http://youtube.com/watch?v=5pNFM40bxZs
 
This is the next in a series of 'Martial Arts Odyssey' episodes shot inside of Burma, at Loi Tailang, the headquarters of the Shan State Army. While the army fights to help the Shan people survive and gain independence, Master Kawn Wan struggles to keep his people's martial art alive, and to teach it to the young. See the refugees: orphans, soldiers, and teachers who practice Lai Tai, the Shan art of Kung Fu, so that their cultural heritage will survive.
 
The video features an in depth interview with young kawn Wan, as he explains his theories of martial arts and of cultural survival.
 
The Burmese government, the SPDC, killed his family and burned his village, but they couldn't break his spirit. Kawn Wan wages his private war for the benefit of his people.
 
Enjoy the video, for free, on youtube http://youtube.com/watch?v=5pNFM40bxZs
 
Please, say a prayer for the people of Shanland and all of Burma.

“The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.” This quote has been attributed to everyone from St. Augustus to Bruce Lee. I don't know who actually said it, but it rings with a powerful truth. At cocktail parties, when people find out that I am a published author, they often say to me, “I also want to be a writer, but I don't know what to write about.”

Shan States is a state that fulfil with natural resources, good weather and nice environment. In addition to that, our land barely faced natural disaster. However, we come through the man-made problems that created by the Burmese Army. The problems and trouble that caused by Burmese Army, send people into poverty. Moreover, the Burmese Army enslave people; confiscate land, farms and paddy fields. Repeatedly, they forced people to work for them. Worse, hundreds of people were persecuted, houses were burned and destroyed.  

The RCSS strongly supports the UN effort of trying to wipe out the drug from the world. For decades, poppy plantations have cultivated in the Golden Triangle, Shan State, Burma. Local people double poppy growing percentage and around 5000 - 6000 tones of opium production per year.

http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=OqcO16az6R8

For the last seven years Antonio has been working as an adventure and martial arts author in Asia. in 2007 and 2008 he went into Burma with the Shan State Army. This radio interview on English Radio, Taipei, takes place while he is attending emergency medic training in the Philippine.
This video was produced by Andy To.

Enjoy the video. And please, say a prayer for the people of Shanland.

“Your training is a lonely war.” When you train, you battle yourself. You wrestle your internal demons forcing your mind and body to bend. We all know the story of the sculpture who was asked how he carved such a perfect warrior from stone. He answered, “The warrior as already there, I just removed the excess stone.”

On a bamboo bed in a dark clinic at Loi Tailang, a woman sits with her three children. One has a severe foot burn, which is all infected and ugly looking. It is very common for children in the rural villages to be burned when cooking pots overturn on the fire at the centre of their hut. At the Loi Tailang temple there is a young monk who was horribly disfigured by similar burns which cover his face and head. A health worker explained to me that in the villages burns are often treated with a poultice of cow dung or with oil, both of which worsen the effects of the injuries.

“How do you shower on a twenty-four hour shift?” I asked, noticing that there was no plumbing in the radio shack, where I was told we would be sleeping. “We can use the hose from the firetruck. Answered the chief.” Suddenly, I wasn't sure if EMS was really the best career for me.

While the SPDC junta wants $11 billions for reconstruction works  in the Irrawady Delta, the Thai Burma Border Consortium’s deputy director Sally Thompson is asking for only $140,000  to make up for the deficit in its budget. And while Sally Thompson talks about reconsidering the system of assistance being provided by TBBC to the border Shan IDPs (internally displaced persons) are already feeling the pinch of the global food crisis and the cyclone Nargis.

All over the village boys are fashioning bows from natural materials, preparing to compete in the big archery contest. Small children kick a Tagrow ball, a small hollow ball made of rattan. I pull out my camera, but the mothers quickly tell the children to hide their faces. Photographing people who are planning to live permanently at Loi Tailang is OK. But photographing civilians who plan to return to Burma is a No-no. If the photos get into the wrong hands, THEY, the SPDC, could find out that they have ties with the Shan State Army, and kill them.