My Elder Brother--Sithu U (Dr.) Thaw Kaung. (1937-2026)

U Thaw Kaung (1937-2026)

My elder brother,7 years older than I. He had a difficult childhood as he could not walk and when we were in England, I used to go upstairs and visit with him and his friend from next door--His bed was laid out like The Land of Counterpane.

When he was already in college,he gave me books like How to take exams, how to lie with statistics, how to spell correctly if you are unsure.

He advised on the scholarships I applied for. "What will you do if you get it."

"Go." I said.

He was an English Literature major, but Ne Win made him a Burma historian.

My brother was an extrovert, unlike me.

Lots of people knew him as he was very good at group events and staying in touch.

When our father died, our father's friends put together a fund so he could study in the UK for a diploma in librarianship.

He only really wanted to help others. He argued he didn't need an MA and a Ph.D.

In 2004 when we met up in London, he was so kind as to write, "Our father loved poetry but you can write it."

He didn't write much himself, but he did put together a birth centenary edition of essays and obits of our father, also Sithu U Kaung, a well-known educator and first Chairman of the Burma Historical Commission.

I don't know anything else and I hope his passing was peaceful.

We will miss him.

A hoopoe alighted when he was sitting at our home in the garden at 22 Windermere Crescent.

I always spoke too loud: "Where? Where?"

"Shh. You will frighten it away,"

I hope his soul is among the birds, the butterflies, the Chopin piano pieces, the little sea creatures he loved so much, in the small rock pools at Ngapali beach, named after Naples in Italy.

I think his favorite writers were Desmond Morris,The Naked Ape, and Gerald Durrell's books. And books on animal behavior, but he did not seem interested in big animals. He liked observing insects.

He didn't harm anybody.

He told a Burmese writer in the USA that I had written a play "Shaman", and my American friends had acted in it.

I saw him perhaps 4 times during my so far 40 years in USA.

He liked the theories of Konrad Lorenz.

Konrad Lorenz — Animal Behavior Specialist Who Studied Geese

Konrad Lorenz was an Austrian zoologist, ethologist, and ornithologist best known for his pioneering work on instinctive animal behavior, especially in greylag geese Wikipedia+1. He is considered one of the founders of modern ethology, the scientific study of animal behavior, and shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Niko Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch for discoveries in individual and social behavior patterns Wikipedia+1.

Key Contributions to Geese Research

Lorenz’s most famous contribution was his detailed study of imprinting in greylag geese. He demonstrated that young birds form an instinctive bond with the first moving object they see within the first hours after hatching, a phenomenon he described as a natural, instinctive attachment Wikipedia. This work was central to understanding how early experiences shape behavior.

He also studied wild, domestic, and hybrid geese, observing their social structures, communication, and movement patterns. His research at his family’s summer home in Altenberg, Austria, where he spent “goose summers,” became a hub for ethological studies JRank Articles+1.

Legacy

Lorenz’s work bridged natural history observation with scientific rigor, helping to establish ethology as a respected field in biology. His studies of geese not only advanced animal behavior science but also influenced psychology, biology, and even cultural understanding of instinct and social learning.

If you are looking for a specialist who studied geese in depth, Konrad Lorenz is the central figure whose research remains foundational in the field.

He liked the Leakeys.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Leakey

I think in art he liked Qi Baishi (then spelled Chi Pai Shi)

and I discovered he didn't like opera, while I love it.

Kyi May Kaung.

7-29-2026