Category: RU Saya

Ba Than
by Hla Min

Update : Oct 2025

Highlights

U Ba Than 3
- Matriculated from St. John’s Dio in 1947, and won Collegiate Scholarship.
- In 1949, he won Gold Medal for scoring highest marks in the Intermediate of Science exam.
- RUBC Full Green
- Studied B.Sc (Special) in Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College, London University
- Joined Faculty of Engineering as Assistant Lecturer
- Per request from Dr. Maung Maung Kha (Interim Dean of Engineering), he helped build the Engineering Library
- As a requirement for promotion, he did Masters at Imperial College
- Retired as Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Mech Engg Sayas
- Saya is an early supporter of the HMEE (History of Myanmar Engineering Education) project.
  Donated his photo albums.
  Cooperated with U Thaw Kaung to allow U Soe Paing & team to access the archives of Rangoon University Central Library.
HMEE book (2012)
- He also interviewed his elder brother U Tin U for HMEE project. U Tin U taught part-time at the Civil Engineering Department, and served as Treasurer of Burma Society of Civil Engineers.
Family

U Ba Than & Daw Mya Mya
- He is the second son of U Chan Sein and Daw Cheng Kim.
- Siblings : U Tin U, Dr. Daw Win Hlaing (Ruby), Daw Myint Thwe (Betty), Dr. Myo Tint, U Tin Htoon, U Myo Min, U Thaung Lwin, Daw Cho Cho Hlaing
- Spouse : Daw Mya Mya
- Son : U Ye Than
- Daughter-in-law : Daw Lwin Mar Oo
- Grand children : Aung Myo Myint, Ei Khine
U Ba Than 2

U Ba Than 1

Winner Inn
- U Ye Than and Daw Lwin Mar Oo ran “Winner Inn”.
- Later, their children Aung Myo Myint and Ei Khin expanded the services provided by Winner Inn (notably W Bistro)
Winner Inn

Birthdays
- Celebrations
Birthday

Soon Kyway
- Before the pandemic, he invited colleagues and former students to his Birthday Soon Kyway at Yaw Sayadaw’s Monastery.
- U Tin Htoon (A60, younger brother) compiled a Photo Album for Saya’s 90th Birthday
U Ba Than
- Donated all of the Garawa Money to various social & religious associations.
- Passed away peacefully after his 94th birthday.
U Ba Than & Family

90+ Club Members
- Four of the nine siblings are members of the 90+ Club like their mother.
- U Tin U (eldest) passed away on Aug 19, 2025 — a few weeks after his 96th birthday. He was the most senior Past Captain of RUBC (Rangoon University Boat Club). He was Past Captain of RGC (Rangoon Golf Club). He was also the oldest Yale University alumni from Burma.
- U Ba Than (2nd oldest) passed away after his 94th birthday.
- Dr. Daw Win Hlaing (Ruby, 3rd) celebrated her 93rd birthday on Aug 31, 2025.
- Daw Myint Thwe (Betty, 4th) passed away two months before her 91st birthday.
October 2, 2025
Yu Khin
by Hla Min

Update : Aug 2025

Dean U Yu Khin and RU Student Athletes

Highlights
- Dean
- Chairman, Sports Promotion Committee
- Former National Doubles Champion in Badminton
- Registrar, Rangoon University
  Helped the establishment of RC (Recreation Center)
- Former Warden, Prome Hall
  known for excellent Soccer teams
- Later moved to Bagan Road Residence
- After retirement from RU, he was offered lucrative job as Consultant in several countries. He opted to stay in Burma and found IFL (Institute of Foreign Languages).
- Spouse : Dr. Daw Phay
  who was close to Dr. Daw Yin May and helped deliver Dr. Thane Oke Kyaw Myint (Johnny Kyaw Myint), U Htin Kyaw (Peter Wun) and several others.
- Children :
  Dr. Marie Yu Khin (Medical doctor in Australia, GBNF)
  Dr. Richard Yu Khin (Economist in USA, GBNF)
  …
Richard Yu Khin

