Chess in a Myanmar slum

A Myanmar chess player is trying to inspire the young and the old with his computer chess game.

U Ba Sein

Die Eltern Maung Ba Sein kamen aus Indien. Niemand wußte eideutig über seine genaue Abstammung. Diese arme Landarbeiter starben aus eine Seuche am Anfang des letzten Jahrhundert. Über den tragischen Verlust von diesen junges Mannes und seiner Frau trauert niemand. Viele Leute _ die Eltern und die Kinder gleichermaßen_ starben in dieser Dorfgemeinschaft in dem Delta Irrawaddy. Maung Ba Sein war nur ein Säugling.

Eine birmanishe Frau von anderem Dorf nahm ihn in ihre Familie auf. Sie hatte kein Sohn. Mutti liebte Maunz Ba Sein wie ihr Sohn. Unglücklicherweise gab es keine Bindung zwischen ihren Mann U Toke und dieses Jüngster Maung Ba Sein. U Toke war ein reicher Mann. Er betrieb mit Tabak Handel. Selten blieb er zu Hause. Immer rieß er irgendwohin. Während häufige Reise was Mutti nur für den Junge Maung Ba Sein. Baby Ba Sein war in den glücklicheren Zeiten.

Not edited yet, Folk. And I will continue this story when I have time. I have not written German for nearly thirty years.

Television Detective Programmes

Some of the television crime drama series that I watch on British television are Taggart, Rebus, A Touch of Frost, Inspector Morse, Lewis and Midsommer Murders. I have also watched series like Prime Suspect, Criminal Justice and many others. I also like CSI and some CSI spin-offs.

I was introduced to Taggart when I was living in Aberdeen more than a quarter of a century ago. I like the rawness of this gritty Glasgow-based detective series. When its main character, Taggart, died prematurely, I was upset. However, other characters still keep Detective Chief Inspector Taggart's spirit alive in later series without him. I am glad that the series itself was not killed off. The villains, the victims and those caught in-between are convincing. The sprawling city itself looks menacing and uncomfortable like a dark forest. This is nothing else but realism in this series. There is no comic relief or any offer of respite to the viewers often feeling lost in this heart of darkness. I think it appeals to more male viewers than female viewers.

Recently, another series, Rebus, came out of Glasgow. There is an attempt to please female viewers by allowing the characters of a motherly grumpy boss who is a former lover and a sisterly doe-eyed female sidekick to acts as sentinels for this tough and often irrational Neandranthal "Rebus" who mellows like a teddy bear in their presence.

Initially I refused to watch A Touch of Frost because I could not get rid of "Fools and Horses" out of my head in regards to David Jason. Despite numerous artistic gongs for his performance in this detective series, I refused to watch ATOF for years. However, recently, I watched an episode of "A Touch of Frost" because there was nothing else on the other channels. I was immediately hooked and was regretful for not having watched this series for the last twenty years. I tried not to miss all repeated episodes even though they were not in chronological order.

I have completely fallen in love with DJ's character, Detective Inspector Frost. He has had a number of different sidekicks for nearly two decades. His response to different types of characters and his boss, Superintendent Mullet, was a brilliant comic relief to dark and gritty backgrounds. This series bravely tackle with numerous social and political issues in the United Kingdom a long time before the others did. DI Forst responds to all human situations and other characters with understanding and compassion like a world-weary grandfather. However, I doubt whether any Frost exists in the British Police Force. Despite his "flawed character" labelled for his attempts to dodge paperwork and for his frequent politically incorrect jokes or comments or unpredictable behaviours and attitudes unacceptable to his social-climbing boss, Mullet, he is too likeable as a joker to be a real policeman! I am sad that DJ is too old to carry on as DI Frost. In the last episode, the loyal audience were pleased to see a hint of a long lasting romance and a happy retirement for their friend Frost while his friend, George was killed off. DJ said that the audience would not want to see his character in a wheelchair. Yes, I would miss Frost dearly for many years. However, I still have to catch with a few episodes that I have not had viewed.

