Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), Friday 7 January 1921, page 8


BURMA.

A PARADISE FOR WOMEN.

Dorothy Black, of Rangoon, writing in the "London Daily Mail," says -

From recent accounts, the woman's Utopia is not to be found in Nigeria, not yet in Bermuda. Let weary seek-ers, then, turn their attention to that little bit of the map that runs straight down towards the Straits at the other side of the Bay of Bengal. For here in Burma, in a land of sunshine and golden pagodas and gay silks and flow-ers, is a woman's paradise indeed.

We are not troubled by many poli-tical worries, as in India. The Bur-man is a country gentleman, easy-go-ing, polite, and hospitable, besides be-ing good to look upon in his silk gar-ments. His wife is a charming per-son, who takes a keen feminine inter-est in her own clothes as well as in other people's. Burma is the nearest possible approach to the East as one sees it on the musical comedy stage --attractive, delightful, and -- comic.

When you have landed, under the shadow of the great golden pagoda, from the boat that has been your home for four long weeks, and steered your way through an atmosphere of cocoa-nut oil, betel, and cheroot into the streets beyond the landing stage, you move in a world of soft bright colours and sunshine, and the fresh green of

the tamarind tree.

Cantonments, first viewed, present a nice mixture of "The Arabian Nights," "The Mikado," and the Hampstead Garden Suburb. Mandarins' palaces adjoin lordly bungalows of wood, un-

der the shadow of which now are springing up little brick houses with lattice window and balconies and stucco, reminiscent of many a London suburb.

The houses are all lit with electric light and boast of fans. Many of them have a proper water supply, com-ing out of a real tap, for the kerosene tins of the water-carriers are becoming things of the past in Rangoon. For in Rangoon we do things well, and everybody is either a millionaire, or is going to be one to-morrow, or was one yesterday.

When the street lamps are lit, and the fireflies flit from tree to tree in the dusky roads, come down to the gymkhana and see the men standing in groups watching the dancing that goes on to the music of a military band. We have never more than half a dozen girls to boast of, and the men outnumber them by several doz-ens. Girls marry almost as fast as they arrive, and the incoming boats are eagerly scanned by the bachelor population much in the same spirit as that in which a ticket-holder reads the names of winners in a raffle, wonder-ing when his turn will come to draw something.

In Burma a great many men are misogynists, and confine themselves

solely to the bridegroom. But this is only because there are not enough women to go round.

Another desirable feature of the place is that there is no servant short-age here. Cooks jostle one another to cook for you. They will even go to the length of poisoning each other in order to step into a lucrative situation, with a really Big Master, and a Mem-sahib who does not give too much trou-

ble.

And if it not hot, and if occasionally one meets cockroaches the size of mice, and if one's boots do grow mushrooms in a night, during the rains, well, what of it ? Complete perfection can never be discovered anywhere, but I doubt if anyone can find a land with more to recommend it to the fair sex then Bur-ma.