Category: RIT Saya

by U Myo Kyi & Hla Min

Updated : Apr 2026

Source : Saya U Myo Kyi (EE59)

• U Kyaw Tun 1950 – 1971
  (started teaching at BOC College)
• U C Ping Lee 1950 – 1952

• U Sein Hlaing 1954 – 1986
• U Tin Swe 1954 – 1998
• Dr. Freddie Ba Hli (Part time) 1959

• U Htin Paw 1958 – 1959
• U Ba Nyunt 1958 – 1959
• Dr. A. E. Guile (Colombo Plan) 1959 – 1960
• U Myo Kyi 1959 – 2002
• Dr. Ba Lwin 1959 – 1994
• U L. Tin Htun 1959 – 1960
• Teoh Chin Koon 1959 – 1960
• U Sein Win 1960 – 1994
• Dr. San Tint 1961 – 2002
• Mr. Zagarosky (Russian) 1962 – 1963
• Dr. Ba Myint 1963 – 2000
• U Sein Maung 1963 – 1994
• U Khine Oo 1963 – 1996
• Dr. Win Tin 1963 – 1990
• U Moe Aung 1963 – 1990
• U Chin Way 1963 – 1968
• U Soe Min 1963 – 1965
• U Nyi Nyi 1963 – 1965
• U Thein Lwin 1964 – 1972
• U Soe Paing 1964 – 1971
• U Tin Maung Thein 1965 – 1990
• U Tin Shwe (Ashin Wi thu ta) 1966 – 1996
• Daw Mya Mya Than 1968 – 2003
• U Than Lwin 1970 – 1994
• U Kyaw Lwin 1970 – 1991
• U Kyaw Naing (Sin Gwan, GBNF)
• U Tin Win 1972 – 1980
• U Ko Ko Kyi
  later worked in Malaysia and Canada
• U Thein Dan 1973 – 1997
• U Khin Soe 1973 – 1982
• Daw Khin Aye Win 1973 – 2009
• Daw Nyunt Nyunt Yee 1973 – 2000
• U Kyaw Aung (U Kyin Phyuu) 1973 –
• U Aung Than (U Ah Chun) 1973 – 2004
• Daw Khin Swe Oo 1974 – 2002
• U Clement Sadhana 1976 – 2010
• Daw Than Than Win 1976 – 2012
• Daw Khin Tint 1981 – 2008
• U Myint Oo 1982 – 1990
• Daw Khin Ma Ma Soe 1982 – 2008

Ovada

More EE Sayas (Electronics and Power)

• U Win Khaing Moe
• U Maung Maung Latt
• Daw Lei Lei Yee
• Daw Khin Sandar Tun
• Daw Khin Lay Wai
• Daw Zin Mar Oo
• Daw Khaing Khaing Kyaw
• Daw Thazin Phyu
• Daw Myint Myint Lwin
• Daw Lei Lei Win
• Daw Thidar Than (1)
• Daw Mya Mya Aye
• Daw Myint Myint Than
• Daw Tin Tin Naing
• Daw Sint Sint Win
• Daw Thandar Naing
• Daw Khin Swe Lwin
• Daw Myint Myint Mon
• Daw Nilar Aung
• U Zaw Min Naing
• Daw Moe Nilar
• Daw Khin Moe Yee
• Daw Kaythi Khaing
• Daw Ah Tar Mon
• ီDaw Ni Ni Thein Htay Pe
• Daw Thidar Than (2)
• U Thein Htay
• U Tun Oo
• Daw Aye Aye Mar
• Daw Ni Ni Win
• Daw San Myint Yee
• U Aung Naing
• Daw Naing Naing Maw
• U Ananda
• Daw Lei Lei Sein
• Daw Min Min Myat
• Daw Thi Thi Soe
• Daw Mar Mar Lwin
• Daw Su Myat Htut
• Daw Win Lein Aye
• Daw Han Thu Lwin
• Daw Yin Yin Htwe
• Daw Naing Naing Win
• Daw Khin Kyu Kyu Win
• Daw Cho Cho Aung
• Daw Tin Tin Aye
• Daw Ni Mar Nwe Aung
• Daw Ei Ei Khin
• Daw Kyaaw Khin
• U Zaw Min Aung
• Daw Aye Thinn Naing
• Daw Nwe Ni Aye
• U Soe Naing
• Daw Phyu Phyu Moe
• Daw Marlar Kyaw
• Daw Aye Aye Thinn

