HlaMin

Author: Hla Min (Lifelong Learner)

  • Myo Nyunt (C69)

    by Hla Min

    Updated : Mar 2026

    • Represented RIT in soccer
    • Joint Secretary, RIT Track & Field
    • He and his spouse visit elder son in Seattle, Washington, USA almost every year.
    • They visit other states as time and energy permit.

    Visit in 2017

    He had a mini-gathering with U Aung Khin (A69) & Daw Tin Tin Hla (A70), U Min Maung (EP68), and Saya U Kaung (C63) in Seattle in November 2017.

    Visit in 2018

    U Myo Nyunt, his wife and his son visited the San Francisco Bay Area.

    There was a mini-gathering. The attendees include

    • Daw Mu Mu Kin : spouse of Saya Allen Htay (GBNF)
    • U Sein Myint (EP69, Singapore)
    • U Hla Min
    • U Myo Nyunt and family
    U Myo Nyunt and group visiting Daw Mu Mu Kin
    Google Campus

  • Kyaw Win

    by Hla Min

    Updated : Mar 2026

    Birthday

    He offered birthday soon kyway to Uzin Okkantha (Victor, Aung Chaw) and treated his former SPHS63 classmates (some of whom have not seen each other for a long time). The attendees include :

    • Aye Ngwe (Edwin)
    • Kyaw Win (“Birthday Boy”)
    • Khin Maung Bo (Alan Saw Maung, EP69)
    • Hla Min (EC69)
    • Uzin Okkantha (Aung Chaw, Victor, C69)
    • Than Win (M69)
    • Aung Kyi (Arthur Kyi)
    • Tin Tun (M69)
    • Khin Maung Zaw (Frank Gale, IM1 70, UK)

    SPHS Novice Crew at RUBC

    • Maung Maung Kyi (Bow)
    • Hla Min (No. 2)
    • Kyaw Win (No. 3, EE)
    • Willie Soe Mg (Stroke)
    • Myint Thein (Cox, SPHS 62, B.Com 66)

    We were all awarded Full Green.

    When the schools were closed following the first Anniversary of 7th July, Kyaw Win and Maung Maung Kyi applied for scholarships to study in Germany.

    Maung Maung Kyi received Dip Ing in ChE with Specislization in Pulp and Paper. He worked at Sittaung Paper Mill and PPIC before moving to Wales, UK.

    Kyaw Win had a higher calling. He and his friends protested in front of the Burmese Embassy. The higher authorities were alarmed at their movement and recalled back to Burma. Fortunately, he was able to complete his EE in Rangoon.

    GBNF

    In alphabetical order

    • Aung Chaw (Victor Chaw, C69, Ashin Ukkamsa)
    • Aung Khin
    • Aung Kyi (Arthur Kyi)
    • Aung Thu Yein (Brownie Way, EC69, 13th in Burma)
    • Aung Thwin, Dr.
    • Freddie Ba San, Dr. (Myo San, 3rd in Burma)
    • Freddie Sein, Dr.
    • Gilbert Thaw (Min Thaw, EP)
    • Maung Maung Aye, Dr.
    • Maung Maung Kyi (11th in Burma)
    • Myint Soe (Willie Soe Maung, 1st batch BDS, Stroke in my novice crew)
    • Patrick Ba Maung (became monk after retirement)
    • Shwe Zan Aung

  • Rowing 2

    by Hla Min

    Updated : Mar 2026

    RUBC 90th Anniversary

    Novices

    Members join RUBC as Novices. The two top teams compete in the Senior Novices event. The losing semi-finalists compete in the Junior Novices event.

    The Senior Novices winners were awarded the Pewter Cup donated by Sir Arthur Eggar (Founder and Life President of RUBC). They also receive RUBC Brooch and are among the top contenders to receive Color Awards.

    Color Awards

    The Color Awards Committee review the the Log Books and the performance at the regattas to award colors.

    • Half Green
    • Full Green
    • Gold

    Gold is awarded to members for representing RUBC (e.g. in Inter-Club events)

    Only a few became Gold within one year.

