poor. Dowry is based on education, background, financial status, and profession. Many girls committed suicide because their families can not afford to pay high dowry. Good heart is supposed to be given priority not money. The writer has a Jane Austenish flair for presenting social mores ironically, but overbalances on occasion into rather facile satire. And her keen analysis of life in an English – educated Indian family underscores the curiously static outlook and the comically inbred attitudes which result from a failure to respond fully to the spirit of a multi-racial society.
In the story “A Common Story”, the cultural values of universalism, nationalism, social justice, protection for the welfare of all people, understanding, tolerance, protection for nature/environment, equality, world of peace, spiritual life were emphasized. The story was written in 1959. The actual events behind the short story, the Malayan Union, established in 1946 and consisting of all the British possessions in the Malay Peninsula with the exception of Singapore, was quickly dissolved and replaced by the Federation of Malaya, which restored the AUTONOMY AND INDEPENDENCE of the rulers of the Malay states under British protection. During this time, mostly Chinese rebels under the leadership of the Malayan Communist Party launched guerrilla operations designed to force the British out of Malaya. Malayan Communist Party was formed in Malaya, Singapore, Thailand, Dutch East Indies (Dutch radicals, trade unions of Chinese Communist Party & French Indo – China). (EQUALITY and SOCIAL JUSTICE) The Malayan Emergency lasted from 1948 to 1960, and involved a long anti-insurgency campaign by Commonwealth troops in Malaya. The cultural value is UNIVERSALISM and NATIONALISM It presents the ideal of cultural integration which fired so many intellectuals in the early fifties is not, as believed, something to be achieved overnight. Bewildered by conflicting trends, returns to his kampong, stirred by a political faith whose goals lie in the future, and convinced at the same time that the erosion of the original and enduring values of the community must be halted.
In the story “Grave Harvest”, the cultural values
are tradition, respect, commitment to
customs/traditions, culture and religion, devout of religious rites/beliefs were emphasized. The story was written in 1978. In the 1970s – 1980s, there was a literary debate about Islamic literature. Some of them insisted that only literary works written by Islamic writers, truly believing and writing for God, could be true Islamic literature, whereas other writers argued that all literary works, which did not contain elements contrary to general Islamic values, could be considered Islamic literature. In the 1980s there was an Islamic revival in Muslim countries in general,
and the debate between two leading Malay critics reflects this as well as a felt need among the Malays to strengthen the Malay community in Malaysia. It is a fact, that the ISLAMIC FAITH, DEVOUT OF RELIGIOUS RITES/BELIEFS is an integrated part of Malay life. (Smyth, 2000).
Grave Harvest highlights the modern values, religious teachings, and to criticize also the ills of corrupt humanity in the Malay society. This relates also the hardships of the lower class or kampong life. The readers after reading the short story will understand better the Malaysian culture, lifestyles, and perennial problems.
Myanmar
In the story “The Kindergarten Teacher”, the cultural values of achievement, personal success, competent performance, obtaining social approval, intelligent, self-respect, social recognition, and ambitious were emphasized. The story was written in 1960. People can say that in the 1950s, Myanmar was not a least-developed country, and, with a GDI/GDP ratio of 19 per cent, it achieved an average annual growth rate of about 6 per cent.
The protagonist in this story is U Nyan Sein, an Art teacher. He teaches Reading and Writing also in the kindergarten. The protagonist has just arrived for the opening of the new semester and fortunately, he has a good evaluation in his teaching career.
In the next two decades (the 1960s and 1970s), as a consequence of command-style economic management under military rule, self-imposed isolation and INDEPENDENCE, AUTONOMY, PRIVACY, the ‘Burmese way to socialism’, the economy deteriorated. Real GDP growth was reduced to 3–4 per cent per annum, while the GDI/GDP ratio fell to between 12 and 13 per cent.
On 2 March 1962, Ne Win, with sixteen other
senior military officers, staged a coup d'état, arrested
U Nu, Sao Shwe Thaik and several others, and
declared a socialist state to be run by their Union
Revolutionary Council.
A number of protests followed the coup, and initially the military's response was mild. However, on 7 July 1962, a peaceful student protest on Rangoon University campus was suppressed by the military, The next day, the army blew up the
Students Union building. Peace talks
(UNIVERSALISM AND WORLD OF PEACE) were convened between the RC and various armed insurgent groups in 1963, but without any breakthrough, and during the talks as well as in the aftermath of their failure, hundreds were arrested in Rangoon and elsewhere from both the right and the left of the political spectrum. All opposition parties were banned on 28 March 1964. (SOCIAL POWER
& AUTHORITY). The Kachin insurgency by
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begun earlier in 1961 triggered by U Nu's declaration
of Buddhism as the state religion, and the Shan
State Army (SSA), led by Sao Shwe Thaik's wife Mahadevi and son Chao Tzang Yaunghwe, launched a rebellion in 1964 as a direct consequence of the 1962 military coup.