by Hla Min

Updated : Apr 2026

Highlights

• Born in Mogok
• Attended I.Sc at Mandalay University

• Graduated with Mechanical Engineering in 1960
• Worked for Joint Venture Corporation (JVC) formed by relatives
• Found an advertisement in a newspaper to apply for a Government Scholarship.
• Selected to study Agricultural Engineering in USA
• Received Masters from Virginia Tech
• Came back to Burma on an Ocean Liner with Saya Allen Htay (GBNF), Saya U Soe Paing, Saya U Ko Ko Lay (GBNF) & U Than Pe. They became close friends on the two-month long journey.

M/Agri Saya at RIT

• Upon his return, he was assigned to Agricultural Institute in Yezin. Before reporting for duty, he visited RIT.
• Sayagyi U Ba Than asked if he would like to join Agri Sub-Department of Mechanical Engineering. Sayagyi said that some students were not at ease following lectures given by visiting Soviet lecturers via interpreters.
• President, RIT Thaing
• Played Defender on RIT Saya Soccer team

Life after RIT

• Worked in Thailand & USA

USA

• Attended RIT Alumni Gatherings

• Donated $500 for the Training Component of YTU Library Modernization project.

• He is a day older than Saya Allen. Their birthdays are December 30 & 31.
• Monthly Breakfast Gathering with Saya Allen, U Ko Ko Aye, Ko Thein Naing (Patrick) and me. Saya Allen & U Ko Ko Aye are now GBNF.

• Saya U Soe Paing visited him in Milpitas, California. We had a lunch gathering at a restaurant.

• He enjoyed Hiking & Tennis, but had to suspend due to Jara and Byadi
• Volunteer for establishing Taungpulu Kaba Aye Monastery in Northern California.

Updates

• He had operations (one quite early and another a few years back).
• He listens to selected Dhamma talks.

Posts

• Books
• Dhamma
• Gatherings
• Mechanical Engineering

by Hla Min

Updated : Apr 2026

Uni Days

• Attended I.Sc at Mandalay University
• Graduated with Civil Engineering in 1968
• Joined Faculty
• Moved to the USA

• Spouse : Daw Hnin Maung Maung / Ma Ku
  

Activities

• Founding member of RIT Alumni International

• Master of Ceremonies for SPZP-2000
• Wrote about the SPZP-2000 experience in the Post Reunion series.

• Founding member of NorCal RITAA.
• Chair of BOD (Board of Directors).
• One of the hosts for NorCal RITAA meetings. He would invite the attendees to take a boat ride on the nearby man-made lake. Would also arrange a karaoke session.

• Past President of Burmese American Democratic Alliance (BADA)
• President of Theravada Buddhist Society of America (TBSA) for a decade. Led the procession for the scattering of ashes of Sayadaw U Silananda into the San Francisco Bay near the Golden Gate Bridge.

Lost Neikan RIT

• Wrote a parody on “Pyauk Sone Nay Thaw Neikban Bon” (the song by Sai Kham Leik and Sai Htee Saing).

• Played the Ukelele and sang the song described above at the 2015 Alumni Reunion in Los Angeles.

Donation

• Donated Life Vests to 20 teachers in the town of Paletwa in Chin Special Division, Myanmar.
• The teachers risked their lives daily crossing Kaladan river to teach children on the other side of the town.
• One teacher was killed in a boat mishap in surging waters during heavy rains. A life jacket would have saved her life.

Golden Jubilee

On May 20, 2018, the BOD (Board of Directors) and EC (Executive Committee) members of NorCal RITAA threw a surprise party to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of U Myat Htoo (C68, Chair of BOD) and Daw Hnin Maung Maung (Ma Ku, “Nyima Lay”).

According to Saya, he was the youngest in his family and wanted a younger sibling (preferably a sister).

He found an innocent 9 year old neighbor (and family friend).

Ten years later, they tied the knot.

