ALOHA 10

I checked my former school’s web cameras today. It’s so nice seeing the library lounge where I studied for 4 years. I miss my Alma Mater. http://cam9.ipfw.edu/view/index.shtml

I was wondering if I would see any old friends of mine who are still sticking around at school. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any. I checked the labs, too. But, no one I knew. Well, it’s been a while since I was away from my school.

December 11, 2003

It’s been exactly one year since I got back to Rangoon. I have to re-examine what I have done in the last year. I guess I have helped a lot of people, encouraged young BARS students and helped them keep up with the rest of the world. I am happy with my life here. My life is meaningful, helping these young students.

December 14, 2003

I am going on a mission trip to Kya Inn Seik Kyi, Southern Burma, from December 16 till 29. I will be gone for a while. I will be at villages where there is no electricity, phones or e-mails. Before I leave, I want to wish you a Merry Christmas. I hope to write more about my experiences after I get back from the trip. Merry Christmas and May God bless you!

See you back on-line next year!

Today, I went to the Dagon Center Shopping Mall to use the Internet. I have been helping a friend who just got hired as a photographer for AFP news agency. He doesn’t know much about computers and so I have been helping him download his digital pictures from his camera and sending them to his boss in Thailand. This is his probation period and it’s kind of important for him to become permanent. I am afraid that it is going to have impact on me because of his involvement in taking political pictures. But if I am of help to changing somebody’s life because he wanted this job very much, I think it’s worth helping him. Besides, jobs are scarce here, especially jobs that pay about $ 300 a month.

At the Internet Café, they took users' fingerprint scans and I don’t understand why. It seemed strange. Burma is a strange place anyways.

Oh, good news is that we now have the rules changed from our ISP, BaganNet. Every dial-up user can access the censored Internet. Free web mail such as Yahoo and Hotmail, free web hosting, political sites and pornography are banned. But the rest are opened now. Burma is changing slowly.

I am so tired helping him all day today and I guess I am going to doze off.

Here is what I wrote for BARS (Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies) Newsletter.

The darkness, eerie silence, twinkling stars and cool air on the Lisu Theological Seminary campus in Maymyo (Pyin Oo Lwin) literally took my breath away. It was a night for a lonely soul to let his imagination wander to an unknown world beyond the stars. A tall, unfinished building on the campus sat there like a giant ghost eyeing its little prey on a dark and eerie night.

It was totally different in the living room of the vice-principal’s house. The living room was full. Everybody’s eyes were fixed on a TV screen. Lwin Moe and Saya Waw Lay (M.Th) were sitting in the back row sipping green tea, and relaxing. Dr. Ah Li, the vice-principal, was sitting on the floor, her eyes staring at the screen. The kids were sitting around her, their eyes also on the screen. Some were lying on the floor without blinking their eyes for a second. Everybody was tense and it was at the climax when the disappointment came — the commercial.

We were all watching Jackie Chan’s movie on an Indonesian TV station transmitted through a satellite. It was funny, thrilling and exciting with one exception. The exception was that all the Chinese characters in the movie were speaking Indonesian. People who were watching the movie were Lisus, a Palaung and me, a Mon. None of us understands Indonesian, let alone speak and read it. Yet we were all enjoying the movie, guessing what the characters were saying. It was like 'Chinese characters speaking Indonesian, being watched by Lisu, Palaung and Mon audience.' The communication medium was a satellite above the sky, linking all these people together.

With the advance of technology, the world is getting smaller and smaller. Everybody is talking about 'Globalization' and 'Global village.' Enough of those trash talks and let me get to the point. English, in spite of its weaknesses, has been the de facto International language. Therefore, dear friends from BARS, please master English so the doors will be open, and the windows to tap into the pool of knowledge will become wider.

Lwin Moe and Modeta in Maymyo

Lwin Moe in the corn field in Maymyo

A Waterfall in Maymyo and Me!

ALOHA 9

Here is the poem Bob Winter, an English teacher from BARS, wrote. Insein is the name of the place where our school, MIT, is.

Ode to Insein

Insein. Insane?
Your fighter jets keep ripping up the sky above my head!

Insein. Insane?
Your Buddhist monks start chanting chants when I am still in bed!

Insein. Insane?
Your Hindus drum and drum on drums and keep me up all night!

Insein. Insane?
To hear my students speak in class I must put up a fight!

Chin, Kachin, Karen, Kayin. Help me! Please! I'm so confused!
Reading off the list of names, I hear their "Ha Ha Ha's" and "Hoo's."

Hmmmmmm. Uh huh. I get it now. You're not the one to blame.
It's me, not you, who's losing it. Insein is just your name.

