by Hla Min

Updated : September 2026

Background

• Dec means Ten. December is the 10th month of the old Roman Calendar.
• December is the 12th and last month of the Gregorian Calendar.
• Has 31 days
• December 31st is celebrated as New Year’s Eve

December 1920

Dec 1, 1920

• Rangoon University was established with Rangoon College & Judson College as affiliates.
• Golden Jubilee in 1970; Diamond Jubilee in 1995; Centennial in 2020.

Dec 5, 1920

• First RU Students’ Strike to protest the 1920 RU Act.
• The anniversaries use the Burmese Calendar.

Dec 26, 1920

• Saya U Ba Toke was born. He is a Phwa Bet Taw of Rangoon University and the first RU Students’ Strike.
• Saya passed away on Dec 2, 2020 (the day following the RU Centennial and a few days short of his Centennial Birthday.)

Dec 1974

U Thant Ah Yay Ah Khinn

• Dark moment in the history of Burma

Apollo 8

• Orbited the Moon in December 1968
• Astronauts : Frank Borman, James Lovell, Bill Anders

December 25

• Christmas Eve on Dec 24
• Christmas on Dec 25

December 26

• Saya U Ba Toke was born in 1920. He passed away on Dec 2, 2020 a few days before his Centennial birthday

December 31

• New Year’s Eve

SEAP Games

• Burma hosted the 2nd SEAP Games in December, 1961
  

• Burma hosted the 5th SEAP Games in December, 1969

Birthdays

Several birthdays in December among my relatives & friends. They include

• Beloved spouse : Dec 30
• Saya U Tin Maung Nyunt : Dec 30
• Saya Allen Htay (GBNF) : Dec 31
• Elder sister
• Cousin
• Uncle (GBNF)
• Classmates : Maung Maung Kyi (Wales, GBNF) and Aung Thu Yein (Brownie, GBNF).

U Tin Maung Nyunt

• Saya usually celebrates his birthday performing meritorious deeds.
• Before his current medical condition, he observed Eight Precepts.
• Practices Vipassana Meditation
• He is a day older than Saya Allen Htay.

My Beloved Spouse

• Supported my volunteer activities for nearly five decades.
• I completed 26 years as Founder & Editor of “RIT Alumni Newsletter Updates”.

• We attended several RIT gatherings : SPZP-2000, SPZP-2012, SPZP-2016 & 69er Golden Jubilee in Yangon; RIT & UCC Gatherings in Australia & Singapore; and many gatherings in the USA.

• Attended 2015 RIT Alumni Reunion in Los Angeles held at the Knott Berry Farms, and a special gathering at iNapa Winery.

• She is a Caring Spouse, a Dutiful Mother & a Loving Grandmother. She asked me to take care of my health and minimize use of phone & computer.

• She loves to sing and dance at the gatherings. I am an amateur musician who plays instruments (piano, key board, guitar, harmonica) by ear.

Here’s my birthday wish:

May you be blessed with Good Health, Abundant Wealth, Unbounded Love, Peace, Calm, Tranquility … for many more years to come.

Events in December

• December 1, 1920 : Under the RU Act of 1920, Rangoon University was established with Rangoon College & Judson College as constituent colleges.
• RU Golden Jubilee in 1970 : I was member of the “Zay Nay Yar Cha Htar Yay” committee
• RU Diamond Jubilee in 1995 : BARB produced documentary for “Rangoon University Sports”
• RU Centennial in 2020 :
  I was Moderator of the RU Centennial Facebook group
• December 26, 1920 : Saya U Ba Toke’s birthday. His life story is published in the book by Tekkatho Maung Thin Char (Dr. Khin Maung Swe, GBNF).
  Saya passed away on December 2, 2020 a few days before his Centennial Birthday
• December 5, 1920 : First RU Students’ Strike — Caused amendments to the RU Act.
  Led to the establishment of Amyothar Kyaung (National School) & Amyothat Kawleik (College). Amyothar Aung Bwe Nay (National Day) is celebrated using the Burmese date
• December 1961 : Second SEAP Games — Hosted in Rangoon;
  Burma dominated in Track & Field, Swimming & Volleyball. About 20 athletes from RU represented Burma in the Games (See photo by Dr. Richard Yu Khin)
  

• Dec 1969 : Fifth SEAP Games in Rangoon

by Hla Min

Updated : September 2026

Universal

• January 1 is usually accepted as “New Year’s Day”.
• Some countries celebrate it as a holiday.
• December 31 is “New Year’s Eve”.
• Some sing “Auld Lang Syne” to usher in the New Year.

