My True Nationalist Spirit

I'm pretty virulently anti-nation, but a few weeks ago I got roped into going to Mon National Day ceremonies. This is the ethnic group of the smallest kid in class, Jaer, a twenty year old kid from Mon State, one of the ethnic areas embroiled in revolution against the Burmese government. Since they can't split from the Union in Burma, they hold ceremonies celebrating their split from outside.

I imagined festive dances and fireworks on national day, maybe even guns being shot into the air. Instead, we went to a little house and listened to Jaer and another man speak with incomprehensible fervor about something we had little heart for.

Afterward, some other guys from my organization said no one else could understand them either: they were speaking Mon. Then Jaer gave me a booklet on Mon history. It's no wonder they're proud. They once held sway over the whole of present-day Burma until the Burmans trounced them some seven hundred years ago.

Here's a photo from that day, just to prove I haven't given up on nationalism completely.

Notice how my photos get blurrier and blurrier. Notice the flag with the yellow swan flying toward the blue star. It symbolizes peace. Notice the strange and random Brit next to your narrator and his happy American housemate on the other side. Notice Jaer in the front row in the red pants. (Awwww...) Notice the sign in Mon that Jaer made. Notice the twenty or so people who could not understand or join in when Jaer, the leader, or the woman who introduced the two of them when they began singing the national anthem after Jaer spouted a series of militaristic commands to salute and sing. Believe you me, we saluted...