OJ from Canada, Lwin Moe and Bob Winter, fine professors at MIT :-) ----- in front of MIT library

Bob at Ashee teashop, MIT campus (Bob teaches poetry and drama at BARS)

OJ at Ashee teashop, MIT campus (OJ teaches linguistics at BARS)

Lwin Moe at Ashee teashop, MIT campus (Lwin Moe teaches computer science at BARS)

Today is my former roommate's wedding. I had a reunion with my old friends from medical school. It was a happy moment. The mixed feeling is I had sensed that it would be getting harder and harder for all of us to get together again. All of them are working.

Burmese bride and groom (in traditional dress), Dr. Min Aung Soe and Dr. Su Su Soe

I am back in Mudon, a small town south of Moulmein. There was electricity for about 10 hours today. It was like a miracle. Here is how Mudon has developed. When I was young back in the late 70s, we had electricity all day and all night. In early 80s, when I was in Kindergarten and primary school, we had electricity every other night and all day. In the late 80s, we had electricity all day, no electricity at night. In the early 90s, when I was in high school, there was no regular electricity. I had to study with a kerosene lamp. I don't know about the late 90s because I was in Rangoon (Yangon). When I came back from the States in 2002, there was electricity for about 2 hours in 10 days. These are the development stages of a small town in the Southern part of Burma, about 90 miles from Thailand border.

I was amazed at the development of our town into the 21st century. :-)

Today is the first day of BARS. There were a lot of students for this semester.

I am in Maymyo (Pyin Oo Lwin) and I visited several places there.

A house on Forest Road in Pyin Oo Lwin (Maymyo)

Kan Daw Gyi park, Pyin Oo Lwin (Maymyo)

Waw Lay and his son, Modeta at Kan Daw Gyi park

Lwin Moe at Kan Daw Gyi Park in Maymyo (Pyin Oo Lwin)

Wawlay, Lwin Moe, Modeta, and Wawlay's brother-in-law (Yaw Han) at Kan Daw Gyi Park in Maymyo (Pyin Oo Lwin)

Maymyo (Pyin Oo Lwin) is so beautiful

Dr. Sikhia, Lwin Moe and Waw Lay at Kan Daw Gyi Park

It's been a while since I wrote my journal. I have been very busy with classes and finals. Neil and Diana have gone back to Fort Wayne and now I am by myself in the treetop apartment at the Diamond Jubilee building. I missed them whenever I have to think about where to live.

Internet in Burma

I finally got my Internet permit from my Internet Service Provider (BaganNet) during the week of August 20. I tried to access my Colorado State University's online classes. It was a disappointment to find out that I still couldn't access some of the lecture notes because we are behind a firewall, too restricted to do anything online. The firewall rules made it impossible for me to study online and I was forced to withdraw from my classes, taking leave of absence. Thanks to Ko Adam and Ma Tansy, I was able to withdraw from my classes without any problems. Another disappointment is the cost of the online service. For a reason I don't understand, the monthly fees for the dial-up service is Kyats 72,000 (approximately $ 72.) I got around 35 Kbps with that crappy service. I remember paying $ 45 for my Digital Subscriber Line from Verizon Company in Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA. I could surf the Net with 512 Kbps for downlink and 256 for uplink with 45-dollar service in Indiana, USA. Now I am surfing the Information superhighway with 35 Kbps paying $ 72 per month. We sure need more infrastructures in telecommunication, deregulation and more competition in telecommunication sector. The firewall rules right now are so absurd that it should not even be defined as the Internet. The marketing strategy that the BaganNet is using is a lie in saying that the Internet cafe can get the Internet access. Yes, the definition of the Internet is different from the rest of the world. It is not possible to do anything. No FTP, Telnet, SSH. At least, I have to say that we now have a chance to surf some web sites compared to nothing a few years ago. But the rate of change is so slow that we will not be able to catch up with the rest of Asian countries. The government is saying that we have to modernize the country. Yet we will never be able to keep up with the change in technology with this tight regulation. Only the richest and the biggest have access to this technology and open access to information. I am sorry to say this. Burma will be left behind more and more with this rate of change and rules.

Here is the message from the firewall.

http://webct.colostate.edu/SCRIPT/CS556Ray/scripts/student/serve_tree.pl?428498489+toggle+Course_XXX_Handouts_XXX_431186045

Banned Regular Expression URL found.

ALOHA 8

Si Baw Mi and her friends on her 18th birthday

Si Baw Mi on her 18th birthday

We went to Inn Pon Nya village near Thar Yar Waddy. We had to take buses to Thonze. Boat trip from Thoneze to Inn Pon Nya village was very exciting and interesting.

Travelling with a boat

All of us, BARS students, on the boat

Students having fun on the boat

People who live along the river side

Si Baw Mi, a BARS religion student on the boat

Gaw Thaw, a BARS religion student urinating :-) (Natural toilet in Burma)

BARS students and Lwin Moe in Inn Ponya village

Lwin Moe and Si Si

Si Si singing in the village

ALOHA 7

ALOHA 6

One of nice things about Burma compared to the States is we have teachers' honoring ceremony. Students show their appreciation to the teachers with a small token of love gift and nice songs.