Highlights
- Matriculated from MEHS in 1961
- Also passed GCE
- Represented Rangoon University & Burma in 1961 SEAP Games held in Rangoon.
  Teamed up with U Maung Maung Lwin (Jamie, Commodore of Rangoon Sailing Club, Olympian weightlifter, Publisher) to win a Gold Medal in Yachting.
- Left RU before graduation to pursue studies in the USA.
- Doctorate in Economics from Yale University.
- Lived in Dallas, Texas.
- Had two Facebook pages :
  one for Personal,
  another for Sailing
- Now GBNF
Contributions
- Shared a photo of the Rangoon University Athletes who represented Burma in the Second SEAP Games held in Rangoon in December 1961.
- Commented on my post on Swimming. A Japanese coach trained selected swimmers led by Tin Maung Ni and including Richard Yu Khin.
- Commented on my post on Matriculates. Provided information about top MEHS matriculates.
- Posted about former sayas and students of MEHS.
- Posted a photo of Pagan and Sagaing Road residents.
  Children of U Yu Khin, U Wun (Minthuwun), U Thein Han (Zawgyi) and U Myo Min (English Professor) became Ph.Ds, medical doctors and professors.
Richard Yu Khin’s Post
(in 2018)

If you have spare time visit “Hla Min” Facebook page which provides excellent & amazing historical information of my generation. I have for years been trying to find information about Ko Ba Min who kindly met me at the helicopter landing site when I arrived at Berkeley, California in August 1963. I was trying to decide whether to attend UC-Berkeley or Yale. I stayed a week in Berkeley, 4 days at the International House and 3 days at Ko Ba Min’s apartment because I became home-sick. Every one there told me to choose Yale. Ko Ba Min then was studying for a Master’s degree in Mathematics at UC-Berkeley. I have often wondered what happened to Ko Ba Min. On “Hla Min” website I found out Ko Ba Min returned to Burma to teach Mathematics and Astronomy and then resigned for medical reasons. Thank you for that information. During my teenage years Ko Ba Min and Peter Kyaw Sein would frequently visit Pagan Road to view the belles of our neighborhood.

____

At Berkeley I met Dr. U Myint (later Economic Advisor to President Thein Sein) who was preparing to defend his PhD dissertation and a Burma state scholar studying for PhD in physics or chemistry. Miss Cobb who is a friend of my aunt when she attended UC-Berkeley in 1950 took me on a tour of San Francisco. She told me to visit her cousin who was the Chaplain at Yale University. Reverend Coffin later became leader of the anti-Vietnam War movement in USA.

Comments
- Oak Soe Kha wrote :
  Lived at Pagan Road as well, opposite Richard’s house. We are childhood friends, hanging out in the University campus. My father (Dr. Maung Maung Kha) and uncle Yu Khin worked close together. Apart from us, U Aung Khin (Chemistry), U Ba Nyunt (Chit Doke Kha, History) were residents of Pagan Road also. Professor U Myo Min (English) lived on Sagaing Road, as did Dr. Htin Aung (Rector) and not Pagan Road.
- Ko Ba Min matriculated from St. Paul’s High School in 1956.
  He studied Maths and Astronomy at University of California at Berkeley. After returning from USA, he stayed with his brother in the Port Commissioner Quarters in Windermere Crescent (off Inya Road). Played records (such as Peter, Paul and Mary; Joan Baez) that he brought back from the USA. He taught at Rangoon University and Mandalay University. When he was transferred to Myitkyina College, he resigned citing his health. He ran a shop in Zay Cho. Japanese tourists were surprised and delighted to find out that Ko Ba Min studied with their professor at Berkeley. They took photos of Ko Ba Min to show to their professor.
- U Kyaw Sein is an early graduate from Rangoon University (in 1928). He served as Chief Engineer of National Housing Board. Children : Peter Kyaw Sein (GBNF), Victor Kyaw Sein, Ruby Kyaw Sein …
Updates
- Some RU Students who represented Burma at the 2nd SEAP Games are GBNF. They include Kyaw Mra and Richard Yu Khin.
- Dr. Nyunt Win (Eddie, spouse of Marie) passed away in Australia.
August 3, 2025
Chit Swe, Dr.
by Hla Min

