Category: Poem

Aung Myaing (ChE72)
by Hla Min

Updated : June 2025

Highlights
- Native of Okpo. Pen name : Maung Yin Maung (Okpo)
- Admitted to RIT in 1966
- Graduated with Chemical Engineering in 1972
- Joined the ChE Department
- Received two Masters : one from RIT, another from Melbourne University
- Spouse : Myeik Thu & Culinary Expert
- Son & daughter — both successful
- Taught at Rengsit University
- Senior manager at a Refinery in Thailand
U Aung Myaing 1
- After retirement, spending time with his daughter and grandchildren in California, USA.
Activities
- Writes with the pen name “Maung Yin Maung (Okkpo)”. Not sure if the name is inspired by the first Burmese novel.
- Author & Poet.
- Wrote about his sayas (High School & Uni)
- Co-author of the “Collection of Poems” by five RIT poets headed by Saya U Moe Aung (Tekkatho Moe War). One poem is about his beloved sweetheart and later his spouse Ma Gyn Yu (ChE72).
Book of poems

Poet
- Organizer, Poetic Art Series & Musical Video (O Bei Myat Saya)
- Organizer for book donation to the ChE Library & Training Component of YTU Library Modernization Project.
- Per U Aung Myaing’s request, Saya U Maung Maung (George, ChE66) organized a fund raiser of US 3000+ for supporting the Training Component of the YTU Modernization Project.
Library
- Recorded with the U-70 members at a professional studio. He has posted some of them on Facebook.
- He & Daw Gyn Yu have provided assistance to sayas and alumni visiting Bangkok especially for medical treatment.
With Bagyee
- Provided materials (paint, paper) to Pon Tu expert Bagyee Myat Myo Myint
- Facilitator, Myanmar Association of Chemical Engineers; Knowlege sharing; Financial aid for needy ChE
Posts
- Class of 1972
- Chemical Engineering
- Musical Video
- Poetic Art Series
- Poetry
June 22, 2025
Nyunt Htay (Met73)
by Hla Min

Updated : June 2025

Highlights

Nyunt Htay 1

High School Luyechun
- Luyechun (လူရည်ချွန်) for 9th & 10th standards. Present at the first Luyechun Camp was Thinchar Chun (သင်္ချာချွန်) Kyaw Myint (later T72 grad, MARB President)
Metallurgical Engineering

Nyunt Htay 2
- Graduated from RIT in 1973 with Metallurgical Engineering
- Taught Metallurgical Engineering
- Retired as Associate Professor
- Wrote articles about the Department, Sayas & Students
Passion
- Poetry, writing & editing
- Pen name : Maung Nyunt Htay (Ah Htet Min Hla) မောင်ညွန့်ဌေး (အထက်မင်းလှ)
Nyunt Htay 3
- Editor, RIT Annual Magazine
- Chief Editor, Myanmar Mudita Sar Saung
Myanmar Mudita
- Contributor, Poetic Art Series
- Co-author, Collection of Swel Daw Yeik Poems
Book of Poems

Family members
- Two daughters
- Several “Myee” cats.
Health
- Had a brush with Covid-19 and received support from the alumni and/or SDYF.
- Recovered fully
- Some sayas, sayamas and 9 Metallurgy alumni (including Maung Tun, 69er) succumbed to Covid.
Memories

Book Presents
- Gave me the Myanmar Mudita Sar Saung
- Gave me an autographed copy of “Swel Daw Kabyar Collection” by him and four RIT Poets : Saya U Moe Aung, Saya U Aung Myaing, U Win Myint (M72) and U Toee Maung.
2015 RIT Alumni in Los Angeles
- Attended the gathering with Metallurgy Saya U Win Kyaw (Met71),
- Other Metallurgy attendees include Saya U Thein Aung (Met72), Sayama Dr. Naing Naing Aung (Met91) & Ko Thiri Nyunt (musician).
Gathering at iNapa Winery

At iNapa Winery
- Metallurgy sayas and Ko Thiri Nyunt attended the Lunch, Dinner & Entertainment at iNapa winery hosted by Gordon Kaung (M83) and Lillian (EC83).
- The attendees paid respect to Sayagyi Dr. Aung Gyi. On behalf of Bagyee Myat Myo Myint, U Nyunt Htay presented a Pon Tu to Sayagyi.
Micro-gathering in 2019
- During my visit to Yangon in late 2019, U Nyunt Htay hosted a micro gathering at Shwe Bae.
- U Win Kyaw picked me and Saya U Ye Myint (ChE70) to attend the gathering.
Micro-gathering

