PART TWO

1944 - 1945

SECTION 1

Pitch black, A Mar had no idea where she was or where she was heading, running towards nothing but then arrived somewhere familiar, a building, a short distance from her sight, a structure resembling her home, a wooden house, a townhome. Around the porch, gardenia and plumeria shrubs are all in bloom.

A Mar adores white and milky flowers, and the aroma of jasmine or gardenia always sets one at ease. Then, just as she reaches for a plumeria blossom, the entire house is blasted. All of the white and milky blossoms have been buried in dark ashes, and some shrubs have even coughed in the fire.

A Mar awoke from a nightmare with her heart pounding. After determining what is real and what is a nightmare, she gathers all of her thoughts before returning to confusion once again. As soon as her eyes opened, she looked about to make sure she was still conscious, and she realised she was in the tiny garage behind the kitchen of the Ba Ba Gyi household.

A Mar covers herself in her midland yarn blanket, letting go of all her worries for a moment under the warmth and comfort. Mum was deeply asleep, turning her back on A Mar from the opposing side of the bed. Living here is difficult for her as well; everything is hard for both of them. Day-to-day housing duties are demanding and frustrating because both of them are obligated to eight people, including themselves.

Where will they go if Ba Ba Gyi somehow doesn't take them? He had graciously welcomed them to get shelter at his house, without any ill will or grudge. A Mar would prefer not to dwell in the tiny storage room in the back of the kitchen, however they must be grateful for what they have and, of course, the generosity of Ba Ba Gyi.

A Mar feels heartbroken whenever she thinks about the words "Home," "House," or "Family." The word “HOME” means a lot to her. The meanings of others' homes and one's own homes vary greatly. It was difficult for her to acclimate to living in other people's households. And she wasn't sure how much longer they'd have to live here.

Living in the tight storage area at the rear of the kitchen is tough and challenging, but it offers them what they need: a sense of protection and safety. Nonetheless, A Mar remembers the old house her father built for them, which was destroyed by the bomb strike. She misses her home; she still dreams about it. And she is still haunted by the terrible event of her home's fate.

She'd had enough of the war's ramifications, numerous days of privation, untimely death of loved ones, and the horror of intimidation. She has faced numerous dangers and difficulties at a young point, and she now understands what she must do and how she must prepare for her difficult fate.

She now realises that all of her hardships were only life lessons, and with that understanding, she can strive even harder in her life for the best. All bitterness eventually passes.

Above all else, she can only do one thing for the time being. She must give it her all. If the school reopens, she must attend promptly. She needs to find a way to pay for her education.

Only once she graduates and becomes a licensed medical doctor will she be able to stand on her own and completely support her mother without the help of others. A Mar despises being dependent on others and longs for a life full of self-sufficiency and dignity.

She wants a home, a home where she and her mum may live happily and independently, full of one's own satisfaction and assets. She wishes to plant as many flowers as she can around the porch, including gardenia, plumeria, and jasmine when she has her own house.

She will take good care of her mother; she wants her mother to be well and content. A Mar has a hope. She is the only one who can fulfil it.

“A Mar, A Mar, wake up!”

Mummy's gentle tone has woken A Mar.

“Yes, Ma Ma.”

"Come on, honey, Clean up. Soak two cups of sticky rice in water. We're having Amber Rice for breakfast, and I'm sure your cousins will enjoy it."

A Mar promptly mends her blanket and makes her bed. And the same old routine has started yet again.

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SECTION 2

A Mars' proud father was a Licentiate in Medical Practice: LMP- somebody who can provide basic medical care and health care. An educated gentleman, not really a doctor, but a kind of physician who appreciates and recognizes the importance of one's own profession and its talents. So, naturally, he wants his daughter to be the same as him. He wants A Mar to be a well-educated LMP so that she can take care of herself and have a good as well as respected career.

A Mar, on the other hand, is not the sort of person who is ready to take on any challenge; instead, she is quiet and weak. A Mar did argue with her father that she does not want to attend medical school and would rather do anything different. Her father, in contrast, insists excessively.

Some of A Mar's friends dropped out in grade seven, and they ended their studies and went on to have decent careers. Surprisingly, a grade seven dropout at the time is well educated and can even read or write fluently in English, thus they have numerous opportunities. Some even become accountants or clerks.