Update : July 2025

Highlights

Dr. Chit Swe 1

Education ပညာရေး
- Mandalay University
- B.Sc(Special) from Imperial College, London University
- Masters from Glasgow University
- Doctorate from University of Liverpool
Experience လုပ်ငန်းအတွေ့အကြုံ
- Professor of Maths, RASU သင်္ချာပါမောက္ခ၊ ရန်ကုန် ဝ/သ တက္ကသိုလ်
- Founder Director of UCC တက္ကသိုလ်များ ကွန်ပျူတာဌာန တည်ထောင် သူ / ညွှန်ကြားရေးမှူး
- Rector of RASU ပါမောက္ခချုပ်၊ ရန်ကုန် ဝ/သ တက္ကသိုလ်
- Commanding Officer, UTC တပ်မှူး၊ တက္ကသိုလ် လေ့ကျင့်ရေး / အရံ တပ်
- President, Burma Judo Federation ဥက္ကဌ၊ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ ဂျူဒို အဖွဲ့ချုပ်
- Founding member, BARB မြန်မာနိုင်ငံဝေဒသုတေသနအဖွဲ့
- Supervised students & researchers in Bangkok သုတေသနကျမ်းပြု သူများကို ကြီးကြပ်
- Visiting Professor of Macquarie University, Sydney ဧည့်ပါမောက္ခ
Family မိသားစု

Dr. Chit Swe & Family
- Spouse : Daw Khin Khin Latt
- Children : Dr. Moe Thu, U Thu Ta, Dr. Kyaw Thu, Dr. Swe Latt, Chit Khin
Last Journey
- Passed away in Sydney on 25th November, 2019
Obituary

Dr. Chit Swe 1

Castlebrook Memorial Park Crematorium

Date : 28 November 2019

Time : 12 – 2 PM (Australia AEDT)

Location : 712 – 746 Windsor Road

Rouse Hill NSW 2155

(Opposite Rouse Hill Shopping Center)

Web site: https://www. castlebrook.com.au

Memories
- Young Couple
- With young sons
With two youngest sons
- UCC Yahan Khan
UCC Yahan Khan
- With Saya Dr. F Ba Hli, U Myo Min, Dr. Kyaw Thein & U Aung Zaw
With Sayas
- Mini-SPZP in Sydney (2006)
Sydney 2006

Sydney
- Pu Zaw Pwe (2013)
Dr. Chit Swe 2

Updates
- Several sayas — Dr. Freddie Ba Hli, Dr. Chit Swe, Dr. Kyaw Thein & U Aung Zaw — are GBNF.
- Saya’s family offered Soon Kyways in Sydney & Myanmar. Their donations include a bus for hospital services.
Posts
- Computing Pioneers in Burma
- Mathematics
- Memories of UCC
- Rectors
- Sayas
July 9, 2025
Geography
by Hla Min

Update : July 2025

Sayas

L Dudley Stamp
- Taught at LSE & RU
- Author
Dr. Daw Thin Kyi
- Early Professor
Daw Thin Kyi

Dr. Tin Htoo

Dr. Tin Htoo
- Professor
U Tun Hla Aung

U Tun Hla Aung
- Principal
RU Geography Dept
- Old Group Photo of Sayas & Sayamas
Geography Dept

U Kyaw
- Rector, Institute of Education
- Principal, Workers’ College
- Children : Myo Nyunt (SPHS), San San Kyaw (UCC), …
U Kyaw

Dr. U Win
- Attended UCC courses
- Doctorate from USA
- Water Resources
- GIS
Dr. U Win

U Khin Maung Zaw (KMZ, EC76) wrote :

U Kyaw – father of Daw San San Kyaw, ex-UCC.

