Category: Event

1960

Matriculation

• The Brothers at SPHS (St. Paul’s High School) were disappointed when the Paulians could not take the top positions in the Matriculation examination in 1960.
• Dr. Thane Oke Kyaw Myint lost by a mark each to Austin Kyan (Myint Htoo), “Sanjay” Nyan Win, Arthur Hla Maung, a Chinese girl and Marie Nyunt. He only claimed the sixth spot.
• Many Paulians won the Collegiate Scholarship award.
  They include U Thaung Lwin, U Myo Myint, U Than Htut, and Dr. Myint Tun.

[Per TOKM] : There was a Chinese girl in the 4th position. Could not recall her name. Unfortunately she could not attend university due to the citizen status of her parents and she left Burma.

Guinea Pigs

• We took the last Government examination for Seventh Standard.
• We would become Guinea Pigs for the changes in the Education System.
  We had to take the first HSF Only examination in 1962 in Burmese.
  We had to take the first Matriculation Only examination in 1963 in English.
  We had to take the last I.Sc.(A) examination.
  We had to attend the first ever 2nd BE at RIT.
  Our group is unique to have studied five years at RIT. Those senior to us studied four years after completing their I.Sc.(B). Those junior to use studied six years starting from 1st B.E.

Olympics

• Abibi Bikili (Ethopia) won the 26-mile 2-furlong Marathon barefooted at the Rome Olympics in 1960.
  He would win the Marathon at the next Olympics, but would be wearing shoes.
  He met a tragic accident, but continued to participate at the Paraplegic Games.
• Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. won the Light Heavyweight title at Rome Olympics. He turned professional and became World Heavyweight Champion for three times. He changed his name to “Mohammad Ali”. He is associated with the phrases : “I am the Greatest”, “Float like a butterfly, Sting like a bee”.
• We did not have access to see Olympics live.
  We had to wait some time to to see the “Rome Olympics” documentary at the President (Thamada) Cinema. Brother Austin (SPHS) gave us a few tickets for doing well in the tests.

ARAE

RUBC team won the Willingdon Trophy for Coxed Fours at the ARAE (Amateur Rowing Association of the East) Regatta held in Colombo in 1960.
Harry Saing (Bow, GBNF)
Victor Htun Shein (2, GBNF)
Sunny Teng (3)
Tin Htoon (A60, Stroke)
Sein Htoon (M63, Cox)

RUBC

Senior Novice Winners
Kyin Tun (Bow)
Nyan Win (Sanjay, 2)
Micky Tan (3, GBNF)
P Chabbra (Stroke)
Frankie Ohn (Cox)

• Saya U Thein Aung (Micky, SPHS59) became RUBC Gold. He also served as Administrator.
• U Kyin Tun rowed for RIT.

1961

Matriculation

• Robin Ban (Dr. Kyaw Win, SPHS61) placed Second in the Matriculation examination in 1961.
  His classmates include Saya U Htun Aung Kyaw (ChE67), Dr. Thein Tun (EP67)and U Sein Shwe (M67,Fourth BE Luyechun).
• Lina Ong (GBNF) stood First.
• It would be the last examination for the combined HSF and Matriculation examination.
• In the following years, the students have to sit
  (a) HSF [High School Final] Only
  (b) Matriculation Only.

SEAP Games

Burma hosted the Second SEAP games.

Burma dominated in several events :

• Track and Field
• Swimming and Diving
• Boxing
• Yachting

1962

Politics

• Coup D’etat took place on March 2, 1962.
• Sao Shwe Thaike’s son (Mie Mie Thaike) was a casualty, but the official reports stated that “It was a bloodless takeover”.
• A 17-man Revolutionary Council was formed.
  According to Kyemon U Thaung, seven members did not know of the decision.
  Brigadier General T. Clift (Air Force) resigned.
  Commodore Than Pe (Navy, President of RUBC) passed away.

Guinea Pigs

• We had to take the first ever HSF (High School Final) Only examination with armored cars and security forces patrolling the street.
• The examination was annulled for the Rangoon Division (claiming that the questions had been leaked).
• We had to retake the HSF Only examination.
• We were the guinea pigs of the “ever changing” Education System.
• We would be the elite group to take Government examinations four times (without ever failing) : 7th, 9th (twice), 10th

Two State Funerals

• One was for Commodore Than Pe (Navy), Revolutionary Council Member & Ta Wun Khan (Minister) of Health and Education.
  He succeeded Sir Arthur Eggar as President of RUBC (Rangoon University Boat Club).
• Another was for U Tin Maung Thant (“Ah Phyo Gyi”, alumni of Private Primary Boundary Road School), son of U Thant (Secretary General of the United Nations).

