Episode #459: Both Sides Now
RELEASE DATE: DECEMBER 30, 2025
This is the third episode in a three-part series that grew out of a three-day Digital Storytelling Workshop hosted by Insight Myanmar Podcast, with support from ANU Myanmar Research Centreand International Development Research Centre. What began as a room full of strangers quietly transformed into a community through the simple, vulnerable act of sharing stories. Over those days, we watched unfamiliar faces soften into trust, not through agreement or persuasion, but through attention — the kind that takes root when someone feels genuinely heard. Against the backdrop of Myanmar’s current moment, defined by upheaval and uncertainty, that transformation felt especially powerful. At a time when many people brace for verbal conflict or retreat into silence, the workshop offered something rare: a space for gentleness, presence, and curiosity. We were reminded that communication is not merely the exchange of information, but the creation of a shared emotional world, shaped through small human gestures — a pause, a question, a breath held and released. “Tell me more” became our quiet refrain, an invitation into deeper listening, while Caleb Gattegno’s insight that “communication is a miracle” shifted from abstraction to lived experience. As we explored how to carry these intimate conversations into podcast form, it became clear that every episode is an invitation — a doorway the listener steps through to join the circle. On this episode, you’ll hear the result of those few transformative days: honest voices, emerging perspectives, and storytellers beginning to find their footing.
First up is Chit Tun, a former civil-engineering graduate who later worked as a teacher and senior marketing manager, and is now living as a refugee in Thailand along with his family. He begins the interview talking about a childhood shaped by frequent relocation, few friendships, economic hardship, limited food, and the rigid hierarchies of the state bureaucracy. His father served as a low-ranking prison guard within Myanmar’s government system, and he often clashed with superiors who routinely abused their power, and so was repeatedly transferred. His father eventually left government service, and the family returned to the Yangon–Bago area, where Chit Tun settled down and got married.
But as for so many, the 2021 coup changed everything. His wife was three months pregnant at the time, and he vowed not to let his child to grow up under dictatorship. He supported his wife’s decision to join the Civil Disobedience Movement, as she worked in government, and sent her to safety while he became a protest leader in his township, organizing thousands of students. As violence escalated, he abandoned any hope that outside powers would intervene, and chose armed resistance. He trained with CDM police and other defectors, later fleeing crackdowns and continuing military training in Karen State. Although he lost all his material possessions, he persisted out of a commitment to his son’s future.
Over time, he became disillusioned with certain revolutionary groups he viewed as exploitative, and eventually he crossed into Thailand, where he has now lived for years. Chit Tun eventually sent for his family to reunite with him there. Now he supports refugees, works various jobs, has a Burmese-language teaching practice, and produces a podcast highlighting authentic revolutionary experiences. He hopes the stories he shares help others find strength, clarity, and a sense of shared struggle.
Zue, a Burmese language teacher and artist, opens her reflections by recalling, “I feel really alive and so blessed where I grew up.” She grounds her work in the cultural richness of her rural childhood; she describes being surrounded by weaving looms in her family’s longyi workshop and spending her early years riding bullock carts, climbing trees, and running through fields, experiences that later shaped her passion for teaching and creative expression.
Her path into education developed through volunteer work in debate facilitation, teaching in IDP camps, and curriculum design, which eventually led her to establish the on-line AkkhayaBurmese Language Institute during the COVID-19, where she teaches as well as administers. She loves teaching language, and challenges the notion that Burmese is an unusually hard language, emphasizing that the right mindset, a long-term commitment, and clear guidance help overcome any obstacles. Her YouTube and podcast channels extend this mission, aiming to preserve language, celebrate ethnic diversity, and encourage Burmese people worldwide to embrace their cultural identity. She urges the Burmese diaspora to not forget their origins.
Zue was selected as Myanmar’s sole representative for the very selective Global Ambassador Fellowship, an award granted by the International Council on Human Rights, Peace and Politics (ICHRPP). In this role, she joined international peers to study and debate major global crises from Sri Lanka to Palestine to Burma, collaborating across time zones to analyze problems and propose solutions. She says this experience expanded her understanding of global human rights and political issues, as well as helping hone her communication, debate, and self-reflection skills.
If she had limitless resources, Zue would deepen both her teaching and art projects to better serve communities. She concludes with the conviction that meaningful cultural work begins with self-knowledge: “The first thing you should do is know yourself.”
August describes a personal and intellectual journey shaped by frustration with narrow interpretations of religion and a desire to ground social justice work in rigorous scholarship. Originally trained as an electrical engineer, he explains that Myanmar’s education system left him uninspired and ill-equipped to apply that knowledge meaningfully. This dissatisfaction led him to pursue studies in religion and philosophy in Thailand, where he is now a first-year university student.
August frames his academic path as an extension of his work as a gender and LGBTQ rights trainer. He observes that many people in Myanmar use Buddhism and other religions to justify discrimination, particularly against LGBTQ individuals, despite the fact that the Buddha’s teachings emphasize compassion, morality, nonviolence, and the absence of judgment. He stresses that hate speech, stereotyping, and exclusion are cultural distortions rather than religious truths. His goal is to return to canonical texts and scholarly evidence to challenge these misinterpretations and to show that Buddhism, properly understood, does not support discrimination.
Drawing on his training experience, August speaks movingly about LGBTQ individuals from religious communities, especially within Islam, who face intense family and community pressure. He shares examples of friends who were rejected, forced to leave home, or compelled to hide their identities out of fear. While acknowledging the sensitivity and complexity of discussing Islam, he emphasizes that in Myanmar, even without state-imposed religious law, social oppression remains severe.
August also discusses broader issues of gender inequality, noting that religious and cultural norms often marginalize women despite the absence of doctrinal justification. He believes education grounded in textual literacy, ethics, and meditation can reduce interreligious hostility, support marginalized communities, and foster more humane social values. Ultimately, he hopes to become a lecturer, combining religion, philosophy, and political thought to connect academic theory with lived reality and social transformation.