Memories

by Hla Min

Updated : Apr 2026

Highlights

• BS from UCB (University of California Berkeley)
• MS from Minnesota School of Mining
• Upon his return from USA, he was assigned to the Department of Mining Engineering at BOC College to teach part-time and to act as Head of the Department.
• He was succeeded by Saya U Soon Sein as full-time saya and Head.
• U Soe Khaw worked at the Ministry of Mines.
• After retirement, he worked for UN assignments overseas.
• He then migrated to the USA.
• He was a Patron of selected monasteries in the San Francisco Bay Area.
• He was healthy even in his early 90s.

Last Journey

Saya U Tin Maung Nyunt (M60) wrote :

U Soe Khaw, (RIT Part-time Lecturer – Mining), passed away peacefully on February 14, 2018 at 4:45 pm per Michael Khaw, his son.

Ph 408-737-0238.
1082 Noriega Ave, Sunnyvale, Ca 94086

Memorial Service

Date : February 24, 2018 (Sunday)
Time : 10:30 AM
Place : Tathagata Meditation Center (TMC)
1215 Lucretia Avenue
San Jose, CA 95122
Contact : 1 (408) 977 0300 or 1(408) 294 4536

Soon offering : 11:15 AM
Lunch for guests : 11:30 AM
Dhamma talk : 12:30 PM

by Hla Min

Updated : Apr 2026

Pansy Thin wrote :

ကျမတို့ရဲ့ဖခင် သင်္ချာပါမောက္ခ ဦးဘတုတ် ဒီနေ့ ၂-၁၂-၂၀၂၀ ညနေ ၅:၄၃နာရီက လူကြီးရောဂါဖြင့်ကွယ်လွန်သွားပါတယ်။ ဖေဖေရှိစဥ်က ဖေဖေကို ဂရုတစိုက် နဲ့ ဂါရဝပြု စောင့်ရှောက်သူများအားလုံးကို ကျေးဇူးတင်ပါတယ်။

Memories of Sayagyi

Betty Myo (Sayagyi’s eldest child) wrote :

ရန်ကုန်တက္ကသိုလ်ကြီးကိုချစ်သောကျမတို့ဖေဖေသည်တက္ကသိုလ်ရာပြည့်ပွဲကြီးကိုကြိုဆိုပြီးနောက်နေ့မှာဘဲကွယ်လွန်သွားခဲ့ပြီဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ဝမ်းနည်းစရာကောင်းတာကသူချစ်တဲ့သခ်ျာမိသားစုရဲ့မျှော်လင့်ချက်ဆန္ဒကိုတော့ဖြည့်ဆည်းပေးမသွားနိုင်ခဲ့ရှာပါဘူး။ ဖေဖေ့ကိုအလေးထားပြီးဖေဖေ့မွေးနေ့မှာကျင်းပမဲ့ဆရာကန်တော့ပွဲကိုမပါဝင်နိုင်တော့ပါဘူး။

ဒီပွဲကိုစိတ်အားထက်သန်စွာစီစဥ်ဆောင်ရွက်နေတဲ့သခ်ျာဌာနဆရာ၊ဆရာမများ၊မျိုးဆက်ဟောင်း၊မျိုဆက်သစ်သခ်ျာကျောင်းသားများရဲ့မေတ္တာစေတနာကိုဖေဖေ့ကိုယ်စားလှိုက်လှဲစွာ‌ေကျးဇူးတင်ရှိပါကြောင်းပြောကြားလိုပါတယ်။

သခ်ျာမိသားစုအပြင်အခြားဘာသာရပ်အသီသီး၊နယ်ပယ်အသီးသီးမှမေတ္တာတရား၊ဂါရဝတရားတို့ဖြင့်‌‌ေဖ‌ေဖ့ ပိုစ် တက်လာတိုင်းဆုတောင်းမေတ္တာများပို့ပေးကြသူအားလုံးကိုလည်းအထူးကျေးဇူးတင်ရှိပါတယ်။ဖေဖေ့ကိုလာကန်တော့ချင်ပေမဲ့အခွင့်အရေးမရသွားတဲ့တက္ကသိုလ်ဘောလုံးအသင်း၊ အင်ဂျင်နီယာအသင်းစသည်တို့ကိုလဲဝမ်းနည်းစွာကျေးဇူးတင်ကြောင်းပြောချင်ပါတယ်။