Two Dark Moments

• Official records said that there were 17 victims on 7th July, 1962.
• Ko Aung Khin, who was returning home from RUBC, was hit by a stray bullet.

• The Students Union was demolished on 8th July, 1962.

Ye Lay

In September 2017, Peter and Win Mar hosted us at their house in Reading. We say first hand several expertise of their younger son Ye Lay.

Peter asked Ye Lay to play music for his guests. He was the leader, guitarist, composer and vocalist of a band.

During his visit to Myanmar, he would entertain his grandma with her favorite songs (e.g. Danny Boy). He would present his grandpa with his favorite “medicine” (Scotch Whiskey). Min Sway-Tin (Peter’s cousin) would arrange Ye Lay to give lectures (e.g. Python and applications) at the Physics Department and selected places. Ye Lay would also do programming / testing in the evenings and night for a project that he was working back in the UK.

During our visit to Reading, Ye Lay had taken a break to consider his options :

• study for a second Masters (specializing in AI)
• study for a doctorate
• work as software developer and SME (Subject Matter Expert) in the UK or abroad

Peter asked Ye Lay to be my guide to visit Oxford University and to discuss with him at home and during the trip.

I called Ye Lay the other day to inquire about Win Mar’s health. He said that his mom is doing well. Ye Lay and Min Ko are staying with Win Mar. Since Min Ko had rented a flat / apartment for a couple of months, Pru visits daily from the flat.

Ye Lay remembered my chats with him. He said he had read my posts of his father’s final days (e.g. Ye Lay singing “Loch Lomond” and the trip to St. Andrew in Scotland for his second Masters degree). I requested him to archive Peter’s posts about cooking (e.g. recipes of his mother, grand uncles and grand aunts), his ancestors and photos.

Ye Lay is adding “Cloud” expertise to his repertoire. I wish him success in his endeavors.

မှတ်တမ်း (တချိ့)

ဖြူနီညိုပြာ ထီးယိမ်

ဖြူနီညိုပြာ ထီးယိမ်း

RITထီးယိမ်း ဇတ်စင် ၃။

စွယ်တော်ရိပ် အနုပညာရှင် (တချို့)

• ဇာတ်ဆရာ
• မင်းသမီး
• လူရွှင်တော်
• ဆ်ု က ရေး တီး

မုခ် ဦး Design အဖွဲ့

** Due to the pandemic, there were no Dinner or Picnic for several years

* This is an opportunity to Meet, Greet and Fete

Thanks to

Stan Liou (Past Chair, BOD)

Maurice Chee (Co-chair of SPZP-2000, Past VP)

U Tin Maung Win (President)

U Nyunt Than (BOD, SF Bay Area Organizer)

U Moe Zaw (Secretary)

Several young EC members

Past Presidents

Saya George Chan (U Maung Maung)

Gordon Kaung (U Kaung Kaung Oo)

U Aung Myint Oo

BOD Chair

Saya U Myat Htoo

* U Tin Myint (David Ko, M67, GBNF) sponsored a table at a past Reunion Dinner to invite sayas and alumni from Southern California

* iNapa Winery (Gordon and Lillian Kaung) provided Premium Wine at NorCal RITAA Gatherings

ဆေးတက္ကသိုလ် ကျောင်းသူကျောင်းသားများ

Credit: Dr သိမ်းအုပ်ကျော်မြင့်

2016 စာဆိုတော်နေ့ — သက်ကြီးပညာရှင်များ

On Sar So Daw Nay (Writers’ Day) in 2016, senior writers who are 80 or older were honored.

** အသက် 80 နဲ့ အထက်

Credit : မွန်ယု / Harry တင်ထွဋ် (M69)

U Tin Htut (Harry, M69) wrote articles for various magazines. He is a member of the Writers’ Association.

ဆရာ ဦးစိန် (စိန့်ပေါလ်) အတွက် အလှူ

Soon Offered in memory of Saya U Sein (Burmese, St. Paul’s High School) by Dr. Soe Win (Retired Rector, YUFL), Daw May Saw Lwin (Retired Chemistry Professor), sons and grandchildren.