Kabyar by Saya Moe

Saya Moe

” ကဗျာဆရာ… သို့ “

လွတ်လပ်ခြင်းဆိုသည့် မြေပေါ်…
မတော်တဆလား
ခြေချော်ခဏအလား
မွေးဖွားလာရခရီးစခဲ့….။

“ခုနစ်ဆယ့်သုံး…”
ဝရုန်းသုန်းကား
ခေတ်ဖဝါးအောက်
ကျရောက် ရှည်ကြာ
ဘယ်မှာ ဘယ်တော့
မော့မော့ ပေါ့ပါး
ဝန်အား မပိ
လွှင့်ဘိ ကြယ်တံခွန်
မိုးစွန်ထိပ်ဖျားတက်နိုင်ငြားအံ့…။

တပ်လှန့် ခရီးပြင်း
ဝေးနေရင်း က
နီးခြင်း မယိမ်းမယိုင်
ဟော..ဟိုမှာပန်းတိုင်ဟေ့…
ဆုပ်ကိုင်မိ တစ်ဘဝ
အလှ သစ္စာတရား
ဖွားသစ်ရနံ့ သင်းပျံ့လှိုင်…။ ။

(မောင်ညွန့်ဌေး-အထက်မင်းလှ .. မွေးနေ့သို့)
တက္ကသိုလ် မိုးဝါ
၄ -၁ -၂၀၂၂
June 21, 2025
Pearl In My Heart
by Hla Min & Tekkatho Moe War

Updated : June 2025

Saya Moe

Saya U Moe Aung & Hla Min
- In February 2015, Saya U Moe Aung (Tekkatho Moe War) gave me an autographed copy of his book.
Autographed copy

Cover

Musings by Tekkatho Moe War and Maung Sein Win (Padeegone)

Updates
- Saya is feeling the effects of Jara & Byadi.
- He still writes articles & kabyars daily.
- Saya authored or co-authored several books.
Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Posts
- Kabyar
- Poem
- Publications
- Tekkatho Moe War
June 20, 2025
Apostle of Non-violence
by Hla Min

Updated : June 2025

Gandhi

Gandhi
- Mohandas K Gandhi was fondly called Gandhiji.
- His non-violence movement was partly responsible for gaining India’s Independence.
Poem

Poem
- Written for the Centenary of the birth of “The Apostle of Non-violence”.
- Published in the Working People’s Daily on October 1, 1969.
- U Ko Lay (RUBC Gold) was the Chief Editor of WPD.
- Daw Khin Swe Hla was Editor.
Posts
- Celebrations
- Newspapers & Magazines
- Poetry
- Rhyme
June 18, 2025
Poem for SPZP-2000
by Hla Min

Updated : June 2025

SPZP
- Combine the first letter of each line to spell “SAYA PU ZAW PWE”
- The term SAYA PU ZAW PWE was chosen over SAYA GADAW PWE which has religious connotation, so that non-Buddhists can pay respect to their mentors.
- There have been seven worldwide SPZPs : USA in 2000, Yangon in 2004, 2012 & 2016, Singapore in 2002, 2007 & 2010. I was organizer for SPZP-2000 and facilitator for the rest.
GBNF
- Gone But Not Forgotten
- GBNF for 69ers is maintained by U Aung Min (M69) & team
- GBNF for 1st BE Intake of 64 (Class of 70) is maintained by U Ohn Khine (M70) & team
Newsletter

Poem for SPZP-2000

S eems like it was only yesterday
A t our alma mater in a land far away
Y ou taught us to work, play, laugh, even cry
A nd coaxed us, forced us to aim for the sky

P roblems in real life, lab, computation, survey
U nderstand concepts, design, display, …
Z eal, zest, ardor, grit, passion to make it “our day”
A rchitects, engineers, we’ve come here to say
W e honor your metta, your cetana — we fully can’t repay

P resently we meet, alum from five decades we greet
W ith memories true, fond, sweet
E cstatic yet sad that the GBNF could not join this memorable fete

Posts
- Hla Min’s Writings
- Poetry
- SPZP-2000 : Cover of RIT Alumni Newsletter
- SPZP-2000 : Back cover of Swel Daw Yeik Sar Saung
June 18, 2025
Tin Moe (1933 – 2007)
by Hla Min

