Famous Burmese: Top Ten List

by Julie Tetel Andresen | February 2, 2021 |

This post on Famous Burmese first appeared in July, 2019. After the military coup in Myanmar yesterday, I will repost over the next few days several of the blogs I wrote during my visit there. I’d like my readers to be able to inform themselves about the country from some of my first-hand observations.

What I wrote in 2019 when I visited Burma/Myanmar:

My wonderful guide in Myanmar, Win Kyaw Zan, helped me greatly with this list. I love doing them. And my informants around the world seem to enjoy thinking about the famous people in their respective countries.

Famous Burmese: Historical

King Anawrahta

King Anawrahta (1014-1078) founded of the Burmese nation. He also founded the Shwezigon Pagoda in Bagan, where he was born. I chose a statue of him for the title image.

King Bayinnaung

King Bayinnaung (1516-1581) assembled the Taungoo Empire, the largest in the history of Southeast Asia.

Gotta love a map.

Famous Burmese: Modern Politics

Aung Sang Suu Kyi

Aung Sang Suu Kyi is currently the State Counsellor of Myanmar, a position roughly equivalent to Prime Minister. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights. During her political career, she lived under house arrest for 15 years, on and off, during a 21-year period.

She has become quite controversial, internationally speaking.

Update: February 2, 2021 . She is again under arrest as of yesterday morning. How Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi went from Nobel Peace Prize to Pariah

General Aung Sang

Aung Sang (1915-1947) was the father of Aung Sang Suu Kyi. When he was born, the country was the British Crown Colony of Burma, and he served as its 5th Premier. He worked for Burma’s independence from British rule and deserves the title Father of modern-day Myanmar. Six months before independence, he was assassinated.

U Thant

U Thant (1909-1974) was Secretary General of the United Nations from 1961-1971 and the first non-European secretary.

The Burmese honorific U means, something like ‘Mister.’ I was unable to find any name for him other than Thant.

General Ne Win

Ethnically Chinese Shu Maung (1911-2002) took the Burmese name Ne Win meaning ‘Radiant Sun.’ He trained alongside Aung Sang but chose a different path by staging a military coup in 1948. Later he brought a Bamboo Curtain down over Burma, cutting it off from the rest of the world. He was also Burma’s dictator during the Socialist Burma period from 1962-1988.

As my guide, Win, put it: “He turned one of the richest countries in the world into one of the poorest.” So, let’s call him an Infamous Burmese.

Update February 2, 2021: Is further comment necessary?

Famous Burmese: Modern Artists

Shwe Man Tinn Maung

Tinn Maung (1918-1969) was a performer of traditional Burmese dance/drama known as zat pwe. His full stage name includes shwe ‘gold’ and man ‘mandalay.’

The performance of zat pwe goes on all-night long. Tinn Maung died on stage during a performance.

Po Po

Po Po is a performance artist who has the distinction of being the first Burmese to practice this art form. He started in 1987.

Here is his rice terrace Out of Installation of 2009-2010:

The installation has 1000 styrofoam boxes each filled with about 100 seeds of growing rice

Famous Burmese: Record Holders

Mingun Sayadaw

Mingum Sayadaw (1911-1993), the Venerable, was a Theraveda Buddhist monk, known for his memory.

He entered the Guinness Book of Records in 1985 in the category Human Memory. How did he do that? He recited 16,000 pages of Buddhist canonical text in Yangon, May 1954. (To repeat: how did he do that?)

Tay Za

Tay Za is Chairman of the Htoo Group, Air Bagan, and a billionaire. He is Myanmar’s richest person – so that’s a record of sorts.