By Myint Zan

ON 1 September 1970, the fresher welcome ceremo­ny of the Rangoon Arts and Science University (RASU) took place. The University of Rangoon was estab­lished in December 1920. Hence, 1970 was the golden jubilee year of the founding of the University. In 1964, the then Revolutionary government changed the name of the University to Rangoon Arts and Science Univer­sity. As befits the name, only subjects in the Arts and Science subjects were taught at RASU. Subjects taught in the Arts stream include Burmese, Geography, History, Law, Pali (lan­guage), Philosophy, Psychology (in Burma, psychology is considered to be in the Arts stream), and the Science subjects include Botany, Chemistry, Geology, Mathematics, Physics, Zoology. In that same year of 1970, English as a special subject was offered at a separate institution, the then Institute of Education, as an inaugural English ‘major’. To be eligible to take the English major, the matriculants of that year had to ob­tain distinctions in English. Initially, the stipulation was that only 15 ma­triculates who obtained distinctions in English would be accepted into the inaugural English major. But later on, it was extended to about twen­ty students. Yours truly passed the 1970 matriculation examination with distinctions in Burmese and English. In those days, the results of the Ma­triculation exams were published for about five days in the Burmese-lan­guage newspapers. Burma has seven states and seven divisions. Rangoon Division is one of them. Those who took the Matric exam in the Rangoon division can go to the high schools or to their exam venues to check the re­sults. The roll numbers of those who passed the Matric exams are posted there. But for the remaining states and divisions, due to communication difficulties, the results with the roll numbers of the matriculates were printed for a few days in the news­papers. In the now-defunct newspa­per Rangoon Daily, Yangon Thadin­sar, both the Matric Roll numbers and the names of the students who passed the matriculation exams were published. I knew about this only over four decades later, when I checked the 27 or 28 or 29 June 1970 issue of Yangon Daily. In 2018, I checked the results of all states and divisions except the Rangoon Division (which was not published in the newspapers). I checked them with a law student at the library of the University of Mandalay. Apart from Rangoon Division in the 13 oth­er states and divisions there were about 14 to about 16/17 students who obtained distinctions in English and about 15 to 17/18 students who ob­tained distinctions in Burmese (as it was formally called) Yours truly was the only student who obtained distinctions in both Burmese and English matriculation papers in all the 13 states and divisions except the Rangoon division. As there were two (six-distinction holders) in Ran­goon Division, namely (now) Dr Nilar Tin (public health specialist) and U Khin Maung Nyunt (I do not know his whereabouts), there may be at least four but perhaps no more than seven to ten students who obtained distinctions in both subjects during the Matriculation year of 1970.

I can say that though all of the inaugural English major entrants obtained distinctions in English, none of them got a distinction in Burmese in the Matric exams. And two candi­dates (sort of) demoted themselves from 2nd year at RASU to 1st year English major. The late Dr Myo Myint (PhD in linguistics from the Univer­sity of Edinburgh, as far as I know, the only inaugural English major graduate to obtain a doctorate from a foreign University ) transferred from 2nd year Geography major to 1st year English. About three months after Dr Myo Myint passed away in July 2017, his bust was displayed in the English Department of the Univer­sity of Yangon and was reported in The Global New Light of Myanmar.

But my parents suggested that I take law because it is a profession. So, I did take law and applied English as a second choice. I recall that my late father, Dr San Baw (29 June 1922- 7 December 1984), even mentioned that if the University admission au­thorities enquired why I did not take an English major, I could give the reasons.

Speeches of the Professors at the RASU Fresher Welcome

So, on 30 or 31 August 1970, I ‘checked in’ at Khabaung student hostel at Thamaing (township) about 10 miles from the Rangoon University campus. On the morning of 1 September 1970, I took a bus from a bus stop near the Thamaing hostels to the RASU campus for the fresher welcome ceremony, which was held at the Convocation Hall of RASU at the end of Chancellor Road. I missed the earlier session of the fresher welcome ceremony. I met my first cousin, U Hla Myint, then a third-year law student (now a retired Law Officer/Prosecutor) near Convocation Hall, and he stated the fresher welcome ceremony had already started, “Why are you not going there?” he said. I missed the earlier ‘welcome’ speeches of the Rector of RASU, Dr Maung Maung Kha (PhD in Physics, University of London) (1917-2005) and perhaps the Registrar, the late Daw Sein Sein. I did hear the speeches of Burmese Professor U Maung Maung Gyi ( 2 March 1914-28 May 1982), Head of the Department of English at RASU, the late Daw Tin Saw Mu, Psychology Professor and Head of the Depart­ment Dr Hla Thwin (PhD Columbia University), who passed away in Feb­ruary 1974, Philosophy Professor Dr Khin Maung Win (PhD Yale Univer­sity (7 October 1929-9 January 2011), Law Professor U Hla Aung (LLM, Harvard University) (1923-2020), and Geography Professor Dr Daw Thin Kyi (PhD Clark University, United States) (1 June 1917- 13 October 1990)

I recall snippets of three speech­es given by three different Profes­sors: Law Professor U Hla Aung stated that there are two catego­ries among the ‘law major freshers’. The first category was those whose first choice was law. Yours truly was among them. The second category was those whose first choice was not law but other disciplines, but since they did not get into Universities and majors where they applied as their first, second, third preferences or did not get into those Universities and subject specializations so law was their second, third or even fourth choice. The writer’s law classmate, who rose to be the chief attorney of Sagaing Division, applied first for the Institute of Dental Medicine (in Rangoon), second choice was Ran­goon Institute of Technology, and the third choice was Law major at RASU. All the specializations he applied for were then only based in Rangoon. He missed Dental Medicine and En­gineering by a few marks and got into law.

