Dr. Kyaw Aung - Life and the World

Your parents and grandparents

I am from Yangon. My parents are both middle-class. My grandparents, U Po and Daw Pu Si, were truly visionary people. They were Rakhine from Thandwe. They migrated to Yangon with the education of their children in mind. Their business was to buy fish paste from Rakhine and send it to Yangon, and to buy soybean oil from Yangon and send it back to Thandwe. Their business was so profitable that they could not only keep a house and a light in Yangon for five sons and a daughter, but also hire servants to take care of the children. When their eldest son (my uncle) U Mya Oo was sent to England, he became a monk. The second son (my second uncle) was also a monk like his brother.

He was sent to England to be successful. My grandfather and grandmother had a desire to send all their children to England for higher education. However, fate did not favor them, and their grandfather and grandmother died one after the other, so it did not happen as expected, and my second uncle had to return to Yangon before completing his education. However, due to his innate talent for business acumen and resourcefulness, he not only became a successful businessman, but also had the opportunity to play bridge with the Governor of Burma at that time, Sir Harcourt Butler.

He is a person who has reached the level of success.

A Turbulent Life

After the death of both parents, they had no income, so their father and his siblings had to live on their own. It was only when their second uncle got permission to install a washing machine he had bought from England at the Strand Hotel that they all breathed a sigh of relief. This incident became the beginning of his business success. After that, he took care of all his siblings. Although his father was always a bit of a slob, his second uncle was very attached to him.

He often sought advice and guidance from his father, who was the secretary of the Hansawaddy District Council.

So it seems like it could help his business in some way. When he leaves the office, he has to do paperwork.

I still remember and visualize the image of my father getting out of the car with his disciple carrying a cane filled with sticks. The third uncle, U Hla Ka Hin Satha Di

I got a job as a secretary at the Straits Council and got married there.

My father's brother, U Ba Oo, was a man of his ilk. He was interested in politics. He was very active. He was a member of Dr. Ba Maw's political party and was a student union leader who led the first student strike against the Rangoon University Act of 1920. Shwedagon Pagoda Square, Sanae Daw

A stone pillar inscribed with the names of the student leaders

One is erected. Uncle Ba Oo gets a job at the Port Authority. In fact, this job is usually given only to Europeans. Asians are made to work with white-faced officials who look down on them, and they only last a month. Treating the Burmese with contempt

He was fired for punching his superior officer. Then, without any prior intention, U Lay Oo Ba Oo entered the office of principal of the English-Burmese High School in Pyay. Although he was not rich as a teacher, he was happy with his life and saw many of his students become politicians who would lead the future of Burma. His wife was also a student at the University of Rangoon. In the 1920s, it was rare to see a woman with a degree.

My father's eldest brother, my uncle, was a very good-natured man with a very good personality. He married in England, but when he returned to Burma, he divorced his wife, who could not keep her hair tied back. The divorce from his wife cost my uncle a lot of money and made him very poor.

It was very difficult. In such a situation, the elder brother could not help the family's difficulties and crises. The elder brother also had a strong bond with his father. One day, the third daughter of the last king of the Burmese dynasty, Thibaw, came to the elder brother to file a case for divorce from her husband, a member of the royal family. When the divorce was finalized, the elder brother was the highest monk.

He married the daughter of King Thibaw. There his life took a turn. As the daughter of the deposed king, the British government granted him a monthly allowance of 1.20 baht/-, a house in Yangon and a summer residence in May. He also had a car with a driver and a peacock flag. His other daughter also received a monthly allowance of 80 baht/-. The house also had a cook, a maid, and a servant, so that he could live in peace and comfort for the rest of his life.

A Turbulent Life

Student life before World War II

I studied at Diocesan Boys' High School in Yangon.

As it is an all-boys school, I was often beaten. If I broke the school rules, no matter how small the offense, I would get at least six lashes. From the first to the fifth grade, I was taught by teachers called “teachers,” and from the sixth grade on, I was taught by male teachers. We called these teachers “masters.” As it is an all-boys school, they often treated me harshly, as if I were the first. I had a really carefree childhood. I was in a boarding school.

I am not a son. I go to school every day in my uncle U Hla Bu's car. I still remember an experience during the 1937 Kula-Burma Incident. My brothers.

My sisters were driving to school when a group of Burmese men with swords in their hands stopped the car near the zoo. We were all shaking with fear. My sisters were crying. The driver and I asked everyone in the car to get out and checked them to make sure they were all Burmese. At that time, they were the kind of people who would have been killed if they had been black.

The Great War has come to Burma.

I still remember the incident that occurred on Sunday, December 7, 1941.

I got up from bed and picked up the Rangoon Gazette newspaper that was on the porch. I still remember the front page headline: “Japanese planes bomb Pearl Harbor.” My father and his brother, U Ba Oo, and a group of like-minded friends would play cards after the office was closed on Saturdays and gather around on Sunday evenings. My uncle, U Ba Oo, the principal of the English-Burmese High School in Pyay, got angry after reading the news and handed the newspaper to my father. He got up from playing cards and immediately drove back to Pyay in his car. My uncle had been waiting for this moment. It was time to signal to his students to prepare for the Burmese independence struggle.

On December 22, the Japanese Air Force bombed Rangoon to pieces. We lived near the Kandawgyi. They bombed the port and the railway station. We saw in detail how the Japanese planes and the planes of the American amateur group that was based at Mingalardon Airport and was going to China fought a close air battle. The Americans lost only a few planes and many Japanese planes were shot down. On the first day of the bombing, more than 5,000 Kalakulis were killed in Rangoon harbor. I remember the smoke and smell of the fire that drifted into our neighborhood when they were buried in the Tamwe Cemetery. On December 24, the second bombing took place. Most of the dead were the poor Kalakulis who worked hard in Rangoon.

How I lived during the Japanese era,

Another incident I remember was in March 1942, when the RAF (Royal Air Force) bombed Rangoon at night, and my family was evacuated by train, car, and boat to the Delta.

They fled to Hinthada, a small town on the border. After the Japanese captured Yangon, they returned by sailboat. As a child, I did not know what was happening, so I did not fully understand the loss of almost all the property that my parents had entrusted to some people who had remained in Yangon. When all the savings they had saved were gone, the maids had nothing to do, and they had to take care of the household chores themselves. We lived frugally and frugally. My brother and I used to sell fruits in random places. At that time, apart from being hungry all the time, I was confused and could not understand what was happening around me. I also remember selling fruits and dry goods at a roadside stall. My parents were working hard, but I was happy to run around and play like a child with no responsibilities. After taking a one-year Japanese language course run by the Japanese military, I received a certificate, so I could earn some money by working as a Japanese interpreter. I got along well with the Japanese soldiers. My skin tone was a bit Japanese, so they called me "Bochan" (little man).

Another thing I remember from the Japanese era is a trip I took with my father to Sagaing, the Aung San region, to help my father solve his elder brother's problems. My uncle, U Mya Oo, died of hepatitis in a small village, and his surviving wife, Thiek Su Myat Pagoda, also needed help to solve her problems. At a time when good medicines for chronic diseases were scarce, my uncle