    Two examples :

    1954 : Ko Tun Shein (Willie Saing) won the Senior Novices as Timing Stroke. He became Gold.

    1957 : Ko Tun Zan became Gold.

    Early System

    Depending on the time and resources, novices may have to wait for some time before they have access to Shell Fours.

    • Novice
      Start with Fixed Tub
      Row Tub Pairs and Tub Fours
      Row Clinker / Shell
    • Half Green
      Can cox
      Row Pairs, Fours, Eights
    • Full Green
      Can cox
      Row Sculls, Pairs, Fours, Eights
    • Gold
      RUBC Blazer Coat with Gold lining

    Rangoon University Sports Council

    For some period, the RU Sports Council also offered RUBC members

    • Varsity Half Blue
    • Varsity Blue
    • Varsity Gold

  • Rowing 1

    by Hla Min

    Updated : Mar 2026

    Sir Arthur Eggar

    Swimming (after Rowing)

    Most members enjoy swimming in the Inya Lake after they had finished rowing.

    A few members do not know how to swim, but they are confident that the eights and fours will not capsize even if someone “catches a crab”. There were a few instances where the scull and the pairs tripped over, but the non-swimmers felt safe and sound by clinging to the boat.

    At one time, Burmese Laungs were loaned by RUBC. They are liable to flip over more than the RUBC boats.

    There were two boatmen. U Par Oo was the senior. He and his son Tin Aung sold Than Pa Ya Yay. Ko Mya Hlaing was the junior. He sold Bu Thee Kyaw. They had to maintain the Tub Pairs and Tub Fours, and make patches to the boats and oars.

    Before our days, there were many boats that were imported and not so many active members.

    Later, due to restrictions for foreign exchange and the increase in active members, some local boats were used for training the novices.

    Zeyar Linn added :

    Our times 1992-2002, Swimming was prohibited but nowadays it is part of training sessions.

  • Library

    by Hla Min

    Updated : Mar 2026

    U Khin Zaw

    U Khin Zaw
    • Chief Librarian, Rangoon University Library
    • Founder & Director of “Myanmar Ah Than” (Burma Broadcasting Service).
    • Has a son (Ko Wint Khin Zaw) and four daughters.

    U Thein Han / Zaw Gyi

    U Thein Han
    • Co-founder of the “Khit San Sar Pay”
    • Literary Award Winner
    • Laureate Poet
    • Succeeded U Khin Zaw as Chief Librarian of Rangoon University

    U Thaw Kaung

    U Thaw Kaung
    • Succeeded U Thein Han as Chief Librarian of Rangoon University
    • He and Saya U Ba Than (M) were the early supporters of the HMEE (History of Myanmar Engineering Education) project. He provided access to the library archives for Saya U Soe Paing (EE, UCC) and his team to compile an early draft for the HMEE-2012 book.

    Libraries

    Universities and Colleges around the world usually maintain libraries and offer cross-loans for rare books and documents.

    There are Public Libraries and Private Libraries.

    Before the Internet, most libraries use the Dewey Decimal System for cataloging books. Since the distribution of the books is not uniform, some books have several decimal digits following the original three digit category.

    ISBN is used by major publishers. A Stanford University Arts Professor wanted to use “The Illustrated History of Buddhism ” by Ashin Janakabhivamsa (Taung Myo Sayadaw) and illustrated by Saya U Ba Kyi. Since the book did not have an ISBN, the book could not be ordered and sold through the University Book Store.

    The Library of Congress has a large collection of books. It also has a section for books from Asian countries. The books in the Burma Collection are cataloged using phonetic transcription of the Burmese title.

    U Win Pe (Maung Swan Yi) served as Secretary of the Burmese Curriculum and later studied Library Science. He wrote an article in Myanmar Gazette about collecting Burmese books for access via the New York libraries and the Library of Congress.

  • January 1st

    by Hla Min

    Updated : Mar 2026

    New Year

    In most parts of the world, December 31st is celebrated as New Year’s Eve. In the Times Square in New York, many tourists wait for the count down to the New Year.

    January 1st is celebrated as the start of the New Year. For many, it is a holiday.

    Peasants’ Day

    In the early days, Burma celebrated January 1st as Peasants’ Day. It was a holiday.

