Writings

Diran Is Also A Storyteller

A natural extension of a man who has seen much and done much, of a life that escapes the box. He is currently writing his biography and has published several excerpts on his website. Collected here are various essays and poems.

Arakan State

Arakan State PDF Print E-mail The rust bucket which passed as a ship blew its shrill whistle, and the last scurrying sarong clad passengers hurried across the gang plank as we cast off from Sittwe in Arakan state before 6 am. Arakan state borders Bangladesh to the...

Kachin State

Kachin state: In search of the amber earrings, and the story of one soldier who never went home. Kachin state was an area of Burma that had just recently opened up due to the cease fire signed in 1993 between the Kachin independence army, or K.I.A, and the Burmese...

Golden Rock

I had first seen the "Golden Rock Of Kyaik-to" in a painting at the Inya lake hotel and was told that no tourist could go there. The golden boulder was perched atop a solid granite outcrop, jutting out from the side of a mountain in Burma's Mon state, precariously...

The River Trip

I woke up at 4:30 am to catch the flight on Myanmar air from Rangoon, capitol of Burma, to Sittwe in Arakan state which borders Bangladesh. Only 45 minutes later we arrived at the small airport with the crumbling blue sign proclaiming “Sittwe airport.” Locals pay the...

So Near And Yet So Far

In September 2000, Andrew Marshall a scotsman and I set out from Kunming China, travelling to the Wa autonomous region near the border with Burma in search of a fabled lake called Nawng Hkeo on the Burmese side of the border. This lake had not been seen by any...

Magic Man

It is not that the mountains of Burma are more pointed than mountains elsewhere. If you were to look closely, you could see that nearly every one of them is crowned with a pagoda spire rising ever upwards. To the south of Mt. Popa, an eroded volcanic throat of...

Gem Scams

By Richard K Diran, professional gemologist In every trade and business where big money is involved, the unscrupulous will find a way of separating the naive and the greedy from their cash. Fake antiques, fake paintings, fake coins and fake gemstones. Here in...

Naga Hill Tribe New Year Celebration

The north-western area of Burma is known as Naga land. Naga land had been off-limits for a half century, and the last comprehensive book on the Naga, the naked Naga by Christoph Von Fureh Haimendorf, had been published in 1939. The Naga were and probably still are, in...

The Crippled Girl

Although Burma herself is viewed and vilified, particularly in the west, as a pariah, the acts of kindness by the people themselves reflects a far deeper kind of cultural compassion. I have been a frequent visitor to the country for over 20 years and have been witness...

An Untitled Poem

As you watch the sand of your life sift through the funnel of fate, will you turn to your mirror and ask "Is there time still, or am I too late?" Have I done all the things that I love, or only those things that I hate? Do I know the value of life, or only the hourly...

Nothing

As for me, I expect that my gold teeth will be ripped out of my head as soon as I hit the ground, by ghouls in long coats with snapping steel pliers, drooling in the shadows, who have been waiting for years to devour whatever it is in me that hates mankind, and it...

Eyewitnerss

Women are all expressing something different with their eyes and thus the difference tells the viewer a story. The girl in the lower left shows shocked surprise, while the girl in the upper left pines away in mute resignation for what she knows is already lost and...

The Origin Of Life

I have a horizontal crack in my baby fingernail under which a blackish green dendritic mould is beginning to grow. Lovely. The single cell, the first algae, photosynthesis, the origin of life. Soon i should have tadpoles evolving into amphibians and small fish. I will...

If At The End Of All This

If at the end of all this, if there is anything left that could be called "you" to remember this, if at the end of al of this, when the lens in your eyes have thickened and expanded like the belt around your waist along with the rest of the universe, or shrunk like...

The Has-Been Who Never Was

I am sure that throughout history, there has existed genius as great as any who have ever lived who never pursued their genius. Musicians as great as Mozart who continued to work as accountants. Artists as Skilled as Valasquez who died in battle before they could...

To The Mask Of An Angel

I didn't expect you to bake me a pumpkin pie, but after all, the holidays are upon us and I would have expected a token, something, perhaps a cheery letter with pop out figures of our blessed Lord Jesus in his straw filled manger, surrounded by kings bearing precious...

Nothing

As for me, I expect that my gold teeth will be ripped out of my head as soon as I hit the ground, by ghouls in long coats with snapping steel pliers, drooling in the shadows, who have been waiting for years to devour whatever it is in me that hates mankind, and it...

Eyewitness

It has occurred to me, as your last living critic, that to further develop your art, and to add my two cents of constructive criticism to your on- going painterly catharsis, that we must have a discussion regarding The statement, the innate communication and universal...

The Diamond Deal

I arrived at the Rangoon airport with a soft leather bag slung over each shoulder, having not had to check any baggage. I went directly to immigration and on to customs. A woman inspector sauntered up to the paint chipped table where my bags lay opened. Taking stock...

The Shwe Dagon Pagoda

Objects that have been donated for centuries fill one room. Jewel encrusted scabbards, solid gold Buddha's, silver Buddha's set with rubies and lacquered gold prayer books. In an adjoining room where racks of women's hair hang, some are four or five feet in length and...