And so….
Silently, they flow from the nib,
Those little words and lines
to quake the head, quench the heart,
to mould and move the minds,
And awesome too, is that hand;
which sets the pen to work
come what may rain or shine
From duty, will not shirk
Moe Hein (son Journal Kyaw) -Ref; internet source.
In Yangon, I met Saya Moe Hein, a writer and poet whose mother, Journal Kyaw Ma Ma Lay, was one of the most prominent figures in the Burmese literature history. A friend, Lu Lu, introduced me to Saya Than Thaik, a writer and poet, who was one of Saya Moe Hein's close friends. (The word "saya" means teacher) Next day, Saya Than Htaik gave me Saya Moe Hein's phone number. When I called Saya Moe Hein whether I could join his English class, he knew me already.
In those days, I could not think to attend a English class. Simply, I could not effford to pay for it and my salary was around USD10 a month. Normally I survived hoping to do the best for my future. With Saya Moe Hein, I found some techniques of translating Burmese to English and how to choose the right words in Burmese. Actually, Saya was a very busy man but he made a special schedule for that weekly class. It was free for all students. All the students were employees in the government offices and other organizations. Some of them were journalists.
The more I learned about Saya Moe Hein, the more I admired the way of his thinking and his social work especially for those who wanted to proceed learning English. We had one and half hour for every section and it was once a week. Even I attended eight meetings with him because he moved the class to another place, I found him as a very interesting person because few Burmese educated teachers were doing that kind of solo-charity work. He was very simple and gentle. Even though he was highly paid in his job and busy, he tried to find time and shared his knowledge and experience with those who wanted to learn English more.
Before I left from my country, I heard that he was working for a school to train the orphans. I sensed that he would teach the children to know how to cherish the Buddhism because he himself was a very devout Buddhist that I have ever met before. I still remembered his story which even he never killed ants hanging around his windows but he used to feed them with food every morning.
He always reminded his students to stand on their own feet and studying hard. I was surprised that he used to call by my name. I was very happy to attend his class. It was not because he taught us English for free but because he had a sincere and honest personality.