Dr. U Win – first met him when he attended six-month class at UCC. We frequently hang out at the canteens at RASU. Rekindle our friendship here in US, talked to him on the logins several times, yet to meet him face-to-face, hopefully some day soon.

Updates
- There are several posts about Geography sayas & students in the RU Centennial FB group
- U Win also posted blogs
July 8, 2025
U Thein Han & Daw Khin Khin Htwe
by Hla Min

Update : July 2025

Highlights

Uncle U Thein Han

Uncle
- My lone surviving uncle
- Turned 95 in April, 2025
- Matriculated from St. John’s Dio
- Entered Rangoon University in 1948
- After graduation, he worked as Systems Engineer for IBM (International Business Machines) Burma, which rented / leased Unit Record Machines to selected Government Departments.
- Later moved to USA
- Retired from Montgomery County in Maryland
Posts
- Demonetization of K100 Note
- Do you believe in luck?
- My Barber
- My Life Journey
- My Stories
Aunt

Uncle & Aunt
- Taught at Psychology Department at Rangoon University
- Later moved to USA
- Studied Library Science
- Retired Librarian, Library of Congress
- Was in charge of Burmese Collection
July 7, 2025
Maths Sayas
by Hla Min

Updated : June 2025

U Kar

(5/Apr/1894 to 21/May/1974)
- Passed away at the age of 81
- Taught Mathematics at RU
- Education Minister in the Caretaker Government
- Rector, RASU
- Children : Saya Dr. Tin Maung and Sayama Daw Thein.
U Aung Hla

(18/Apr/1896 to 13/Dec/1983)
- Passed away at the age of 88.
- Professor of Maths, RU
- Dean of Arts, RU
- Accomplished musician
- Annotated 25 Burmese songs.
- Spouse : Daw May Than was a nationally known singer.
- Son : U Mya Than played the lead guitar & piano.
U Po Thon

(27/Jul/1899 to 23/Nov/1982)
- Passed away at the age of 84.
- Pyinnya Mingyi ပညာမင်းကြီး
- Supervised & published Maths texts for use in schools.
U Net

(15/Jan/1918 to 26/Feb/2003)
- Passed away at the age of 86.
- Professor of Maths, MASU
- Feather of Daw Khin Mar Mar (Physics & UCC) & grandfather of Wunna Ko Ko, webmaster of second RIT web site.
U Ba Toke

(26/Dec/1920 to 2/Dec/2020)

Book
- Phwa Bet Taw ဖွားဘက်တော် of “Rangoon University” and “First RU Student Boycott” (which is celebrated as “Ah Myo Tha Aung Pwe Nay” အမျိုးသားအောင်ပွဲနေ့ )
- Professor of Maths, RASU
- Rector, MASU
- Professor of Maths, RIT
- Vice Chair of Maths, Assumption University
- Mandalay University Soccer Selected
- Chinlon expert
- Vice chair, RU Sports Council
- Led the Burmese Olympic team to Tokyo in 1964.
- Gave interviews (three C-90 tapes) and documents (4 files) to Saya Dr. Khin Maung Swe (Tekkatho Maung Thin Char). The book was published in April 2010 & was distributed on Sayagyi’s 90th birthday.
Updates
- Many sayas — including those mentioned in the post are GBNF.
- Other GBNF sayas include Dr. Chit Swe, Dr. Tin Maung, Dr. Saw Tin, Dr. Khin Maung Win, U Tin Hlaing, U Sein Min, U Ko Lay & U Aung Sein
Posts
- GBNF
- Mathematics
- RU
- Sayas
- Universities & Institutes
June 30, 2025
U Ba Toke & U Ba Than
by Hla Min

