Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

AMY TAN
“Eleven?” the man repeated. “What do you mean, this ‘missing’?”
“The fact is, no one’s seen them, haven’t heard from them either.
Anyway, you’re on holiday, and I didn’t meant to trouble you. But if
you could be good enough to spread the word, I’d be most obliged.”
“Certainly,” the man said. “Eleven Americans,” and he gave a de­
cisive nod, a look that was meant to evince both sympathy and solid
expectation that all would turn out well. “We will spread.”
And indeed they did. They spread the news like a virus. As the
days went by, it led to rampant speculation, assumption, conclusion,
then panic all around. “Have you heard? Eleven Americans have dis­
appeared, and the military police are trying to cover it up. Why
hasn’t our embassy issued a travelers’ warning?”
You could not visit a pagoda without hearing the anxious buzz. At
Floating Island Resort, the arriving tourists were understandably
nervous. They would have left if their guides had found new accom­
modations elsewhere. At the tiki bar, an American businessman said
this was probably the sinister handiwork of the military. A French
couple countered that perhaps the missing tourists had done some­
thing forbidden by the government—passed out pro-democracy
pamphlets, or held demonstrations to release Aung San Suu Kyi. You
simply can’t do things like that and not expect consequences. Burma
is not America. If you don’t know what you’re doing, leave well
enough alone. That’s the problem, the French woman said know­
ingly to her husband, these Americans want to touch, touch, touch
everything they are told not to, from fruit in the market to what is
forbidden in other countries.
Meanwhile, the Shan people around Inle Lake believed that angry
Nats had taken the eleven Americans. No doubt the Americans had
offended a few if not many. Of all the Westerners, the Americans
tended to eat the biggest feasts. Yet they didn’t think to give feasts to
the Nats. A Nat certainly would be offended by that. And many
Western tourists had no respect. When they thought no one was
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