by U Kyaw Tun
Ever since I could remember, I've tried to write my own autobiography, and this is probably not the last.
As this is being rewritten over and over again over many years, things started coming slowly back into my memory. I've heard this story repeated again and again from my mother, and I must admit she had a habit of embellishing the story as she retold it again and again. I also suffer from that habit myself, and so this story should be taken not as a factual account, but as something that came out of the mouths of two story tellers -- my mother's and mine. There are bound to be still other things I'll be adding with the passage of time.
My story began more than one hundred and fifty years ago (about 1830-1840). There was a very large village called Ma'yan (ma. yam:) in the Irrawaddy Delta about twenty miles from Rangoon. It was about ten miles west of one of the ancient Mon or Talaing capitals of ancient Burma -- the city of Dalla (da. la.) (See Author's note on the word Talaing.)
The ancient city of Dalla is not the same as the present day Dalla opposite Rangoon on the Rangoon River. The ancient city is no more, only its ruins remain in rather deep jungle between Twente (twan tay:) and Kungyangon (kyum: hkran koan:).
There was a rather large Talaing family in Mayan. The eldest brother was Maung Gnan (maugn gnan). The Burmese word Gnan meaning "salty" is almost impossible to pronounce by the North Americans. There were altogether six siblings.
Times were very harsh in those days. The Talaings, ever aspiring to be free again from the Burmese yoke sided with the British in all the three Anglo-Burmese wars, for which they had to pay dearly after the first of those wars.
After the first Anglo-Burmese war, the British kept Arakan and Tennesarim, but gave back or rather sold back the Irrawaddy Delta, principally Rangoon to the Burmese King in Ava - not Mandalay at that time. A large number of the Delta Talaings decided best to stay under the British, and they crossed the Sittang River to settle on the east bank of the Salween River in areas surrounding the present-day Moulmein.
I am a chemist, not a historian. Neither a novelist. So I am rather unimaginative. Yet, I can not help trying to imagine how they must have left everything that was theirs to settle across the rivers and across the Gulf -- the Gulf of Martaban to settle in rather alien surroundings. You have never lived in that area, so you would probably not know. But, I was born in Kungyangon and I had accompanied my father on many of his tours, and I know the countryside very well.
Even, as I write, I can still get the smell of unhusked rice piling up in the fields ready to be stored up in granaries. The rice fields starting to bake up in the February sun. Very soon, it would be time to cut "dha'ni" (da. ne.) leaves to be made into roofing materials. The present-day Mayan village is famous for its potters.
So, for all I know, Maung Gnan might have been a potter and not a farmer. Or, he might have been a village headman or an elder. Probably he was among those Talaings who sided with the British. Otherwise, I see no reason why he had to leave Mayan. Maung Gnan with a few family members undertook that tiresome journey most probably by boat and settled in Moulmein. It is believed that the present-day quarter of Moulmein with the name Maung Gnan is named after him.
I don't know what Maung Gnan did for a living after settling in Moulmein. Moulmein at that time was a port, a principal port between Rangoon and Penang along the south and west coast of the Malay Peninsular. It was strategically situated, and the British could control a large area of Burma from it. The British at that time was having an eye on the Kingdom of Siam (Thailand) and they probably hoped to establish a land route from Moulmein to Bangkok the feasibility of which was demonstrated by the Japanese Army during the Second World War.
Moulmein in the 1840's was a busy port, and there was a garrison most probably made up of Indian Sepoys officered by the British. (It was the chief town of British Burma from 1827 to 1852. My wife's great-grandfather was one of those Sepoys.) There were traders of all nationalities: the Armenians, the Hindu Indians, the Muslim Indians (both Shi'a and Sunie) and of course the Chinese.
Among the Chinese, was one Liu Ah Shwe -- the name that I heard from my mother had been Burmanized. Ah Shwe was an entrepreneur and would engage himself in all kinds of businesses. It is usual in Burma at the present time to find Indian bakers, but a Chinaman baking bread would certainly be a sight. Ah Shwe made the devilish business of his to supply bread - I mean the regular kind of bread - to the garrison and the foreign community. And in no time he became rich. What a fine sight he would have cut, pigtails and all riding a pony, and with a non-Chinese wife. The wife was one of the sisters of Maung Gnan, or she might have been a niece. I am writing this story from memory and can very well make mistakes which unfortunately can never be corrected now that my mother who had told me the story is dead.
Like all rich Chinaman of these days, Ah Shwe practiced polygamy. He had at least three wives, two of them were sisters -- the relatives of Maung Gnan.
One of the sisters was Ma Sone (ma. hsoan), and another Ma Mema (ma. mei: ma.)(Miss Black-female). Ma Mema was not the first wife, but she had many children. The first child was Maung Gyi -- a son, and the youngest Ma Sin (ma. hsin)(Miss Elephant). Ah Shwe also had a Chinese wife who had a son whom my mother would refer to as Set'shane'khay. In spite of his wealth and his many wives, Ah Shwe did not die a natural death. He died from a fall from his horse but not before he had set his house in order.