Well, I still cannot decide whether I like Inspector Morse or not. I started watching it many years before A Touch of Frost. I simply watch Morse to look at the beautiful landscape of Oxfordshire, Oxford University, Oxford dons, Oxford students, Oxford social elites, their social rituals and rites, some snobbish views about Western classical music, Morse's attitude to women and men who are "less intelligent than he is", silly and incredible plots and different ways to kill other human beings in the most ridiculous factions or the most violent means. Oh Yes, Lewis! He is definitely a comic relief to Morse's insufferable dark mood. Other characters become shallow and pale under the dark cloud of Morse's over-domineering personality. Now, despite all odds, we have Lewis, a spin-off from Morse! Maybe people like to see all about Oxford and poor pale Lewis is just an excuse.

Then about the picture perfect, Midsommer Murders! Well, I watch this series to watch the interior decorations of English cottages and semi-palaces _ in almost white-only towns and villages of English countryside. I just look at flowers and plants in their cottage gardens. I also watch formal gardens of estates belonging to millionaires. I also "visit" various religious, social and cultural events without being caught in the middle of rival factions with small village mentality.

Incredibly, most of these beautiful country folks do not have any fear at all for their safety even after so many villagers had been murdered violently. In reality, a single murder would bring panic and administrative havoc in the whole county let alone in a small village.

Well, the placid Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby, his quiet wife and well-behaved daughter represent a typical idealised middle-class English family living in an English countryside. This is good viewing for students all over the world to study the mundane life of an English family. Barnaby is a symbiosis of a village teacher, a village preacher, a village husband, a village father and a civil servant living in an English countryside. Well, We can also say that his character as a Chief Detective Inspector is quite believable because most British police officers, nowadays, have to be extra-polite and gentle to everybody even to the most violent criminals or terrorists. This is a long way from the thuggish characters in the Professional, a television series in the seventies. However, "Life on Mars" which were screened by BBC1 in 2006 and 2007 was a science fiction as well as a police procedural drama. This police fantasy drama reminds us of how different things were only thirty years ago here in Britain!

The Arguments Among Atheists and Arch Angels- 3 January 2011

Here are verbal dogfights among atheists and Arch Angels over a video about the size of the Universe posted by a believer who tried to hijack latest scientific discoveries about the universe or universes.

(Me) Yes the video is wonderful. However, please do not steal the work and discoveries of scientists. It is fraudulent! Please just stick to "THE FACT" of Creationists' faith that the earth was created by God only four thousand years ago and that Eve was created out of Adam!

(Mslattebo) You're nuts if you truly believe that. Then again, the whole idea that all this was created by God is pretty insane. You can stick to your nutty religion you whack job and know that when you die there is no eternal paradise waiting for you. I wish I could show you everything I do against god and religion. While it's only menial, small acts against it, it's still awesome in my book. Burning bibles, defacing churches,etc. You do your best to spread your lies, while I do mine to stop them.

(Me) What an utter disappointment to see my fellow atheist too thick to understand even a short piece of a text with a sarcastic tone. So how can such people possibly make simple folks who blindly follow any figment of imagination of intellectually above-average "sons of Gods" to see sense about the origins of the universe and evolution of man on earth. Please try to learn the use of inverted commas first before you attack someone. Your stupidity is making genuine religious nuts very happy.

(Me Again)Burning bibles and defacing churches are criminal acts. I am an atheist; however, I love and read the Bible as a beautiful piece of literature or an ancient book through which I can see the lives of people living at the time it was being written. Churches are precious ancient cultural heritages which should be protected from thugs like you. Your disgraceful acts are not accepted by most atheists and agnostics. And how can we rely on you to make simple followers of religions to embrace science?

(Me Again)The evangelists are now fooling & confusing their flocks by stealing theories & discoveries made by scientists. It is difficult for them to convince even the most stupid in the 21st century with traditional teachings of the Church because the Internet is full of videos and writings of scientific discoveries. So Church "scientists" or new Creationists are updating/upgrading Genesis and Revelation to counter scientists' explanation of the birth and death of universes as well as quantum physics.

