supplies they had stolen from donors.
A relief boat carrying cyclone survivors from their destroyed village to the safety of a larger town was caught in a monsoon storm. The boat sank and five hundred people drowned, or fifty, or five—depending on which version was being told.
A Bengal tiger was captured prowling along the banks of Kandawgyi Lake in Rangoon, searching for prey. Animal cages at Rangoon’s zoo had been ripped apart when the cyclone raged through the city, and some of the animals had escaped. People kept spotting monkeys scampering across the road or dangling playfully from l ampposts.
Perhaps none of these stories were true; perhaps all of them were. In the hothouse environment of Rangoon, where the truth was malleable and facts and figures could be plucked out of thin air, anything seemed possible. As there are so few reliable sources of news in Burma, rumors take on an added significance and act as a barometer of people’s hopes and fears. What becomes important in this context is not whether they are true but whether people believe them to be true.
During the chaos immediately after the storm, a handful of gung-ho foreign correspondents were able to get to the delta and file news reports. The authorities, however, had been quick to muster their resources and blockade road and river access. For a short while, a few
I kept thinking back to the shopkeeper’s question: With nothing, how will they survive?
AT A WET MARKET somewhere in Rangoon, a fishmonger reached into a bucket of still-writhing fish. His expert hand moved patiently through the mass of bodies, stroking scales and caressing wriggling bellies. When he found a fish the size and weight he was looking for, he slid his fingers tightly around the tail and lifted it out of the bucket, slapping it onto a wooden chopping block that was already slippery with fish gut and varnished pinkish red with blood.
With well-practiced delicacy and speed, the fishmonger slipped the sharp point of his knife into the fish and cut a fine slit along the silvery underbelly. A fist-sized tangle of innards plopped out onto the chopping block. As he swiped his knife to one side of the pile to dispense the unwanted parts into a waiting bin, he discovered something that should not have been there. Amid the quivering mound of steaming fish gut, he saw a human finger.
This being Rangoon, word spread quickly. A finger has been found inside a fish. The fish, people said, was a freshwater fish. It was assumed that it must have come from one of the many waterways coursing through the delta. The fish had probably been swimming along the creeks where thousands of dead bodies were still floating. The bodies were disintegrating in their watery graves, and fish were beginning to nibble on the loosened appendages.
As this story of the human finger found inside the belly of a fish was passed on, it was rapidly transformed from rumor into fact. People stopped buying fish. In restaurants there was uncomfortable laughter when someone suggested ordering fish; most people shook their heads emphatically. People also abstained from eating crabs, lobsters, or prawns—it became another much-touted fact, a fact that everyone seemed to have always known, that crustaceans feast on the flesh of the dead.
And the dead were now everywhere. They had found their way out of the delta and into the city.
AS THE STRANGLEHOLD on news was drawn ever tighter, it became increasingly tricky to sort fact from fiction. Every day I heard unverifiable tales that began, in my mind, to take on the elements of myth.
In the hard-hit township of Kunyangon, just a few hours from the city, thousands of angry women had surrounded a police station demanding that the officers cowering inside release food and shelter supplies they had stolen from donors.
A relief boat carrying cyclone survivors from their destroyed village to the safety of a larger town was caught in a monsoon storm. The boat sank and five hundred people drowned, or fifty, or five—depending on which version was being told.
A Bengal tiger was captured prowling along the banks of Kandawgyi Lake in Rangoon, searching for prey. Animal cages at Rangoon’s zoo had been ripped apart when the cyclone raged through the city, and some of the animals had escaped. People kept spotting monkeys scampering across the road or dangling playfully from l ampposts.
Perhaps none of these stories were true; perhaps all of them were. In the hothouse environment of Rangoon, where the truth was malleable and facts and figures could be plucked out of thin air, anything seemed possible. As there are so few reliable sources of news in Burma, rumors take on an added significance and act as a barometer of people’s hopes and fears. What becomes important in this context is not whether they are true but whether people believe them to be true.
During the chaos immediately after the storm, a handful of gung-ho foreign correspondents were able to get to the delta and file news reports. The authorities, however, had been quick to muster their resources and blockade road and river access. For a short while, a few
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