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Phila Siu

Pan Pwint remembers clearly the day 5-1/2 years ago when she received the call from her mother that set her life crumbling down.
The police officers had visited again, she was told. This time they had to flee.
A week later Pan Pwint, now 24, would sign up at a refugee camp across the border in Thailand after giving up her stable and enviable job in Yangon, formerly Myanmar's capital city, as a teacher at an international kindergarten.
Recalling the moment she received the call, she says: "No words came out of my mouth. I just said OK.
"I asked her where dad was and when they were planning to leave. I didn't tell her I would go or not. But I told her I would call her back.
"I thought about it for a few hours. I called her back and said that I would resign and leave with her."
The troubles that had plagued Pan Pwint's family originated with her grandfather, Maung Thara, a famous novelist who also ran a magazine that was highly critical of the military regime in Myanmar.
Maung Thara also got into trouble for being a supporter of Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party secured a landslide election victory earlier this month.
The victory gave the party a majority in Parliament and the right to choose a new president early next year. However, under the country's constitution, Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace prize winner who lived under house arrest for 15 years until 2010, is not eligible to be president.
Myanmar's military junta jailed an estimated 2,000 political prisons. It was not until 2011, when the regime was succeeded by a quasi-civilian government, that many were released.
But according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a human rights group, 112 political prisoners were still incarcerated in Myanmar as of October. Almost 500 people are awaiting trial.
Maung Thara fled Myanmar to Thailand in 1998, leaving his family behind. Because he continued to be critical of the military government when he was abroad, police officers sometimes visited his family and asked questions.
"He wrote articles to motivate the students to do more. He wrote about human rights and that those were the rights you should fight for," Pan Pwint says of her grandfather .
She says that the officers had visited her family numerous times and had always been polite. But on that last visit, it was different.
"My sister said they rushed into the house. It was like a raid. That scared the whole family," she recalls.
A week later, the family of four - Pan Pwint, her younger sister and her parents - sneaked into Mae Sot in Thailand by boat from Myawaddy in Myanmar.
"Crossing the border is super easy. There's a bridge called Friendship Bridge. But you don't have to use the bridge to get to Thailand. You can use the boat. Police can see the boats but they don't do anything," she says.
So the family got on the boat and sneaked into Thailand. It took five minutes.
"We were lucky none of the officers asked us questions. But if they did, we could solve the problem by paying them money," Pan Pwint says.
Two more hours later and the family arrived at a refugee camp by car.
Life was not easy in the camp. Each refugee was given just three items a month - rice, beans and oil. Home would be a bamboo shelter they had to build themselves.
Luckily, the family received financial support from relatives in the United States, so they could buy the shelter. "[There was] no furniture, just an empty house," she says.
"We got rations every month but it was never enough.
"The rice was so bad it was yellow in colour."
Thailand hosts about 105,000 refugees in nine official camps on the border with Myanmar.
Pan Pwint left the refugee camp after two years to further her studies and work in Thailand. She later won a scholarship to study journalism at the University of Hong Kong. Her parents remain in the camp.
She says that although the government announced a few years ago that people who had fled Myanmar for political reasons were now welcome back without retribution, her parents were still fearful.
But now that Suu Kyi's party has secured a landslide election victory, they are eager to go back home.
"I want to go back even if the military government is still there. My country is now going forward. My parents want to go back and so do I."
For Htet Thiri Shwe, who is also from Myanmar and is now studying at HKU, the changes in her country in the past few years have been magnificent.
In the past, it was not common to have a landline phone at home in Myanmar, and a cellphone was considered a luxury.
"Phones at home were hard because you had to go through all the bureaucracy. So communication-wise, it was kind of difficult," the 24-year-old says.
So what she saw on a recent trip back home shocked her.
"I was stuck in a traffic jam. I looked at [a street cleaner] and she was holding a smartphone. We have made quite big progress," she says, the surprise still visible on her face.
Looking ahead, both of them have faith that Suu Kyi will lead the country to a bright future.
"Her whole life has been about us. She is a great leader," Htet Thiri Shwe says.
Pan Pwint adds: "The whole country believes she is a great leader."


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Htet Thiri Shwe (left) and Pan Pwint. Photo: Phila Siu

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Pan Pwint and her family fled Myanmar in fear for Thailand. Now they have faith in a bright future


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