Dr Khin Maung Win (Philoso­phy), in his welcome speech, talked about ‘intellectual courage’ (he said the phrase in English) where persons are enjoined to study new subjects or fields of study which are unfamiliar or even strange and that a philosophical attitude is necessary both in studies and in life.

Professor Dr Daw Thin Kyi, the first Burmese woman to obtain a doctorate in any discipline at a West­ern University stated that ‘if you get into medical college you will become (mere) doctors, if you apply for engi­neering course you will get become (mere) engineers but those who will rule the country one day have arrived here). Naturally, inevitably, Professor Thin Kyi’s speech got the loudest applaud from the freshers.

(In Burma, since the mid-1960s to now, Universities offering Med­icine, Engineering, and Dentistry require the most marks from the matriculates.)

Taking the wrong bus was one un­forgettable event in my University’s first year

On or about 22 June 1971, there was a final exam for the compulsory subject of English. In the first year of law in our days, all the subjects were compulsory: Burmese, English, Fun­damentals of Law, Logic, Economics (Socialism and Analysis), History (world history) in the first-year law course. All subjects were taught in the Burmese language. Even in Eng­lish, the teachers use Burmese words to explain. From my firm memory, the compulsory essay in the English paper was ‘Two unforgettable events in my first year at the University’. As the first unforgettable event, I wrote about the fresher welcome ceremony and also how I took the bus when I returned to the Khabaung student hostel. I took the wrong bus from a bus stop near the University, and instead of going to Thamaing, where the Khabaung hostel is located, it went to Insein township. Only after about 30 minutes on the bus and not seeing the hostel, I enquired from the bus conductor. He told me I was on the wrong bus and I would have to go back towards RASU and then take the particular bus that goes to the halls of residence from there. So, I have to take another bus from across the road, go back to near the RASU bus stop and take yet anoth­er bus to Khabaung hostel. I took three different buses to reach the Khabaung hostel from RASU. Inci­dentally, a single bus trip in those days cost about a maximum of 25 pyas, perhaps as low as 10 pyas. There are 100 pyas to the Kyat at the basic currency of Burma then. In 2025, at a minimum, one bus trip costs 200 kyats. Most trips cost 400 kyats. Hence, in 55 years, the costs (is it price to pay) increased at the very least a thousand-fold and more probably up to four thousand times!

My second most unforgettable event, which I wrote for the English essay question, was the funeral of a first-year philosophy major who also resided in Khabaung Hall. It miffed me a bit that I only got a Grade 4 (Credit) out of Grade 5 for the first-year Law English paper. The essay question of the 1st year Law English paper was harder than the Matric exam English paper, where out of three essay topics of ‘ My Town’, ‘My Teacher’ and ‘My Ambition’, Candi­dates had to choose one topic and write the essay. I chose and wrote about ‘My Town’. After all these dec­ades, I recall what I wrote in the last sentence of my distinction-winning essay: ‘ … the reader is invited to visit my home town of Mandalay. Only then will he realize how miserably I have failed in describing the beauties of my home town’. I had prepared the topics ‘My Town’ and ‘My Teacher’, but somehow, I chose ‘My Town’ as an essay question. In retrospect, I think I should have chosen ‘My Teacher’. My English language teachers at No 6 State High School, Mandalay, were the late Daw Saw Myint, who had studied or visited both at Uni­versity of Sydney in Australia and the University of Michigan in the United States. I am an alumnus (LLM, 1982 of the University of Michigan. I did meet Sayamagyi Daw Saw Myint at least once in Sagaing (where she hailed from and where she resided after her retirement), but I do not recall whether or not I told her that I graduated from the University of Michigan, too.

‘Tears at the fingertips’ short essay as a comprehension question in the first year law exam question

Apart from the first-year law English essay question, I clearly re­call that there was a comprehension question (a few passages were given in English and students had to an­swer them) which produced excerpts from the essay ‘Tears at the finger­tips’ written by D A Delafield. A quick search of the World Wide Web (in 2018), I found the essay September 1983 of Adventist View. It must have been reproduced not only pre-1983, in fact pre-1971 publications.

Professors at the RASU Fresher Wel­come Ceremony that I had met, and belatedly offering my respects

Among the Professors at RASU who I only had the chance to meet briefly with Dr Khin Maung Win (Philosophy) and U Hla Aung (Law). I was not their student formally. Professor U Hla Aung was appointed as Attorney-General by General Ne Win (6 July 1910-5 December 2002). In our second year, I, together with others, contributed about two or three kyats for the farewell ceremony from the Law Department held at the Recreation Centre at RASU in late September 1971. U Hla Aung thanked General Ne Win and stated he will serve in his post unswervingly. (တာ၀န်ကို ဦးလည်မသုန်ထမ်းဆောင်ပါမည်)

The late Saya Maung Khin Min (Danubyu) (24 January 1940-28 Jan­uary 2025) was the sole distinction holder in the Burmese paper in the Matriculation year of 1959. The late Professor U E Maung (1905-1985) had to approve the distinction-winning paper of then matriculate Maung Khin Aye, I understand.

Saya Maung Khin Min special­ized in Burmese and was a pupil of Sayagyi U E Maung (Myanmar Sar). As I did not specialize in Burmese or English majors, I did not formally become the pupil of either Burmese Professor U Maung Maung Gyi or English Professor Daw Thein Nyunt at the Institute of Education. I under­stand that those language professors had to read the distinction-winning papers and had to approve them. I regret that in my five years at RASU doing law, I never had the chance to meet Sayagyi U Maung Maung Gyi and Sayamagyi Daw Thein Nyunt, and very belatedly, I record my thanks and respect to them.