HlaMin

Author: Hla Min (Lifelong Learner)

  • RIT Grand Reunion & SPZP

    RIT Grand Reunion & SPZP

    by Hla Min

    Updated : May 2025

    SPZP

    SPZP-2000

    • San Francisco, California, USA
    • October 2000
    • Commemorative Newsletter
      Chief Editor : U Hla Min
      Wrote “SAYA PU ZAW PWE” poem

    SPZP-2002

    • Singapore
    • December 2002
    • Swel Daw Yeik Sar Saung
      Chief Editor : Tekkatho Moe War
      Reprint of “SAYA PU ZAW PWE” poem on Back Cover

    SPZP-2004

    • Yangon
    • December 2004

    SPZP-2007

    • Singapore
    • April 2007
    • Swel Daw Yeik Sar Saung
      Chief Editor : Tekkatho Moe War
      Wrote “SWE DAW YEIK” poem

    SPZP-2010

    • Singapore
    • December 2010
    • Swel Daw Yeik Sar Saung
      Chief Editor : Tekkatho Moe War
      Wrote “A Sad and Short Clip : EE Sayas”

    SPZP-2012

    • Yangon
    • December 2012
    • Gyogone Campus : SPZP
    • MICT Park : Reunion Dinner
    • Swel Daw Yeik Magazine
      Chief Editor : U Saw Linn
    • Reprint of 23 RIT Annual Magazines
    • HMEE Book
      U Ohn Khine and I compiled the CD Supplement for the Book
    • RIT Cartoons

    SPZP-2016

    • Yangon
    • December 2016
    • All day event at Gyogone Campus
    • Free breakfast, lunch & dinner
    • Swel Daw Yeik Magazine
      Chief Editor : Tekkatho Moe War

    SPZP-2020 ?

    • Scheduled for December 2020 in Yangon
    • Canceled due to pandemic

  • U Ba Toke (1920 – 2020)

    • Phwa Bet Taw of RU (Rangoon University) and the First RU Students’ Strike (which led to the amendment of RU Act, and the establishment of National Schools and National College.
    • Studied at Mandalay University and Harvard University.
    • Professor and Head of Mathematics at Rangoon University
    • Rector, Mandalay Arts and Science University
    • Voluntary transfer to Rangoon Institute of Technology as Professor and Head of Mathematics
    • Associate Dean, Assumption University, Bangkok
    • More information can be found in the Book by Dr. Khin Maung Swe (Tekkatho Maung Thin Char)

    95th Birthday Celebration

    Memories

    • Sayagyi U Ba Toke passed away on Dec 2, 2020 (the day following RU Centennial, and a few days short of his Centennial Birthday).
    • The photos (shown above) were taken on Sayagyi’s 95th birthday with his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
    • Sayagyi was pre-deceased by his beloved spouse, son (Soe Win) and daughter (Kitty).
    • Ma Betty, Ye Myint, Nellie, Pansy, Tammy and Deborah have posted photos and articles about their loving father.
    • Saya Dr. Khin Maung Swe (Tekkatho Maung Thin Char, GBNF) wrote a book about the “Life Journey of Sayagyi U Ba Toke” and published with the sponsorship of Tekkatho Thin Char Mi Thar Su.
    • Sayagyi attended SPZP-2000, but skipped SPZP-2002 due to Sayagadaw’s health.
    • He attended subsequent SPZPs in Yangon and Singapore.
    • The attendees of SPZP-2007 appreciated Sayagyi’s anecdote about a 100+ year young Soviet guy quarreling with his 4th wife (and making amends soon after).
    • Sayagyi played soccer in his younger days.
    • Even in his 70s and 80s, he took weekly hikes to Shwe Dagon Pagoda with younger neighbors.
    • Sayagyi served on the RU Sports Council and as Leader of the Burma Olympic Team to Tokyo Olympics.
    • Sayagyi served as Commandant of the Tekkatho Luyechun Camp.
    • During my early visits, Sayagyi gave me an autographed copy of the Book and also took us down memory lane.
    • Sadly, aging caught up and Sayagyi lost mobility and his vision and hearing were impaired (as apparent on my later visits).
    • Many were planning for his Centennial Birthday, but …

