by Hla Min

Updated : September 2026

Mya Kyun Nyo Nyo Tekkatho

Gallery

by Hla Min & Friends

Update : September 2026

Slow Down

• U Aung Min (M69) was worried that I might burn out. He asked me to slow down.
• Completed five decades as a Volunteer. Spent 27 years as an Organizer & Messenger for the RIT Alumni. Want to slow down, but have things to do.

Take Rest

• Some said, “You write more & faster than we can read. Take some rest”.
• Paying back to my benefactors, mentors & alma mater while I am physically & mentally OK.

Find Young Helpers

• Some suggested to find young volunteers to help.
• It is easier said than done. Not easy to find paid volunteers. Much difficult to get unpaid volunteers.

Memory

• Some friends & even young people had memory lapses.
• Saw people with various levels of memory problems. At first, one could not recall names & faces of friends. Then, he could not remember his children. Finally, he could not recognize his spouse. Some time later, he passed away.

• Compared to geniuses with phenomenal memory, I am at a lower rung. I am glad that I recall people & events more than the average person. I know thousands of names & people.

Story Tellers

• From Thin Sayas, Myin Sayas and Kyar Sayas, I learned interesting episodes that cannot be read from the history books. Sadly, many good story tellers are GBNF.

Dream

• If one can dream, others can help / fulfill.
• My first dream was to get sayas and alumni get reconnected physically & virtually. RIT Alumni Newsletter & SPZP-2000 were realized from that dream.

• My second dream was to compile Oral & Written Histories. As a member of the HMEE project, I was able to realize part of that dream.
• Dr. Thane Oke Kyaw Myint, Dr. V Nyunt Wai, Dr. Khin Maung U, U Khin Maung Zaw & others provided insights to my posts. I hope the “Tumbleweed effect” will help turn my raw thoughts and writings into memorable articles and may be even e-books and books. It will be a fuller realization of the second dream.

Worry

• Someone wrote in my autograph : “Worry is like sand in an oyster. A little produces a pearl. Too much kills the animal”.
• I do not worry about Longevity. I have seen some people live long lives, but a few were not physically or mentally active for some time. I prefer to have quality of life for our moment on this earth.

Last Journey

• I was emcee for the Last Journeys of Dr. Htay Lwin Nyo and Sayadaw U Silananda.
• There will be no service for my last journey.

• I gave Eulogies. I prefer to acknowledge the good deeds of people while they are still alive.

Sharing is Caring

• I am delighted to share my thoughts and experiences — with mentors, colleagues, friends, former students & those who value dissemination of knowledge.

by Hla Min

Updated : September 2026

Redundacy

• There are two kidneys.
• Some people can live with one kidney.

U Khin Maung Maung

• U Aung Zaw Maung (Pet78, ex-UCC) mentioned that his father lived for 40 years with one good kidney.

Daw Kyawt

• Daw Tint Tint Wai (Daw Kyawt) donated a kidney to her spouse U Aung Zaw. She is doing fine. After a decade, U Aung Zaw passed away. The kidney that she donated was still doing fine.

Dialysis

U Tin Hlaing

Saya U Tin Hlaing (M59, GBNF) was Head of the Agricultural Engineering (sub-department of Mechanical Engineering). Had kidney problem, but he did not have access to the two dialysis machines that were for VIP in Burma. Applied for passport and visa to have medical treatment abroad, but he did not receive them in time.

Cases

Based on the severity, the frequency and number of dialysis sessions.

Most patients have to visit a hospital or clinic.

A few had to perform dialysis at home.

Transplant

U Aung Zaw

Saya U Aung Zaw (ex-UCC) is indebted to his spouse Daw Kyawt, who donated her kidney. The love story can be read in Saya Zaw’s first book “Dhamma and Bawa ဓမ္မနဲ့ ဘဝ”. I wrote the Foreword.

He published a second book “Cetana Thi Thar Kan စေတနာ သည်သာ ကံ” which has a section written by me based on his ideas.

Henry Lim

U Aung Myint (Henry Lim) served as Chief Editor of the BAPS Newsletter and an Associate Editor of the commemorative issue of “RIT Alumni International Newsletter” for SPZP-2000. He founded the “Golden Padauk” and “Durian” magazines in the San Francisco Bay Area, but at his doctors’ advice, he stopped publishing the magazines to preserve his health. Luckily, he found a match for his kidney transplant. He had a renewed life full of oversea travels.

Aung Khin

U Aung Khin (SPHS 63, GBNF) is the second son of Dr. Ko Gyi (MS of EENT hospital). He had two kidney transplants and succumbed while he was trying to have a third transplant.

