Word: shwe
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...thatched
hut behind his house, and taken a vow of chastity (he has eight
children). Thakin Nu's friends said that he was devoting himself to
becoming a Buddha 999 worlds from now. Recently, Thakin Nu and
thousands of other residents
...fellow tribesmen. Karens, who had a myth that one day their "lost white brother" would return over the great waters with a "lost book," made willing listeners. When bands of Karens began to arrive in Rangoon to be baptized, the Burmans threw them into prison. One convert, Ko Shwe Waing, was released and smuggled a Bible in the Karen language through the back jungle trails to his native village. There, while Karens guarded the house, he reverently unwrapped the mythical lost book in the flickering light of a primitive lamp. At the sight of the treasure, some villagers bowed down...
There were many Communists in Burma's jails, but Rangoon's police itched to get their fingers on one more. Hefty Thakin Soe had cost them face. Arrested, he slipped out of their grip and fled into Rangoon's famed Shwe Dagon Pagoda. Police right behind him had to stop and remove their boots before entering the Buddhist temple. For most of a day bootless police combed its labyrinth of passages and rest houses, guarded every exit. They paid little heed to a bent and evidently blind nun who slowly made her way down the main steps...
Maung (Mr.) Shwe Waing is a fine example of what may well prove to be a revolution in language teaching. What Yale is doing with Burmese, Malayan, Japanese, Chinese and-most popular of all-Russian, is being done in pretty much the same way with other tongues elsewhere: University of California (Thai, Annamese), Pennsylvania (Moroccan Arabic, Hausa, Fanti) Indiana (Turkish). Noise Guide. Charming, handsome Shwe Waing was a sailor; his home port was Rangoon, where once a soothsayer said he would become a teacher. Last spring Yale picked him off Ellis Island. Technically Shwe Waing is no teacher...
Each afternoon the boys have two hours with Shwe Waing, who is forbidden to theorize or explain. He just makes noises along lines laid down by Cornyn. The students talk back. If the back talk rings false, Shwe Waing calls for repetition until it sounds right to a Burmese ear. He can explain new words in terms of those already learned. The boys make careful notes of all sound effects in a phonetic alphabet, study them aloud in barrack dormitories, on the street, at meals. Bit by bit, somewhat as Burmese children do, but with the best of technical help...