Bob, Tony and O.J. singing a humorous song about BARS

Saya G3 from BARS (Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies) program from the Myanamr Institute of Theology singing at the Teachers' Honoring ceremony.

Paw Heh Khu, a BARS business student, pinning a rose to a teacher

A BARS student pinning a rose to Bob Winter, a visiting English professor

Song competition at BARS, MIT

Students getting ready for their turn

BARS students with Indian dress and Mon dress

The following is a picture of newsweek whose pages were torn because those were an article about Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Newsweek magazine

With torn pages on an article about Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

I went to Junction 8 shopping mall today with an old, long-time friend of mine. It was a strange experience. I felt like I am in a foreign country. Not many shoppers were there. My friend told me that the customers have recently been going to a different shopping mall located at a more convenient place. I checked a shoe, which cost about 22,000 Kyats. That is more than my monthly salary :-) All the shops are international standards and the flashy marble reminds me of the Mall of America. Even though the demand for those high-quality and expensive items is not very high, there are a lot of rich people here in our country. The day-to-day living for an average person is very difficult but those who work in a foreign country and those who have power here are getting extremely rich. I am not surprised that many middle class people want to leave the country these days.

BaganNet is quite improving these days in terms of speed and access phone number. We now have toll free numbers so we don't have to pay 15 Kyats a minute to Myanmar Post and Telecommunication.

I applied for the Internet access because I need it to study for my online Master degree program from Colorado State University in the USA.

Customer Service
Bagan Cybertech Co. Ltd.
Hlaing University Campus Road
Hlaing, Yangon

June 12, 2003

Dear Sir/Madam:

I have been admitted to Colorado State University's online graduate program for Computer Science specializing in Networking. I will have to start my studies this coming Fall semester.

I am a professor of Computer Science at the Myanmar Institute of Theology and to keep up with the new developments in the field of Computer Science, I need the full Internet access.

Therefore, I would like to request the full Internet access so I can do my research and Graduate studies. I would like to have telnet and ftp access so I can log into the university Unix server in the States to do my assignment. My customer ID from BaganNet is 03000781.

I attached the notice of admission from Colorado State University.

Thanks,

Lwin Moe
Myanmar Institute of Theology
Seminary Hill, Insein
Yangon

I don't know what I am going to do if I don't get the Internet access. I might have to give up the idea of going to graduate school online. BaganNet said they give the Internet access to professionals. I don't understand why I don't count as a professional. Right now I am a computer scientist without the Internet access.

ALOHA 5

ALOHA 5 (May, 2003) Word Format

Restaurant Management

We went to Million Coins restaurant today because Joey, a student who went to school with me at Purdue, Fort Wayne, is here in Burma visiting his parents. It was surprising to see how Million Coins operates. They have about 15 waiters for about 30 tables. The labor is cheap here and they can afford to have so many waiters. I noticed that they have no waitresses. What a strange thing!

Million Coins Restaurant

Teaching entrepreneurship to third year students was really fun. They were asking me all sorts of questions after the class about how it was to be a student in the States. I think we were able to put them in the mood to do self-study. I was happy to be able to accomplish one of our objectives. These students are so fixed in their spoon-fed education system through high school and it's been hard to encourage them to do self-study through reading. Oh, it's going to take time to change the mentality of a life-long teaching. I guess we have to be patient.

Neil, Lwin Moe and BARS seniors

Neil, Lwin Moe and BARS juniors

I have been enjoying teaching lately. It's been a busy week fixing computers at the Myanmar Institute of Theology Library and teaching a lot of classes.

BaganNet finally has a toll free number for its users. We can call free of charge to log into the server. Otherwise, it's 15 Kyats a minute from one of my uncle's house or 15 cents a minute from the other uncle. MPT is ripping us off, I guess. The toll free number that the BaganNet gave us is 146. I have no idea what the long term plan is but sooner or later, that number will be jammed. It's a very smart solution they provide. Otherwise, nobody will be able to go online because of the phone charges from MPT. I wish I could go into the communication business here.

I started teaching last week. It was fun with all these kids. I feel my life is useful here. Diana and I teach English at Mon Baptist Church and it's so satisfying to learn that the kids all appreciate it. BARS students are all excited to be back to school. Some of them went on internship trips to several parts of the country and it's so exciting to learn about their experiences. I hope that they all have some interesting experiences. It's been very hot these days. But lucky enough, the place where Neil, Diana and I live has air-conditioning. So it helps.

I went to Nyaung Ywa today and learned about the poor living conditions of those people there. I wish I could help them one way or another. Oh, today is Mother's day and I wish Happy Mother's day to all mothers of the world!!!!!