Still, for other parents, seventh grade is sufficient for their daughter. As a result, they naturally assume that their daughters no longer need any more special or higher education in order to live, and they only prompt them for conjugal life in the end.

A Mar has never been an ambitious girl; she has never thought about or planned her future. Nonetheless, she never dares to question or defy her parents' wishes. She had no choice but to pass the matriculation exam and enrol in medical school due to the insistence of both parents that she must become an LMP or Medical Doctor.

Fortunately, she passed the exam within her first year; oddly, the year that A Mar passed the matriculation exam in Magway Region, only three students passed, and she was one of them.

A girl named Ma Than Htay or A Mar from Mynn Bhu City and two other girls from Yay Nan Chaung City. Some applaud them, while others condemn them – wasting time, being superfluous, and so on.

It was a small and rural commune, and their understanding was so close that not everyone's eyes were as wide open as A Mar father's, and most of them couldn't even write their own name, so it was logical that they would not grasp the importance of higher education or having a degree, and its benefits.

Then she was conflicted to decide whether she should follow in her father's footsteps and attend only four years of schooling to become an LMP, or take the opportunity to become an MBBS and complete seven years of schooling. She ended up choosing to become an MBBS - or a REAL DOCTOR - after several days of confusion.

It was difficult for her to decide to enrol in the MBBS class because she would have to move to another city, Yangon, and stay at the Ba Ba Gyi residence. A rural teenage girl is compelled to go to another city, not just any city, but to Yangon, the capital of her country. It was difficult for her to even think of having to live with others and confront all she had never had to confront before.

Before anything happened, before the war, she arrived in Yangon. A sixteen-year-old rural girl, dressed in a thick cotton dress with a fringe bun, has become a medical student. A Midlander's skin tone is typically brown, yet A Mar looks to be lighter than others. Everyone notices her for her distinct flair, and everyone admires her for her cleverness and nerdiness.

The pre-med term at Yangon University was swimmingly ended, however the university was closed due to the war the year after transferring to Lanmadaw Medical School to begin the second-year term as a medico in 1942.

So newly becoming medico' A Mar has to head back to Mynn Bhu city and after that, she becomes a refugee for almost two years. She lost her father and brother, a family home, all the possessions and valuable assets.

She has to run for her life all the time, and when the Japanese government takes over the nation in 1944, both A Mar and her mother decide to seek refuge in Yangon at the Ba Ba Gyi residence. It was too difficult for them to decide after nothing left to strive for survival and hope for whatever help they could obtain.

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SECTION 3

On August 1, 1943, the Imperial Japanese granted Burma its deserved independence, but their so-called independence was not the sovereignty or autonomy that the entire Burma gained over its own country; rather, the freedom that they granted was a cover-up for the Imperial Japanese to continue the great war at the expense of Burma assets.

Dr. Ba Maw, Burma's elected head of state, inadvertently signed the agreement with the Imperial Japanese's official envoy, and the country's fraudulent independence was attained. On the plus side, most of the cities were able to reestablish their own, and the country was in control after so many years of instability; the people mistakenly assumed that they were finally gaining independence after the country had been in darkness for some time.

Everything had changed by the time A Mar returned to Yangon in 1944. Almost everywhere, there is no evidence of the devastation caused by war; everyone appears to be good and fair. A Mar and her mother, fortunately, receive help from Ba Ba Gyi and therefore they are able to stay at Zayyawaddy Street's residence in San Chaung Township.

San Chaung is thriving; once filled with Indians, Yangon is now populated by a diverse range of people; Japanese are prominent in every street, town, and place. Almost every major road was clogged with little Imperial flags Jeeps, and every gathering was swarmed with buck-toothed Japanese men walking hand in hand with some naive Burmese girls.

Since Yangon has been the epicentre for everyone again, it has been filled with uniform persons and the gals who seek to be flatter and favoured by the upper crust's Japanese have gradually changed to a trend of carnally competing each with any reputation they all can afford to get by any means.

