The Trouser People
A Story of Burma in the Shadow of the Empire
by Andrew Marshall
Counterpoint Books

Reviewed by Kurt Opprecht

for the New York Sun, April 24, 2002

It's not easy to write a book about present-day Burma. The military regime there, (which attempted to rename the country "Myanmar"), has built a brutal socialist dictatorship never-never land where very little changes and the rest of the world doesn't matter. The ruling SPDC (formerly SLORC) systematically rapes and murders its ethnic minorities while it encourages tourism to prescribed areas of the country for the hard currency foreigners bring. Visas are denied to journalists, and all visits are limited to 28 days.

In "The Trouser People," Andrew Marshall recounts the state of Burma today in a personal and detailed way that makes it feel like the story of your own family, minus a few hairdressers, plus a few head-hunters.

On a framework of travelogue-style narration, Marshall skillfully weaves together two story threads. One, the increasingly insane history of Burma, which to this day involves dozens of ethnic groups (some nearly stone-age) several small mountain kingdoms, the remnants of Burmese aristocracy, socialism, imperialism and endemic superstition, all in what is still a resource-rich country.

The other thread is the history of Sir J. George Scott, Victorian adventurer, rugby enthusiast and administrator of British colonial rule in Upper Burma through the late 1800’s, (one of the first of those whom the Burmese called, "The Trouser People"). Marshall makes good on his stated intention to bring Scott's work back from obscurity as he includes bits from Scott's voluminous writings and relates his own efforts to retrace Scott's steps.

As recently as the 1950s, Burma was one of two countries, (along with the Philippines) expected to be the first in Asia to rise to prosperity and modernity. A half-century later, Burma is at the bottom of the heap, with Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and North Korea.

When I visited Burma in 1987, it had the feel of a country not merely isolated from the world, but left behind by time itself. From the fading colonial architecture to the dearth of automobiles and the 1940's style billboards, it was as though I’d arrived in Rangoon the day after the British left in 1948.

What I saw was in fact the remains of Burma's very first step toward modernity. As recently as 1880, "death by lingering torture" was punishment for women who copied Queen Supayalat's hairstyle and the first thing a new king did upon ascending to the throne was have his siblings executed and then ritually trampled by elephants.

But for all the modern dysfunction and repression, Burma is a thoroughly charming nation of good people, and Marshall conveys that side of the country’s personality masterfully. His depictions of the Burmese and ethnic minorities with whom he interacts, from the betel-spewing landlady to Philip the Miracle Monk, are personal without being sticky, candid without being condescending.

With Marshall we attend a soccer match in Rangoon, sleep in a rebel camp on the Thai-Burma border, observe a transvestite show on the Chinese border, and enter a northern base of the United Wa State Army, "one of the largest armed drug-trafficking organizations on the planet."

It's disappointing that Marshall doesn't feel more bound to the legacy of Graham Greene or Bruce Chatwin, two other adventurers who produced some of the finest prose in travel/overseas writing, British or otherwise. Instead, he seems to be as addicted to Victorian prose embellishments as a street junkie to Burmese heroin. Peasant women are "hard bitten," "multi-colored" cardigans "festoon" local shops, and his hotel room is "Brobdingnagian."

At times I wondered whether Marshall might be invoking an archaic prose style in order to better evoke the atmosphere of the imperial era. In Marshall's defense, the influence of Sir Scott’s writing style must have been profound; in researching this book, Marshall had to read many pounds of it.

Style considerations aside, Marshall handles the gravity of the Burma situation well, making the necessary impact without beating the reader over the head with it. Here is one of the most strident passages: "While foreign tourists took day trips on beautiful Inle Lake, and enjoyed Kodak moments with long-necked Kayan women, ... less than sixty miles away, in the green valley of Nam Zargn, people were being raped, shot and beaten to death."

If only it were building weapons of mass destruction, Burma might get more attention from the developed world. At the moment, interest in Burma comes mostly from drug dealers and lumber corporations. The military government has succeeded in deflecting world attention from its well-documented exercises in opium producing and genocide by limiting press coverage inside, and thus also outside, its borders.

Rare though it may be, one book about the plight of the peoples of Burma isn't likely to change world opinion, but "The Trouser People" may succeed in dredging up more attention, because this book happens to be entertaining. Marshall deserves a medal for bravery and endurance, not to mention journalistic craft, for using humor and adventure to show us the story of a people that clearly deserve a better government.