Rural life in Nyaung Ywa village, Hmawbi, Yangon, Burma

For comparison, here is a gated-community in Yangon (Rangoon)

Rural life in Nyaung Ywa village, Hmawbi, Yangon, Burma

A beautiful evening in Rangoon (Yangon), Burma.

Fort Wayne folks talking and relaxing at Say Plah's house. Left-right: Say Plah, Neil Sowards, Diana Sowards, Jim, and Lwin Moe

I wasn't quite happy with Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT). I got the bill for February and it cost me U.S $ 260 for 1732 minutes. That means 15 cents a minute. I don't think I am going to survive here long with these expenses and my modest income. And I can't do much without communications. There are a lot of limits on what I can do without any good communication system with my friends around the world. The proof is that despite all the foreign graduates we have here, we see little progress in our education system and society because they neither have any authority on issues such as contributing back to the society nor have enough resources to communicate with the outside world. Those who have resources are taking advantage of those who don't have. Information is everything and those who have access to it are abusing it and taking advantage of other people.

I moved in to the Jubilee Hall at Myanmar Institute of Theology (MIT) yesterday with Neil and Diana, my host parents from America. They are going to be here for about 4 months. Neil will be teaching business classes at MIT to BARS (Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies) students. Diana will be helping with English classes at Dr. Chit Maung library. I feel like I am in America with them being here. It was a bit exciting.

Neil, Diana and me

Nice cars and beautiful apartments which I can't afford to buy :-)

ALOHA 4

ALOHA 4 (April, 2003) Word Format

Something like this is an example of reverse culture shock for me because I never saw this kind of signboard in America :-)

Burma is very beautiful and a very nice place to live

People crossing the street

I went to West Yangon University today because my friend wanted to turn in his assignments for his University of Distance Education classes. There were about 200 people waiting for their turn. We waited for 2 hours to find out that his assignments were not due until June. It was 200 * 2 = 400 hours of wasted productivity because 200 people have to wait about 2 hours each. It reminded me of long line at IPFW at the last date to pay tuition fees. At least it wasn't 2 hours we had to wait instead it was about 15 minutes to 30 minutes maximum.

I noticed 20 workers working on 5 feet wide and 100 feet long aisle bridging 2 buildings. They have to figure out a more efficient way.

I wrote a letter to Ms. Grant, who works as an English teacher at United States Information Services thanking she and her friend for sending books to MIT:

Dear Ms. Grant,

I am Lwin Moe. I teach computer science and Maths at Bacheolor of Arts in Religious Studies Program at Myanmar Institute of Theology here in Burma. I helped Allan Po, the librarian, with IT needs of the library.

We just want to say thank you for the books you and your friend form Texas sent to MIT. They are useful for our books-hungry students.

I also want to give you some information on some contacts in the States that might be helpful for you and your friend in sending books with M-bags. While I was in the States for my undergraduate studies, I have involved myself in many community library projects. I have also volunteered to create and maintain a web site for our library projects. Here is the URL for our site:

http://dmw.mine.nu/~lwinmoe/lwinmoe/library/

Since I came back from the States in December 2002, I had a hard time maintaining it from Burma. So some of the info might not be up to date. The only thing I could update is my diary.

There are also other community libraries in Pathein and Taunggyi. We started a bible school library in Moulmein and we have vision that it be expended into a public library in the future. Some of those are mentioned in the web site.

I would appreciate it if you can encourage your friends to collect books and send them to MIT with M-bags. Our friends in the States will be able to help you with information in case you have a question. Here are the addresses of our friends.

1) Dr. Neil and Diana Sowards, 548 Home Avenue, Fort Wayne, IN 46807, (260) 745-3658 nsowards@juno.com

2) Dr. Adam Maung and Tansy J. Kadoe, 18050 N. 89th Lane, Peoria, AZ 85382, (623) 594-6742, TansyJKadoe@aol.com

3) Dr. David and Doris Horton, 386 W. Rio Altar, Green Valley, AZ 85614, (520) 399-0675, dehgvaz@cox.net

I just want to thank you and hope that you will be able to help your friends in the States send more books for our youths in Burma.

Thank you again,

Lwin Moe
http://dmw.mine.nu/~lwinmoe/lwinmoe

I received a letter from my Alma Mater, Indiana-Purdue University, asking me an alumni survey to evaluate my former professor for his tenure. The address says:

Mr. Lwin Moe
Bars-Mit
Seminary Hill
Insein 11011
BURMA

The word "BURMA" was crossed out by the Post Office people. They prefer the name "Myanmar." But I had experiences before in which I used the name Myanmar without Burma and the letters were sent to Saigon, Congo, Cameroon, etc. Sometimes even to Manila. I started to use the term Burma since then with Myanmar in parenthesis. But the post office still doesn't like it. But I can't help it. I had to use the term Burma in some parts of the world where nobody has heard of Myanmar. Otherwise my mails will be mis-sent to Saigon. My formula now is using like this: Burma (Myanmar)

I went to Dagon University with some friends. They had to take some lectures for their Distance Learning classes before their finals. On our way, we stopped by a gas station, he was supposed to get 6 gals for his car and I noticed that the guys from the gas station shorted him at 5.9 gals. Guess how much the gas station is making by stealing 0.1 gals from each car? The situation is if you own a car, you are entitled to 6 gals a week from gas stations owned by the government with a price quite a bit cheaper than the market price. There are vendors selling gasoline illegally with a market price, which is more expensive than the government price.

