“ORDERING A MAN TO BEAR A YOKE IN EXCHANGE FOR DIAMONDS” 

By Maung Shin (translated by David Law) 

According to follow-up news from military social circles, Bo Than Shwe’s daughter had been impregnated by a certain man called Ko Zaw, son of the late Secretary – 2, Gen. Tin Oo, who had been assassinated in a bomb explosion at a military base. 

The aforementioned Ko Zaw had already been legally married to the daughter of the former Mayor of Rangoon, Ko Lay, and he has a family of his own.  The two had been working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when they became entangled with each other, resulting in pregnancy.  

When Bo Than Shwe found out that his daughter had been fornicating with a married man, his Royal Wrath was aroused and he ordered for a cargo truck to hit and kill the aforesaid Ko Zaw. Fortunately, although he was not killed, half of his body “died.” [translator’s note: became paralyzed.] Ko Zaw was treated at the Intensive Care Unit in Rangoon.  While in hospital,Thandar Shwe, disguised,  came at night to visit him.

Finally, she abandoned the aforesaid Ko Zaw following her father’s commands and married Major Phyo Zaw Win.   

Major Phyo Zaw Win is a reliable subordinate of Bo Than Shwe; in addition, he is afraid to oppose Bo Than Shwe’s orders and hence he married Thandar Shwe, according to investigations.   

(Author Maung Shin’s) Note:  If you look at Major Phyo Zaw Win’s face from the start to the end of the wedding with Thandar Shwe, you will find no joy, contentment, affection, nor devotion.   

(Author David Law’s) Note: So that is why when Thandar Shwe was walking, her belly seemed heavy. From the side, even though her scarf is obscuring the view, when it is not in the way, the protruding abdomen is quite obvious.

 

This article is a discussion about Sexual Mores and Values with a couple of specific examples _ a European story of old and a more recent one from Burma involving the Dr. Thandar Shwe, Ph.D., daughter of Than Shwe,  King of Burma, which  I find  hard to believe. However, the report is there and so let us analyse and ‘discuss that disgusting’ matter.

The first  story is derived from a paperback novel that I read over many years ago by an author called Somerset Maugham about the Duke Machiavelli, the Italian arch-diplomat from the 13th or 14th century whose exploits have made the word “Machiavellian” synonymous with intrigue, conspiracy, and machinations, among other connotations.   

In that novel, Machiavelli is at the court of a certain Prince, trying to negotiate a delicate deal for his remote native city-state, and while waiting for an audience, becomes acquainted with a rich man and his young, attractive wife.  He learns that the rich man is desperately trying conceive an heir and willing to try anything, so Machiavelli impresses him to go on a pilgrimage to a distant shrine to pray for a child.  While he is gone, Machiavelli tells the young wife and her mother that it most likely the rich man who is sterile and not her; however, if she were not to get pregnant, there is a chance she might be soon be deserted by her rich husband for another woman.  

According to the story, the mother persuades the daughter to agree to a tryst and arranges for a dinner at their home, but Machiavelli is called away to the Royal Court for his long-awaited audience with the Prince at the last minute.

Since the affairs of his city-state are more important than an illicit rendezvous, he sends his page, PA if you will, a young, good-looking man – let’s just call him Pierro, to go and tell the mother and daughter to wait for him.  Pierro goes off and disappears the rest of the night while his master agonizes over his important mission with the Prince.  

The diplomatic talks go way past midnight and finally, by about 1 o’clock or so, the Duke finally gets his deal, rushes out of the Palace and goes knocking on the door of the rich man’s wife, but there is no answer. Pierro is nowhere in sight. He keeps knocking and knocking until he catches a cold and is then sick for the next few days.  After recovery, he resumes contact with the rich man’s mother-in-law, but she now assumes a pious air and insists that her rich son-in-law’s prayers at the holy shrine will surely have blessed them with a child, besides,  she does not want to involve her daughter in any sinful liaison  with the Duke.  Of course, he is furious, but since his diplomatic mission is over, he departs with his PA and notices that Pierro is wearing an expensive shirt with the initials of the cuckolded rich man, and that increases his ire.  

Months later, the rich man thanks him; he has been blessed with the birth of a son, and that he is going to commission a painting of the Saint for that particular chapel where he prayed, which will include figures of him and his wife kneeling devotedly.  He does not realize the treachery involved.     