One of his daughters, Ma Kyin -- my maternal grandmother, he had given in marriage to Chi Ah Lwe -- my grandfather who had come from Canton, China, at the age of six (See Author's note on the age of six) and in pigtails. What a sight he must have cut. He had come to join his eldest brother Chi Ah Chat in Shwegin. (My mother pronounced "Chi" as "Kyi".) My grandfather by the time he married my grandmother was already a very wealthy man and had already an unofficial Burmese wife. So, my grandmother the official wife was actually the second wife.
The next daughter, Ma Yin was married to Ah Chu.
Ah Shwe might have been an energetic man, but he was no match for his first wife - Ma Sone who controlled his household, wives and all with an iron hand. Ma Sone was the matriarch. You can bet the Burmese (or rather the Talaing) woman for that. I wonder how the present day American women who are hoping to be equal to men, would like the idea of running and controlling a large estate, wives, children, grandchildren, concubines and all.
Ah Chu and Ma Yin had quite a number of children: Daw Ah Lan, U Ba Ba, U Ah Lun, Daw Than, U Ah Waing, U Ah Mein, U Ah Foo (my American cousins refer to him as Uncle Leo after his American name: Leo Foce.), and U Ah Kway. Of the daughters, Daw Than was sent to "English" school and she came to have a Christian name - Annie. I still remember my mother telling me how Annie, and she -- Mary, had been close together in childhood. It seems that they were the only two who had Christian names in addition to their Burmese names and Chinese names. For all I know Daw Ah Lan did not have a formal education. I sometimes wonder what had happened to all the family members - Mama Emma and Mama Kittee (daughters of Daw Than aka Annie) in the United States, Reggie and his brother in Singapore, U Kyaw Win (s/o U Ah Waing) and his sister in the United States and I in Canada.
In a small village in the province of Canton in China, were four brothers. Of the four, three came to settle in Burma. There might have been others, but my mother remembered only four.
They were Chi Ah Chat, Chi Ah Htunm, the third brother who was abducted by "robbers" as teenager and who became a "Kup-ming" (Kuomintang? - the party later headed by Chiang Kai-shek), and the youngest Chi Ah Lwe who came to join his elder brother Chi Ah Chat in Shwegyin in Burma. When he came over, Chi Ah Lwe was about six years in age (See Author's note on the age of six) and wearing pigtails as was then the custom of the Chinese.
Chi Ah Lwe, my grandfather, had a good schooling and was the only one of the brothers who could speak English.
Chi Ah Chat was probably a trader of general merchandise. Chi Ah Htunm came to own a chain of opium houses which were licensed by the British rulers of Burma in the early 1890's. Chi Ah Lwe, became a building contractor and came to own a number of lumber mills.
Chi Ah Lwe's knowledge of English was essential in dealing with the British officers. His head office was in Pegu. He got many contracts to build hospitals, circuit-houses, and railway stations. Later, I came to see the buildings that my grandfather had built - hospitals in Taikkyi (a town between Rangoon and Prome) and in Hlegu (between Rangoon and Pegu). His area of construction went as far as Toungoo. He crossed the Salween River, and built circuit houses east of the Salween. He donated (built) a church in Meedaingdaw-Bawgali a Karen village east of Toungoo.
Chi Ah Lwe died in Pegu of plague when my mother, his daughter, was about 13 years old. About 40 days after his death, my grandmother died of cholera in Rangoon. His business was taken over by his two adopted sons (the sons of his elder brother Ah Htunm), because my mother was still a minor.
The two brothers were Chi Ah Yein and Chi Shein Yu. Chi Shein Yu had four children, two sons, C. Ba Ba and C. Boon Shein, by the first wife. Chi Shein Yu married a second wife, who gave birth to Daw San Tin and U Saw Tun (U Saw Tun's Chinese name is C. Chun Chai).
A lengthy legal inheritance battle ensued between the two brothers on one side, and my mother (now living with her widowed aunt - Ma Yin) on the other. The question before the court was whether the estate should be settled according to Chinese-Buddhist custom, or according to Burmese-Buddhist custom. The brothers claimed they should be the sole inheritors according to the Chinese custom, leaving the daughter in the cold. Whereas my mother, their younger sister, claimed that the estate should be divided equally into three portions in accordance with the Burmese custom. The result was Ah Lwe-Ma Kyin's fortunes were all eaten up by courts and lawyers. The legal proceedings lasted over seven years, and was finally settled out of court, and my mother was reconciled to her two (adopted) elder brothers.
