U Mya Thein

Bo Shoke

U Mya Thein (GBNF) earned the nickname “Bo Shoke” at the Institute of Economics (IE). His first nickname was “Bo Gyoke” because he had his hair cut like Bogyoke Aung San. He was a brilliant and talented student. He would explain the lectures in a room to his fellow students. It is said that there were more attendees at his free tuition than at the regular classes given by the sayas.

He had a vast array of General Knowledge. He would read books on religion, medicine, and engineering. He would get involved in lots of activities thereby earning the name “Bo Shoke” (One who gets his hands wet in things that are of no concern to him).

He joined the Commerce Department at the Institute of Econmics. When UCC was formed, it needed people with diverse skills. U Mya Thein & U Thein Oo, from Commerce Department, and U Htin Kyaw & U Tun Shwe from Statistics Department transferred to UCC from IE. They all became Application Programmers, and went for further studies to the United Kingdom.

Bo Shoke was outspoken. During a visit to UCC, VIPs (ministers, deputy ministers, …) were standing and waiting for U San Yu. Bo Shoke entered the room and shouted, “Sit down”. All complied. (What a surprise!)

He not only taught at UCC, but he also lectured to to the monks at ITBMU (International Theravada Buddhist Missionary University).

Like Father, Like Son

One day his father came to UCC. He carried a bunch of bananas to UCC. He asked U Tun Kywe, an army veteran serving as security, the office of Saya U Myo Min (Bo Shoke’s manager). When he found out Saya Myo was not much older than Bo Shoke, he went downstairs and then handed the bunch of bananas to the elderly U Tun Kywe. Like father, like son.

Final Remarks

I succeeded Saya U Myo Min as Business Application Manager. Later Bo Shoke succeeded me as Business Application Manager

Fortunately or unfortunately, one who could contest Bo Shoke appeared. It was his sister-in-law.

U Khin Maung Zaw (KMZ, EC76) wrote :

I visited UCC on my first trip back home after 20+ years abroad. Someone told me Bo Shoke took over a single story building next to the first UCC building. I decided to go in and meet him there, as expected he chased me out as I was unauthorized to come in his office.

I then realized that he failed to recognize me, I no longer looked like a ကြွက်စုတ်,​ with fairer skin being lived in the colder climate, for couple of decades.

I said “ဗိုလ်ရှုပ်၊ ခင်ဗျားခုထက်ထိရှုပ်တုံးဘဲလား”,​he squinted his eyes for several seconds, then recognized me. I was wearing shorts then, he said ” ဘယ်က​တရုပ်ကြီးလဲ”.