Related Posts

• Advice from Sayas & Friends
• Medical Reports by Dr. Khin Maung U
• Medical Advice by Dr. Kyaw Nyunt (Robert)

by Hla Min

Updated : September 2026

• Good Health
  Minimum effect of Jara (Aging) and Byadi
• Diet
  Balance diet
• Exercise
  Regular exercise
• Sleep
  Quality sleep
• Rest
  Vacation
• Meditation
  Contemplation
• Mobility
  No need for walking aid
  Not bed-ridden
• Vision
  No need for eye glasses
  Correction via simple treatment / surgery
  No reliance on special eye drops, magnifying glasses
• Hearing
  No need for hearing aids
  Correction via simple treatment /surgery
• Memory
  Good Long term memory
  Good Short term memory
  No Dementia or Alzheimer’s disease
• Critical Thinking
  Reasoning
  Decision Making
• Vitamins
  Reasonable dosage of Classic vitamins
  Vitamin F : Friendship, Fellowship, …
  Vitamin M : Mother, Myee, …
• Contentment
  Avoid being a Perfectionist
  Not setting unrealistic Goals
  Realist (rather than Optimist or Pessimist)
• Alobha
  Non-greed
  Sharing of resources / Philanthropy
• Adosa
  Non-hatred
  Loving Kindness / Unbounded Love
  Compassion / Sympathy / Empathy
  Altruistic Joy
• Amoha
  Non-delusion
  Data processing
  Information processing
  Knowledge processing
  Cultivate Wisdom

U Aung Myaing (ChE72) wrote :

မျက်စိ အရှုံး နားအဆုံး တဲ့။အဓိပ္ပာယ်ကို စူးစမ်းခဲ့တယ်။ အဓိက သံသရာလွတ်ကြောင်းတရားတော်တွေနဲ့ ဒီအဆိုအမိန့် ဆက်စပ်နေပါတယ်။ က်စိမကောင်းလို့ စာမဖတ်နိုင်တော့ရင် စိတ်ရှိတိုင်း မလေ့လာနိုင်တော့တာမို့ ဘဝမှာ “ရှုံး” ပြီလို့ သတ်မှတ်လိုက်တယ်။ ဒါပေမယ့် နားကောင်းသေးတော့ လုံးဝ ဆုံးတာမဟုတ်သေးဘူး။ တရားတော်တွေကို ကြားနာလို့ရသေးလို့။ ဒါပေမယ့် နားလည်းမကြားတော့ဘူးဆိုရင်တော့ တရားတော်တွေကို ဖတ်လို့လည်းမရ။ ကြားနာလို့ မရတော့ ဘဝဆုံးပြီပေါ့။ ကျနော့် ညာဘက်မျက်လုံးက ဆယ်နှစ်ကျော်ကြာ ဆေးထိုးဆေးကုတဲ့ကြားက AMD Age-related Macular Degeneration ဖြစ်သွားတယ်။မှုန်ဝါးဝါးဘဲမြင်ရတယ်။ စာဖတ်မရဘူး။ ဘယ်ဘက်ကို သုံးလတစ်ကြိမ် checkup လုပ်ပြီး ထိန်းသိမ်းနေရတယ်။ စာဖတ်တာ လျှော့လိုက်ရတယ်။ နားကတော့ အလွန်ကောင်း။ တရားတော်တွေကို ကောင်းကောင်းနာကြားနိုင်သေးတယ်။ မရှုံးတရှုံး မဆုံးသေးတဲ့ ဘဝ။

Notes by Hla Min :

Most have Cataracts removed from one or both eyes. A few had Full or Partial transplant of the Cornea. Some had Retina Tear repaired. Glaucoma and several other factors can cause impaired Vision.

Saya U Ba Toke played soccer and was active in the RU Sports Council. In his 70s and early 80s, Saya took weekly walks from his house to the Shwe Dagon pagoda. Aging gradually restricted Saya’s mobility, hearing and eye sight. Saya passed away on December 2, 2020 (the day following the RU Centennial), but a few days short of his Centennial Birthday.

When Saya U Moe Aung encountered problem with his knee during a trip to Upper Burma to attend Ah Hlu of a Khamee Khamet, he composed a poem on “Stationary & Movement” with philosophical musings about Life, Illness and Death. A surgery relieved Saya from the use of wheel chair, but as a high school goalkeeper he values Mobility, Agility & Strength.

Sayagadaw appreciated Saya U Moe Aung’s “Poem Gift” on her birthday.

Bagyee Myat Myo Myint gave “Pon Tu” of the then Marla Hall Thu as a birthday present for his beloved spouse.

Ko Aung Min (M69) used the term Vitamin F in an invitation to the 69er Annual Dinner and Entertainment.

