Mandalay was a hot and dusty town with a British fort and sprawling native district. Chinese mingled alongside European and even Latin Americans such as the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda worked and performed in town during honorary consulship in 1927.įrom the Asian hub of Rangoon Orwell headed to the Indian Imperial Police in Mandalay to begin training. Surpassing New York as the busiest immigrant port in the world Rangoon had a growing economy resourcing labor and professional skills from the subcontinent. Rangoon in the 1920s enjoyed a higher standard of living than neighboring India. Orwell boarded the SS Herefordshire on October 1922, cruised down the Suez Canal, across the Red Sea, and past Ceylon on a month-long 8,000 mile passage to Burma. Orwell’s voyage to Burma was more home-coming than exile – he was traveling back to his roots. Teak had made the town and the family reasonably wealthy in the 19th century and a sizable population of Europeans still lived there. His maternal grandmother and mother had lived in-country at Moulmein (now Mawlamyine).
Orwell stated Burma, above the United Provinces of British India, as his first choice posting.
The entrance exam required Orwell to write a letter describing a trip to the theater and an essay on the greatest English prime minister – easy stuff for an ex-Etonian and future scribe.
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