Feeling Guilty in France

“Whenever I do something enjoyable here in France, I feel so guilty. I was listening to one song, and I was thinking, 'Oh, shit, I'm listening to a song and my family in Myanmar, they are hearing the sounds of bullets!’ So I couldn’t listen to the song anymore. I had to shut it off, or I would be too guilty to stay here. I’m far away from everybody from Myanmar.”

The experience of being outside your country when crisis breaks is something that is very hard to understand if you haven't personally lived through it. That's why the words of Thiri Nandar were so valuable in our episode, "The View From France." In addition to describing all the advocacy she is doing in Europe for the democracy movement in Burma, she also opens the window into a deeply vulnerable and emotional look into the actual feeling of what it is like to pass one's days from a place of safety while so many friends and family are facing terror every day back in Myanmar. And there was no quote that stood out more to me than this one, in which he admits that for the better part of a year, she has been unable to listen to any music whatsoever, knowing that the sounds being heard in Myanmar are now altogether different.

For those wanting to support the Burmese people in their time of need, it's not enough to simply say the right words and promote the right initiatives-- it's also so important to get how it actually *feels*. And interviews like this, when the guest is willing to take that risk to share, get into that more than what you'll find in most online news sites.