Preface
I had an eventful life and hardly left out anything. As Fritz the Cat said, I ‘ fought with brave men and loved beautiful women ‘. A
I was born in Wilhelmshaven on the North Sea where I spent all of my youth. My parents were simple people, for whom my stubborn character caused quite a bit of headache. Nevertheless, they support me as far as they can. I went through numerous schools and passed secondary school. Then I started my first apprenticeship. It lasted exactly 22 hours. Towards the end of the 20th century, after I had long since left home, I wrote the chronicle of my youth on the North Sea coast. What began as a collection of photocopied sheets of paper later developed into a really beautiful book, which – thanks to the help of my friend Horst – was published by his Edition Temmen Bremen. And why did he print it? Because it was so wonderfully stupid as he said! Wilhelmshaven from A to Zwas a real hit in my hometown! Not interested in Wilhelmshaven? Chamber! The rind deals more marginally with the city on the Jade Bay . Above all, it’s about growing up in the 50s and 60s. And since my age group shares a similar career nationwide, one can rightly say: Wilhelmshaven was everywhere! How did the head of the North Sea city’s cultural department call it so beautiful? Oral history of the 50s and 60s from the perspective of a working class child. There is nothing left to add.
At the age of nineteen I left my birthplace and moved to West Berlin . Right in the middle of the social upheaval that took place there to a particularly blatant extent at the end of the 60s! It went to university via an apprenticeship and a second education path . I studied geography at Freie Universität and even graduated. I later even got a PhD in philosophy. My ‘ travel career’ began in the mid-70s , back then as a hippiethat took me halfway around the world. I lived badly at first and was rocked around with junky planes and buses; later it got a little better … I earned the money with various jobs: sometimes nice, sometimes less nice. Sometimes well paid, sometimes at a starvation wage … My trade in ‘ Asian products ‘, which I started at the end of the 70s, was arduous at first. Over the years, he proved to be increasingly successful. Jobs as tour guides were added later . I have part 2 of my memoirs under the working title ‘ Ich, Hasi, Uschi Obermaier‘written down. The title may seem strange and it should first be said that I have no negative feelings about Uschi Obermaier. Not to mention hatred. She is only representative of a certain kind of people with whom I disagree on some points. Amazingly, many people don’t even know the lady today. That shows how time has passed us by. In 1996 I said goodbye to Berlin! and emigrated to Myanmar .
At the age of nineteen I left my birthplace and moved to West Berlin . Right in the middle of the social upheaval that took place there to a particularly blatant extent at the end of the 60s! It went to university via an apprenticeship and a second education path . I studied geography at Freie Universität and even graduated. I later even got a PhD in philosophy. My ‘ travel career’ began in the mid-70s , back then as a hippiethat took me halfway around the world. I lived badly at first and was rocked around with junky planes and buses; later it got a little better … I earned the money with various jobs: sometimes nice, sometimes less nice. Sometimes well paid, sometimes at a starvation wage … My trade in ‘ Asian products ‘, which I started at the end of the 70s, was arduous at first. Over the years, he proved to be increasingly successful. Jobs as tour guides were added later . I have part 2 of my memoirs under the working title ‘ Ich, Hasi, Uschi Obermaier‘written down. The title may seem strange and it should first be said that I have no negative feelings about Uschi Obermaier. Not to mention hatred. She is only representative of a certain kind of people with whom I disagree on some points. Amazingly, many people don’t even know the lady today. That shows how time has passed us by. In 1996 I said goodbye to Berlin! and emigrated to Myanmar .
Burma! Myanmar! The most beautiful country in the world! I went there for the first time in 1977. It knocked me out! I immediately felt that I had found my dreamland. The people were incredibly nice and friendly. Some things reminded me of my childhood in Wilhelmshaven. Another thing to the GDR! At that time, Burma was still on the ‘Burmese road to socialism’. A path that ultimately led to economic catastrophe. The equanimity with which the people there accepted the adverse living conditions impressed me. Anyway: Since that first one – only a week! – Visiting I had the desire to live there! But it would be another 19 years before it materialized. I started a small trade in Burmese articles, especially the great puppets there. However, I really couldn’t have imagined that I would be able to do a doctorate on it. But that also applies to other things! So z. B. that I found my happiness there. I have been living in the ‘Golden Land’, as the Burmese themselves call it, for almost twenty-five years. Which means I have a migration background, to put it in a contemporary way. So I can have a say! The third part of my memoirs will be the title Carrying 40 years in Burma and dealing with my life in Myanmar . Don’t worry, it’s already in the works. Excerpts from this can be found in the Burma / Myanmar chapter.
As far as my life is concerned, my books are provocative and politically incorrect. I wish the interested reader anyway – or maybe because of that? – Have fun reading. And look forward to feedback.
Axel Bruns
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