Translator: sann tint Reviewer: Myo Aung
The first consciousness, as a baby,
came to my head or came to body with food.
Food , in the form of my mother's milk.
And that milk really was the first thing
that gave me a mini-sense of identity.
I remember the joy of trying, drinking and sleeping and
then waking up again.
And, I thought there was life, there was me.
And, I also remember being denied of taking out of that sense of identity
when my mother stopped breast feeding me.
And of course, I was at the age of one,
they substituted milk with rice wine for me.
So, I've been drinking since then for all story of my life.
But, what I realize now, but I didn't know then was,
food was one of the most important things for our community
and also developing our sense of identity,
and, also sharing with other people.
For example, we had political obligations, religious obligations and
social activities in our village.
And, without food, our life was not complete.
I didn't know that food came from our jungles.
But, when I grew up, my ancestors and also my relatives,
they took me to jungles where we hunted for our food,
especially, vegetables, fruits and animals.
And that habit, we did it out of necessity is one thing,
the other one with out of traditions.
And sadly, we haven't got that habit there much anymore
due to the fact that our forests had been destroyed for the last 30 years.
Why I am telling this why I think food is important not only for our tribal people,
for other people.
I'm someone who faced starvation while hiding in the jungle with the rebels.
And from then on, I started to feel the essence of life.
But, essence of life is not much in our way of thinking as a tribesman.
Because we don't think much, we are much more into action,
we like to feel it.
And when I had a chance to leave my community
I became more aware of other people's culinary and
gastronomic activities and traditions.
Particularly, when I came to Europe, I enjoyed Italian coffee.
When I was in England, I enjoyed English fish and
chips, which I couldn't understand first.
And so on so forth ...
And, also I came to really appreciate
the beauty of each ingredient, each spice.
I used to work for a hotel to design food for them.
But my understanding of the connection
between my identity and my community became more intense
as I saw quite a lot of brilliant things being produced.
And, that any dish that we produced wouldn't taste as it's cooked,
had we not understood the sources and the culture that brought it.
And, that's why I wanted to mention
the fact that our jungle had been destroyed a lot in this country.
And I want to really explore each and everyone opportunity
that we used to have and now what we can do.
And especially, nowadays the modern food, so called GM,
genetically modified food, coming into our country,
not only as food, I think, as crops.
That's what the most dangerous things for our community, for our society.
Because for centuries
we have been depending on nature, on natural harvesting or
growing fruits and vegetables and crops.
And this is being threatened with within 20 to 30 years,
being inserted into so-called modern agriculture practice.
I'm not talking about it out of sentimentality
but there is a small bit of sentimentality in it,
I must admit it.
But, I'm saying it because I witnessed
during my two year's return to Burma or Myanmar,
if you prefer it that way.
I witnessed a lot of deaths, mostly young people,
not from the shooting or the killing each other,
mostly from food related diseases, especially cancer.
Thirty years ago when I was a boy, cancer was rarely heard.
We thought cancer was a disease for rich people
because they had very good food to eat to kill themselves.
But now it has become so common that in my hometown alone
if there's a funeral you're likely to see middle-aged and younger
from cancer related or other chemical related,
particularly, drugs.
And this really frightened the community.
But, they don't know it,
why they should be afraid of it.
And then, when I followed their death
or I inquired about why they died and how they died,
they told me that this person used to eat this kind of food,
mostly snack.
They are no alcoholic people, they are no other people.
From the outside,
it looks like they are only eating normal food.
But, when I looked at the crops
or the fields they planted,
they are mostly pesticides.
They use pesticides on the night before
they are going to sell tomorrow.
That kind of thing.
And that is the main reason I noted.
And the other thing is destruction of our environment
because now they are sending these foreign GM crops,
for example, American corn.
They claim that it resists the diseases, the bad weather and sort of things.
And where they come in like Miss Suu said before was
from the outside but the problem doesn't end there.
It's just making the local community grow, expand their agriculture filelds,
especially cut down our virgin forests.
In that process, our traditional, tribal
and other backgrounds have been decimated, and
being undermined from the bottom.
This is the responsibility of the authority in charge of these areas.
And then, the last thing I would like to say is
whatever we talk about, whatever we agree or disagree,
the last thing - our stomach is the King.
And, we have to look for inspirational things
and look for better technology,
we have to feed ourselves and we have to enjoy it.
And for me, the coming months in the jungle is a baby watch
and I'm looking forward to it.
Thank you.
(Applause)