Saya U Moe Aung wrote :

Actually, before suffering from knee pain, I had cataract removed from my left eye some 30 or so years back (couldn’t recall which year) and then from my right eye after a lapse of about 10 years. But, I was lucky, so to speak, that up till the present, haven’t yet encountered any problem whatsoever except the need to change the power lens for a better viewing focus.

U Aung Min (M69) wrote :

I had right eye cornea transplant 19 years ago, but unsuccessful . Again cataract removal on left eye. Part is particularly happy she called her brother It’s OK up to now.

by Hla Min

Updated : September 2026

Salim Dawoodjee

• Currently lives in Canada
• His brother (also Paulian) has passed away

Bertram Si Oo

• He attended De La Salle Twante and St. Paul’s High School.
• He was Physical Training Instructor and Assistant Soccer Coach.
• He later completed Dip Ed and became a Class / Subject teacher.
• Before his death, he gave his manuscripts and photos to his son Ronald.
• A few of his children have psssed away.
• His spouse Rosie Samuel is alive and well. She will be 97 years old.

by Hla Min

Updated : September 2026

Academic Year

• An academic year usually spans two years.
  e.g. 1968 – 1969 academic year
• To save space and time, I use the end year instead of the start year and end year
  e.ag. Class of 1969 (or simply Class of 69)

Early Days at Rangoon University

• The Faculty of Engineering accepted students who had completed I.Sc. (two years of Intermediate of Science) with the Pure Science option with reasonable marks.
• The engineering classes are named 1st year of Engineering to Final (4th year of Engineering).
• There were no Instructors.
  There were Assistant Lecturers, Lecturers and Professors. They are Gazetted Officers.

• Saya U Ba Hli, first native Dean of Engineering, proposed the Twinning Program between the Faculty of Engineering and prestigious universities in the USA.

• Some engineering students (e.g. Dr. Aung Gyi, U Min Wun, U Maung Maung Than, U Khin Aung Kyi, U Soe Paing) applied for States Scholarship before graduation. They joined the Faculty upon their return to Burma.
• Some engineering students (e.g. U Sein Hlaing, U Tin Swe, U Allen Htay, Dr. San Hla Aung, U San Tun) joined the faculty upon graduation. They were selected to do post-graduate studies in the USA.
• Saya Dr. Yan Naing Lwin (Professor Emeritus, WIU) e-mailed me a copy of the “Burmese state scholars in the USA ’54”. There were about 400 state scholars including Saya U Sein Hlaing and Saya U Tin Swe.

Sports

• The Halls (e.g. Prome) would aggressively seek outstanding athletes (footballers, tennis players, rowers, …).
• U Chan Tha is Past Captain and Gold of RUBC Gold. He was Captain of the Prome Hall Soccer Team which won the Inter-Hall Trophy for two consecutive years. Saya U Tin Swe was a member of that victorious team.

New Education System in 1964

• The Rangoon University was reorganized into RASU (Rangoon Arts and Science University) and several Institutes (Economics, Education, Engineering, Medicine …).
• Burma Institute of Technology (BIT) was renamed as Rangoon Institute of Technology (RIT).
  U Yone Mo, Dean of BIT, became the Rector of RIT.
• Matriculates were admitted to the 1st BE class using the controversial ILA (Intelligence Level Aggregate).
• Those who had passed I.Sc.(A) examination were admitted to the 2nd BE class based on the total marks.
• Those who had passed I.Sc.(B) examination were admitted to the 3rd BE class (equivalent to the old 1st Year Engineering class).
• The position for Instructors was created. It meant that most sayas have to wait to become Assistant Lecturers.

Memories

• Ko Benny Tan (M70) lent me a copy of the “RIT Handbook” for 1966 – 67. I published the list of permanent and part-time sayas and sayamas in one of “RIT Alumni International Newsletter” updates.
• Saya U Moe Aung (EE) has old copies of “Hlyat Sit Sar Saung” and RIT Annual magazines.
  He served as Chief Editor for both publications.
• Saya Charlie Kaw (Tex, GBNF) brought to USA projects of his final year students.

GBNF for UCC sayas and alumni

• Dr. Chit Swe (Founder & Director)
• Dr. Tin Maung (Director)
• U Ko Ko Lay (Co-founder)
• U Hla Min (EP70, Chief Operator)
• U Soe Myint (M72, Operations)
• U Maung Maung Gyi (Operations)
• U Maung Maung Lay (Operations)
• U Aung Myint (Systems)
• U Mya Thein (Business Applications)
• U Soe Thein (Business Applications)
• U Kyaw Nyein (Scientific Applications)
• U Win Naing (Scientific Applications)
• U Khin Maung Aye (M73)
• U Shein Soe Myint (EC83)
• U Aung Aung Thein (EE 8x)
• U Thein Tan
• U Hla Aye (Bhaimyar)
• U Myint Aung (Admin)
• Daw Win May Thaung
• Daw Kyu Kyu Lwin
• Daw Hla Hla Win
• Daw Khin Lay Myint (Admin)
• Daw Khin Mya Swe
• Daw Khin Toe Nyein
• Daw Thida Aung

