Another conversation on freedom

I was walking with our trekking guide, Chua, when he asked me about education in Britain. I told him that everyone had to attend school until they were sixteen, from there most teenagers then either carried on studying fewer subjects that may lead to university, did an apprenticeship, or found a job. He told me that only a select few made it to university in Myanmar, most dropped out to help provide for their families. Chua was one of the lucky few.

"What you study at university?" Chua asked.

I told him I spent 3 years studying biology and geology before specialising a further year in neuroscience. He told me he had studied maths.

"Why maths?" I asked.

Chua shrugged. "I did not choose. At school I not like maths. I like languages."

"So who made you study a subject you didn't like?"

"The government."

"Do they choose everyone's subject?"

"Then, yes."

"Now?"

"Now, no."

We stopped walking, waiting for the others to catch up. In the field next to us a group of ladies were digging, one was carrying a baby. I asked what had changed.

"New government. Student choose subject was one of first things they change."

"So you're happy with the what happened at the elections."

"The lady..." He paused and looked at me. "You know the lady?"

"Aung San Suu Kyi?"

"Yes. The people are happy the lady is in charge."

"But not officially in charge," I said.

"No, foreign leader," Chua said, before looking at me. "How do you say?"

"Foreign secretary."

"We say puppet master," Chua smiled. His tone then darkened. "The lady can never be president because she married a foreign man. British. The government, the military, change the law about 2008."

"Nobody who marries a foreigner can become president?"

"Yes."

"Cunning."

Chua was quiet for sometime. I watched him bang his wooden walking pole into the ground, harder and harder.

"Fucking government," he said at last.

I nodded. "Yeah, for all our freedom, we say that in Britain a lot too."