Word: burma
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...Htut became a local hero in part because early in his career he resisted singing the propaganda songs that all musicians in Burma are pressured to record. This has earned him a lifetime of official scrutiny. He was once prohibited from performing because his hair was too long and again later?after a spell in a monastery?because he had no hair. (Today, it's shoulder length.) In 1994, a power outage cut short a show and fans rioted. Zaw Win Htut was blamed and forbidden to play publicly for six months. His fellow rockers get similar treatment. They adapt...
...likewise sterilized more controversial parts of his work?thus avoiding the fate of Par Par Lay, a well-known comedian who in 1996 received a seven-year prison sentence for satirizing the country's ruling generals. Not everyone is willing to bend. Mun Awng, a popular musician in Burma in the 1980s, left the country in 1988 after participating in a wave of antigovernment demonstrations. From Thailand, he released an album titled Battle for Peace, and activists sang his songs while facing down the military in 1996 street protests. He now lives in Norway, performing occasionally for Burmese exiles...
...admitted he's thought about leaving the country, about moving to Australia perhaps and maybe opening a studio there. But he isn't going anywhere. His mother is here, his friends, fans and band mates. And he knows he couldn't equal the success he's had in Burma...
...called a sellout for kowtowing to the government. Ethnic fans were outraged, as the Kings had subjugated their people. Another official requested he make an album about the nation. He agreed again, but said he wanted to write the songs: he completed eight, one dedicated to each of Burma's major ethnic groups. These are the pragmatic choices of a father with a son who wants to perform some day and a daughter who wants to go to medical school...
...Burma, a country where symbols and omens are woven into the fabric of life, the portents were all positive. True, University Avenue, the winding road leading to the monsoon-stained mansion where opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest since September 2000, was still closed off. But behind the sawhorses, blue-trousered municipal workers could be seen repairing potholes and sweeping the sidewalks clear of cheroot butts, palm fronds and bamboo leaves. Neighbors reported that the Nobel Peace Prize winner's lawn was being mowed, her grounds spruced up. A few blocks away, the once forlorn...