Updated : June 2025

Garawa
- U Ba Than usually visits and pay homage to his saya U Ba Toke at least once every year.
- Both are our Sayagyis.
January 2017
- Pansy (Thynn Thynn, ChE 74) asked her daughter & son-in-law to pick up Saya U Ba Than (86 years), Saya U Tin Htut (79 years) and me to see her father Sayagyi U Ba Toke (96 years).
- Sayagyi has some problems with mobility & vision, but his mind remains crisp & clear.
- He was born on Dec 26, 1920. Rangoon University opened on Dec 1, 1929. They are “Phwa Bet Taws”.
- Sayagyi deferred celebrating his birthday so that three of his grandchildren abroad could come back & join the celebration.
- Sayagyi is pre-deceased by his beloved spouse, daughter (Kitty) and son (Soe Win).
- He has six remaining children : Betty, Ye Myint, Nellie, Pansy, Tammy & Debbie
- Pansy has offered transportation (within Rangoon) to Sayas who want to visit her father
Book

Book
- A detailed account of Sayagyi has been covered by Saya Dr. Khin Maung Swe (“Maung Thin Char”).
- I received an autographed copy during a previous visit. The book may need a reprint.
Memories

SPZP-2000
- Ko Maung Maung Than (M79, Texas) donated a roundtrip ticket to invite a Saya from Myanmar to attend SPZP-2000.
- Debbie (Saya’s youngest daughter) relayed Saya’s wish to attend SPZP-2000.
- Ko Zaw Min Nawaday (EP70) offered accommodation for Saya, Ko Ye Myint & spouse.
- Several sayas and alumni donated towards Saya’s expenses for the trip. Some offered to show Saya around the SF Bay Area.
SPZP-2000

SF Bay Area

SPZP-2007
- Saya was asked about Longevity.
- Saya recounted his experience in USSR. The host said, “Do not worry about the noise upstairs. It’s my 100+ years young uncle quarreling with his fourth wife. They will make peace soon”.
SPZP-2012 & 2016
- Saya needed assistance to attend the SPZPs.
- Even some younger Sayas needed wheelchair.
RU Centennial
- Due to pandemic, most events were broadcast or held online.
- Saya passed away on Dec 2, 2020 — the day after the RU Centennial.
GBNF
- Sayagyi U Ba Toke passed away a few days short of his Centennial birthday
U Ba Toke
- U Ba Than passed away after his 94th birthday
U Ba Than
- Dr. Khin Maung Swe passed away in his 80s
Dr. Khin Maung Swe
June 29, 2025
Aging

by Hla Min

Updated : June 2025

Senior

I felt uncomfortable to be addressed as “Ah Ba”, “Pho Pho” and to be offered assistance (e.g. wheelchair).

I now feel OK to use wheelchair at air ports and to have people assist me when I climb up & down hill slopes. I had a couple of bike rides on dirt roads.

I enjoy senior discounts for trains, buses & restaurants.

I hope that my mental faculties will remain sharp and strong.

Jara (old age) caught even the sport stars like Sayagyi U Ba Toke.

Sayagyi U Ba Toke

Phwa Bet Taw

Saya is a Phwa Bet Taw of Rangoon University and the first Rangoon University Students’ Strike in December 1920.

SPZP-2000

In 2000, Theingi (Saya’s youngest daughter) conveyed us Saya’s wishes to attend SPZP-2000. U Maung Maung Than (M79, Texas) had donated a round trip ticket. Several sayas & alumni donated expenses. Details can be found in “Count down to the Reunion” articles.

SPZP-2000

Birthdays

Saya 2

He celebrates his birthdays with his children, grandchildren & great-grandchildren.

Saya‘s birthday

Longevity

Saya gave a speech in SPZP-2007 about “Longevity”. He visited a house in USSR where the 80+ year old host explained about the noise up stairs. “Don’t worry. It’s my 100+ year old uncle quarelling with his fourth wife. They will make amends.”

Garawa

During my visits to Yangon, I paid respect to Saya.