The old magnificent Pegu Club from Colonial times has been turned into a brothel for the gilded Japanese. Marrying a Japanese official is regarded as appropriate, respectful, and trendy. Burmese girls dressed in tin satin and shorts may be seen everywhere, on the jeep with Japanese military men, on the street hand in hand strolling alongside Japanese gents, and so on.

The downtown area, plazas, saloons, businesses, bazaars, theatres, and other clubs were filled with the same foolish Burmese girls. At the time, a popular song had been written about them that was just as sarcastic as the following;

“♫ Darling, Dear, Diamond Kyi,

Did you marry a Japanese?♬

♫ What if the Master goes back.

Kyoto, Moto, Saitamas. ♬ -

♫ You'll be sorry if he's gone,

a pregnant lady abandoned. ♬”

When A Mar and Mummy went to Theingyi Market the other day, they went head on with the Durian vendor, the pile of fresh products tempting both of them to buy some, so they go on and seeking for goods, just as the two of them looking in the mountain of Durian fruits, a Japanese jeep was entered behind them, a middle aged gents was driving it, beside him was a gals, more of a lady was sitting gracefully, very fashionable, and modestly dressed.

Her brocade was lavishly embellished with gleaming gold and silver threads. Her magnificent orbs were exposed since the dress was so thin and delicate. Her beautiful hair was adorned with extravagant embellishments.

When the beauty saw the seller, she was just too thrilled to buy some of the goods, so she asked her attendant in fluent Japanese, and the gentlemen nodded his head and agreed with her, and the gents got out of the car and stepped around the rear of the jeep, opening the door for his beauty to come down.

The coquette cautiously steps out of the automobile and asks the vendor how much the products she wants are worth. And the seller seemed irritated by the lady's constant ordering of this and that, yet he patiently listened and did whatever the lady asked.

"How much is this one, Mister? And what about the three? Oh, this one appears to be better; why don't you cut it open and show me? I'd want to be certain that, as you stated, this one is rich in meat."

As she learned that the one she had explicitly commanded to cut it open was lacking in meat, her commanding and bidding got even more aggressive. A Mar unintentionally caught her gaze. Shock, great surprise, and awe A Mar asks -

"Ma Hla Kyin? Is that you? Sister? I'm sure it's you. You're Ma Hla Kyin, Right?"

A Mar is certain that the lady is her old friend Ma Hla Kyin, her ordinary extraordinary life saviour, but when A Mar asks who she is, the lady becomes irritated and drops the durian from her hand, turning her back on A Mar and leaving.

A Mar didn't bother following because she knew it was her friend and didn't want to disturb her. A Mar realised that no matter how many changes occur, in a profound sense, everything remains the same. Looks and appearance may change, but the attitude and character always remain.

A Mar feels terrible, seeing a good friend turning into absurdity is like being thrown into a dark room full of dirt, loathsome, and horrible yet somehow must endure it. But there is nothing that she can do to her or for her now, with a twisting heart, A Mar just simply keeps her gaze fixed on the back of the leaving one.

"I pray that she will be OK and that she will not meet the same fate as Diamond Kyi, being alone and left." … A Mar thought to herself. They are childhood friends, close and loving to each other, they attended school almost together, even wore the same dress most of the time in every special occasion, and Ma Hla Kyin is also A Mar's life saviour.

Both of them had completely lost track of each other since the war started, and A Mar is convinced that Ma Hla Kyin would not just forget her, unless… What an awful tragedy, A Mar was expecting for a pleasant reunion with her, but things have changed drastically.

Then A Mar accepted the fact that consequences of war might be tremendous and odd to everyone, including herself; she, an once rustic innocent girl, has now matured into a city gal.

Except for the direct causes of changes after the accounts, there is no standard to measure the positive and negative aspects. A Mar came to Yangon to re-enroll in school, but it did not work out, thus she had to change her plans. All has changed; once-indoor girls have given rise to active and hardworking.

New stock exchange centres have sprung up all over Kyi Myint Daing, and dashing, brisking beauties have turned into entrepreneurs, proficient in many languages and conducting business as though they were born to do so.

Other businesses, such as restaurants, cafes, drink stands, and stores, have also grown profitable in their own right. Milk shakes, ice cream, and, most recently, a new beverage called - Falooda - are all becoming increasingly popular.

Ni NI and Yi Yi were the ones that encouraged A Mar to try a Falooda.

