U Tun Aung "Ko Tu"
September 16, 1937 - March 11, 2019
A remembrance
Rev. Douglas Olds
My mother met Tun Aung at a Christmas party given by her boss in 1973. Tun was staying there. I was 15 at the time, my brothers Todd, 12-1/2 and Mike, 10-1/2 had moved from Michigan to Bethesda Maryland in September 1973 so that my mother could work at a firm there. My father spent only a couple of weekends a month in Maryland for several months because he was selling his business.
At the party, Tun spoke about his previous life in Burma, his wife and two daughters still there, his escape from personal harm through the jungle to Thailand, his present work, his tennis prowess, his Buddhist religion. We were struck by this very special man. He was sensitive, smart, courageous, and fearless. When he told her he had to find a place to live, my mother asked if he would like to live with us. We had a spare room and a family who would love him. He immediately agreed to the offer. He had a full-time job but would clean and even cook for us at times. We loved the soul and generosity of this very special man.
I remember Tun Aung as a man given easily to laughter. He giggled so easily! I thought it was a cultural thing, but when I visited Burma for the first time in 1984—when Ko Tu’s sister Cho Cho, mother, and brother-in-law Win Kyi took care of me and my girlfriend “Miss Nancy”—when I visited, I learned that Ko Tu’s laughter was particular to him. He was a genuinely delighted fellow, kind of like his Buddhist brother, the Dalai Lama. Both laugh easily, even when there is so much tragedy. They won’t give up on the comedy that is life, a perspective which I also endorse as a Christian.
Tun Aung moved into the bedroom across the hall from mine back in 1974. We both had bedrooms in the “servants’ quarters” of a big house that allowed each of to have our own separate bathrooms and showers. I joked with my high school classmates that my alarm clock was “nasal.” Tun would rise in the morning before me and proceed to cook spicy sausages doused in fish sauce in the basement kitchenette down the hall. The pungent smell would wake me.
Tun could not get a job in the U.S. in his trained profession of lawyer, so he first took a job in a Tennis Shop owned by the Sports Agent Donald Dell. In that capacity, he would mingle with tennis stars. He told me that during the summer of 1975, when our family was away in Michigan, that the tennis ace Roscoe Tanner slept in my bed after being brought back to our house by Tun. I was thrilled.
Tun drove an ecru VW Beetle during those years. I practiced driving some in that car after getting my driver’s license in 1974. It was hard to put into reverse, I recall. But Tun Aung moved forward and backward with ease, his body supple and trained by expertise on the tennis courts. He regularly teamed in doubles with Maxwell Taylor, the U.S. military’s Chief of Staff during JFK’s administration. Taylor liked playing with Tun, as did I, though his skills on the court were so beyond my own.
Tun Aung's father had been police chief of Rangoon after WWII. It was a prominent and dangerous position. Tun Aung chose to pursue jurisprudence as a defense lawyer, but the American bar would not accept his training or experience upon his escape to this country. But Tun Aung embodied the wisdom borne from a life lived at risk for the betterment of his countrymen.
An African Proverb holds, “When an elder dies, it is the same as if a library has burned to the ground.” The library of my wisdom is enhanced by knowing Tun Aung. Ko Tu: here’s to your infectious generosity and grace, your spiritual deftness, and may you rest with your ancestors in glory!
Read his obituary, here.
I remember Tun Aung as a man given easily to laughter. He giggled so easily! I thought it was a cultural thing, but when I visited Burma for the first time in 1984—when Ko Tu’s sister Cho Cho, mother, and brother-in-law Win Kyi took care of me and my girlfriend “Miss Nancy”—when I visited, I learned that Ko Tu’s laughter was particular to him. He was a genuinely delighted fellow, kind of like his Buddhist brother, the Dalai Lama. Both laugh easily, even when there is so much tragedy. They won’t give up on the comedy that is life, a perspective which I also endorse as a Christian.
Tun Aung moved into the bedroom across the hall from mine back in 1974. We both had bedrooms in the “servants’ quarters” of a big house that allowed each of to have our own separate bathrooms and showers. I joked with my high school classmates that my alarm clock was “nasal.” Tun would rise in the morning before me and proceed to cook spicy sausages doused in fish sauce in the basement kitchenette down the hall. The pungent smell would wake me.
Tun could not get a job in the U.S. in his trained profession of lawyer, so he first took a job in a Tennis Shop owned by the Sports Agent Donald Dell. In that capacity, he would mingle with tennis stars. He told me that during the summer of 1975, when our family was away in Michigan, that the tennis ace Roscoe Tanner slept in my bed after being brought back to our house by Tun. I was thrilled.
Tun drove an ecru VW Beetle during those years. I practiced driving some in that car after getting my driver’s license in 1974. It was hard to put into reverse, I recall. But Tun Aung moved forward and backward with ease, his body supple and trained by expertise on the tennis courts. He regularly teamed in doubles with Maxwell Taylor, the U.S. military’s Chief of Staff during JFK’s administration. Taylor liked playing with Tun, as did I, though his skills on the court were so beyond my own.
Tun Aung's father had been police chief of Rangoon after WWII. It was a prominent and dangerous position. Tun Aung chose to pursue jurisprudence as a defense lawyer, but the American bar would not accept his training or experience upon his escape to this country. But Tun Aung embodied the wisdom borne from a life lived at risk for the betterment of his countrymen.
An African Proverb holds, “When an elder dies, it is the same as if a library has burned to the ground.” The library of my wisdom is enhanced by knowing Tun Aung. Ko Tu: here’s to your infectious generosity and grace, your spiritual deftness, and may you rest with your ancestors in glory!
Read his obituary, here.