ဖေဖေ့ကိုအလေးထား၊ဂရုစိုက်ခဲ့တဲ့ဆွေမျိုး၊မိတ်သဂ်ဟအားလုံးကိုလဲ‌ေကျးဇူးတင်ရှိပါတယ်ရှင်။

အားလုံးကျန်းမာ၊ချမ်းသာဘေးရောဂါကင်းကြပါစေ။

by Hla Min

Updated : Apr 2026

Brief Bio

• Matriculated from St. John’s Diocesan Boys High School.
• Attended Rangoon University.
• EC member of the Rangoon University Writers Club in 1959 – 60.
• Editor of the RUESU (Rangoon University Engineering Students Union) Annual Magazine.

• Graduated with Electrical Engineering in 1963
• Joined the Faculty at RIT (Rangoon Institute of Technology).
• Chief Editor of RIT Annual Magazine
• Chief Editor of the Hlyat Sit Sar Saung published by the RIT Electrical Engineering Association

• Wrote poems and articles for various magazines & journals
• Authored or co-authored five books
• Worked in Singapore and chaired two Saya Pu Zaw Pwes — SPZP-2002 and SPZP-2010 — in Singapore.
• He and his team published Commemorative Issues of Swel Daw Yeik Sar Saung for three Saya Pu Zaw Pwes — SPZP-2002, SPZP-2007 and SPZP-2010 — in Singapore.
• After retirement, moved back to Yangon.
• Helped published Commemorative Issues of Swel Daw Yeik Magazine for SPZP-2012, Shwe YaDu (in 2014) and SPZP-2016
• Founding member and Patron of SDYF (Swel Daw Yeik Foundation).
• Still writes poems and articles.

Literary Work

• Pen name : Tekkatho Moe War
• Mentor : Daung Nwe Swe
• Composed hundreds of Kabyars (poems). Some (e.g. Shwe YaDu Lann) took four days of contemplation.
  Composed some Kabyars “Let Tann” (extemporaneously)
• Published several books.
  Some are compilation of articles and poems.
• Editor for RUESU Magazine
• Chief Editor of the RIT Annual Magazines, Swel Daw Yeik Sar Saung, Swel Daw Yeik Magazine, Hlyat Sit Sar Saung
• Columnist for Weekly Eleven Journal
• I translated some of saya’s poems and articles:
• Search for beauty
  posted in “Poetic Art Series”
• Bagan Heritage
  in honor of recognition by UNESCO
• Shwe YaDu Lann
  for the RIT Golden Jubilee
• To the Shwe Duo
  in memory of Saya U Tin Shwe (EP66) and Saya U Hla Shwe (T69)
• Kabyar Let Saung
  A precious gift
• Computer in my heart
• …
• Sea of Men
  

Kabyar Let Saung

by Saya U Moe Aung (Tekkatho Moe War)
Translated by Hla Min

String of attachment — then in its infancy
grew beyond proportion — on her birthday
to express my deepest feelings — while courting her
I gave “Sho Whet The Pho” (Mystery/Thriller) Magazine
as a birthday gift to my beloved.

We shared our metta
with true devotion

I presented a golden ring
to my yee-sar as a birthday gift.

Hand in hand we entered the “married” land
on her birthday past the Honeymoon
I presented Goya fragrance as a birthday gift

Traveling together
Often facing dark nights
Yonder looked thick and rough

Goal seemed distant [and not straight]
[Tired and] weary
[Often] look but could not see

Struggle just to keep alive
Despite the challenges I feel
I owe my beloved a nice birthday gift

But …
Precious jewels are out of reach
I can only offer a gift from my heart

Kabyar
inexpensive — not meaning to underrate her love

Will she accept as a priceless treasure?

___________________________________

RUESU

Dear Ko Hla Min,

Thanks to Saya U Soe Paing for his great endeavour in visiting the UCL (Universities’ Central Library) numerous times [in January 2012] to gather and record invaluable information relating to RIT (and BOC college of Engineering as well). And thanks to you for archiving all through your emails and keeping all RITians gelled together.

