What is the purpose of the first two paragraphs? In what ways do they introduce the incident Orwell narrates in his essay?

Orwell opens the essay by explicitly describing the hatred that the Burmese people feel for him during his time as a police officer for the British Raj, in Moulmein, Lower Burma. This hatred forms part of a general anti-European sentiment in the area at the time. Though the Burmese aren’t ready to riot, they are hostile toward their colonizers. The main way that their hostility shows itself is through ridicule and bitter laughter. The Buddhist priests, he says, are the worst. They openly mock Europeans.