Under the dragon

the long version

"For ten years the memory of a chance visit to Burma had haunted Rory MacLean. Ten years ago its people rose up against their military government. The unarmed demonstrators were cut down, leaving more than five thousand people dead." "In Under the Dragon, MacLean returns to the betrayed land, travelling from a decaying Rangoon to the heart of the golden triangle, meeting the victims and perpetrators of the uprising. He rides with a hill tribe warlord, shares tea with a government censor and is trapped into a karaoke evening with a group of singing Chinese businessmen. He learns about the economics of the heroin trade and the tragedy of child prostitution. He meets the most courageous and principled woman of our age, Aung San Suu Kyi, imprisoned leader of the democratic opposition party. And on his journey, he unravels a paradox of selfless generosity and sinister greed in a country stitched together by love and fear."--Jacket.