Old Calendars

• The old Roman Calendar has only 10 months starting with March
  So, March signified the New Year
• Some civilizations celebrate Vernal equinox or First Day of Spring
  e.g. Persian New Year
  So, the New Year will fall around 20th – 22nd March

Lunar New Year

• Falls around end of January or beginning of February
• Celebrated by Chinese and Vietnamese

Luni-solar New Year

• Falls in mid-April
• Celebrated by Burmese / Myanmar, Thai, Cambodia, Laos
• Burmese New Year follows Thingyan (which means change)
  Maha Thingyan means Great Change (from one year to the next).
  Cula Thingyan means Small Change (from one month/yathi to another month/yathi)
• 3 or 4 days of Thingyan (also known as Water Throwing Festival)

Miscellaneous

• New Year of the indigenous people
  e.g. Karen New Year

by Hla Min

Updated : September 2026

Solar Day

• A solar day consists of 24 hours
• 7 days in a week
• 28 – 31 days in a month
• 365 days in a Common Year
• 366 days in a Leap Year

Days in a month

• February has 28 days in a common year, and 29 days in a leap year.
• April, June, September and November have 30 days.
• January, March, July, August, October and December have 31 days.

• January : 31
• February : 28 (or 29)
  February is the shortest month in the year with 28 days in a Common Year and 29 days in a Leap Year.
• March : 31
• April : 30
• May : 31
• June : 30
• July : 31
• August : 31
• September : 30
• October : 31
• November : 30
• December : 31

Days in a year

• A common year has 365 days, while a Solar year has 365.2422 days.
• A year which is not a Century year is a Leap Year if it is divisible by 4. The discrepancy of .9688 days is rounded up to a day.
• A year which is a Century year is a Leap Year if it is divisible by 400. This ensures that there are 97 leap years in four centuries.

Grapevine

• February initially had 30 days, but one day each was transferred to July (honoring Julius Caesar) and August (honoring Augustus Caesar) to have 31 days in those months (worthy of Roman Emperors).
• February was left with 28 days.
• Ripley’s “Believe it or not” illustrated a grave stone which had February 30.

Special Days

We were aware of

• Father’s Day
• Mother’s Day
• Labor Day
• Christmas
• Easter
• Thanksgiving
• Independence Day
• Presidents’ Day
• Valentine’s Day

Differences

For a long time, we were not aware that some special events are celebrated on different days (depending on the country and religious order).

• Most Christian denominations celebrate according to the Gregorian Calendar.
• The Orthodox Church celebrate Christmas and Easter according to the old calendars (e.g. Julian).

• The Theravada Buddhists celebrate the Full Moon Day of Kason as the “Thrice Blessed Day”.
• The Mahayana celebrate the events (Birth, Enlightenment, Maha Parinibbana) on dates different from those of Theravada Buddhists.

Some Thoughts

We later learn about

• Kabyar (Poem) Nay
• Myat Saya (Teacher) Nay
• Secretary Day
• Friend Day
• Pi Day

Some wonder why there is no Grandfather’s Day, Grandmother’s Day or Grandparent’s Day.

Holidays

• Not all special days and events are holidays.
• Even among holidays, there are Public Holidays, State Holidays, and Bank Holidays.
• There may be good reasons (social, commercial) for having the designated days.

Thanksgiving

For us, every day is Thanksgiving (time to repay to our parents and mentors for their unbounded love and care).

Adeline Hpyu Hpyu Aung wrote :

Yes Saya. We should be thanking God, Parents and teachers everyday, without them we will not be who we are.

KMZ wrote :

• My left brain at times over-analyzed many of these days.
• Many of these holidays are the work of “Holiday Industrial Complex”.
• As Ma Adelyne Hpyu Hpyu Aung posted, some of these days like Mothers’ Day/Fathers’ Day should be 365 days a year, not necessarily just the designated day a year.
• Believe it nor not there also is a ‘National Splurge Day’ which is June 18th.
  US Congress eventually passed a law to stop creating those days.

by Hla Min

Updated : September 2026

Day, Month, Year

This is the format used in Myanmar.

For example, August 22, 2018 can be displayed in various flavors.

• DD-MM-YYYY (The day, month and year are displayed as numbers. e.g. 22-08-2018)
• A different delimiter/separator may be used. Using the forward slash as a delimiter, the format becomes DD/MM/YYYY (e.g. 22/08/2018)
• DD-MMM-YYYY (The month is represented by three letters. (e.g. 22-AUG-2019)

Y2K Problem

In the early days of computing, some people tried to save space, time and money by using only two digits for the Year.
As the Millennium approach, the news media ran stories of possible errors, ambiguities and accidents due to computers using two-digit year format.

To represent the dates of very old people and events may be tricky using the two-digit format.

It can be ambiguous for some dates.
22-08-18 could mean 22-08-2018, 22-08-1918 or even earlier dates.

Month, Day, Year

This is the format used in the USA

• MM-DD-YYYY (e.g. 08-22-2018)
• MM/DD/YYYY (e.g. 08/22/12018)
• MMM-DD-YYYY (e.g. AUG-22-2018)
• In the early days, only two digits were used for the Year. It was the cause of the infamous Y2K Problem.

Year, Month, Day

• YYYY-MM-DD (e.g. 2018-08-22)
• YYYY/MM/DD (e.g. 2018/08/22)
• YYYYMMDD (e.g. 20180822). One advantage of this representation is that the dates can be sorted easily.

Number of days from a specified base date

The representation uses the interval between the two dates.

Number of days in a year (instead of Month and Day)

In this system, 1st January is represented as 001.

1st February is represented as 032.

The interval between two dates in the same year is easily calculated.