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My Visit to Rangoon and MEHS | |
U Kyaw Win was a counselor at MEHS during 1960-61. He is a son of U Ohn Khin who was the first Burmese Methodist pastor and who lived in Twante when I was in Burma. He recently was enabled to make a return trip to Rangoon. I think it is his first since 1960, so I asked him to prepare a copy for the website. Here is his revised version. I thought the MEHS alumni that can not visit Rangoon would find it interesting. | |
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November 28, 2001 | |
I stayed at Yuzana Garden Hotel which was the Steel Brothers "chummery" of colonial days. The structure is directly across Signal Pagoda Road from MEHS. That road has been turned into a one-way street with traffic coming up from the zoo and moving towards Sule Pagoda and Rangoon River. My educational career began there in Lower and Upper Kg only to be rudely interrupted by the bombing of Pearl Harbor and onset of World War II. Both Signal and Sule Pagoda Roads are heavily travelled both by vehicles and pedestrians. Pedestrians have no rights in Rangoon and they cross streets at great peril. People behind the steering wheels are the empowered ones, the powerless have to fend for themselves, crossing streets dodging the cars who don't appear to slow down for any moving objects. There are high rise buildings everywhere in Rangoon. A notable one is the Traders Hotel at the corner of Sule Pagoda Road and Montgomery streets. The streets have new names, this old fogey cannot recite them. The Burma Railways building still stands, but the traffic circle (roundabout) has long been gone. There are pedestrian overpasses over the road and one overpass permits pedestrians to ascend and descend the pagoda itself at the former Dalhousie street corner in the direction of the former E. M. DeSouza pharmacy. At the corner of York and Signal Pagoda Road where once stood Autocars, there is now the high rise Sovitel hotel under construction. Lancaster Road was simply crowded with plenty of sidestreet hawkers selling every food and merchandise imaginable. The land marks of my childhood are gone, gone forever. I could hardly recognize some. The former MEHS is the No. 1 State High School. It is a school of choice for parents of affluence and influence. The school day begins very early, when students begin arriving by 7 A. M. At the end of the school day, cars picking up students for return home are parked three abreast on Signal Pagoda Road. Traffic is heavily congested during that period. This and all other schools in Rangoon are gated with controlled access by outsiders. I wanted so badly to go inside, introduce myself and ask to see the classrooms where I began my schooling, but I did not wish to unnecessarily ruffle some bureaucratic feathers. Each afternoon precisely at 2:30 sounds of a marching band would emanate from the gymn. I presume students marched inside and I did recognize one of the pieces played repeatedly -- a martial piece of Japanese origin but also with Burmese lyrics which extolled the heroic martial exploits of Min Ye Kyaw Swar and Tabin Shwe Hti. As school bands go, this was a mediocre one at best. Except for the three nights I was away upcountry, my "home" was Yuzana Garden Hotel. I found the personnel to be very warm and friendly. The quarters were spotlessly clean and it was a delight to be staying in the building where in colonial times the only "natives" permitted inside the compound were servants, cooks, gardeners, mistresses and concubines of the British raj. The huge mansion inside the large compound across the little lane next to Yuzana Garden Hotel towards the former St. Gabriel High School, which is now a part of the Ministry of Defense complex, was once the property of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company. The British government purchased it in 1949 and it has been the residence of the British ambassador ever since. During World War II, the compound was General Aung San's Burma Independence, later Burma Defence Army, Headquarters. General Aung San and Colonel Ne Win slept in a room upstairs. Methodist English Church, within the same compound as MEHS is still thriving. I called upon residents of the parsonage and was nostalgic to be sitting in the living room where my wife and I had many good times with Hugh and Ruby Lormor who were billeted there decades ago when the former was pastor of the church. One evening I attended a youth rally. It was a highly spirited one with banners atwirl, feet and bodies on constant motion responding to the music whose decibels rocketed sky high to my ears' discomfort. The evening was sweaty, humid and plenty young bodies added to the earth warming effect. The preacher's fire and brimstone message of motivation itself elevated the temperature. But the young people were immensely enjoying the event, to say nothing of the liaisons such celebrations engendered. I arrived in Rangoon the morning of 3 November and exited the evening of 14 November 2001. The weather was warmer there than I had remembered for November. I am now back in my home in the Rocky Mountains where there are about three inches of crystal/powder snow on the ground. The temperature last night was zero degrees Fahrenheit, but the sun is shining brilliantly and the sky is picture postcard blue.
U Kyaw Win |
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