The moon beyond Burma

A Shan princess reaches deep into the past to shed light on the present in a fascinating memoir full of travels, triumphs, history and heartbreak

Sao Nang Mya Sanda has, at the wonderful age of 80, graced us with a remarkable memoir that rides on history’s elephantine back out of Burma’s northern hills and across the world, ultimately to return to her homeland and contemplate the broad sweep of all it has encompassed.



The moving family portrait that is at the heart of “The Moon Princess” serves as the colourful basis for an edifying account of the Shan people, their history and their venerated but beleaguered rulers, for a fascinating glimpse of Bangkok as it used to be, for a dalliance with Cambridge higher learning, for a lesson in Lao politics and, of course, for an important personal assessment of Burmese treachery.



Sanda’s father, Sao Shwe Thaike - who she called Sao U Hpa - was the last saohpa of Yawnghwe, the last “lord of the sky” of the Shan States’ prominent southern territory that huddled against Inle Lake. He was at one time the elected president of the Union of Burma - how strange those words sound now.

A fearsome but deeply loved husband and father, he was the epitome of Asian nobility and commanded respect from everyone who would seek influence among the Shan, and that, of course, included the British and Japanese imperial armies.



Sao U Hpa wielded considerable national power as Speaker of the House of Nationalities, by which Burma’s ethnic minorities forged the Panglong Agreement that was to guarantee them autonomy at the end of British rule, and was at the forefront of negotiations with every important figure to come along with promises, both local and foreign. He knew Aung San well, and U Nu and Ne Win too, received their assurances and suffered their dismissals.
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