I sat in the lecture room with my friends. The professor was explaining some functions from economics. I am wondering about the teaching style. He was explaining the definitions word for word (translating from English to Burmese.) Students are not taught how to do self-study, how to observe and learn, apply those in life. They are not trained how to read and learn. Most students don't ask any questions to the professor. Bo Hein, my friend, did raise a question, though.

There were also people laughing and talking outside of the classroom. Those kinds of behaviors are also found in some students of BARS at our Myanmar Institute of Theology. I think the root of the problem comes from students studying subjects they are not interested in. They have no electives to choose from. Their class schedule is determined by the department. I have been trying to fix that at BARS. But lack of full-time faculty and staff has forced us to use a compromise between the US system and Burmese system.

The lecture in economics was followed by a Math class. The teacher was very good at explaining. A tall, thin teacher wearing a Kachin longyi, he looked experienced and kind. He had my respect. In my personal opinion, no system will work unless the mentality of students can be changed. Curiosity, observations and self-study need to be promoted among students. Our BARS program is still struggling and has a lot of problems such as faculty resources, equipment resources, etc.

Happy Easter!

These are interesting articles about Burma by two Japanese.

http://www.yangonow.com/eng/magazine/essay/nishigaki_m/essay06.html

http://www.yangonow.com/eng/magazine/essay/kimura_k/essay05.html

I learned of some bad experiences of Burmese students wanting to take TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language.) TOEFL is a test foreign students have to take to get admitted to an American university. I had to take it about five or six years ago. It reminded me of difficulties just to pay for the fees. Since we don't have a reliable banking system, it is very difficult for an ordinary citizen to transfer money to a foreign bank. In my case, a friend who went to Singapore on a business trip helped me pay with the money order from Singapore. There were not a lot of students wanting to take the test. So I got the test date I wanted. But nowadays, the seats are almost always full on the date a student wants because of increased interest in studying abroad or hopes and rumors spreading around that TOEFL is all a student needs to get a scholarship. Many desperate students have been misinformed that TOEFL is the only thing they need to get some kind of scholarship or financial assistance from America. So they are all trying to take TOEFL, spending all their savings.

If there is not a seat available for a student at either test center in Rangoon (Yangon) TOEFL will refund the fees. They mailed the student a check, which is useless in our banking system.

My desires are 1) to have a stable exchange rate 2) to have a reliable banking system 3) to create job opportunities for our youths.

I took part in the youth camp at Mon Baptist Church this whole week. I gave a lecture on Information Technology in Society. I felt sorry because I had to give a lecture on the technology that they can't afford. The Myanmar Institute of Theology doesn't have the Internet access let alone those small churches.

We went on a trip to Kandawgyi Lake on the last day of the camp for fellowship. It was a lot of fun. We all thanked God for a wonderful meal He provided on a beautiful day. God has been kind to all of us during this time of misery and hopelessness.

It was 910 Kyats a dollar yesterday. I was thinking about spending around $500 for a desktop computer.

There is a rumor around town that a few cases of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) have been reported at a private clinic in Burma. I don't know how reliable the source of the rumor is. It's the cost we have to pay for the lack of freedom of press. Nothing is mentioned in the newspaper about any bad things. The mentality of Burmese people is that only good things are reported. It's even true among Christian ministers and church leaders. Only good news is news in the papers. Rumors can't be ignored here in Burma because they have proved to be true in the past. One thing we need to learn in our society is failures and mistakes don't mean bad. We will need to acknowledge our failures and mistakes, and need to learn from those experiences.

One of the examples is our newspaper. Newspapers reported many good projects that the government is doing. It has been glorifying the bridge projects and road repairing projects for the past few years. There are also many bad things going on around the country such as high inflation rate, terrible living conditions, and reduced job opportunities for the educated youths.

ALOHA 3

ALOHA 3 (March, 2003) Word Format

It was very depressing to be in Mudon seeing economically helpless people and knowing that I can't help them. Many people who are economically doing fine are those who work in Thailand, Malaysia or Singapore illegally. Our town, Mudon, is very close to the Thailand border and it is very convenient to go to Malaysia and Penang by motorboat. I will write more about my trip and my town later if I have time. Being back in Rangoon (Yangon), I have been very busy lately teaching a youth class at the Summer Bible School from Mon Baptist Church and computer classes at Nant Tha Gone Karen Baptist Church.