"Ma Ma Than, try it; you won't be disappointed; contrary, we're confident you'll like it”

All of A Mar's cousins refer to her as "Ma Ma Than," because her full name is Ma Than Htay; however, in Yangon, calling "Than Than" is more intimate and sounds just right.

"Do you like it? It's called Falooda, and it's made with ice cream, pudding, jelly, sago, and, best of all, nuts."

A Mar loves it from the very first try. On some other occasions, they would go to Bahan and explore the plazas, enjoy the theatres, dine at the grand restaurants, and clubs such as Kan Taw Mate.

A Mar loves visiting there because she gets to see celebs in person. A Mar has had the opportunity to meet the country's most renowned actor, Kyaw Aye, and he is amazing, stunning, and gorgeous. No one can get enough of him. Only then did A Mar understand the true root of Ni Ni and Yi Yi's sense of fashion. They'll be able to see celebrities and their finest styles.

"Ma Ma Than? Why don't you get rid of the fringe, you look like Hillbilly, see here, the hairstyle of May May Win, very trendy, see the wavy curls? I can make that, and we might be able to make curls like that with the heated spoke. Don’t you worry, I do it before, believe me, you gonna loves it”

She is right; whenever A Mar looked in the mirror, she saw a rural girl, with a fringe bun, unkempt and overly bold. Wearing nothing but tatters and having no sense of style.

Yangon is exhilarating and fascinating for a country girl. Everything is new, exciting, and inspirational. A Mar sometimes wonders if she is in another universe, scratching her hair and puzzled. How should she proceed? to make herself anew.

Yangon has enchanted another naive girl, yet again.

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SECTION 4

The broad, vast, and always jumbled traffic road system of the urbanised city was the most stunning for A Mar when she first came to Yangon. After settling for a time, she began to realise the disparity between the living culture of urbanise and the rural.

In the city, living in the apartment looks poor and beneath, while in the countryside, living in the vast apartment room is known as opulent life. But all in all, The things about Kyandaw Cemetery were the most shocking and bizarre.

Strangely, the cemetery is placed in the centre of the town, between districts. In midland cultural aspects, a location associated with death, deceased or a cemetery is regarded with negative portents or premonitions.

Almost every midland town and village generally placed the cemetery outside of the residential area or far from the neighbourhoods. Yet in this city of Yangon, the cemetery was right in the midst of town, and no one seemed to bother. Even the famous Yangon University is a half mile away from it.

The peaceful street of Zayyawaddy, where A Mar stayed in Sanchaung, is reachable by the route from the side of Kyimyindaing, or the main thoroughfare of Ma Gyi Gyi road, or the narrow path of Kyandaw Cemetery short-cut.

If one does not loop around from the Hantawaddy and drives straight through Pyi Road as the first right turn, one can reach the cemetery without making a mistake. The second street after the turn, and thus the nearest, leads to Zayyawaddy street, where A Mar lives.

After the seventh day of mourning, a person's body is either buried or cremated in a typical rural area. However, if the deceased's family could afford it, they would try to bury it beneath the 2 foot high structure which was also constructed the same day. Funeral or memorial services are not particularly interesting in the Midland, but Yangon has a different story.

In Kyandaw Cemetery, where the tombs and graves of a Chinese side always are fascinating to glance into, each cemetery is unique, and some tombs may even have arabesque or fascinating adornment on them. A Mar has never seen anything like it.

The Kyandaw cemetery covers a whole district and was the largest cemetery ever created in colonial Yangon. The cemetery took about 50 acres (20 hectares) of land and was the city's communal burial place for Burmese Buddhists, but it also had cemeteries for Christians, Chinese, Hindus, and Muslims. The Hindu segment of the cemetery was 1.6 hectares in size (4.0 acres).

Among each sector of burial grounds, the whole graveyard is occupied not only by the dead, but also by the living-dead. The cemetery itself became a large slum, inhabited with grass roots, beggers, prostitutes, drug addicts, and so on, thus it became dense, packed, and crammed.

The unofficial undertaker, also known as a Subaraj, lives among the impoverished. According to rumours, they would take anything of value from the deceased, such as clothes and even flowers placed by the bereaved. And then they'd try to sell it as new at the nearby floral store. They were viewed as outcasts, with no role or any status in Yangon's societal structure. Shunned by everyone.

