FreeCulture Diaries

The walls are bare and unadorned save for a photo of the Lady – Aung San Suu Kyi looking gracefully down with white innocent flowers pinned to her hair, beneath which sits an unassuming young buddhist monk in maroon drapings, shaved head, waving and grinning at my presence. It is a Sunday morning in Phaung Daw OO (PDO), an orphanage and monastic school in Myanmar, and the the room is packed with dozens of young Burmese children, smiling little girls in white shirts and floral longyis, boys playing futbol with their barefeet, and a handful of school children in attendance.

“Are you the girl that’s making movie about One Direction?” asks Theingi, a young girl around 12 years old, She stands in front of me, deep brown eyes widened, as the room reverberates with the chatter and laughter of children around me. I feel someone holding my hand and look down to see a young boy, face dusty from the motorcycle air of Mandalay smiling, leaning against my leg. I look back to Theingi. “Yes, I am,” I said while motioning to grab my camera, “would you like to be in it?’”

Her face lights up and a beautiful, wide smile emerges on her face. She looks around excitedly and motion her friends sitting on the footsteps of their dormitory to run over. “Yes. I love One Direction very much, yes.” The crowd listening with rapt attention. I am curious. How can a British boy band’s influence become so strong in an authoritarian dictatorship?

I was intrigued. I wanted to know if One Direction meant something else for Thiengi than it did for my sister back in Chicago. I put my hands on my knees, my black longyi already dusty from the motorcycle air of Mandalay. “Why do you like One Direction?” I asked with such strange curiosity.

The crowd of children is silent for a split moment. The girls and boys looked at each other. The many hands leaning on my back are released. Theingi spoke up with a sincere, yet serious tone. “We like One Direction a lot, because they express how they want,” said Theingi with some hesitation to find the right words, “We don’t have that in Myanmar. One Direction songs make us happy and we feel like them -- like we are same. We feel hope and we like it very much.”

I nodded and smiled. “That is beautiful, Theingi,” I said with my voice quivering at the delicacy of the matter, “can you say that to the camera?” She beamed and nodded.

I’ll never forget that day. The smiles, beautiful faces, and the faint melody of school children singing “One Thing.”