I read an article from the Myanmar Times. It was about housing project in Rangoon (Yangon). Asia Express is a local company doing housing project. U Maung Maung, the chairman of Asia Express said that the 60x80 square feet land plot ranges in price from Kyats 80 million (approximately equal to U.S. $ 80,000) to Kyats 100 million, depending on how close they are to the main road. He also said that the company charged about Kyats 45 million (U.S. $ 45,000) to build a two-storey house with a floor area of about 3,000 square feet. Zaykabar is also a local company, which is working on a condominium project. According to the article, the company sold 21 of the 150 units available in two days of advance sales earlier this month. According to Daw Mi Mi Thein Tan, the general marketing manager at Zaykabar, the company had received hundreds of telephone calls, faxes and emails from potential buyers. She added that most of the inquiries were from Burmese working abroad.

-- Detached housing attracts buyers (2003, March 10-16). The Myanmar Times, Volume 8, No. 157, p 9.

Honestly speaking, I can't afford to buy The Myanmar Times because it costs Kyats 500 (50 cents) for an issue and I make only about Kyats 15,000 ($ 15) a month. I am reading the issue that I borrowed from Dr. Chit Maung Library.

According to what I saw and read, it is sad that our country is facing the most serious brain drain ever in history. Educated people feel no hope and freedom being in this country and only those who have no way of going out and those who came back from abroad remains here.

These are the social stratifications as I have seen so far.

1. Working-class families who make about Kyats. 1,500 ($ 1.5)a day (lives from pay-check to pay-check). The cost of living is quite a burden for these people.
2. Middle-class families who own shops or small businesses. The cost of living is about the same as or a little bit below their income. Even if their income is above the cost of living, the inflation is killing them.
3. Educated people whose income is in Kyats. They are also struggling but they are similar to category 2.
4. Families whose income is in U.S. Dollars. The cost of living is not a burden for them. They can live decently.
5. People who are getting foreign aid. For example, one of their relatives works in a foreign country. They can live decently.
6. People who are in power.
7. People who are extremely rich with their inheritance. They usually own companies.

Father and sons at the Mandalay train station

Listening to BBC World Service, I learned of the attack the U.S. has made to Iraq. I am wondering what effect it will have on international politics. In my personal opinion, the war is not fair.

Back to our ordinary life, radio, by the way, is the only source of information to the outside for me, because my family can't afford a satellite dish. I am right now in Mudon, a small town south of Moulmein (Mawlamyine.) I have been here since March 16 and there has been electricity for only about 10 hours.

I got up late at about 7:15 AM. I quickly washed up and walked to the bus stop to take a crowded bus to MIT. We had breakfast in honor of the 25th wedding anniversary of Dr. Maung Maung Yin and his wife. The bus took all of us to Kan Daw Gyi Hotel for our retreat.

This is my first time to be in Kan Daw Gyi Hotel, which is very grand and beautiful (at least for me :-) on Kan Daw Gyi Lake. We were guided to the conference room. Following the morning devotion was a nice coffee break during which we had a chance to know each other. It was really fun playing games before the break.

Following the game, it was very interesting to have a lecture and discussions on Conflict Transformation from Dr. Sang Awr from MIT and Dr. Ron Kraybill from Virginia, USA. Dr. Kraybill said that the Book of Acts had full of examples about different natures of human beings. It strengthens us to honor the diversities among us at MIT.

Dr. Cung Lian Hup had the MIT calendar for the year 2003-2004. After that, three small groups were formed to discuss the MIT's curriculum, BARS (Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies) curriculum and staff's agenda. Being a BARS faculty, I was in the BARS group. We discussed several issues on the problems of BARS. We have come to the conclusion that shortage of full time faculty and staff has made it impossible to use the U.S. education system. After all, this is Burma and we will still use the system of taking finals and centralized control of the whole program. A typical program in the U.S would be students could pick classes he or she wants in a semester and take those classes until he/she fulfills the degree requirements. It would be impossible to use that system here, at least for the time being. We also decided that students can fail up to 3 courses in a year to retake the supplementary exams and if they fail the supplementary exams, they will have to repeat the whole year studying the same subjects, which would be painful. Hey, we do our best with what we have and what is right in America doesn't mean it's also right here. It reminded me of cultural relativism. We are still in the transition stage so what can I complain, right?

In addition, the evaluation, feedback and open discussions were followed after the small groups' meetings. Consecutively, Dr. L. Zau Lat led the consecration and we had a very nice dinner there. Returning to MIT was at 6:30 PM. What a long day!!

