Than E

After the graduation from the Judson College, Than E taught English to 9th and 10th standard students at Cushing High School in Rangoon. The students were all around 17 and 19 years old, nearly the same age as Teacher Than E.

She died on June 17, 2007 at the age of 99. At the end of the memorial service to the remembrance and thanksgiving of her life, her signature song "Hlay Ka Lay Ko Hlaw Myi" on YouTube was played.

After her retirement, Than E went to live in a small town in the Austrian Alps, Feldkirch, Vorarlberg. From there she relocated to an assisted living retirement home in Oxford, United Kingdom in 2001.

She married an Austrian documentary filmmaker, Warner Fend and had a great influence on Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. Than E, a family friend, persuaded Suu Kyi to relocate to New York City and work for the United Nations.

From May 1948 onward she worked at the United Nations Secretariat for 24 years. Her United Nations assignments took her to New Delhi, for an assignment at the United Nations Information Center. She was then transferred to Algiers in the newly independent Algeria to establish a similar center. While she was posted in Algiers, Aung San Suu Kyi visited and stayed with her on her summer vacation from her study at St Hugh's College, Oxford.

While she was in the San Francisco Bay area, the big event was the gathering of delegates from over 50 countries to draft the United Nations charter. After about one year, she went to New York to prepare to go to London. She arrived in New York as the first General Assembly of the United Nations was about to meet. The headquarters offices at that time were in Lake Success, New York. She went to see some of her colleagues working there and asked how they had got their jobs. They directed her to the personnel officer. Burma was ineligible to be a member at that time but the personnel officer said that she was sure Burma would become a member soon and advised Than E to fill the application and leave it with her. She took the ship to Southampton, England, then a train to London, and went back to stay at the Crosby Hall. In January 1947, she found out that a delegation from Burma was in London to discuss the terms of Burma's independence with Clement Attlee's government.

The turn of events in the following few months changed Than E's destiny. On July 19, 1947, Prime Minister Aung San and his six of his cabinet ministers, a cabinet secretary and a bodyguard were assassinated. U Nu, the first Prime Minister of Independent Burma, appointed U Tin Tut to be his Minister of Foreign Affairs. Tin Tut was assassinated in September 1948. She applied for the Information Officer job at the newly opened Burmese Embassy, but the ambassador deferred all the appointments to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rangoon.

The portrait painted by Gerald Kelly was titled "Sao Ohn Kya" and was reproduced in prints and sold. Kelly was knighted in 1945. Sir Gerald Kelly was the President of the Royal Academy of Arts (1949–54).

During the closing months of 1944, as the Burmese community in New Delhi started to think of returning to Burma, Than E got an offer from the United States Office of War Information (the predecessor of the Voice of America), which coordinated the release of war news for domestic purpose but also established an overseas branch which launched a large scale information campaign abroad. She was flown from Delhi to New York by military planes and then by trains to San Francisco. She worked there from September 1944 to 14 August 1945 (VJ Day, the Victory over Japan Day). The OWI was abolished effective 15 September 1945. According to the terms of the employment, Than E was to be given passage back to where she was recruited from, i.e. New Delhi.

In the Burma Campaign, Japanese Fifteenth Army launched in an attack into Tenasserim Division (now Thaninthayi Region) in January 1942. Rangoon was bombed by the Japanese warplanes. Than E joined the Women's Auxiliary Service (Burma) (known as WAS(B)), Than E was in motor unit and had to drive a jeep for some officers on official duty. On February 22, 1942, two retreating brigades of the 17th Indian Division were lost due to the premature demolition of the bridge at the Battle of Sittang Bridge.

One day, Than E got a call from the Education Officer in charge of foreign students at the India House. In 1931, Burma was still a province of India according to the British Rule in Burma. The officer told Than E that Gerald Kelly a famous painter from the Royal Academy of Arts was looking for a Burmese model. She contacted Kelly and he invited her to tea at his house at 117 Gloucester Place, Portman Square. London where she met him and his wife. Kelly said he had been to Burma and spent many months painting many pictures there, many still unfinished. He wanted to finish them from a suitable Burmese model.

The Irrawaddy (news magazine) wrote: "Widely considered one of Burma's greatest singers, Than E won the hearts of Burmese audiences with gramophone recordings from the 1930s."

When Than E returned from England, the Great Depression that originated in the United States from 1929 stock market crash had spread all over the world and its ripple effect reached even to the shores of Burma. Many Burmese landowners lost their farms to the foreign creditors and, moreover, European plantations and mining operations were closed down. There were civil and racial unrest.

In late evening, as the guests were enjoying their after dinner liqueurs, Than E excused herself, went downstairs to the large studio, changed into street clothes and took down the "zadone". As she started putting on her shoes, a distinguished elderly gentleman came into the studio. Seeing a young maiden in distress struggling with her shoes, the over sixty-year-old gentleman went down on his knees and helped Than E to tie her shoe laces. The distinguished old gentleman was no other than Sir Harcourt Butler, Governor of the British Crown Colony of Burma (1923–27).