    Garawa To & By Sayagyi

    • On behalf of the Classes of 70 and 71 (also known as the 1st BE Intake of 64 and 65), Ko Khin Maung Myint (ChE71) offered Garawa money to Sayagyi.
    • Sayagyi offered Soon to Sangha and listened to the dhamma talk
    • Per invitation from his former students, Sayagyi attended the First RIT Grand Reunion and Saya Pu Zaw Pwe (also known as SPZP-2000), San Francisco, California, USA in October 2000.
      On behalf of the sayas, Sayagyi gave blessings to the SPZP-2000 attendees.
      He was accompanied by Ko Ye Myint (eldest son) and spouse.
    • Bagyee Myat Myo Myint (Ko Myo Myint, Retired Dy Chief Engineer, Burma Railways) drew a Pon Tu of Sayagyi.
    • Pansy sent a car and driver to pick up Saya U Ba Than, Saya U Tin Htut and me at Winner Inn.
      Saya U Ba Than pays respect to Sayagyi at least once every year.
      Saya U Tin Htut also paid visit to Sayagyi during most of his visits to Yangon.
      I visited Sayagyi during my trips to Yangon. Ko Ye Myint, Pansy, Debbie and Ko Ohn Khine (M70) provided transport on different occasions.
  • Alumni and Friends

    Alumni and Friends

    by Hla Min

    Updated : May 2025

    U Wynn Htain Oo (M72)

    • Has several interesting nicknames : Shwe Gaung Byaung, WHO, Hmaw Sayagyi and Mg Mar Ga.
    • Shown with his Life Savers / Bosses
    • WHO is a Boss (outside his home, especially among his Hna Pyi)
    • Had Four Bosses (at Home) and have to serve them with Delicious Dishes.
    U Wynn Htain Oo
    • The following photo is taken at the Birthday Celebration for Mg Mar Ga.
      He is an outstanding Organizer and Fundraiser.
      He is a Patron of RIT-YIT-YTU Alumni Association.
    • Attendees include his fellow organizers and/or fundraisers.
    • U Tin Latt (M85) served as General Secretary of Swel Daw Yeik Foundation (SDYF) and President of Alumni Association.
      He is a former Deputy Minister.
    • Saya U Soe Myint (Min83) served as Joint Secretary of SPZP-2012 and SPZP-2016.
    • U Kyaw Hlaing (M86) served as Fundraiser for SPZP, SDYF and Alumni Association.
    Ko Tin Latt and Mg Mar Ga

    Gathering In Singapore

    Gathering in Singapore
    • Dr. Soe Thein and U Aung Thaik welcomed Dr. Myo Khin as Honored Guest in Singapore.
    • Dr. Soe Thein served as Organizer and Webmaster of Singapore SPZPs and Singapore Civil Engineering gatherings.
    • UAung Kyaw Thaik was a member of Swel Daw Yeik Sar Saung Committee.
      He is a founding member of Singapore Chan Myei Yeik Tha.

    Sayama Daw Tin Tin Myint (Emma)

    Daw Tin Tin Myint (Emma)
    • Model turned Mae Daw
    • She was a Swimmer and a Minthamee.
    • She is a co-founder of Dana Sri Lanka, Triple Gems Publications and Singapore Pon Chan Chan group.

    U Maung Maung Kyi (SPHS63, ChE)

    U Maung Maung Kyi
    • Khin Thitsar posted a rare photo of her eldest Brother (eldest of 8 siblings) U Maung Maung Kyi (SPHS63, Chemical Engineer specializing in Pulp and Paper).
    • He worked at Sittaung Paper Mill and PPIC.
    • He was my crew mate at RUBC and a Best Man at my wedding.
    • He is retired and lives in Wales.
    • Spouse : Daw Khin May Than (ChE72) was a swimmer.
      She now spends time Painting and Hiking
    • They lost their elder son Dr. Rimon Than (Squadron Leader, Mountaineer, Rescue Team Leader, Medical Doctor) to anavalanche.
    • They gave their house to the second son (Medical Doctor who came back from Japan) and moved to Ogmore-by-the-sea).
    • During my visit to UK, my cousin nephew Dr. Khin Tun (Peter, GBNF) and his spouse DawWinmar drove us to see U Maung Maung Kyi and Daw Khin May Than.
    • Ko Maung Maung Kyi smiled for the first time after his sad loss of his son.
    • Peter was the first Doctor in UK to succumb to Covid.
      He passed away on April 13, 2020. He received Awards posthumously.

