Skirting Comedy Limits in Myanmar

By PHILIP HEIJMANS

MANDALAY, Myanmar — Emerging from behind a tawdry blue curtain in the garage of his three-story home here in Myanmar’s second largest city, U Lu Maw made his way onto a makeshift stage to do what he does best: tell jokes.

“I had a toothache, so I go to the dentist in Thailand,” Mr. Lu Maw, 66, bellowed into the microphone in English one evening last month to an audience of foreigners. “He said, ‘Don’t you have dentists in Burma?’

“I said, ‘Yes, but we aren’t allowed to open our mouth in Burma.”’

Though his attire is modest — a traditional wraparound skirt known as a longyi under a red T-shirt emblazoned with “The Moustache Brothers,” the name of his comedy troupe — Mr. Lu Maw delivers jokes that are a dark and bold reminder of what life was like under decades of oppressive military rule in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.

The group, which has been performing for more than three decades, is renowned in the country for a political satire that can carry a prison sentence if performed in a public venue in Burmese. Since 2001, the troupe’s members have shared their popular comedy act from their garage seven nights a week for gatherings of as many as 40 foreigners, who pay the equivalent of $10 each.

It was jokes like the dentist one that landed two of the three founding performers, U Par Par Lay and his cousin U Lu Zaw, in a hard-labor prison camp for five years in the late 1990s. And the performances have continued even after the death of Mr. Par Par Lay, who was Mr. Lu Maw’s brother and the group’s leader, two years ago.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/30/arts/international/skirting-comedy-limits-in-myanmar.html

Funny. If you did that here in Thailand, off to some attitude re-adjustment you go.

Just the fact that they have stand up comedy in Burma, says a lot about the positive influence of the outside world. How I wish there was some stand up comedy here. Or theatre. Or a few dance companies. Or poetry readings. Or good art museums. Or more live jazz. Culture. I do miss culture. I realize the lack thereof, is one of the trade offs we make, when we choose to live here. But, it would be nice occasionally.

“I had a toothache, so I go to the dentist in Thailand,” Mr. Lu Maw, 66, bellowed into the microphone in English one evening last month to an audience of foreigners. “He said, ‘Don’t you have dentists in Burma?’

“I said, ‘Yes, but we aren’t allowed to open our mouth in Burma.”’

Burma in 2030 = Thailand in 2000

Thailand in 2030 = Burma in 2000