Transcribing the Past

    Before reaching the Stars By Wat Wanlyangkun Mother walked slowly away from the abbot’s residence, past the sandy courtyard and the shade of the pikun tree, towards the rear of the central shrine, One hand carefully supported a water-bowl, while the other held a rattan basket used for carrying the things needed for merit-making. A horned owl moaned softly from a dark corner of the shrine’s eaves. The sweet scent of frangipani blossoms drifted towards he with the breeze and the gentle waving of the flowering grass. Mother sank wearily down in front of the mortuary containing her dead son’s body 1 . With its oblong shape it looked like a coffin, except that it was made of cement-- and the smell of fresh cement still lingered in the air. There were other, identical mortuaries stretched out in a long row. The empty ones looked like dark caverns. And adjacent to the mortuaries little memorial stupas ringed the central shrine, whose dingy white walls were crumbling away...

  The Railway Hamlet by Chatcharin Chaiwat The sky was an orange glare. The firewood, piled high as three men standing on top of one another, and stretched out in a long line, hid the living-quarters of the railway employees from sight, and let us see only one jagged half of the sun. when struck by its rays, the pile of rotting logs loomed like an ancient mountain. The children of the railway clerks and the other employees liked to run and play on it. Once in a while one heard that some railwayman’s baby boy had slipped and fallen off. The sight of the orange April sun and the different colors of the children’s kites, swooping and darting through the grey smoke of the train hurtling in towards the station, was a delight to the eye. It meant that the railwayman’s wives would now be stepping out onto their porches and telling their older children to put away their kites and run to meet their fathers off the train. And the younger kids would be scrambling up onto the porches ...

      TO IWA SECTIONS AND LIBERTARIAN MOVEMENT: PERUVIAN ANARCHO-SYNDICALISTS SEEK HELP FOR MINERS Dear comrades, We have recently received word from our comrades in Peru (publishers of “Colectivizacion”) about a desperate situation. Former miners in Huamper, Peru have been living and begging on the streets of the capital city of Lima for almost two years now. These miners were involved in a labor dispute and came to the capital to get the government and mining bosses to act on their problems. The issues leading to their trip to the capital have not been resolved and have forced the miners to stay in Lima. Our comrades report that the miners “must go out asking for alms (from) the people every day.” Sadly, the money they raise is not enough for food, medicine and clothes. “Therefore”, writes our comrades, “Victor Taype (former President of the Miners and Metal Workers Union) and (us) have planned to set-up a small self-managed restaurant” that would aid the...

   Last month I was in Germany with some friends. Whilst there I picked up some books, one was a reprinting of a British Servicemen's guide on what to expect and how to behave in Germany. This version came in English and German translation. The translation dating from the 2000s is copyrighted but the original English contents are now in the public domain due to expiration of Crown Copyright. Its an interesting read, despite publication in 1944 many of its views on German attitudes hold up surprisingly well. I was also surprised to see the text directly rubbishes several myths about the period that refuse to go away it has a short but to the point history of the rise of Hitler and analysis of his movement and regime. I've reproduced the text below, though I've omitted the lengthy phrasebook section, its formatting just would not translate to a blogger format. Though I will say that outside of some dated terms it is also a useful phrasebook.     Instructions ...