(Me Again) Churches shouldn't be used EVEN as shopping malls or night clubs because church attendance is low. They should be protected like pagan temples of ancient Greeks, Egyptians and the original Americans. The Bible should be enjoyed like Homer's The Iliad and the Odyssey. Defacing and destroying churches/Buddha statues are CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY because they belong to the whole mankind. Instead we should promote science among simple folks with our resources while protecting their cultural relics.

NO RESPONSE FROM THIS THUG SO FAR. HOWEVER, OTHER ATHEISTS AND CHAMPIONS OF FAITHS KEEP ON ARGUING OVER THIS VIDEO.

(Carebearnv) Your comments about " religious nuts" only defiles your own selfworth as a so called atheist.

(me to Carebearv) Thanks for your "wise, educated and intelligent" comment which is just a one liner. So far, you have commented on other people with these one liners. Let's see your intelligence, wisdom and experiences. So please post your postgraduate thesis or writings on theology or astrophysics or whatever. If you have none, give us essays not just one liners.

Mother's Milk, Baby's Diet and Our Cuisine

When I first came to Europe in 1984, my curious western friends often asked me about our diets in my country while we were children. They were often disappointed to hear something they had not expected. A teacher once asked me whether I had eaten bread in my country. In this Age of Semi-ignorance, many Europeans who had never been to SE Asia, believed that we ate only rice and noodle and we did not drink milk at all. (Most Asians have intolerance to lactose and we are not supposed to like milk!) Sometimes I did not want to respond to their question because my answer would not be that simple.

I don't know what my mother fed my two older sisters who died before I was born. Their death must have saved me and my other siblings except a younger brother. He died very young of typhoid and pneumonia. Our parents cared for us well so that we would not die young like the first three ones. One more brother died at the age of 40 of alcohol-induced liver failure in November 2009. He was born and stayed healthy until he discovered alcohol and drugs.

We were breast-fed with occasional supplements of cooked rice and salt before we reached four to six months old. Then we were given duck eggs, white bread, biscuits, butter, lots of condensed milk and fresh cow and goat milk. We were also fed rice with chicken, deep-fried catfish or deep-fried snakehead fish or other river fish. We were not given red meat, vegetables, fresh fruit except delicious baked bananas until we were a year old. Yes!!! We also had lots of baked sweet-potatoes, baked potatoes and cooked wing-bean roots. Then we had lots and lots of beef which we all gave up when we became adults.

Hollicks, Overtine and Milo were our night drinks. Ground coffee and rich Indian tea were afternoon and morning drinks. We also had lots of honey and fruit jam. I love all savoury food but I dislike sugar and all sweet things except sweet-potatoes. So my shares of cakes were always traded. My lunch box almost always contained two slices of bread with butter and jam which I duly traded with whatever I got from my classmates at my primary school. I almost always had bread at breakfast and also before I went to bed. So I increasingly became fed up with bread until I became an adult.

Only when we were about five, we were given Burmese traditional snags like glutinous rice with coconut or roasted sesame seeds or dried prawns or fried fish as occasional breakfasts. My parents believed that snags made of glutinous rice made young children constipated and that babies could not digest fresh vegetables. We did not have processed baby food made of vegetables and meat at that time.

My parents were not rich but they made sure that we were well-fed. His friends also made sure that we had enough to eat even when my father had to live with half of his salary after being demoted from his higher position. The inflation was extremely low at that time and even his half salary (a quarter of the previous salary) was enough for us to survive well. That was in the diamond fifties.

However, my mother believed that only mother's milk was good for very young babies. She did not mind fresh cow and goat milk for babies under six months old; but she disliked powered milk. However, in the sixties, when she produced less milk, doctors advised her to feed her babies with powdered milk as well. We teenagers also demanded powdered milk; so my mother had to buy enough powdered milk for her whole brood.

My parents did not own properties. All my father's income was spent on our education, healthy food, his library (books on history, electronics and espionage) and his laboratory while his colleagues saved theirs to buy houses or land for their secure future. We did not have many clothes. We did not have jewellery. However, we always had good food, good books and good music (a Ferrograph tape recorder, a large radio, a movie projector and all the other gadgets and toys).