Updated : June 2025

Highlights

Tin Moe
- Name : Ba Gyan
- Pen name : Tin Moe
- Laureate Poet
- National Literary Award Wonner
- Speaker, SF Bay Area Literary Talks
- Scored a perfect 25 marks for Essay & distinction in Burmese for the Matric exam
- Alumnus, Mandalay University
- National Literary Award Winner
- Member, Curriculum for Burmese
- Born in 1933
- Passed away in Southern California in 2007
In Memory of Tin Moe

One month

One month anniversary

Six months
- A book was published in his memory six months after his demise.
Six month anniversary
- Displayed at the SF Bay Area Literary Talks on July 22, 2007.
- Several Authors and/or Literary Lovers signed the book for me.
- Cho Cho Thinn (Tin Moe’s daughter)
- Htain Lin
- Dr. Kyaw Tint
- Maung Yit (Maung Maung Win)
- Myo Sint
- Ohn Myint
- Tin Maung Than
- Win Pe
Posts
- Literary Talks
- Poet Art Series
- Poetry
- Rhyme
- Translation of Poems
June 17, 2025
Hla Min — Writings (1)
by Hla Min

Updated : June 2025
- Freelance Writer, Editor & Translator
- Sample writings in this post
Still So Young

Translation

Still So Young

Hla Min
- “Nge Thay Loh ငယ်သေးလို့”
- Short story by Thu Kha (Author, Director, Actor)
- Translator : Hlaing Phyo (pen name of Hla Min)
- I received fifty kyats for the translation. U Thu Kha was given fifty kyats.
- Modern Burmese Writings, Working People’s Daily
- Editor : Daw Khin Swe Hla (founder of “Dawlay’s Circle” at Guardian”)
Men on the Moon

Poem

Men on the Moon
- Honoring the Apollo 11 Mission in July 1969
- Neil Armstrong (Mission Commander)
- Michael Collins (Command Module Pilot) ; Columbia : code name for Command Module
- Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin (Lunar Module Pilot) ; Eagle : code name for Lunar Module
- Mission : Land Eagle on Tranquility Bay; Set US Flag on the Moon’s surface; Collect rock samples
- Guardian Daily
- Chief Editor : U Soe Myint
- Mr. Hall (USIA) forwarded my poem to NASA.
Phaungdaw-u Festival

Poem

Phaungdaw-u

Poem about Phaungdaw-u Festival
- Thadinkyut Festival at Inlay Lake, Shan State
- Inlay is known for the floating islands and leg rowers
- Thadinkyut Supplement, Working People’s Daily
- Chief Editor : U Ko Lay
- Remuneration : K 15
- Visited Inlay four times
- Inlay Khaung Daing Luyechun Camp in the Summer of 1965
- Peter Pe (SPHS63) invited us to visit Inlay & Taunggyi in October 1965; Saw Phaungdaw-u Festival
- In mid 2010, took a Packaged Tour to Heho, Inlay & Taunggyi.
- In January 2020, visited Inlay as the last leg of the PSA tour.
The Ngapali Beach

Poem

Ngapali
- Famous Beach near Thadwe
- WPD
- Visited Ngapali three times
- With cousin & friends in the ‘60s
- With family in the ‘80s
- Guest Lecturer, Ngapali Luyechun Camp in ‘88
Till We Meet Again

Poem

SEAP
- Dec ‘69
- Fifth SEAP Games hosted by Burma
- WPD
The United Nations

Poem

UN
- United Nations Day
- October ‘69
- WPD
- U Thant : 3rd UNSG; 1st Asian UNSG
The Great Gandhiji

Poem

Gandhi
- Centennial of the Apostle of Non-violence
- Born Mohandas Gandhi, he was also called “Mahatma”
- October 1, 1969
- Working People’s Daily
- Chief Editor : U Ko Lay
To The Fallen Warrior

Poem

To the Fallen Warrior
- Honoring the Sayadaws စာဆိုတော်များ writers who fought for Burma’s Independence
- Forward Magazine
- Chief Editor : Maung Thaw Ka (Bohmu Ba Thaw)
- Editor : U Sein Hla
Calendars

Article

Article on Calendars
- There are various Calendars.
- The Burmese Calendar is luni-solar, socio-religious calendar.
- BAPS Newsletter
- Chief Editor : Henry Lim
- Contributing Editor : Hla Min
- Revised versions published in my FB groups and my website hlamin.com
Sea Burial for Dr. Htay Lwin Nyo