Only when did Saya U Soe Paing mention Engineering Students’ Magazines, that I happen to recall one Engineering Students’ Magazine in which I was part of it. That was in Academic Year 1960-1961. I was still an Electrical Engineering Student at that time (2nd year, or, by the present calling, 4th year). At Rangoon University (Main University) they had a University Students’ Union (in Burmese, Thud Meg-ga is translated as Union), and we had correspondingly an Engineering Students’ Union as well at our Faculty of Engineering at Leik-Khone (Dome), Prome Road.

At that time I met one Ko Hla Tin (Civil) who was my senior and several years older than me, staying at Prome Hall which was adjacent to Leik Khone, only separated by a fence. He was an avid poet (pen name Kay-tu Win Tint, from Taunggoo) and I used to visit his room at Prome Hall to talk about poems and literature during lunch or break times. I also met one senior (can’t recall his name, I think Ko Sein Hlaing) who was the Secretary of the Students’ Union. After some lively discussions, we decided to issue an Engineering Students’ Union Annual Magazine and they made me the Chief Editor. The Magazine consisted of two sections, Burmese and English, of which Saya U Aung Khin (Mech) was the English Editor.

I still have the 1960-61 issue neatly tucked in a cupboard in Yangon.

Now I remember that Ko Sein Hlaing (EE?) is still in Yangon, helping to look after his grand children, but not in good health. Ko Sein Hlaing’s daughter was my daughter’s very close friend since their childhood days. We met once in Singapore about 12 years back.

Dear Ko Hla Min, this is the time to reminisce and be happy about the good old days and try to fly back with whatever time machine we could get hold of. Time really flies and we should realize that our days are numbered.

Moe Aung

___________________________________

“ရွှေ နှစ် ရွှေ သို့ “

ရွှေနှစ်ရွှေ…..

ဝေတော့လည်း တူ

ကြွေတော့လည်း အတူတူ

ငြူစူခြင်း ကင်း

မျှဉ်းမျှဉ်း အသက်ရှူ

စိုက်ထူမှတ်တိုင်

မယိမ်းယိုင်ခဲ့…..

မနိုင်ဝန် ပိ

အလှည့်သင့်လာ

သောအခါ မှာ

ခန္ဓာအမွေ

ကြွေသာ ကြွေလည်း

မသေ ဝိညာဉ် ဝဲပျံနေသေးတကား ….။ ။

( ကိုတင်ရွှေ- လျှပ်စစ်စွမ်းအား နှင့် ကိုလှရွှေ- ချည်မျှင် သို့)

တက္ကသိုလ် မိုးဝါ

(၂၆ ဇန္နဝါရီ ၂ဝ၁၅ – ည ၉:၅၅ နာရီ)

To The SHWE Duo

Poem by Tekkatho Moe War
Translation by Hla Min

SHWE duo
Blossom in unison
Disappear together
Free from complaint
Even with thin breath
Showed mark [of courage and wisdom]
Never wavered …
Pressed by burden
At the awaited turn [of journey’s end]
Body — inheritance [from previous lives]
Succumbs [to failing health]
Yet, “Wei-nyin” is fresh, alive and hovering.

Translated by Hla Min

___________________________________

Shwe YaDu Lann

Shwe YaDu Lann

Poem by Tekkatho Moe War
Translation by Hla Min

Shwe YaDu Lann
Let it be rough [but it’s tough]. Flowers are blossoming again.
Fear not the summer
Care not the rain [drops]
or the thick fogs & darkness
or if winter’s not true to its form

Shwe YaDu Lann
Let it be rough. No gentle stream flowing
Fear not high winds
Care not dense clouds
Topsy turvy [come what may]
Can paddle upstream
With strong mind & conviction
Place where heroes [Thu Ye Kaungs] are produced.

Swel Daw Myaing Dann
Shwe YaDu Lann
is a start [of a journey]
To raise the Banner loftily
to the skies, to the Zenith
displaying our thitsar (vow of truth and integrity)

HLA MIN (Editor, Newsletter Updates, USA)

___________________________________

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

Memories