    The Revolutionary Council staged a Coup D’etat on March 2, 1962. The BSPP government moved Peasants’ Day to March 2nd.

    Birthdays

    Saya U Than Lwin (Eric Lwin, my cousin uncle, GBNF) celebrated his birthday on January 1st.

    Ye Than

    For several years, U Ye Than (Winner Inn, son of my cousin brother Sayagyi U Ba Than) has celebrated his birthday on January 1st with a Soon Kyway.

  • Dhamma Books

    by Hla Min

    Updated : Mar 2026

    စွန်းလွန်း ဝိပဿနာ
    Sunlun Vipassana

    • မြင်းခြံစွန်းလွန်းဆရာတော် ဦးကဝိ
      Myingyan Sunlun Sayadaw U Kavi
    • ကမ္ဘာအေးစွန်းလွန်းဆရာတော် ဦးဝိနယ
      Kaba Aye Sunlun Sayadaw U Vinaya

    လယ်တီ ဆရာတော်
    Dhamma Lineage of Ledi Sayadaw

    • ဆရာ သက်
      Saya Thet
    • ဆရာ ဦးဘခင်
      Saya U Ba Khin
    • S N ဂိုအင်ဂါ
      S N Goenka

    ပဏ္ဍိတရာမ ဆရာတော်
    Dhamma Lineage of Panditarama Sayadaw

    • Sayadaw U Pandita
    • ဦးပညာဒီပ (ဘီးလင်း) — နာယက ဆရာတော်
      U Pannadipa (Beelin) – – Patron

    ဓမ္မဘေရီ အရှင်ဝီရိယ (တောင်စွန်း)
    Dhammaberi Ashin Viriya (Taung Soon)

    ရုပ်စုံ ဗုဒ္ဓ သာသနာဝင်
    The Illustrated History of Buddhism

    • မဟာဂန္ဓာရုံဆရာတော် ဦးဇနကာဘိဝံသ
      Author : Mahagandayone Sayadaw U Janakabhivamsa
    • ပန်းချီဆရာ ဦးဗကြည်
      Illustrator : Saya U Ba Kyi
    • Reprint : ဦးသီလာနန္ဒာဘိဝံသ နဲ့ အလှူရှင်များ
      Reprint : Sayadaw U Silanandabhivamsa and Devotees / Donors

    Mahagandayone Sayadaw

    U Silananda

    U Silananda

  • Burmese in Cambodia

    U Soe Aung (M/Auto 70) visited Kampuchea (Cambodia) for a conference.

    He was surprised and delighted to see a Burmese Inscription at a temple in Ankor Wat.

  • U Tin U 2

    by Hla Min

    Update : Feb 2026

    Highlights

    U Tin U at SPZP-2012
    • Matriculated from St. John’s Dio in 1946.
    • Attended Rangoon University before going for studies in the USA.
    • Represented RUBC (Rangoon University Boat Club) in the Independence Day Regatta at Kandawgyi in 1948. His crew mates were Pe Nyun (Dick San Pe, later Orthopedic Surgeon & Lead for operating Ma Nan Soe & Ma Nan San); Pe Thein (Tom San Pe, later Minister of Health & Education) and Khin Maung Wint (Bobby Tin, later Commander of Artillery).
    1948 Independence Day Regatta
    • Received BSCE (Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering) from Oregon State University.
    • Received MSCE (Master of Science in Civil Engineering) from Yale University.
    • Upon his return to Burma, he joined Clark & Greig (well-known Construction Company) and became a Director.
    • He taught part-time at the Civil Engineering department.
    • He later served as Advisor for Inter-kiln and PWD Architecture (2) Group.
    • Past Captain of Rangoon Golf Club
    • Oldest & Most Senior Past Captain of RUBC; He was invited to open the Centennial Celebrations of RUBC in 2023

    Family

    • He is the oldest child of U Chan Sein and Daw Cheng Kim.