Even while the case was being fought in the courts, my mother and her two (adopted) brothers never bore any enmity towards each other. My mother used to visit her two brothers in Kyaitho a town where Chi Ah Lwe had some of his timber mills. My mother had good relations even with her sisters-in-law. My question was why was the case brought before the courts in the first place. My only answer -- thanks to the lawyers. One thing my mother benefited from the case was, she became quite knowledgeable of the inheritance laws, and that is why I am always intrigued by the workings of the Law.
I think the major breakup of Ah Shwe's progeny came sometime in the 1920's. U Baba, was too weak to control the estate. Wong Sit'awe (Reggie Thein's maternal grandfather -- my mother would refer to him as "Tee-foo."), U Baba's brother-in-law, was too conservative a Chinese. I remember all the stories my mother told me -- from her perspective. And I have come to realize that no one in particular was responsible for what had happened. It was just the result of two cultures -- Chinese and Burmese (or Mon) -- colliding within one family in times of great political and economic changes that were taking place in an alien land.
The last breakup of Ah Shwe's family came in 1948, with U Ba Yoke, the husband of Daw Than (by that time Daw Than was dead and U Ba Yoke was married to her niece who eventually gave birth to two daughters each having extra toes on each foot.) on one side and Uncle Ah Mein on the other. My mother sided with Uncle Ah Mein. That litigation was one of the traumatic experiences of my life and I do not think I will ever be able to overcome it.
What happened between Reggie Thein's parents and mine took place in early 1950's. The episode, though full of lessons from which we should be able to learn to make us better men, is still too fresh for me. It'll take sometime for me to write it out.
I still the remember the story of Reggie's paternal grandfather (the father of Reggie's father) -- U Ah Foon. (See note 1 below). How the two cousins, U Ah Foon and U Ah Lun roamed the country side to build rice-mills, and at least one electricity generating plant. How Reggie's paternal grandfather broke up with Reggie's paternal grandmother, and took on a Burmese wife. She was an ah-nyaing dancer by the name Twentay-san-tauk Ma Sein.
U Ah Foon met Ma Sein (in 1920's?) while building a rice mill in Htan-ta-bin some miles up the Rangoon River from Rangoon. Reggie might have come across one very well known Burmese writer - Takatho Hpone Naing. Hpone Naing's wife is the grand-daughter of Reggie's paternal grandfather.
Probably Reggie was too young to remember one Burmese army officer (dressed in a uniform similar to that of the Japanese Imperial Army) who came to see his mother in Twentay during the World War II. He is U Hla Myint, my distant uncle descended from Mg Gnan. U Hla Myint is related to Hpone Naing through his (U Hla Myint's) mother side.
I'm sure one thing that had troubled my mother throughout her life was she could not make up her mind whether she should consider herself a Chinese or a Talaing. Ordinarily, she could get along with her life. However, whenever something that affected her deep convictions came up, she would lose her cool. There was that conflict of Chinese values and Burmese-Mon values. Having been to a Christian school, and having relatives who had become Buddhist monks added more to her confusion. A lot of her Chinese-Mon relatives are more or less like her. And so, whenever someone got married, there would usually be quarrels within the extended family. When my mother married my father, there were bickerings among my mother's relatives. When I got married to my wife, my mother did raise a hue and a cry. So also when my cousin U Saw Tun got married to another cousin Daw Mya Tin, there was unrest. I don't know how such quarrels affect others, but they always make me sad, or in Burmese: myak. nha pu te.
I am a scientist, but I consider myself a writer also. A couple of my stories had been published - of course in Burma. But that was before U Ne Win came to have a tight control of the press. I was asked not write anything without permission by my then Rector U Yone Moe in R.I.T. Ever since, when the Muses got hold of me, I still write not for publication, but for my own pleasure and to bother friends and relatives.
Yours,
U Kyaw Tun (Joe K. Tun) Deep River, Ontario, Canada. February 1996.
Author's note on the word Talaing.
The word Talaing is supposed to mean many things:
• it is a corruption of Talingana or the people of Talingana.
• it means racially corrupt people or half casts
• it means downtrodden people.
•
Phayre,
History of Burma , London, 1883 wrote, “From tradition and such scanty
historical notices as have survived, we are led to look to the east coast of
India especially to the country on the lower courses of the Kistna and
Godavari, with the adjoining districts, in other words ancient Kalinga and
Talingana, as the countries which at a very remote period, traded with and
colonized the coast of Pegu. The people of Pegu are known to the Burmese, to
the Indians thence to Europeans by the name of Talaing”
Author's note on the age of six. This does not necessarily mean real age of six. The Bamah use this phrase figuratively meaning "pre-teen". Incidentally, the English word "teen" has no equivalent in Bamah, because our number system is something like: one, two, three, ... , nine, ten, tenty-one, tenty-two, tenty-three, ... , tenty-nine, twenty, twenty-one, ...