    —-

  • Experts for Burmese Movies

    မြန်မာ့ရုပ်ရှင် ပညာရှင် (တချို့)

    စက်မှုတက္ကသိုလ် RIT

    * ဦးခင်မောင်ရင် (ကွယ်လွန်) — ပိသုကာ 1960

    ဒါရိုက်တာ၊ ပန်းချီဆရာ

    U Kin Maung Yin (GBNF)

    * နောင်ထွန်းလွင် — စက်မှု 1975

    ဒါရိုက်တာ

    * ဦးအောင်မြင့် — သတ္တုတွင်း 1970

    သမန်းကျား ကိုမြင့်

    သရုပ်ဆောင်၊ Production, Composer,

    Guitarist, Vocalist

    Thamankyar Ko Myint

    * ဦးသန်းဝင်း — ချည်ထည် 1970

    ဇာတ်ညွှန်း — သမန်းကျား

    * ဦးထင်လင်း (ကွယ်လွန်) — လျှပ်စစ်စွမ်းအား 1993

    ဒွေး — သရုပ်ဆောင်

    Dway (GBNF)

    * ဦးအေးသိန်း — လျှပ်စစ်ဆက်သွယ်ရေး 1987

    မင်းဦး — သရုပ်ဆောင်

    Min Oo

    —

    ဒေသကောလိပ် Regional College

    * ဦးမြတ်လှစိန် (ကွယ်လွန်) — PPBRS alumnus

    ဌာနမှုး — ရုပ်ရှင် Technology

    Myat Hla Sein (GBNF)

    Credit: Photos 2, 3 — ကျော်ကျော် (စက်မှု)

  • Paying respect to U Ba Than

    By U Aung Min (M69)

    Dear RIT69ers

    ဒီနေ့နံနက် (၂၅/၉/၂၂)တွင် ဆရာကြီး ဦးဘသန်း Mechanical Professor ထံသို့ အတန်းဖေါ်သူငယ်ချင်းနှင့် သွားရောက် ဂါရဝပြုလျက် စုပေါင်းကန်တောငွေ ကျပ်၁၄သိန်းအားဆက်ကပ် ခဲ့ပါတယ်။ဆေးရုံမှဆင်းတာမကြာသေးတာကြောင့် အနည်းငယ်ပိန်သွားတာမှလွဲလို့ ကျန်းမာနေကြောင်းတွေ့ခဲ့ရပါတယ်။

    ဆရာကြီးက တပည့်များအားမှာကြားလိုက်သည်ကတော့ ” ယခုအသက် ၉၂ နှစ်ရှိပြီ၊ မကြာခင်အသက် ၁၀၀ ပြည့်မည်၊မကြာ မကြာ လာတွေ့ကြပါ၊အားလုံးကျန်းမာကြပါစေ။” ဟူ၍ဖြစ်ပါသည်။

    “Representatives of RIT69ERS” paying respect to Sayar Gyi U Ba Than

    • Khin Maung Tin
    • Walter Ngwe Soe,
    • Tin Aung Win
    • Mehm Aye Chan,
    • Aung Min
    • Tin Mg Aye,
    • Sein Tun.
    Khin Maung Tin, Walter Ngwe Soe, Tin Aung Win, Mehm Aye Chan, Aung Min, Tin Mg Aye, Sein Tun
    U Ba Than
    U Ba Than
    U Ba Than and 69ers
    69ers paying respect
    69ers paying respect

  • U Than Htay (MARB)

    U Myint Sein (GBNF) attended PPBRS, SPHS and Institute of Economics.

    He is a founding member of BARB and served as Principal of Veda courses.

    He requested me to develop programs for Veda. I supervised U Win Latt to develop Win Horo and U Zaw Tun to develop အဟော program (in Prolog).

    He later founded Idea Astrology.

    He served as Visiting Professor at the School for Indigenous Medicine. His expertise included Medical Astrology.

    ** Notes

    * U Myint Sein and Veda Sayas (e.g U Khin Aung Bo, U Myint Lwin and U Than Htay) taught classes at BARB. Sad to note that all four are GBNF.

    * They would also hold discussions (and Live Readings) at some houses / places.