The annual Commencement of Myanmar Institute of Theology was this morning. The weather was good enough for the beautiful morning, being cool and not very hot in favor of graduates and us with all those thick gowns and caps. I caught cold the last few days and I was still sick this morning. Beautiful morning for everybody wasn't a beautiful one for me because of my sickness. I took a bus from my house to the school to get there a little bit late. I had my cap and gown on in front of the hall just before the ceremony. All faculties and graduates led by Dr. Anna May Say Pa walked in a procession into the hall while the audience sang 'O Worship the King'. The procession was very nice and for the first time in my life, I had to sit on the stage with a bunch of Ph.Ds being the youngest faculty among the old sages.

The commencement went well and so did the dedication of new faculty. Nixon and I were dedicated to be new faculties for BARS. Here is an excerpt from the commencement program:

Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies
This is a season of firsts for BARS. For the first time all the classes of BARS could be held on one campus. For the first time, there is a full time English lecturer, Mr. Robert Winter. And for the first time two nationals have joined the BARS Faculty after their studies abroad: Mr. Lwin Moe (Bachelor of Science, Purdue University) and Mr. Nixon Eway (M.Sc. Information Management, Asian Institute of Technology). This program is under the leadership of Daw Tin Hla Kyi, Chairperson, Thra Pawlu, Dean, Thra Augurlion, Assistant Dean, and Saya Mang Tung Thang, Administrative Secretary.

Robert Winter, by the way, is from Chicago, IL and has been teaching English to Master of Divinity and BARS students. He has a Master degree in English from University of Illinois. He is a nice guy to be friends with.

I was busy preparing certificates for this Saturday graduation of Myanmar Institute of Theology. I have become a typist for today :-), which shows the shortage of computer literates in our human resource pool. Helping the registrar, I had to type certificates for Doctor of Divinity degree, certificates for Distinguished Services, etc.

I read two articles from Computer Journal and I wanted to share some excerpts here.

Professor Dr. Kochiro Ochimizu from Hankuk Aviation University, who took part in the First International Conference on Compuer Applications in Yangon, said, in an interview by Myanmar Computer Journal, that Burmese students are hardworking and motivated to learn. For Computer PhD students, only one thing is lacking in Burma -- a condusive environment. ..... A PhD candidate (Computer Science University here in Burma now has Ph.D. candidates) will need to have full access to the Internet for his professional research so he can see and interact with the real world out there. (sic.)

-- International Conference on Computer Applications (2003, February). Computer Journal, No. 108, pp. 50-56.

The following is another one.

Computer Journal also contains news on BaganNet. According to the report, BaganNet currently has 8000 subscribers and 300 broadband users. The reporter said that the BaganNet service is still slow and difficult to dial up if many users are on-line. There is also a problem of receiving no response from the server. In addition it is difficult to dial up on Saturday and Sunday nights especially when there are football (soccer) matches around Europe.

-- Slow Internet (2003, February). Computer Journal, No. 108, p 56.

It's been difficult to get connected to BaganNet dial-up server lately. It took me 15 tries (redials) to get connected.

ALOHA 2

ALOHA 2 (February, 2003) Word Format

I met with Eric Hornberger today. Anna May (president of Myanmar Institute of Theology) and some other key people from MIT are at the meeting. He had a lot of questions about BARS. We told him about our faculty problems. And also curriculum problem. We showed him the computer lab in which we have 5 PCs for BARS and 4 PCs for M. Div. students. He went to Dr. Chit Maung library, too. Overall, the meeting went well.

I stopped by to see Auntie June who is visiting from Los Angeles. It was very exciting to see her because I met her in Fort Wayne, IN late November. I met her again in L.A in December and now in Burma in February. It's so wonderful to see somebody three times in three months in three different places that are thousand miles apart.

This is an interesting article from CNN about low-tech solutions for the Internet access in villages in Laos.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/02/18/laos.onlinebybicycle.ap/index.html

I went downtown today to get some Burmese fonts. It was about 2:00 PM when I got downtown. There were a lot of cars in the traffic jam. Cars honking and people walking, it was like a busy section of town. It even seemed like a mess. There were so many sellers on the platform that people had to walk on the street. All the sellers have to live on the income they got from their shops along side the platform. The policemen were there to ask them not to sell when there are VIPs passing by.

There were a lot of people at banks today. They were all trying to withdraw money from their accounts because of rumors that have been passing around town recently. Some financial institutions have been insolvent and have been planning to give back what people have invested in. The president of the Central Bank has declared in the press conference guaranteeing that nothing is going to happen to banks and asked people to have trust in the banks. But nobody seems to be listening to him. Honestly, people do care about rumors than what is written in the newspapers. People think that most of the stuffs in the newspaper are just craps and full of government propaganda. If you went to a bank today to withdraw Kyats 10,000,000, the maximum you could withdraw today was Kyats 500,000. I don't know what's going on. No economists can predict where our economic system is heading.

