Episode #450: Learning To Fly
You’re listening to the second episode in a three-part series born from a three-day Digital Storytelling Workshop hosted by Insight Myanmar Podcast, with support from ANU Myanmar Research Centre and International Development Research Centre. Over those days, a group of emerging storytellers explored how communication can build bridges in a society under strain. In Myanmar, where trauma and polarization can pull people into silence or defensiveness, we turned our attention to the skills that make real dialogue possible — presence, curiosity, and the willingness to stay with difficult truths. Two simple ideas guided us. One was Caleb Gattegno’s reminder that “speaking is easy, communication is a miracle.” The other was continuing to come back to phrase “tell me more.” These three words functioned as a gentle invitation that helped us slow down, soften, and create room for each other’s experience. We also looked closely at the craft of welcoming listeners into these exchanges — understanding that a meaningful conversation between two people is only the beginning, and that a podcast must also hold space for a third, unseen participant: the listener. What these participants created in just three days was heartfelt, unguarded, and deeply human — a reflection of the stories that shape communities and the connections that sustain them. So settle in, and listen as these voices extend outward with clarity, courage, and care.
We first hear from Sarah, a young woman whose studies in international relations were abruptly cut short by the coup. She describes how her life shifted from academic possibility to daily survival.
Before the coup, Sarah was fully immersed in university life, developing a growing interest in Myanmar’s political changes and imagining a future shaped by further study. But when the military seized power, she felt “lost, and then hopeless,” realizing she might never return to campus. The collapse of democratic spaces made academic life impossible, and the growing insecurity pushed her toward a decision she never imagined: leaving Myanmar altogether.
Fleeing to Thailand brought temporary relief, but her situation quickly deteriorated. After her legal status expired, she became undocumented and now lives with constant fear of police harassment. She recalls multiple encounters in which officers detained her or threatened arrest in order to extract bribes, experiences that left her shaken and hyper-aware of her vulnerability. The anxiety mirrors, in a different form, the fear she felt in post-coup Myanmar. She struggles with isolation, unstable finances, and the emotional burden of living alone in a foreign country where even a routine interaction can trigger danger. She relies on regular counseling appointments to manage the hopelessness that resurfaces whenever her safety feels uncertain.
Despite everything, she continues supporting the revolution in the limited ways available to her—donations, sharing information, helping friends who joined the resistance. She dreams of someday returning home, resuming her studies, and rebuilding a life interrupted by forces far beyond her control. Her message to others in exile is simple: show kindness, because even small support can keep someone from feeling completely lost.
Alex, an academic advisor with the online Parami University, speaks about how her early life led her into humanitarian and transcultural educational work. She grew up in New York City, where cultural diversity and multiple languages on every street shaped her curiosity. Her Greek heritage, summers at her grandmother’s house, and her parents’ stories about traveling to Burmadeepened her sense of connection to multiple places and histories. These experiences encouraged her to look outward and to take responsibility for communities beyond her own neighborhood.
After completing a demanding school program, she chose not to enter university right away and instead moved to India. There, in a crowded multilingual classroom, she relied on play to reach children and discovered how meaningful education could be when it centered comfort, trust, and joy. When the pandemic abruptly cut that work short, she carried those lessons with her to a refugee camp in Athens, where she used her Greek language skills to run daily activities for children and communicate with officials. Later, she studied Arabic, spent a year in Jordan working with various organizations, and eventually returned to university to write a thesis shaped by all of these experiences.
A fellowship then brought Alex to Chiang Mai, where she now works with roughly eighty Burmese students whose lives have been shaped by conflict, displacement, and legal precarity. She advises them academically, checks in online, and organizes in-person gatherings. She also took time to visit Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp, where she witnessed how aid cuts and work restrictions undermine daily survival.
Alex describes how her long-term commitment to the field is centered in students themselves, whose determination, cultural pride and their initiative to build community continue to guide her path forward.
Elsa, a student from Yangon who escaped Myanmar after the coup and is now living in Thailand, speaks about her food memories, current tastes, and her dream of opening a Burmese tea shop. She explains that she has always loved a wide range of Burmese dishes, especially sweet and spicy foods, sticky rice snacks, curry, and fried fish. She also describes how deeply she misses mohinga, the famous fish soup that is Myanmar’s national dish. She explains that each region in the country has distinct versions and that she is rarely able to find a satisfying version in Thailand.
Elsa describes similarities and differences between Thai and Burmese cuisines. She enjoys Thailand’s sweet–spicy balance and its use of coconut cream. She believes that coconut cream might blend well with certain sour, ethnic, Burmese curries.
Elsa has had long-term dream of running a Burmese tea shop. She values the relaxed, communal atmosphere typical of tea shops in Myanmar and wants to recreate that environment with small wooden tables and chairs, open social spaces, and a strong emphasis on taste. She plans to offer both lively communal seating and private areas for customers with different needs. She also imagines gestures of hospitality, such as free tea or jaggery and a pay-it-forward system to support people in need.
Elsa recognizes some major obstacles she would face, including Thailand’s complex visa and business regulations, staffing difficulties, and unclear rules for foreign-owned businesses. Still, she hopes to start her tea shop within five years and remain guided by her original intention: sharing culture, community, and kindness through food.