There is no denying that Kyandaw Cemetery is indeed the root of all problems in colonial Yangon. Almost all postnatal abandonment cases come from the cemetery. The terrifying cases and rumours stories of some warlock or fanatic occultist naturalising the dead or ghosts also originate from here.

Some of the laddies' love potion concoct exaggeration begins here as well. No one dares to come or pass the cemetery shortcut after dark, because the path is broad and clear, and plainness has become an opportunity for all evil deeds to happen.Regardless of whether the entire area is in horror or loathing, some of the shanty that are barely lit by the little light continue to be active in their own right.

The cemetery itself is terrible, but the most frightening of all is the one and only location where the enormous Banyan tree resides, at the cemetery's main gate, which is said to be haunted.

Whenever A Mar's cousin went to one of the boudoirs at Yangon University to court women, he usually went the Mahar Myaing route to avoid passing through the cemetery. By some strange coincidence, he chose to use the cemetery path as a shortcut one late evening when he was running late due to his own misfortune. He hurried back with his bike and returned safely; obviously, he had a spare key to enter the house, and no one seemed to mind that he was running late that night.

The next morning, though, he finds himself unable to leave his bed after having a nightmare that caused him to wake up. Then all of the sudden, his eyes roll back, turn white, and begin talking nonsense at that point, like saying that he brings some sort of spirit or demon from the Banyan tree.

“Mother, Mother, I fear I brought the ghost from the Banyan tree last night with me!”

“Aunty, Aunty, I brought the ghost with me! What am I going to do?”

We were all caught off guard at first and uncertain of what to do. Ba Ba Gyi then yelled at us to be calm and instructed us to get a witch doctor who could cast the spirit out. When the Sharman finally arrived, the ghost possessed cousin was almost black out.

The Sharman took his charm beads out of his bag and placed them in the glass to enchant and purify the waters into holy water. Then, after giving it to the possessed one, the cousin's eye quickly pops out and he begins glaring at all of us.

The Sharman placed his hand on the cousin's shoulder and began continuously chanting different protection Gathas. After he had completed reciting the lengthy Om! He tells us to make a variety of offerings to both natural and otherworldly spirits.

We had to prepare a variety of offerings. Some of them are straightforward, like sticky rice and sweets, while others are complicated, like a salad of tea leaves without any added cooking oil, plain salt, and white candle, raw smoke fish, dry meat, pounded ginger, and three cloves of garlic, red, green, and yellow peppers, and the rarest of them all, a flower with three scents; golden peonies.

Eight lighted fragrance sticks, three lit red candles, one lit white candle, three different flower varieties, a bamboo tray with two up and down sides, and a banana leaf plate must be served with each fare. Most significantly, in order to complete the ceremonies, only women are permitted to offer them; males are not allowed.

The cousin tells us the actual incident he encountered the previous night after recovering from the hoodoo. In contrast to what everyone expected, he claims that as he passed beneath the tree, he merely felt chilly, freezing, and dreadful. He claims that he did not see any red eyes, long black tongues, or squatting ghosts.

When he got home, he claims to have seen the darkest black cat he had ever seen. When he tried to take off his shoes, the cat approached him cautiously from the outside and touched his feet. The cat refuses to let go of him despite his attempts to scare it away, and he claims he is unable to shout at it.

However, he claims that once inside the house, his eyesight began to fade, and the cat began to appear to be an illusion. But as he went into the bed, the black cat appeared once more out of nowhere and stayed up the entire night glaring at him with red eyes until dawn when he was able to fall asleep and then awoke by nightmares.

Everyone listened attentively to his story, including the elderly Ba Ba Gyi, Mummy, and all the aunties. Nobody has made any disruption or interruption. A Mar thought back to the days of warring time, when all the cousins would gather and share their own frightening tales.

Nobody was really sure what the black cat symbolised —some claimed it was a sprite, while others claimed it was some kind of fiend. But now, the incident of A Mar' cousin has become one of the many scary tell-tales of 40s, when the Kyandaw cemetery still existed.