Now for the second story. Than Shwe’s daughter, Thandar Shwe, became pregnant with a married man called Ko Zaw in an illicit love affair.

Than Shwe finds out and furiously orders a truck to hit Ko Zaw, and then forces Major Zaw, his subordinate, to marry his daughter in a splashy lavish wedding involving millions of dollars.  Major Zaw is said to look crestfallen throughout the wedding video.  

What is the meaning of being   “cuckolded”?  Does it mean a man who does not know his wife or bride has had an affair?  Or, does it mean a man whose wife has been adulterous regardless of whether he knows it or not?  By definition, does it include getting impregnated also or is that another take-it-or-leave-it option?   

In Burmese, having an extramarital affair is called “Nauk Meelinn,” or turning on the back-light, such as the rear brake lights of a car, and to have sex secretly with another man’s woman is to “Kyar Koolie Yaik.”  When a man marries a woman who is already pregnant, he is said to have caught a ball with both hands clutched to his belly as if holding a baby, or “Paik  Baw Phan,” as in a goalie in a soccer game.   

Other Burmese expressions are to have a nose string attached, or “Na Phah Kyoh Tat” like a cow so that it can be easily pulled along by the string to serve as a beast of burden.  In the translated article that follows below, the expression used is to bear the yoke, or to “Hlair Kyoh Htan,” since the cuckolded bridegroom must take care of another man’s child the rest of his life.    However, in the case of Major Phyo Zaw Win, the man in question, can we apply the word
“cuckolded” to him when he is receiving for his troubles an estimated US$50 million in various dowries such as cars, apartments, jewelry?  In Burma, it is legal for a man to have as many wives as he can support, so with $50 million, he could live like the Burmese kings of old, with 500 wives on each side of himself, with many handmaidens, and he would not have to worry taking care of any child nor serving  any yoke. (How about you? Would you mind marrying a pregnant woman for fifty million?) 

Well, I must take that back.  When you are the son-in-law of Than Shwe, it will not do to act like a King of Old, and have a couple of 500 wives. So perhaps, you could apply another old Burmese saying, “Dee kaung Nwah bair,” (he is cattle) “Myet phair sah bay dawt!”  (let him eat grass).  In the video of the wedding, Major Zaw does look joyless but surely, with 50 million dollar$$$ he can console himself with the old saying, “Koht chan gaht Nwah, koht Nwah bair,” meaning, the Cattle on my farm is my Cattle.   

Aside from the lurid entertainment if you choose to call it that, can the story be really true? If it is not true, then it shows that the Burmese Public so utterly despises their Unchosen King they will believe any story, and the more sordid, the better. I will not debate the authenticity of the story but only the analysis just for the sake of academic exercise.   

When was the wedding?  Was it in  June?  What a coincidence.

Mrs. Than Shwe, nee Kyaing Kyaing (actually, married women in Burma retain their maiden names), the mother of the bride, also got married in June — without divorcing the father — to a young film star called  Loomin.  (Please see an earlier issue of Burma Digest for that article.) 

Apparently, the royal astrologer had advised King Than Shwe to marry his wife off to a man with a name such as Loomin, or King of Humans, without divorcing her, so as to form a protective alliance and ensure that he would never be deposed from power.   

In retrospect, what he should have done was marry off his pregnant daughter to Loomin instead and become the father-in-law of the King of Humans.

Don’t you think that would have protected him enough?  After all, ancient kings often married each other’s daughters to cement alliances between their nations.  He could have married Loomin’s sister or mother if he had one. Never mind if they are married.  He can literally bump them off with another truck.   Instead, he is a willing cuckolded husband who intentionally marries off his wife to another man and then goes along in the honeymoon for what appears to have been a ménage a` trios.   For a man to have two wives is traditional, but for a man to cuckold himself is unheard of and truly rubbishe royale, especially for Mrs. Than Shwe, a woman of over seventy years of age.   

Furthermore, which wedding came first? Mother or Daughter?  In Burma, weddings must be held before Buddhist Lent (Wah Win) in June, so did the  two weddings violate this tradition? There was a terrific storm in June following the Mother’s wedding. Perhaps the Thajahmin, the King of Nat Pyi Heavens, was angry that he was passed over in favor of the King of Humans for the marriage of 70++ year-old Kyaing Kyaing and sent forth a storm that ravaged the Arakan coast and Rangoon area.  