    * Saya U Aye Win Kyaw (C70, GBNF) is a founding member and EC of BARB.

    He taught Astronomy and Astronomy at BARB.

    • Some Veda sayas (e.g. U Hla Win, Dr. Aung Myin Bo) would pick me up to visit MARB

  • U Than Win (M69)

    • He was from Myaung Mya.
    • He attended SPHS as a Boarder.
    • He graduated from RIT.
    • He and family donated K4 lakhs to Myaung Mya Wailuwadi monastery / meditation center.

    Notes

    • After the 69er monthly breakfast gathering, he took Ko Htay Aung and me to his house.
    • After small talk, he took me to a restaurant in Yin Pyin, where Old Paulians offered Soon to Sayadaw Beatson (Physics saya & Scout Master).

    Feedback

    • Than Win wrote :

    အလှူမှတ်တမ်းလေးတင်ပေးတဲ့သူငယ်ချင်းကို အထူးကျေးဇူးတင်ပါတယ်

    U Tin Htut, U Htay Aung, U Than Win

  • U Sein Myint (EP69)

    • Represented RIT in Swimming, Water Polo and Rowing
    • Donor / Organizer for 69er activities
    • Retired
    Soon Kyway for grand daughter at Half Moon Bay Monastery
    NorCal RITAA Meeting
    Daughter and Grand daughter
    EE69ers in 1969
    EE69ers in 2009

    Swimming & Water Polo

    His swimming and water polo partners include

    • Htay Aung
    • Win Maung (“Lake”)
    • Han Sein (GBNF)
    • Moe Hein (“Ajala”)
    • Hla Kyaing
    • …

    Rowing

    His rowing partner was Ko Win Naing (Dicky, M69, GBNF).

    He coxed several crews. One crew consisted of Ko Khin Maung Myint (M71), Ko Win Kyaw (Met71), Ko Myint Than (M71)

    Donor / Organizer

    He is a major donor for

    • 69er Health Care Fund
    • EE69er Health Care Fund.

    He was one of the organizers (along with Ko Daniel Tint Lwin, Ko Kyaw Than, …) for the 30th Anniversary of the Graduation for the Class of 69.

    Miscellaneous

    He worked in Singapore (with occasional business trip to Indonesia).

    He visits his children and grand children in California and Yangon.

  • U Ko Ko Lay (UCC)

    Saya U Ko Ko Lay matriculated from St. Paul’s High School in 1956.

    He received BS and MS in Civil Engineering from Stanford University, USA.

    He transferred from PWD to UCC as Manager of Operations Division.

    He received MS in Systems Engineering from Lancaster University, UK.

    He served as Manager of Scientific Applications Division at UCC, Professor of Computer Science at Department of Computer Science (DCS) and Professor of Information Systems at Institute of Computer Science and Technology (ICST).

    He played Soccer, Volleyball and Tennis with colleagues, students and computer users.

    He had problems (e.g double vision) and had treatment in Bangkok and Rangoon.

    Sadly, he passed away.

    ** Notes

    * Saya Dr. Chit Swe (GBNF) founded UCC with help from Saya U Soe Paing, Saya U Myo Min and Saya U Ko Ko Lay (GBNF).

    At UCC, they are known as Saya Chit, Saya Paing, Saya Myo and Saya Lay.

    * He has three younger brothers : U Than Htut (M67, RUBC Gold), Maw and Zaw (Min Htut, RUBC Gold, GBNF).

    He has three sisters.

    * Spouse : Betty

  • U Ngwe Tun (C)

    Saya U Ngwe Tun (C) used to run a book shop called “Theingi Maw”.

    After the demise of his spouse, Saya moved to his daughter’s house.

    He did not go out during the pandemic, but he got infected by Covid and passed away.

    ** Notes

    * Ko Myint Naing and Ohn Mar Khin are variants of Covid.

    * Some who had four doses (or more) of Covid vaccine still got infected by newer strains of Covid.

    Saya U Ngwe Tun (C) used to run a book shop. 

    After the demise of his spouse, Saya moved to his daughter’s house.

    He did not go out during the pandemic, but he got infected by Covid and passed away.

    ** Notes

    * Ko Myint Naing and Ohn Mar Khin are variants of Covid.

    * Some who had four doses (or more) of Covid vaccine still got infected by newer strains of Covid.