Word: mongla
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Dates: during 2001-2001
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...There were also sets of postcards featuring Mongla's ladyboys in nipple-revealing evening wear. They starred in the official Mongla calendar, too. January showed a dazzling ladyboy swinging in the crook of an elephant's trunk; December had two ladyboys badly superimposed against a New Hampshire autumn. It was by far the cheapest, shoddiest, tackiest souvenir I had ever seen. I bought...
...Burman? "Oh no. I'm Shan. All of us are from Mongla...
...next stop was Mongla's opium museum. This was opened in 1997 by Lieut. General Khin Nyunt, Burma's despised spy chief and de facto leader, to commemorate the supposed eradication of drugs in the Mongla region. The museum resembled a temple, with a seven-tiered spire, gold-painted finials and lots of architectural twiddly bits. Inside were all the exhibits one would expect: photos of dead junkies; photos of generals wagging their chins over packets of heroin; photos of the same heroin (one assumed) going up in flames at various drug-burning ceremonies...
...propagandists?his glorious transformation from soap-dodging Westernized reprobate into a clean-cut Burman patriot. The Burmese military liked to characterize its war on drugs as part of a wider campaign against colonialism and all its nefarious agents. This was spelled out by Khin Nyunt in a speech at Mongla in 1999. He blamed Burma's drug scourge on the "pernicious legacy" of British colonialists, a legacy exacerbated by what he called "the unscrupulous actions of the politically motivated neocolonialist clandestine organizations...
...This hardly explained or excused the regime's abysmal record in drug control. Since 1988?when Khin Nyunt and his clique rose to power?opium production in Burma had more than doubled. This startling increase was largely due to the generous concessions the regime had granted Mongla's ruler Lin and other ethnic druglords...