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Amid Myanmar’s upheaval, this episode shares three deeply personal stories that grew out of a digital storytelling workshop, showing how honest conversation can restore connection and courage. Through the voices of Chit Tun, Zue, and August, listeners glimpse how ordinary people are navigating displacement, cultural loss, and discrimination while still working toward a more humane future.
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In this episode:
• Hear Chit Tun recount a childhood spent moving between prison compounds, shaped by his father’s clashes with Myanmar’s abusive bureaucracy and chronic economic hardship.
• Follow Chit Tun’s journey from civil-engineering graduate to protest leader, armed resistance fighter, and eventually refugee in Thailand, driven by a promise to his son not to grow up under dictatorship.
• Learn how Chit Tun now supports refugees on the Myanmar–Thailand border, teaches Burmese, and produces a podcast to spotlight authentic revolutionary experiences and shared struggle.
• Discover how Zue’s rural upbringing in a weaving town and playful days in nature inspired her path as a Burmese language teacher, artist, and founder of the online Akkhaya Burmese Language Institute.
• Explore Zue’s efforts through teaching, YouTube, and podcasting to preserve language, honor Myanmar’s ethnic diversity, and encourage the diaspora not to forget their cultural roots.
• Listen as August explains her shift from electrical engineering to studying religion and philosophy in Thailand, building on her work as a gender and LGBTQ rights trainer to challenge discriminatory uses of Buddhism and…
Chapters
00:00:00 Workshop intro & the miracle of communication
00:05:37 Chit Tun’s childhood in prison compounds
00:16:41 Coup, CDM protests & armed resistance
00:32:59 From jungle war to refugee life in Thailand
00:54:32 Zue’s rural childhood & love of language
01:03:35 Teaching Burmese & language mindset
01:08:59 YouTube, art & preserving Myanmar cultures
01:15:29 Global fellowship & human-rights debates
01:28:56 August’s path from engineering to religion
01:35:23 Religion, LGBTQ rights & challenging misuse
01:45:59 Studying in Thailand: obstacles & growth
01:52:36 Future plans & courage for Myanmar students
