Early Life

Abstract

This chapter chronicles the early life of Saw Ralph. It discusses his family history and especially how his parents met. His father's name was John Farren Hodgson. He worked for the Burma Railways as a permanent way inspector. Saw Ralph's mother, Naw Thet Po, was a student at a school Hodgson visited. Both eventually married, and Ralph grew up comfortably in a big three-story house. He was the eighth of eleven children. By blood, Ralph was Karen-Anglo-Arakanese, though he considered himself Karen. Because the British ruled Burma and he went to a Baptist missionary school, Saw Ralph and his siblings all learned English very well. As the chapter follows his reminiscences of his schoolboy days, it also considers the changes taking place during that period.