LIFESTYLE | BOOK EXCERPT
Daw Khin Kyi’s Abiding Impact The mother of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was a strong character in her own right and a major influence on her daughter’s life, according to this excerpt from a new book, The Burma Spring By RENA PEDERSON
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ung San Suu Kyi’s mother is not as well known as her father, but her influence on Suu Kyi’s life should not be overlooked. While Suu Kyi inherited much of her looks, her intellect, and temperament from her father, it was her dutiful and upright mother, Daw Khin Kyi, who raised her. When I first interviewed Suu Kyi, I deliberately asked her about her mother several times, because so much had already been written about her father but very little about her mother. What attributes did she share with her mother? “A sense of duty,” she said instantly. After some thought, she added, “Discipline… courage… determination… I think I get those qualities from both my parents.” Her mother was a remarkable woman, she said – very strong, very strict. “She brought me up as she thought my father would have. Her strength was above normal. Sometimes I think by nature she
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was braver than my father. I think my father, like me, had to learn to be brave. My mother was afraid of nothing.” Her mother’s story begins in the Maungmya area, a rice-farming and fishing area in the southern Delta. Khin Kyi was the eighth of ten children and affectionately known in her family as “Baby.” She started out in local school, but was considered bright enough to be sent by her family to get a better education at the Kemmendine Girls’ School. The school had been started by Baptist missionaries in the 1800s and was open to all ethnic groups. Khin Kyi did well academically, but was not able to gain admission to Rangoon University. She had her heart set on getting a college education, so she persisted and was able to gain entrance to Morton Lane Teacher Training College, another Baptist School, in Moulmein. Khin Kyi returned to her hometown to teach at a government school, but soon became restless
Daw Khin Kyi was “afraid of nothing,” according to her March 2015