U Ohn Khine (M70) gave me a ride in 2012. Saya gave us autographed book. We enjoyed Sayagyi’s accounts. He was a football star, a leader of the Burma Olympic Delegation, and an excellent teacher. Up to his early 80s, he could walk to the Shwe Dagon pagoda with his friends. In his 90s, Sayagyi lost some mobility, eye sight and hearing, but he was determined to attend SPZPs.

Book

In 2016, Saya’s son U Ye Myint and daughter Daw Thynn Thynn (Pansy) made arrangements to give us rides to and back from Saya’s house.

U Ba Toke

In 2018, I called Ma Theingi and asked about Sayagyi. She mentioned that Sayagyi is healthy but because he had lost most teeth, she has to listen carefully to grasp his message.

Saya passed away on December 2, 2020. It was the day after RI U Centennial. It was a few days short of his Centennial Birthday on December 26.

U Ba Toke 2

U Ba Toke 3

U Ba Toke 5

June 29, 2025
Dr. Soe Win
by Hla Min

Updated : June 2025

SPHS58
- He stood First in Burma in the Matric exam of 1958.
- Robert Sein stood Second.
- They appear in the Roll of Honor of SPHS.
SPHS Roll of Honor

Family
- Father : Saya U Sein (SPHS)
- Uncle : Saya U Kyaw Sein (SPHS)
- Spouse : Sayama Daw May Saw Lwin
- Sons: Aung Mon, Nyi Thet Lwin
Education
- Studied Chemistry Honors at the University of Rangoon.
- Received his Doctorate from Imperial College, London University.
Work Experience
- Taught at Rangoon University and selected Colleges
- Principal, Pyay College
- Administrator, Institute of Computer Science & Technology
- Principal, Institute of Foreign Languages
- Retired as Rector of Yangon University of Foreign Languages (YUFL).
Memories

Dr. Soe Win 1

Dr. Soe Win 2

Dr. Soe Win 3

Dr. Soe Win 4

Dr. Soe Win 5

Dr. Soe Win 6

Dr. Soe Win 7

RU Diamond Jubilee

DSW 8

DSW 9

DSW 10
June 28, 2025
U San Tha Aung

by Hla Min

Updated : June 2025

ဆရာဦးစံသာအောင် (1925 – 1981)

** ပညာရေး

* 1940 တက္ကသိုလ်ဝင်တန်း

ရူပဗေဒ၊ ဓာတုဗေဒ ဂုဏ်ထူး

* 1940 – 41 ရန်ကုန်တက္ကသိုလ်

* 1942 စစ်ကြောင့် တက္ကသိုလ် ပိတ်

* 1945 – 47 Calcutta တက္ကသိုလ်

* 1949 Physics (Hons) First Class — ရန်ကုန်တက္ကသိုလ်

* 1954 A.M (Physics) — Harvard တက္ကသိုလ်

** ညွှန်ချုပ်၊ အဆည DHE

(ယခင်)

ညွှန်မှူး၊ အဆည

ရူပဗေဒ ပါမောက္ခ

ရူပဗေဒ ကထိက

** စာပေ

* High school နဲ့ တက္ကသိုလ် အတွက် စာအုပ်များ

* အမျိုးသားစာပေ ဆုရှင်

* သိပ္ပံ

* ယဉ်ကျေးမှု

ရခိုင်စာပေ နဲ့ ယဉ်ကျေးမှု

* ဗုဒ္ဓဘာသာ

** ဇနီး — ဒေါ်စောစော

** ရူပဗေဒ အားကစား အဖွဲ့

** 2025

ရာပြည့် Centennial

** ကနဦး ရူပဗေဒ ပါမောက္ခ များ

* Dr. မောင်မောင်ခ

* ဦးစံသာအောင်

* Dr. တင်အောင်

** Credit:

Photo 2 — ဦးရဲမြင့်

Photo 5 — ဒေါ်အေးညွန့်ကြည်

June 16, 2025