What sort of man is  Bo Than Shwe – marrying his elderly  wife off to a young man without divorcing her and marrying his daughter to another man after attempting to murder her adulterous lover?  In effect, he cuckolded both himself and his son-in-law.  In Burmese, he forced Loomin and Major Zaw to commit Kyar Koolie on his own wife and daughter in a public wedding ceremony, and blessed them all with money, dowries, and privileges. 

We really should not care about such shenanigans, but the problem is that all this largesse is coming from the poverty-stricken people. 

Every opulent wedding impoverishes the nation even more.  (n.b., because the lover, Ko Zaw consummated his affair with Thandar Shwe, by rights, he is the Karmabaing man, the one who sexually possesses her.  During the Colonial days, in order to protect Burmese women from philandering Britishers, it was made into tradition that any man who has sex with a woman was to be considered her husband who must then support her.  So Thandar Shwe really belongs to the still-living Ko Zaw, and the preexistence of Mrs. Ko Zaw  does not make it illegal since polygamy is legitimate in Burma.  Hence, Major Zaw is a Kyar Koolie adulterer and so is Loomin since Mrs. Than Shwe was never divorced.   

How about the innocent baby?  If the wedding was in June and the abdomen was showing, surely, it should be born by now. 

What happened to the baby? Was it ever born or aborted? How about the father, Ko Zaw?  Is he still alive? How come the Treacherous Savage King who ordered hundreds of NLD followers beaten to death with stones and clubs like in a Stone-Age battle, how come he never ordered his Kyant Phoot Fascists to finish off Ko Zaw as he lay helpless and paralyzed in bed?  Was it because Than Shwe wanted him to suffer the rest of his life an invalid instead of a quick death?  Whatever.   

What really matters is that the many businessmen  of  the TREACHERY knowingly consort with a treacherous evil man like Than Shwe, doing business and keeping him in power.  Some of the Leaders should know better than to deal with such a man.  But they do not. They keep supporting him.  It is important that they know the details of what kind of man they are aiding and abetting.  

In closing, I would like to ask the readers :

What do you think of a Treacherous Savage king such as Than Shwe?

- covering his shame with diamonds,

- ordering the death of his daughter’s lover,

- soothing his fear of defeat by sharing his wife,

- wasting millions when the people are starving.

What do you think of national leaders and businessmen who continue to do business with King Treacherous Savagery?

What do you think of the Daughter? Would  you say she was  at least decent enough to come and visit her lover?  Should she have opposed her father? Could she?

How about Ko Zaw?  Was he a dashing and daring lover or just an adulterous lecher hoping to win favor with the King’s daughter?

And finally, Major Zaw.  Do you think he is an obedient and dutiful subordinate who sacrificed his own chances marrying his own true love, had there been one?

Or is he  just a mercenary follower ready to do his master’s bidding in exchange for sufficient payment?   

 

Footnotes: 

1.  The various meanings of Bo. 

This word means Bully, Boss, Chief, Chieftain, Master, Officer.  Also means  Lieutenant, Englishmen (i.e., colonials), or  white-skinned Europeans.  When applied to Than Shwe, it obviously connotes more of the first set of 6 meanings.  Take your pick.  Wouldn’t you like the very first one? 

 2.  TREAChERY nations – Unscrupulous businessmen from Thailand, Russia, Europe, Asia/America, China,  England, Russia again, Yindu (India in Chinese phonetics) 

3. Some of the Leaders –  especially Russian, some Europeans like Ukraine, China, some Asians, India.   Not included are  US, UK, Japan, Thailand  

4. Kyant Phoot, phonetically meaning the rhinoceros and komodo lizard, but really a derogatory abbreviation of Kyant Khaing Yay and Phoont Phyoh Yay Athin, aka the Union of Solidarity and Development Association, the renamed Burma Socialist Party, like the German National Socialist (Nazi) Party of Hitler who had his Brown-shirted fascists to act as thugs-on-order.  Note how Union and Association form an oxymoron combo.  

5. Stone-Age Battle.  The infamous  roadside ambush of 2003 in Depayin Village when over a thousand Kyant Phoot fascists beat to death over a hundred NLD followers, almost killing Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and U Tin Oo.  Since then, instead of the murderers being put in prison, it is DASSK, UTO, and the survivors of that NLD entourage who languish still, to this day, in captivity.

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