Kalaw is a real life mountain community in the central highlands of Myanmar. The name Burma refers to the Burmese, the largest ethnic group in the nation. The country gained its independence from British colonial rule in 1948. Military rulers officially changed the country’s name to Myanmar, which means “heaven’s people,” in 1989. Jan-Philipp Sendker consistently refers to the country as Burma in The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, as most of the events described happened prior to 1940. While Kalaw is now a thriving multicultural city of around 180,000, the time period reflected in the novel (1925-1992) saw little change in the community. During this period, Kalaw suffered from extreme poverty and inadequate healthcare. Those who escaped poverty tended to be families who served the British, such as Tin’s father, who was a caddy at a golf course patronized by the English. Sendker uses this version of Kalaw as the locus of Tin’s upbringing because it managed to retain its natural beauty—bar some British architecture.

The mid-20th century suits the author’s thematic purpose in that it was a period of growth and change. Following the historical events referenced in the novel, the time of British colonialism in Burma was winding down, supplanted by the rise of capitalism in cities like Rangoon.