Dr.Khin Maung Win (only son of my grandma)
KHIN MYO CHIT
writer and journalist
(1915-1999)
La Grande Dame de la Myanmar Writing
Very few people know thqt her real name is Ma Khin Mya. Her close
relative andfriends call her by her real name.Young people call her Ma
Ma Mya or Aunty Mya.Older people call he Ma Khin Mya.But to most
people she was known under her pen name, Khin Myo Chit.
She was born at the time when people generally had low expectations of
women, when no parent would hear of a young respectable lady entering
a profesion anda humanitarian education may be permitted , but only to
be able to write B,A under one's name and make impressions on people.
'What a pity she 's a girl' that's what she always heard people saying
all the time.
Her grandmother had been a maid of honour at the court of King
Mindon.Many timesshe recounted to her the events leading to the mass
excution of King Thibaw's royalrelative by the Queen Suphayalatt.'It's
a blot on our hitory'.She used to say.She then related to her how the
great warrier prince like Prince Kanaung,the Thonsaire Minhagyi
(literally translated the great Prince Thirty, so named because he
could climb up a wall ofthirtyyards in height using his bea hands and
feet) and many others were executed duringan internal intrigue.'We lot
all the great warrier princes, so that when the Britishmarched to the
capital city of Uupper Myanmar , there was not even one personto throw
a stone at the invaders.'
She asked,'Do you mean to say, grandma, that if these warriior princes
were there, Upper Myanmar would not have fallen unde the british Rule
?' 'No' , said her grandmother.'We would still loe the war, for, at
that time, no one could stop the riing of the British Empire.But at
least the batle of Upper Burma could have earned a place in the annals
of war like Hnnibal's fight against Rome, or King Arthur's fight
against the Saxons, or KingHarold's fight against the invading
Normans' .
Her literary career began in 1932 when she translated a poem of Sir
Walter Scott and sent to theYangon University magazine.But she didn't
put her name, being kind of shy to do that. The poem was about
Patriotism and when it was published , the editor put the pen name –
Khin Myo Chit (meaning lady who loves her country or Miss Patriot).
That was how she made her debut in the literary field,and arned her
pen name.But all was not well at home. With her father's
obstructiveness and her mother's disapproval of 'clever girls' ,
thingsgot from bad to worse.She was not allowed to do any writing in
peace . Her mother scolded her more and more.Her father threatened to
burn her pjapers.She had to hide them and do her writing when everyone
was in bed.
I shall not dwell too ,uch on the story of her unhappy childhood and
her ecape from the tyranny of her father.It could have made something
torn from the pages of a Dickens novel and could hzve eaned her a
nick-name like 'female David Copperfield'.
Regarding her meeting with my father, U Khin Maung
Latt(1915-1996),whom she refered to as 'Ko Latt', she wrote in her
autobiography as follows :
''He was theboy next door.He had left college, an undergraduate, not
being able to continue his studies because of the decline in family
fortunes.He was having a short lull at home while looking for a job.
He was a voracious reader and we sharedthe same interestsin books.I
read the books he recommended and he returned the compliment . We read
'Little Women' , one of my favourite books and he called me teasingly
'Jo'.We had a fine time talking of books.It seemed that we had
launched on a long and timeless talk which could lead to one thing a
life-long alliance.''
Regarding her political invilvements of 1937 and afterwards, she wrote:
"Had this even tenor of our way gone on for a few months or so, Ko
Latt and I might have sipped quietly into mqrried life. My rosy dreams
of the future during the interval of a few months before our marriage
tuned out to be a nightmare of tormy incidents.It was the fate of the
country that swept most of our dreams away.By a cruel trick of fate,
we became part of that mighty tidal wave which we were but a tiny
ripple. "
She recountd the part she played in the demonstration of 1938 as follows;
"Three girls and I happened to be in front of line right after the
standard bearers.It was a rude shock when we found ourselves confonted
by baton weilding policemen, some mounted on horseback.All of a sudden
like a sequence on a cinema screen everything became a confusion of
horses'legs and batons.To my horror, I saw girls falling in pools of
blood.As I tried to pick them up, blows fell on me."
She lived through the stormy times of the British Regime; the Japanese
Regime;the Struggle for independebce;sharing the joys and sorrows of
the political figures .
Also in her autobiography , she recounted a difficult phrase of her
life in the following way.
"Now,I have come to oneof the most difficult chapters of my life,for
it was then that my misadventures strayed into the realms of faith and
religion.
I was prejudiced against meditatio of wny religious practice which I
took to be only for people who had nothing better to do or those who
wanted to put on ais of holiness or those who had no change to face
life….I thought."
The story of how her meeting with two monks changed her outlook and
made her regain her faith in Buddhism cannot be told here, for that
alone would have made treatise on Buddhism.
She became a mother-in-law in 1967, a grandmother of twins,a boy and a
girl,in 1968.In an interview with a writer,Alex wood,in 1970,she
said,"I am proud of being a good grandmother and housekeeper,but I
have never let this interfere with any of my cultural interests.I am
glad that I rediscovered the art of Myanmar Zatpwe(a kind of a mixture
of play,concert and opera)in time to stop me from becming an
intefering mum-in-law and an over doddering granny.Friends rubbed
their hands when the twins were born and said it would be the end of
my freedom.But of course,it wasn't.I'm organising myself better and
witing more than before."
The landmarks of her literary career may be summed up in the following way:
Khin Myo Chit was born on may 1, 1915 in Sit Kaing(Upper Burma).
1932…………….Patriotism(a poem that earned her pen name)
1963…………….Collge Girl(a novelette for serialization in 'The Sun' a daily paper)
1963 to 1968..: Heroes of Old Burma ,
…………………. : Quest for Peace (an autobiography)
(Both serialized in 'The Working Peoples'Daily.')
1970…………....:Her Infinfite Variety
(a prize-winning short story in the 'Horizon' magazine short story competition.)
…………………….:The Four Puppets
(included in 'Folk Tales of Asis',UNESCO)
……………………:Anawrahta of Burma
(publication of 'Heroes of Old Burma', which was later re-printed
under the titles,
'Anawhta' and 'King Among Men')
1976…………..:Colourful Burma
(a pratical and poetic guide for the visitors who wants something better than
a tourist view of Burma.Later reprinted under the 'Colourful Myanmar'.)
1977…………..:Flowers and festivals round the Burmese Year
………………….:Kyaikhtiyo
(a short history of Kyaikhtiyo Pagoda,published in the Asia magazine)
1981…………..:A Pagoda Where Fairy Tale Characters Come to Life
(A tale-loke description of Mai La Mu Pagoda in the outskirts of Yangon,
published in the Asia Magazine)
1984………….:A Wonderland of Burmese Legends
(published by the Tamarind Press in Bangkok , later reprinted in Burma under
the title 'A Wonderland of Pagoda Legends')
1995…………:Gift of Laughter
(on the picturesque speech of the people of Hla Daw,
A village in Central Burmam , selection of which have been published
In the 'Pyinsa Rupa ' magazine)
Conclusion
During the last years of her life, deblitating and disfiguring
arthrithic pains made her spend most of her time in bed.Regarding her
fight against the spasms of pain , she remarled,"Sometimes I lose,
sometimes they win".Quite surprisingly, compared to what she suffered,
she died in peace.
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