NOTE; In 1996 to 1997, the once-largest cemetery in Yangon was destroyed and moved in order to be developed into the Yangon Drugs Elimination Museum. The Burmese government commanded the removal of cemeteries in December 1996. The interred's descendants were given a month's notice to relocate the remains for reburial in the cemeteries at Yayway and Hteinbin in Hlaing Tharyar Township, both on the outskirts of Yangon.

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SECTION 5

The worst period in Burma's history was during the era of a provisional government, which was really an Imperial Japanese fascist dictatorship. The "Dai Tō-A Sensō gunpyō”, or the great Japanese invasion money, had left the nation in profound misery. It results in the greatest rate of inflation in the history of Burma.

The Japanese issued three billion paper sculpture banknotes in a year, which had an impact on the rest of the nation's economy. Companies like Masui, Mitsubishi, Kanibo, and Gosho came into the nation, seized control of all of its most vital industries, and it caused the local economy to chaos. They control businesses like agriculture, the production of teak, natural oil, and fossil fuels.

Workability, skills, and quality have all degraded and been disregarded, while the value of money has completely vanished. Even though schools are still closed, false information continues to circulate. The responsibility to plan comes from within.

In spite of everything, A Mar and her mother owe a lot of gratitude to Ba Ba Gyi for his consent for allowing them to carry on striving and survive in the midst of chaos. They both remain safe and secure despite having to stay in the tiny storage room at the rear of the kitchen.

Originally, there were eight people living there, including Ba Ba Gyi, Kyi Kyi, their four daughters, and two sons. There are currently ten people staying there, including A Mar and her mother. It is extremely difficult to cover ten people's daily needs and living expenses. It was fortunate for them that Ba Ba Gyi did not dismiss them.

Their oldest son has to work as a carrier to support the entire family at a difficult period like the Japanese era. To help support the family's income, the other siblings must also work on their own. To cover for one's own expenses, one must work.

On the other hand, A Mar's mother would handle all of the housekeeping duties. But A Mar decides to become a hand-sewing tailor. She also occasionally produced some velvet work and satin flowers. A Mar's efforts were mostly productive because the hair dress with satin flowers is the era's trend.

Sometimes, she would work as a tutor for the neigh- bouring kids as a side job, collecting all of her earnings in the clay moneybox. She would sometimes become more confident once she made a profit on her own.

“One Kyat, Two Kyats, Three Kyats”

A Mar put all of her earnings for the day into the saving box as she tallied them, but she saved one kyat. She kept it in her hands and thought about it for a second before putting it into her brassiere's under pocket.

"A Mar, my love? Did you have any clothes that you needed to deliver today?"

"Ma Ma, yes. I had several deliveries to send. I plan to deliver them this afternoon. I'm hoping to stop by Theingyi Market as well, because we're almost out on cooking oil. And I need more threads for my next job."

"I see, don't forget to get some more crystal beads, sweetheart."

Cotton thread, flannels, wool, beads, fancy, and buttons are widely available in Thein Gyi Market and are generally sold at Indian stores. As a respect and consideration, the essential kitchen necessities, such as rice and cooking oil, must be purchased at one's own expense.

A Mar must take a chaise from San Chaung to Kyimyindaing, then the cable car to the Theingyi Market. Both routes are the same, and sometimes A Mar gets more work on the journey back.

The weather is nice, and the feeling is energetic, thus A Mar put on some fine Chiang Mai style of dress, opting for a yellow stripe, green threads longyi as undergarment and a rare water lily threads long shirt as upper wear. Her hair, as usual, had a fringe bun. The style is more rural than Yangoner in nature.

She stops at Kyimyindaing for Falooda almost every time she returns from downtown. But this time, she intends to go to the saloon, her mind is racing with ideas for a new hairstyle.

A Mar's appearance is always the same before the Japanese era, when she had to attend medical school. Almost everyone recognises A Mar, as the Mynn Buu girl with the fringe bun.

However, after some thought, she decides she has to change her style since she wants to be a new, different person who is no longer the country girl, but rather a fresh, and all ready.

"Oh, my goodness! your hair is perfect, darling? Are you sure you want to...?"

As the hairdresser unexpectedly unlaces the bun, A Mar feels a twinge of regret since she has never had her hair trimmed or altered the style for practically her whole life, so it seems unnecessary to even cut it now.

