Theippan Maung Wa - Civil Servant and Writer

Civil Servant and Writer

Sein Tin went on to Oxford University to study for the Indian Civil Service exam and on his return from Britain in 1929, served as a district officer in rural Burma during the colonial period. He wrote a series of small sketches based on his observations of rural life, many of which were critical of political and economic institutions, both colonial and indigenous, such as the following examples.

• Pyissandarit (The Backwaters or Limbo, 1933 Ganda Lawka) was a glimpse at life in a small Burmese fishing village before World War II. It depicts the harsh circumstances in the village and the petty feuds that arose among its inhabitants.

• Leilan Pwè (The Auction, 1933 Ganda Lawka) took place during the colonial period. The story is a depiction and implicit critique of a fishery auction, a Western economic institution not particularly well-suited to the Burmese as the story shows.

• Ma-yway Mi (Eve of Election, 1932) took place before World War II during the colonial period. It describes the political factionalism that was arising among Burmese politicians even at this early date and which would only increase in post-independence Burma.

A collection of 36 of these short stories, published between 1929 and 1941 mostly in the Ganda Lawka, became prescribed school text in the 1960s published by the Sapei Beikman Books. His letters to Kyipwa Yay U Hla between 1933 and 1942 were published by the latter, subsequently known as Ludu U Hla, 3 decades later. U Hla also published Tint Tint Pyazat (Plays by Tint Tint); he had been instrumental in the search for and the eventual publication of Sit Atwin Neizin Hmattan (War Diary) in 1966.