    Nine Siblings

    • U Tin U, U Ba Than, Dr. Daw Win Hlaing (Ruby), Daw Myint Thwe (Betty), Dr. Myo Tint, U Tin Htoon, U Myo Min, U Thaung Lwin, Daw Cho Cho Hlaing

    Spouse

    • Dr. Daw Khin Kyi Nyunt (Cherry Tin Gyi) — worked for Medical College and BMRI (Burma Medical Research Institute); passed away in November 2019

    Elder son

    • Dr. Khin Tun (Peter) — MRCP; former Associate Dean of Oxford University); succumbed to Covid on April 13, 2020
    • Spouse : Daw Win Mar —survived Covid; was hospitalized for 2 weeks
    • Children : Min Ko (Michael), Ye Aung (William)
    • See : Chronicles of Peter Tun (Apr – May 2020)

    Daughter

    • Daw Aye Aye Khin — B.Com, CPA; took care of her father till the final day
    • Spouse : U Tin Tun — passed away in May 2020
    • Children : Thin Thiri Tun, Dr. Khin Sandy Tun

    Younger son

    • Dr. Ye Myint — Specialist in Intensive Care & ; flew to Yangon to take care of his ailing father
    • Spouse : Daw San San Aye
    • Child : Dr. Aye Sandar
    U Tin U & Family
    U Tin U 3

    Interviews

    HMEE

    • Gave an Interview for HMEE Project about BSCE (Burma Society of Civil Engineers)
    • Recorded by Saya U Ba Than
    • The Association was re-instituted about 1955-56.
    • President :
      Sayagyi U Ba Hli (Dean of Engineering, University of Rangoon, GBNF)
    • Honorary Secretary :
      Saya U Soon Sein (Professor, Mining, GBNF)
    • Honorary Treasurer :
      Saya U Tin U (Part time Lecturer, Civil)

    Rangoon Golf Club

    • As Past Captain of RGC, he gave an interview to the media (newspaper / magazine)

    90+ Club

    • Four of the nine siblings are members of the 90+ Club like their mother.
    • U Tin U (eldest) passed away on Aug 19, 2025 — a few weeks after his 96th birthday. He was the most senior Past Captain of RUBC. He was also the oldest Yale University alumni from Burma.
    • U Ba Than (2nd oldest) passed away after his 94th birthday.
    • Dr. Daw Win Hlaing (Ruby, 3rd) celebrated her 93rd birthday on Aug 31, 2025.
    • Daw Myint Thwe (Betty, 4th) passed away two months before her 91st birthday.

    Photo Albums

    U Tin Htoon has compiled several photo albums for

    • his mother Daw Cheng Kim
    • U Tin U’s 90th birthday
    • U Ba Than’s 90th birthday
    • Dr. Daw “Ruby” Win Hlaing’s 90th birthday
    • Dr. “Peter” Khin Tun’s untimely demise

    He sent out Photo Cards for the birthdays of older siblings and U Thein Han (Uncle Charlie).

  • Three Refuges

    by Hla Min

    Updated : Feb 2026

    For the First time

    I take Refuge in the Buddha (the Blessed One, the Worthy One, the Fully Enlightened One).

    I take Refuge in the Dhamma (Teachings of the Buddha — the Blessed One, the Worthy One, the Fully Enlightened One).

    I take Refuge in the Sangha (Monastic Order of the Buddha — the Blessed One, the Worthy One, the Fully Enlightened One).

    For the Second time

    For the Second time, I take Refuge in the Buddha (the Blessed One, the Worthy One, the Fully Enlightened One).

    For the Second time, I take Refuge in the Dhamma (Teachings of the Buddha — the Blessed One, the Worthy One, the Fully Enlightened One).

    For the Second time, I take Refuge in the Sangha (Monastic Order of the Buddha — the Blessed One, the Worthy One, the Fully Enlightened One).

    For the Third time

    For the Third time, I take Refuge in the Buddha (the Blessed One, the Worthy One, the Fully Enlightened One).

    For the Third time, I take Refuge in the Dhamma (Teachings of the Buddha — the Blessed One, the Worthy One, the Fully Enlightened One).

    For the Third time, I take Refuge in the Sangha (Monastic Order of the Buddha — the Blessed One, the Worthy One, the Fully Enlightened One).