Episode #446: Between Here and Home
This episode opens a three-part series born from a three-day Digital Storytelling Workshop hosted by the Insight Myanmar Podcast, with support from ANU Myanmar Research Centre and International Development Research Centre. For three days, a circle of emerging storytellers gathered to practice something ancient and profoundly human: the art of telling a story. Across cultures and across time, everything begins with that simple invitation. And in an age increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, the impulse to share real feeling and lived experience matters more than ever. In that brief span of days, we were reminded that genuineconnection can’t be automated. It can only arise when people sit together, listen with care, and speak with honesty — a practice made all the more essential in Myanmar, where trauma and polarization can render even simple dialogue an act of courage. Civic conversation is the quiet heartbeat of any society that hopes for democracy, and our workshop centered on ten guiding words: the first seven from educator Caleb Gattegno — “Speaking is easy, communication is a miracle” — and the final three, “tell me more,” which became our shared ritual of slowing down, opening space, and honoring each story’s unfolding. We also explored what it means not just to hold a meaningful conversation, but to welcome listeners into it. A strong dialogue does not automatically become a strong podcast; the host must intentionally pull up a third chair for the invisible listener, creating a feeling of presence, intimacy, and belonging. The voices you’re about to hear belong to participants discovering their craft in real time, offering stories shaped by care, honesty, and connection. So settle in. Join us in one of humanity’s oldest rituals: someone speaking, someone listening, and between them, a shared understanding slowly taking shape.
We first hear from Mora, a social worker from central Myanmar. He reflects on the forces that shaped him: a childhood in a once-peaceful region, an upbringing grounded in his grandmother’s stories, and outside pressures he felt due to his family’s pro-democracy background—such as teachers treating him differently—that he did not fully understand until adulthood.
After leaving a university system he found deeply flawed, he studied at the British Council in Mandalay, where the absence of Burmese youth sparked in him a desire to bring accessible education back to his family’s rural home town. Training first at a monastic college, Mora then returned home and introduced child-centered teaching, built a library, and created safe play spaces. He collaborated with INGOs, and supported a revered abbot whose school became a model for monastic education. His community work then expanded beyond classrooms—organizing STEM festivals, advocating successfully for an electricity project, and coordinating vocational training for women.
After the 2021 coup, Mora’s humanitarian work was interrupted when surveillance and more overt threats were directed at his family. Yet he remained in Myanmar, eventually resuming his work, providing aid for displaced children in Sagaing and Mandalay, where conflict and an earthquake had left monastic and nunnery schools overwhelmed. Mora recounts moments of profound hardship, such as a head nun having to travel all the way to the Myanmar–China border simply to collect alms for ninety orphans.
As a father, he wrestles with balancing his children’s safety and education with the needs of thousands of others. Ultimately, he continues his work because, even in devastation, saving even one life or community remains meaningful.
Nan Gyi Thoke is a Chinese visual anthropology researcher and filmmaker studying in Thailand. She discusses her personal background, artistic journey, and current research on migrant filmmakers from Myanmar living and working along the Thai–Myanmar border. She explains that her interest began with her own challenges as a migrant filmmaker, such as language barriers, cultural differences, legal restrictions and the difficulty of building networks, crews and funding opportunities in a foreign country. Observing her Myanmar filmmaker friends, who continue creating and training new filmmakers despite similar hardships, led her to pursue research on how these artists sustain their work and build supportive community structures.
She describes her volunteer-run Chinese-language media platform, created with colleagues to share stories from Southeast Asia—especially Myanmar—with Chinese audiences who rarely encounter nuanced portrayals of the region. The platform aims to counter stereotypes by highlighting everyday human experiences rather than geopolitical narratives. Her own upbringing near the China–Vietnam border shaped this perspective; growing up within an ethnic minority community, she witnessed firsthand how borders divide families, languages and cultural continuity. This background informs her commitment to cultural preservation and cross-border storytelling.
Nan Gyi Thoke’s documentary work includes films about a Kazakh wedding in China and local ritual practices in her home community. These projects deepened her understanding of cultural transition and eventually connected her to journalists and researchers working on Myanmar issues, which expanded her focus toward the experiences of Myanmar migrants and artists.
Her future goals include completing her dissertation, continuing collaborative translation and storytelling projects, and serving as a bridge between Chinese and Burmese communities. She hopes her work can contribute meaningfully to cultural understanding, mutual support and the artistic resilience of borderland communities.
Eugene is a young Shan journalist from Taunggyi now living in Chiang Mai who creates content for Shan audiences and translates Burmese news reports for international audiences. Growing up in a tourist town near Inle Lake, he worked in his family’s restaurant, serving guests from around the world and watching his parents run a small business. Those years made him curious, confident with strangers, and aware that ordinary village life could feel special and important to outsiders, even though he only understood this later.
His daily reporting and translation work expose him to a wide range of stories about armed-group control, displacement, cyber-scams, landmine contamination, and human rights abuses across Shan State. Through this work, he has developed a far deeper understanding of how conflict shapes civilian life, and changed how he understands his homeland. This work also led him to create public-education materials on landmines and explosive ordnance for Shan communities.
Eugene outlines his translation process. He says he first reads each Burmese article several times, then identifies the key message, emotional tone, and political context before rewriting it in clear English. He also considers what international readers do not know about Myanmar, adding short explanations of geography and institutions as needed, and checks that the final text remainsaccurate, neutral, and checks that the final text remains accurate and neutral so that nothing he translates puts anyone in Myanmar at risk.
Looking ahead, he hopes to move from mainly translating to producing more original, human-centered reporting, and long-form and visual storytelling. He wants to strengthen his English, deepen his responsibility as a bridge between Shan communities and international audiences, and eventually mentor younger Shan storytellers.
Jeremy explains that he has traveled extensively within Myanmar during his undergraduate years, visiting well-known destinations with friends rather than family. After moving to Thailand, traveling abroad became much easier for him because visa processes and flight purchases are far simpler there than in Myanmar. He emphasizes that traveling requires preparation, including researching weather, food, and transportation systems in each country, since not all places use the same apps or methods for getting around.
He describes his work with a digital-rights-related organization, which gives him opportunities to attend events and conferences across Asia. Through this work, he has visited Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan in the past two years. Travel, for him, is a way to learn about different cultures, meet new people, and broaden his worldview.
Japan is his favorite country. He praises its food, climate, politeness, and culture, noting that ramen tastes noticeably better there than in other countries. He recounts visiting Osaka and Kyoto, accompanying friendly Nepali travelers, trying local dishes, and exploring religious sites. He also adds that Japanese people can be difficult to befriend because they tend to be shy, reserved, and not confident in English. One of his hardest moments was spending a cold night outside Osaka airport without proper clothing.
Regarding study opportunities, he encourages young Burmese to pursue scholarships, and to build skills through reading, volunteering, and gaining experience. His dream destination, if cost were no barrier, is Iceland, mainly for its cold climate, snow, and the Northern Lights.