Compared to four years ago, we now have many new roads in Rangoon (Yangon). That's one area of improvement the past four years. The air pollution is also much higher than it was four years ago. If we don't do anything about it, the air pollution is going to be terrible five years down the road.

I decided to update my diary once a week on the Internet. It's too much of work for Daniel, who has been hosting my site and helping me with uploading this. Thank you, Daniel.

I surfed the Internet with 16.8 Kbps today.

Well, today is Valentine's day. Burma is now keeping up with international events. People seem to have interest in Valentine's day. I just hope that in the day of globalization, people will adopt what is good from another country instead of imitating bad things and behavior. I am seeing many tourists wearing our traditional dress, longyi, etc. But we, the Burmese, are giving up our dress in favor of pants, shorts and miniskirts.

Note: ( I am going to use Burma from now on because this is the name most people know and nobody seems to know the official name, Myanmar)

It's just an ordinary day for me. I had to teach a class today.

I went to the Yoma Bank today because my Aunt wanted me to withdraw some money for her. I found out that the bank had run out of money so I couldn't withdraw any money and had to get back home :-) It's funny that a bank would run out of money and had to ask its customers to go back :-) This is Burma :-)

I surfed the Internet with 12.0 Kbps and I felt like I was surfing the Information superhighway with Model T-Ford. :-)

I went to the Karen Baptist Clinic (KBC) to take pictures for their brochure. Since the digital camera has run out of battery, the mission was aborted. We then headed to have lunch at a neary by fastfood restaurant. I heard them (doctors who are my friends from my days back in Medical School) talking about their problems in running the clinic. KBC clinic charges less to patients than private hospitals do. The mission of the clinic is to serve the poor and needy. They rely on donations for equipments and medicines. Nurses do not make much money. They make about Kyats 5,000 ( $ 5) a month. The challenge now is in maintaining a good pool of excellent human resource with that amount of salary. The management team is between a rock and a hard place. It's a work of art to balance adjustments of fees and answering the question of whether to raise the salary or not.

There was a fund fair for Dr. Chit Maung Library in the evening. It was very nice. I hope and pray that the library will be a lamp for the people in the dark. Dr. Lin Bu from Phoenix, AZ also visited our fund fair.

I can access only a few web sites today. It's so depressing. I am going to tell a friend not to sign up for BaganNet unless he desperately needs it for e-mails. I sent an e-mail to BaganNet administrator.

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Dear Sir/Madam:

It would be really nice of BaganNet if users like me could use ftp, telnet, ssh for the service we have to pay Kyats 60,000 annually and Kyats 8000 a month for 10 hours.

Thanks,

Lwin Moe
http://www.student.ipfw.edu/~moel01

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My web surfing experiences include pages like this.

I was able to borrow PCMCIA modem to use with my laptop. Therefore, I surfed the web for the very first time from Burma. It seems very nice. Many useful sites are open. I was surprised, to be honest. I didn't expect them to open this much. Anyway, they use Squid proxy server and DansGuardian content filtering software to control our access. http://dansguardian.org/?page=dgflow

I went to a seminar this morning. The seminar was about teaching English. Louis Young from Cetana Foundation led the workshop. Louis then led the discussion on teaching English. After that, I went to Maung Win's parents's house for beakfast. Computer science department had a meeting . I had to go see Dr. Shar Kler Law for the brochure on the Karen Baptist Clinic.

I found out that there is a problem with my laptop. I have to decide what to do to fix it. I either need to send it to the U.S or try to toy with it here.

ALOHA 1

I went to West Yangon University today. It was a different experience for me. Myo Myo, a friend of mine, wanted to transfer from Meikhtila University of Distance Education to West Yangon University of Distance Education. So we went to the department head of the university with all the necessary documents. He said to Myo Myo that his total mark from matriculation exam was lower than the minimum total mark for the Chemistry major students. Therefore, Myo Myo wouldn't be able to study Chemistry in Rangoon even though he was accepted as a Chemistry major student in Meikhtila. Now he was given an option of either Zoology or Botany majors. He chose Zoology. But then again, since he studied only Chemistry, Physics and Economics in high school, he wasn't allowed to take Zoology either. He was given only the option to choose from some other subjects. So I told him to choose Economics. Students have to pick majors like that and it is not so convenient to change majors either. They are forced to study subjects that they don't want to.

In the evening, I went to the Myanmar Institute of Theology (MIT) with the bike. At the junction, there were a lot of cars. Two policemen were helping with the traffic because there was no stop sign or traffic light. I saw a car crossing the junction and there were young people in the car. One of them shouted something to the police. He seemed to be a student. I don't like his attitude. Even though policemen are not ethical sometimes, they deserve some respect as human beings. The student didn't show any respect for the policeman. The attitude problem of some students is also a problem in our country. So is the attitude of the corrupted policemen towards ordinary citizens and their superiors. There is just hatred between these groups of people -- the oppressed and the oppressor.