Translators note: The literal translation of the title of this story would be ?If you pull out a person?s guts, his heart will feel immense pain? - that is, if you are viciously cruel to people they will feel such bitterness in their hearts that they will never forgive you. Although the events that have caused the old man in the story to be cast out by the villagers ostensibly occurred during the Japanese occupation in the 40s, most readers will easily draw parallels between his behavior and the behavior of the army and its ruling body, SLORC, during 1988-9, when this story was written. The author has succeeded in expressing the revulsion felt by vast numbers of ordinary Burmese towards the cruelty of the army, and indicates by the ending of the story her belief that those who choose to live by violence and cruelty can expect to die as violently as they live. The chosen companion of the old man is a tiger who turns on him, and in killing him, is itself killed. We can only assume that the censors failed to spot the subtext of this story, or else believed that it was sufficiently buried for them to let it through without being accused of incompetence."