Vice Principal Hsur

Hsur is the vice principal of the school in this refugee town in Burma. His English name is "James Fu," given to him when he was a student. Fu is his original surname, but that was destroyed a long time ago.

He's another refugee from deeper inside Shan state. A wiry, small-set guy who looks taller than his five and a half feet. He was born in Yunnan, in China. To all their misfortune his family decided to immigrate to Burma when he was a child. Hsur still speaks perfect Mandarin, using it with the odd Kumintang descendent.

His father died he was 17, so Hsur joined the Shan State Army. Once he became a soldier for these rebels his family destroyed his identification and pretended he was dead, to save themselves and him from the government wrath they would suffer if it was discovered he was a rebel. For 10 years Hsur was a soldier in the forest.

There was never enough food to fill him. From his looks there wasn't enough food to grow on. He looks like his body never met its potential. As a soldier it was always sleeping in the forest, hiking steep mountains with cheap Chinese army boots that fall apart in three weeks. Suffering in the rains from mosquitoes and malaria and mud. Always creeping after the Burmese army. He is dried sinew, not a 32-year-old man.

He's against using child warriors. He's fought against the Burmese' child soldiers, 15-year-olds. He feels guilty about that. Children don't know right from wrong. Adults do, and if an adult is given an order that is illegal, or wrong, they would know it, they can refuse. Children don't know. They just become killing machines that nobody wants to attack.

He's been in this town for seven years, working as this and that, now the vice principal, teaching classes and doing everything else. He's still an SSA soldier, waiting in reserve should they call him back to the forest.

When he gets a chance, he's eager to talk about intelligent things. About politics and language and how much money a person needs. About the similarities between Shan and Laos and Thai, about the Commander. Tells about the rebel Wa Army along the Burma-Yunnan border. "Go there," he says. "Go to the Wa Army near Yunnan. Yeah, they will talk to you."

He's friendly, and willing to work and talk, but he's sad. In a sad state. There is no wife, no family, not even his own grass hut. Just a bed in the office. He's in Shan country, but he's not a Shan. Everyone here dreams of their homeland, but his is one altogether different. Even when he laughs he looks alone.