Article

Last Journey of Htay Lwin Nyo
- Part-time Professor of Electrical Engineering, San Jose State University passed away alone at his home.
- Per request from the Professor & Head of EE Department, SJSU, the Burmese Community in the San Francisco Bay Area helped with the Final Journey.
- I had the honor to push the incinerator and also to join Dr. Swe Aye and Dr. Khin Nyo Thet to scatter the ashes in the waters off Santa Cruz
- BAPS Newsletter : Chief Editor — Henry Lim
- RIT Alumni International Newsletter : Chief Editor — Hla Min
- Memorial Page for Htay Lwin Nyo in the first ex-rit website : Webmaster — KMZ; Content Provider & Editor — Hla Min
- Revised versions published in my FB groups and my website hlamin.com
Publications
- Contributor, Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore & Folklife
Encyclopedia
- Editor of selected Books, Newsletters & Projects
Dhamma & Bawa

Cetana Thi Thar Kan
- Poems
- Poetic Art Series
- Translation of Articles, Poems & Short Stories
Shwe YaDu Lann

Posts
- Lifelong Learner
- Memories —Series
- My Beliefs
- My Passion
June 17, 2025
The (hidden) power of Kabyar
by Tekkatho Moe War & Hla Min

Updated : June 2025

Saya U Moe Aung (Tekkatho Moe War)

U Moe Aung (Left)
- Distinguished poet, writer, editor and publisher
- Wrote for newspapers, magazines and journals
- Compiled and published collections of his works
- His mentor was Daung Nwe Swe (Laureate Poet)
- Served as an all-round volunteer for the publication of the Annual Magazine of RUESU (Rangoon University Engineering Students Union).
Chief Editor and/or Publisher
- RIT Annual Magazines
- Hlyat Sit Sar Saung (for RIT EE Association)
- Commemorative issues of Swel Daw Yeik Sar Saung for SPZP-2002, SPZP-2007, and SPZP-2010
- Commemorative issues of Swel Daw Yeik Magazine for Swe YaDu and SPZP-2016
The (hidden) power of Kabyar

Kabyar is animate

But [it’s life is] not just a [fleeting] morn

Kabyar is a weapon

But not for destroying the world

Kabyar is key

For liberation and independence

But not devoid of principles [and morals]

Kabyar has power

Hidden but efficient & effective

Like sharp-pointed spear-head

Can thrust into [the heart of] a power-maniac

Cause trembling, shivering, throbbing & anguished pain

Poem in Burmese by Tekkatho Moe War (Saya U Moe Aung)

Translated by Hla Min

Related Posts
- Poems
- Poetic Art Series
- Publications
- Tekkatho Moe War’s Writings
- Translation
June 4, 2025
Swe Daw Yeik (Poem)

by Hla Min

Updated : June 2025

SPZP-2007

My Poem from the commemorative Sar Saung for SPZP-2007

S ingapore-2007. We’ll gladly come.
W e’ll puzaw sayas, meet friends, have fun
E njoy Swe Daw Yeik Sar Saung, that’s second to none.

D azzling displays, beauty, elegance, grace
A h Nyeint, duests, jokes, dances, …, spectacular plays
W ill bring back fond memories of the [RIT] Swe Daw Yeik days

Y oung alums bear torches of mentors wise and old
E nergetic, international family members — more precious than gold
I nnovators, entrepreneurs, …, philanthropists, we are told
K nowing how to strike rich and share wealth as opportunities unfold.

Note

In my later posts, I use Swel Daw instead of Swe Daw.

June 4, 2025
Poetic Art Series
Organizer
- Saya U Aung Myaing (ChE72)
Aung Myaing

Illustrator
- Bagyee Myat Myo Myint / U Myo Myint (M73)
Bagyee Myat Myo Myint

Poets
- Tekkatho Moe War (Saya U Moe Aung, EE63)
Tekkatho Moe War
- Okpo Maung Yin Maung (Saya U Aung Myaing, ChE73)
Poem by Okpo Maung Yin Maung
- Kabyaung (Win Myint, M72)
- Maung Nyunt Htay — Ah Htet Min Hla (Saya U Nyunt Htay, Met73)
- Maung Sein Win (Padeegone)
Poem by Maung Sein Win (Padeegone)
- Nyi Min Nyo
Poem by Nyi Lin Nyo

Translator
- Hla Min (EC69)
Aged Thorn (Translation)

Vine (Translation)

Want to forget … but (Translation)
June 3, 2025