We were also given lots of vitamin supplements. My father was attached to an administration of a local hospital in the fifties and he seemed to have learnt a lot from some medical professionals at the hospital. We had free medical treatment from this hospital, the best in the whole country. A male nurse often visited us to give seasonal vaccinations and Vitamin B12 injection which was extremely painful. My cousin would attempt to outrun the nurse and my parents, shrieking like a piglet.

All my brothers and sisters have always loved milk, cream, butter and all other diary products since we were babies. Four large loaves of bread and several pints of milk were delivered by an old Hindi milkman everyday. In the seventies, we could no longer afford fresh milk at all. Cream with fruit jam and flat bread became an occasional treat. We used to have lots of tinned cheese with two hammer brand in the fifties and early sixties. However, when they became too expensive, we could not afford them any longer.

In the fifties and sixties, my wise mother always bought and hoarded one year supply of rice, potatoes, onion, garlic, the best quality fish paste, fish sauce, dried prawns and dried fish just after the harvest when prices were the lowest. This was also to prevent my father spending all his salary on books and gadgets. We did not have any hardship during an acute food shortage in the sixties. She had learnt from her experiences during the World War II and the civil war in her hometown.

Our grandparents had a plot of land in the Delta. My aunt looked after this fruit garden and we were allowed to enjoy our dividends. My mother also had an exclusive right to buy the whole rice harvest from her friend, a widow, whose farms produced the best rice in the region. Having blood connections with Delta farmers and fruit growers helped us a great deal. Relatives visited us with lots of seasonal gifts including lots of fried river fish, grilled large prawns or dried ones in exchange for a free lodging during their visit to the capital city.

However, we did not eat exotic food like turtle eggs or frogs or eels or fried locus. We often had such gifts which we duly dumped on those who enjoyed them. (Now I am aware that this eating habit of several Delta-dwelling millions must have crashed the turtle population in South East Asia.) We were appalled to see my second sister suddenly acquire a taste for fried locus during her visit to the country! Anyway these are harmful but protein-rich pest. The more people eat them, the better.

However, in the mid seventies when my father was out of work for three years, we had food shortage. Once, we ran out of my father's pension before the end of the month. My mother had had a baby brother a few years ago after a five years' break. During this period, older siblings ate less so that the baby brother could eat well. Yes he was fed with plenty of milk powder. Now he is the tallest brother almost reaching six feet.

Of course, there were other children whose diets were more varied and better-balanced than ours. At the same time, there were millions of babies whose diets were much poorer than ours. Millions of poor mothers could not/cannot afford powdered milk or other supplements for their babies; however they believe that mother's milk is good for their babies. In rice growing areas, farmers use cows and buffaloes to till their lands. Some mothers in these areas also feed their babies with cow and goat milk if they can get hold of it. However, I often saw skeletal cows with calves and felt guilty about drinking cow milk, especially after a colleague at the University advised me not to steal the milk from hungry calves who were born out of working cows and not of diary cows.

In the golden sixties, my father frequently brought us food from hotels which catered for State dignitaries. He must have been in charge for the security of these visitors. So he must have been given untouched food or leftovers from these opulent State banquets. Now I can find food with similar quality only in some top Japanese restaurants in London. The chefs in these hotels must have been trained to cook for the Emperors of Japan and China! This opportunity allowed me to cook from my taste. We could not afford such quality food from these exclusive hotels. Sometimes my father bought them for the whole family when there were no State visits. My mother groaned while we were wolfing everything up! So I had to emulate the recipes by identifying the ingredients from my palate alone when I took over the kitchen duty for a few years. This enormously pleased my father who missed his late mother's Chinese cooking and complaint a lot about my mother's Delta cuisine.

Now many brilliant Burmese websites are devoted to Burmese cuisine. Recently, I had a great pleasure in introducing these websites to a friend whom I could not convince that wild asparagus grow in Burma. Now I do not have to respond to their idle stupid questions. I only have to divert the curious to various websites devoted Burmese food and to this blog if they want to know just my childhood diets. Well, do not expect me to cater Burmese food for you. You can have the recipe from these website and cook your supper by yourself.