Meeting Maung-Maung Reflection

In his essay, Meeting Maung-Maung, Pico Iyer shows the theme of experience outweighing money. Maung-Maung, after getting a degree in Mathematics, chose to give tours to the many visitors. He decided that meeting tourists and making human connections was worth more than money. His small apartment mattered less to him than his prized possessions: a sociology textbook, an old English-Burmese dictionary, and, most treasured, a thick black notebook. Iyer's detailed descriptions show how valuable Maung-Maung's dictionary and notebook were to him. The line "as gently as if it were his bible...a dusty old English-Burmese dictionary, its yellowed pages falling from their covers" showed just how much Maung-Maung revered the dictionary. It made the book more than an object, but something holy and important to him. "With a mixture of shyness and pride" showed the feeling of bearing your soul to someone.