Ne Win quickly took steps to transform Burma into his vision of a 'socialist state' and to isolate the country from contact with the rest of the world.
(SELF-DIRECTION & INDEPENDENCE) A one-
party system was established with his newly
formed Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) in
complete control. Commerce and industry were nationalized across the board, but the economy did not grow at first if at all as the government put too much emphasis on industrial development at the expense of agriculture.
In the story “The Carat 13 – Diamond” by Daw Khin Myo Chit, the cultural values are achievement, personal success, competent performance, obtaining social approval, intelligent, self-respect, social recognition, and ambitious were emphasized. The story was written in 1955. The first years of Burmese INDEPENDENCE, AUTONOMY, PRIVACY were marked by successive insurgencies by the Red Flag Communists led by Thakin Soe the White Flag
Communists led by Thakin Than Tun, the Yèbaw
Hpyu (White-band PVO) led by Bo La Yaung, a
member of the Thirty Comrades, army rebels calling
themselves the Revolutionary Burma Army (RBA) led by Communist officers Bo Zeya, Bo Yan Aung and Bo Yè Htut – all three of them members of the
Thirty Comrades, Arakanese Muslims or theMujahid,
and the Karen National Union (KNU) After the
Communist victory in China in 1949 remote areas of Northern Burma were for many years controlled by
an army of Kuomintang (KMT) forces under the
command of General Li Mi.
Burma accepted foreign assistance in rebuilding the country in these early years, but continued American support for the Chinese Nationalist military presence in Burma finally resulted in the country rejecting most foreign aid, refusing to join
the South-East Asia Treaty Organization (SELF-
DIRECTION, INDEPENDENCE, AND PRIVACY)
and supporting the Bandung Conference of 1955.
Burma generally strove to be impartial in world affairs and was one of the first countries in the world
to recognize Israel and the People's Republic of
China.
The worm in the ground knows every tooth of the harrow. The butterfly above preaches PATIENCE, STIMULATION, AND CHALLENGE IN LIFE. “Poverty, to say at the least, is very uncomfortable. People have to learn to count their many blessings in life. In spite of the poverty in the
1950s, the family in the story “The Carat 13- Diamond” was dignified of being government servants although their joint salaries barely paid for the daily necessities. It was difficult to believe that they had to live on the edge of starvation. Could such things really happen in Burma, a land flowing with milk and honey.
In the story “This Realm of Humans”, the cultural values of achievement, personal success, competent performance, obtaining social approval, intelligent, self-respect, social recognition, and ambition were emphasized. The story was written in 1962. Soon after its birth in July 1962, the Burma Socialist Program Party recruited members at all levels – national, state, district, subdistrict, and village – and formed the Peasants and Workers Council on the Soviet model. The party’s policies, officially titled the “Burmese Way of Socialism,” which led the country down the road to bankruptcy by the end of the 1960s because the intelligentia refused to cooperate with the blatantly militaristic regime, the BSPP came increasingly under the influence of left- wing or Communist army commanders and Marxist theoreticians. They advocated an economy geared TO THE WELFARE OF THE PEASANTS and workers by eliminating the profit motive and the alien (Indian and Chinese) middlemen and establishing state-controlled cooperatives in all
sectors of the economy.(UNIVERSALISM,
EQUALITY, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE)
The Ne Win government ordered nationalization of almost every economic activity, including the retail trade. Indians and Chinese, who had been active in the Burmese economy as shopkeepers, moneylenders, importers, and exporters, were expelled and their property confiscated. Banks and insurance companies were also nationalized and assets of British-owned trading companies
liquidated.(EQUALITY, UNIVERSALISM,
SOCIAL JUSTICE)
There were shortages all around, including rice, which was rationed in a country known in the previous century for being a leading exporter of rice to the rest of the world. The scandalous inability of the public sector to manage the distribution of consumer goods through the “people’s stores” created a vicious and lucrative black market, with articles of common use smuggled from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and India. The policy of isolation from the rest of the world cost Myanmar heavily, as the import-export trade and foreign investment virtually ground to a halt. (SarDesai, 2013). (SELF-
DIRECTION, INDEPENDENCE, AND
AUTONOMY).
In the story “Neighbours,” the cultural values of hedonism, gratification for oneself, needs and pleasure, enjoying life, and self-indulgent were emphasized. The story was written in 1972. In the 1970s, the Burma Socialist Program Party (BSPP)