She does not hate the fringe bun style; on contrary, she prefers a more casual and gentle look. A hairstyle that can be done in minutes and does not take time to undo or redo.

Most notably, A Mar's body type has changed; she is no longer a rural girl; she has become a woman. In her opinion, the fringe bun is childlike, and she needs a different sort of style to improve herself.

All of her cousins are encouraging her to change. They all would say, what about curly or short fringe, ditch the bun and go for shags or pixies?

Since A Mar did not ask for her mother's opinion or permission, making her own path to change is challenging for her. Will mummy enjoy the new look, will she be upset with A Mar since she has lost her traditional fringe bun, or will she be thrilled to see A Mar in new looks? Finally, after a while, an ambiguous A Mar makes the decision to cut her hair.

With a single sharp and quick cut, a tremendous amount of hair falls from A Mar's head. That completely overwhelmed A Mar. The waist-length hair is now just half-length; the hairdresser uses a heated spoke to band the short on the forehead and curl it.

A Mar has matured into a maiden look in less than a few moments. From country girl to urban woman, everything has changed.

A Mar loves the new look, which is both modern and exquisite. She collects all of her falling hair in a bag and returns home, thinking that everyone would adore her new style, a new A Mar.

When she got close to the house, she noticed the chaise of Maung Kyaw Myint, the cabby, and realised she was being late for home. Mummy was already at the door, waiting for A Mar, and her arms were on her hips, looking irritated.

As A Mar gets closer to the house, her mother's stare becomes even more intense. Her mother's expression changed instantaneously as they met at the doorstep. She is surprised, shocked, and amazed at first, then astounded, overwhelmed, and outraged at A Mar.

"What happens? A Mar? How dare you!"

"Ma Ma, I simply just ..."

There are a lot of people in the sitting room, and they all seem to notice it.

“What? WOW! Ma Ma Than? Your hair? You've changed!”

“Oh, WOW, Ma Ma Than, you look fabulous! Hey guys look”

To everyone's surprise, some people can't even make a sound and are startled. The main room was filled with cries and cheers from the cousin. Then, to everyone's amazement, A Mar gets slapped by Mummy's devastating smite. No one anticipated that happening. A Mar got a double shock that happened nearly instantly, causing her to fall to the ground.

"OH! NO! Ma Ma don't, don't do it, OH! Ma Ma Than? Are you alright?"

All of the relatives must suddenly restrain Mum's rage, and some assist A Mar to stand up.

"How could you!?" Do you not use eyes? Can you not see the time? Have you checked the time? What time is it exactly? Is this an appropriate time for a girl to be outside? Hmm? Look at you, oh I was so worried that my only daughter would've been despoiled by the Japanese and otherwise, and yet, you even have time to spoil yourself with a new look, eh? I suppose you want to be like your friend Ma Hla Kyin. Am I right?”

Her hands are incessantly hitting A Mar's little body as she yells.

"No, no, no, Ma Ma! Please forgive me, mum!"

Mar is humiliated and embarrassed by her own mother for what? a new look? She was suffering the agony of being hit by her mother. She bit her lip hard, wondering whether it was worth it. Is it wrong for her to cut her own hair?

Raged and agitated Mum finally stops hitting A Mar; she is exhausted and sitting in one of the main room's corners, fiercely glaring at A Mar and breathing.

"Oh, Aunty, this is absurd; what's the harm in trimming her hair to seem new; she looks wonderful to me, right? everybody? Look at Ni Ni and Yi Yi; they, too, have short fringes and seem to be okay with it. The school is almost about to open; she can't go to school with that hillbilly look, you know that; come on, Aunty, be sensible."

Maung Kyaw Myint, the cabby man, intervenes between A Mar and Mummy, pleading with her to be reasonable, while others beg and convince her that A Mar has done nothing wrong.

Mummy did not simply give up her beat, but when both Ba Ba Gyi and Kyi Kyi spoke to her, she changed her mind and began to calm down.

A Mar feels the worst, she hates herself because she can't decide what she feels, what rights she possesses, and the position of her life, the state of her well-being.

She has suffered from the trauma of never provoking her mother again after that tragedy.

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