The following are the list of names which have come back into my memory. I must write them down before I forget.
The Chinese side
01. Leong Chaing - Daw Hlaing (my mother would refer to her as Kyee Kyee Ma Hlaing (ma. hlaing:). There was another name Kyee Kyee Ma Thaing. Notice how the names of the sisters/cousins rhyme - a trait common on my mother's side: Ma Hlaing, Ma Thaing, Ma Kyin, Ma Yin, Ma Hsin.
02. U Ah Foon (my mother would refer to him as Ko Ko Ah Foon)
03. Ma Thin (Ma Ma Thin to my mother). Ma Thin died of consumption while she was visiting China. According to my mother Ma Thin had quarreled with her younger brother, U Ah Choi (Ko At Hswe to my mother) and had vowed that she would come back to bring misery to U Ah Choi. On checking the time she died in China, and the happening of an episode in the household of U Ah Choi (aluminum pots and lids stored in the attic came crashing down with a terrible crash), the two seemed to tally. And my mother and her relatives beleived it was the spirit of Ma Thin who had come back. In due time a son was born to U Ah Choi's wife. The child bore a birth mark, which coincided with the marking put on Ma Thin's wrist at her request just before she died in China. This to everybody including U Ah Choi was the proof that the child was Ma Thin reincarnate. The child was sickly from birth, and U Ah Choi was really miserable, and whenever the child could not go to sleep at night because of coughing and kept on crying U Ah Choi had to carry him in his arms walking to and fro to put him to sleep. According to my mother U Ah Choi deeply regretted that he had offended his elder sister. The child died young and U Ah Choi was relieved that he had given satisfaction to her dead sister.
04. U Hone Kyan - Reggie's father. Ah Kaw to me. Sir Ah Yein - the father of U Hone Kyan's first wife.
05. U Kwan Lone - Tain Tain Kaw to me. Father of my May and Lan Lan.
06. Daw Aye Yin - Daw Aye Tin.
07. Ma Ma Pu - Ak Pu to Reggie.
08. Htwe Kyi - the housemaid and Bonzo - the dog..
09. Bonzo - the dog.
10. Daw Sein Pwint -- U Ba Yoke-Daw Than's half-demented servant.
11. Aunty Ma Than Sein -- Uncle Mein's first wife and her (adopted) son Tat Chun -- Check with Mama Kittee and Maureen.
The Mon side (the relatives of Maung Gnan)
01. Kyaung-a-ma (kyaugn: a. ma.) Ma Gyi -- died before 1935? in Kungyangon. Check with Sayadaw of Gnak Twin (meaning -- birds' pit) monastery of Kungyangon. Daw Gyi donated many paddy fields to the monastery. After the death of her son, she adopted her daughter-in-law who eventually turned her out. Daw Gyi died in the monastery. After she was turned out by her daughter-in-law, the then Sayadaw, relinquished ownership of some paddy-lands back to Ma Gyi the produce from which provided for her till she died. My mother became haunted by that episode and she always told me that she would never let me do a similar thing to her. The result was she kept many secrets from me. She told me that she had in her possession a very rare ruby and when I asked her where she said, "Why should I tell you!" That was finally when I gave up on her -- a mother who would not trust even her only son who by that time was a respected lecturer in the university. It hurts me to this day to know how lowly she had thought of me.
02. Daw Thein (died in 1940's in Kungyangon.) Long-time widow of U Shwe Loke. U Shwe Loke one of the prominent elders of Kungyangon. (died before 1935). Daw Thein was my mother's aunt. U Shwe Loke - Daw Thein had two grandchildren U Than and Daw Nwe (I lost contact with them in 1960s). Mama Nwe died in Kungyangon in the sixties.
03. Daw Sein Nu (daw sein: nu.) (Madam Green Bud). Younger sister of Daw Thein. Daw Sein Nu had two daughters.
04. Daw Tint (not related) Sister of U Shwe Loke. Wife of U Ba Oe (meaning -- Mr. Old Man) the richest man in Kungyangon. Principal support of Gnak Twin monastery. U Ba Oe - Daw Tint had a son, U Mya Thein. U Mya Thein died in the late forties survived by his wife Daw Thwin (died in 1980s). Both U Ba Oe and Daw Tint were still living during the Japanese occupation.
05. Daw Myint (not related) -- elder sister of Daw Tint.
06. Daw Thone, another aunt of my mother. She was the mother of: U Maung Maung (Police Supt, died in 1960's), Daw Ah Tint (mother of my cousin Daw Myint Gyi still living in Kungyangon), Daw Aye Myaing (died in Kungyangon in 1990s. Her son nicknamed Da Lein is living in Kyauk-myaung), Daw Khin Tint (wife of U Sein Nyunt, now living in Kyauk-myaung, Yangon) -- ask my 'adopted son' Aung Naing to show you the place.
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