One of the weekly broadcasts (on music and politics of famed Burmese singer Daw Mar Mar Aye -

"There is so much I still need to tell you."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/burmese/programmes/2010/12/101209_mmaye_358.shtml

The incomparable, wonderful, brave and talented Daw Mar Mar Aye.

Daw Mar Mar Aye started singing professionally at the ripe old age of 4. Her parents were troopers, her father played the Burmese hnge or horn.

In 1998, while I was working at rfa as a sr. research analyst and international broadcaster, I heard that she was in the DC office looking for work. I hurried towards the section head's glass cubicle,from which he pulled all the strings that kept us bound hand and foot.

As I went around the corner fast,I almost bumped into Daw Mar Mar Aye, coming from the opposite direction. This particular corner was not transparent.

I recognized her at once from the photograph on the cover of her CD of Burmese classical songs. To my surprise, she recognized me too. "Oh, of course I know you Nyi Ma (Younger Sister) - I worked with your cousin Ko Win Maung (the writer Min Shin) and I saw Uncle (my father, U Kaung) at the BBS."

Mar Mar Aye worked at the Burma Broadcasting Service on Prome Road in Rangoon for many years, over 20 I think.

She was wearing a scruffy looking, dirty white, old faux fur coat and looked like she was struggling to make ends meet.

I asked if her business or interview with the notorious section head was over. She said it was, so I begged to take her to lunch and we went to the Indian Buffet downstairs on M St.

I had the hunch that Mr. - had offered her something so small that she would have had to refuse. It turned out to be so. He had offered her a column to write, and that would only have given her a piece rate of $200 per pop or per week, not enough for her to stay alive in DC. She would not even get two hundred a week if they re-broadcast old pieces.

I tried to find her a recording stint with the Smithsonian, but they too declined after listening to her CD, on the grounds that it had reverb and so was maybe "not authentic." As if she could not sing the classical songs with old instruments accompanying her or a capella.

At lunch we each called the other "elder sister" and she laughingly told me how she didn't know her exact age. That's because her parents had not taken note of the date.

She said at age four, she wanted to go to school so much she enrolled herself in kindergarten. I was amazed.

She had sung for all the big shots, including army officers, spanning the democracy period of U Nu to after Ne Win's 1962 coup.

She said in 1988 her husband told her that if she "stepped out of that door" to join the pro-democracy demonstrators, she should never come back.

So she said, "OK, I'm going," and left, eventually arriving in the USA.

I was more than amazed, knowing the peak her career had been at in Rangoon.

She said her ambition was to sing in New York's Central Park and to be on American TV.

It wasn't as if she was that young any more when she had to migrate to America, but she was as spirited as ever, falling into that category of excellent Burmese women such as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

She went to live in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where these are a lot of Burmese refugees.

I am happy that she has this weekly column at BBC based in London. I heard that the jerk section head at radio free asia had gone around saying he had not offered her a job as "she could not do translation."

As if one should employ a top singer to be a "broadcaster" who ripped and translated and read the news.

My point was everybody would tune in as soon as they heard Mar Mar Aye was broadcasting. The jerk had apparently not offered that she should sing or talk about music on air.

A few years ago, Mar Mar Aye had a heart operation. I saw her in DeKalb, IL at a Burma Studies Conference in 2008.

As soon as she saw me, she wanted me to share her room, "so we can talk at night" but I had already arranged to share with another woman scholar, and I didn't think it right to move.

Daw Mar Mar Aye said her doctor said she should not hit high C when she sang. At the concert at the closing dinner, she said she did sing high notes.

As you can probably tell, I love strong women like Mar Mar Aye, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Su Su Nway and others.

In comparison, some of the men, brought up as little princes by their mothers, are like "strutting peacocks" as Margaret Meade's friend Geoffrey Gorer(later her husband) wrote.

Notes copyright Kyi May Kaung.