Pascal Khoo Thwe is not the only member of his family to have left the jungles of Burma for Europe. In the 1930s, his two grandmothers were coerced into travelling to England. “They were to be taken to Europe by a circus and exhibited as freaks,” writes the 44-year-old in his book, From the Land of Green Ghosts.

Khoo Thwe vividly remembers the stories they told him on their return. “The English are a very strange tribe,” said grandmother Mu Tha. “They paid money just to look at us.” She enjoyed the “moving stairs” but hated the cold and having to wear shoes. “The habits of the English afforded her great amusement,” says Khoo Thwe. “If we had had the notion of ‘freaks’, I suppose she would have put the whole English race into that category.”

As a boy, Khoo Thwe never imagined that he would follow in his grandmothers’ footsteps. But circumstances dictated otherwise when he became involved in the 1988 demonstrations against the military dictatorship. In ensuing protests against the regime – also blamed for impoverishing the people through currency reforms – security forces gunned down at least 3,000 unarmed protesters, including monks and nurses.