Nan Yone Kung

A best of a thing blows in that evening. A whirring, bristling ship of the night. As big as a bird. Undercarriage lowered, wheels down, wings in reverse thrust, it crash-lands on the floorboards of Moe Cherry’s restaurant with a thump and angry crumpled buzz. A bug, a beetle, so big as to have a voice. Tropically large, and tropically noisy. Of the sort that made my encyclopaedia thrilling as a child; the one I’d scare my sister with, just by showing her the picture. Pinned on a board in the Science Museum it would make us all tingle, yet here it’s live and, more worryingly, clumsily mobile. So now I’m on my feet. Moe’s feeding travellers with curries, rice and beers - travellers who have flocked to her friendly verandaed first floor in Mrauk U. She now slops over, curvaceous, in her flip-flops - her gold mules kicked off at the bottom of the stairs. So confidently big is this bug that it doesn’t budge when Moe comes to sort it out. She pulls at one of its foot-long whiskers, and it nods, like one of those car back-window dogs, emitting a loud grumpy cackle, a critter-like snigger, and doesn’t budge. Wings now precision stowed, it’s a fine-tuned piece of jungle engineering. Its beige carapace is blotched with red and beautifully crafted. Moe says it’s their nan yone kung, their June bug, as that’s when they’re everywhere and on the mate. We all give it a hesitant prod to hear more cackle, and then she lovingly lets it crawl up her pink cardi-sleeve.