by Hla Min

Updated : September 2026

Class Photo

Alumni

• Alan Khoo / Than Win (GBNF) : ADB
• Ernest Po Saw / Thein Oo Po Saw : Nuclear Physicist
• Koon Yin Chu / Phillip Chu : First in Burma; Architect; Entrepreneur
• M Hla Min : RUBC Gold; SPHS Saya
• Dr. Myo Paing / Michael Paing : Medical Researcher; Malaria Eradication Campaign; Golfer
• Oo Thwin / Michael Yeo (GBNF) : Rutgers Graduate
• San Maung / Gerald Sein (GBNF) : RUBC Gold & Coach; Production Manager အမျိုးသားရုပ်ရှင်
• Sao Hso Hom : English Honors; Law; မိုင်းပွန်Sawbwa
• Dr. Thein Htut : RUBC Gold
• Tin Htoon : Architect; RUBC Captain & Gold
• Tun Shein / Willie Saing : RUBC Gold

Koon Yin Chu

• Phillip Chu
• First in Burma
• First in Architecture 1960
• Entrepreneur
• Currently in USA

Oo Thwin

• Michael Yeo
• Graduate of Rutgers University
• Worked for Ceramics Corporation
• Passed away in Houston, Texas

Sao Hso Hom

• Son of Arzani Sao Sam Htun
• Mong Pawn Sawbwa Lay
• First Class English Honors
• Law Graduate
• Author, Translator
• UN Retiree
• Currently in Australia

Tin Htoon

• Architect, Thiri Pyit Saya Hotel in Bagan
• Architect, Burmese Buddhist Temple in Singapore
• Advisor, selected S N Goenka’s Projects
• RUBC Captain & Gold
• Winner of Venables Bowl for Coxless Pairs, 1958 ARAE Regatta in Calcutta with Harry Saing
• Winner of Willingdon Trophy for Coxed Fours, 1960 ARAE Regatta in Colombo with Harry Saing, Victor Htun Shein and Sein Htoon
• RUBC 40th Anniversary Magazine with Sithu U Tin and U Po Zon
• Chair, RUBC 90th Anniversary Magazine

Dr. Thein Htut

• RUBC Gold
• Parents : Col Min Sein, Dr. Daw Yin May
• Currently in Australia

Tun Shein

• Willie Saing
• RUBC Gold
• Sr. Novices Winner in 1954

by Hla Min

Updated : September 2026

Stamps

• For Postal Service
• For Legal Documents
• For commemorating Events

Sample Stamps

Notes

• After Independence, Burma transitioned from the use of Rupee to Kyat.
• Before inflation, small value notes — K1, K5 & K10 — were used in daily transactions (e.g shopping).
• After hyper-inflation, large value notes — K5000, K10000 — are needed in daily transactions.
• A hospital bill or even a restaurant bill may show several Lakhs .

Fees

• During our student days and even in our early working days, we had to sign and affix a fifteen-pya stamp to a receipt.
• Some legal documents need stamps of Two Kyats (or more).

School Feed

• School fees was 15 Kyats or less per month.
• At RIT, we had to pay 30 Kyats every two months. Since I received Collegiate Scholarship of 75 Kyats per month, I had 60 Kyats pocket money every month.
• That changed slightly, when we we asked to buy “Thuda Padetha Magazine” for 5 Kyats.Still, it was good enough.

Cost of Lunch

• We would collectively order food. Without voracious eaters, each person would pay about one kyat.
• Lime juice costs 15 – 20 pyas.
• Butheegyaw 5 – 10 pyas.
• Banana one for 15 pyas; two for 25 pyas.

A Decade Ago

• My elder sister took me on a pilgrimage trip to Upper Burma.
• There were different kinds of fees : bridge tolls, fees to enter a town.
• The price depends upon the type of car. In one instance, the fee was K400. We gave a K500 note and got back a “tha-gya-lone” (သကြားလုံး candy supposedly worth K100).

Decline of Purchasing Power

• I received 15 to 50 kyats for my writings — poem, article, translation
• How things have changed.
• Sad to note the declining worth of money and disappearance of Bogyoke Aung San’s picture (during the Adhamma Era) and signatures of Maung Kaung & San Lin to guarantee the notes.

Exchange rates

• When we were young, 1 US$ was exchanged at 5 – 6 kyats. We bought books (text books & magazines) at the rate of 6 Kyats.
• In the late 80s, one $ was exchanged at 50+ kyats.
• The exchange rate ballooned to several thousand kyats.