My Root

I wanted to write this topics from 2 years ago since I read the book The Root in Myanmar version. This book was written about the slavery system in US and one black man managed to find his root by asking his ancestors and by doing research on that area.
I always wanted to know where did I come from. The book "Yu Pa Nan Di" by Shwe U Daung also inspired me a lot to find out my roots. . In that book, the man know his ancestors since from the buddha age. The way to keep the list of names is quite simple. Each generation has to write down their family list and hand over to the next generation. Author Shwe U Daung claimed himself that he knows his ancestors from 4 generations ago.
How about me? How far I could know about my ancestors other than my grandparents. My grandparents from my father side are still a live. According to my father, my grandma was born in Yangon and migrate to Mandalay after she married to my grand pa. I don't have any information of my great grand parents from my grandma side except two photos at our Mandalay home. My grandma told us that those photos are our great grand parents and she always asked to worship them yearly as our Chinese tradition. The things made me feel more excited is how did they come to Myanmar from China from 100 years ago, Why did they leave their place, What are the things they left at China, Are there any relatives of them still staying at China, is there anybody whose face is look alike us, had they ever thought of leaving the generations . I have so many thoughts and questions in my head whenever I looked at their photos. They must have faced a lot of difficulties when they migrated from China. Eventually they made it. They managed to build up a successful family.
My grand pa from my father is considered as a pioneer within his family. We were told that he came alone from China to Myanmar when he was at 16. He was supposed to come to Singapore first and join to his other relatives in Singapore. But for some visa issues, he was not allowed to enter Singapore, then he took the same ship and landed at Yangon. There are still his relatives in Singapore and he had lost contact with them for so many years. I don't know how did he survive at his early days in Yangon. I have tried to put myself into his shoes when I come and work at Singapore alone. But I couldn't really think of how he manage to get success life in Myanmar despite of different language and different culture. He often say proudly that he build his current house with only 60000 kyats at 1960.
From my mother side, my grand pa passed away 5 years before we were born. His name is U Saw Phae and believe in Christ. The reason how his whole family became Christian is quite interesting. His father is pure Burmese and lived near Shwe Bo region. But his mother's race is not very clear. One of my aunt mentioned that his mother is mix of Thai and Burmese. I could guess by looking at my grand pa's photo. His face doesn't look like pure Burmese, fair complexion, straight Jaw and long,big nose. Their whole family changed their religion from Buddhist to Christian when the Christian commissioner come into Myanmar after Myanmar lost it's independence. At that time, everybody was suffered of poverty and no family can feed their family member very well. So Christian commissioner managed to convince a lot of Myanmar family easily to change to Christian by giving the support to them.
His wife, my grandma is also not the pure Burmese. Her race is Da Nu, a member of Shan ethinic. I also have no information how my grandpa and grandma met and happen to marry. But I guess their marriage could be engaged marriage by my grandma's guardian. My grandma's parents were dead since she was a kid and she has to stay with one of the relative until she married. Her sister has delivered twins and my mother inherit that genetic. My grandma stay with us until she die at her 92. When she was a live, she told her experience during the second world war. Amazingly she remembered almost all the people names. She also used to tell us about my grand pa's siblings. But I noticed that she didn't tell too much about our grand pa.
In fact I don't feel satisfy of myself for collecting informations about my ancestors. I should have more informations by asking my grandparents when they are alive. I still have chance to ask my Chinese grandparents and I believe they will be very happy of talking about their life experience and their relatives.
My grand parents from both side and great great grand parents have left our generation. . When I think of finishing this topic, I have only one question in my mind. From 100 years on now, there will be another generation from me and my brothers. Will they talk about us? Will they ask somebody about us? Will they curious about us? Will they speak the language as we speak now?
As my great grand parents never thought of these questions but they did what they are supposed to do. So I might be so curious of those questions although I am not supposed to be able to know. Anyway, I will be doing what I should be doing.

My Self

I have nothing special to say about my self. As we wrote my self essay at our primary school, I would like to start my name first. I am called YE MIN WIN officially. But there are a few persons who call me my full name. As far as I remember most of them are my high school teachers. I don't think my parents will have particular reasons to give me this name. I was born with twin brother. He is elder than me and I guess my parents would have thought about his name first. Luckily his name is quite pretty and meaningful. His name is YE YINT WIN ( brave winner) . Then I become YE MIN WIN followed by the homonym of his name.
In fact one of my aunt wanted to give the name to us with the advise of astrologer. Fortunately my parents reject her advise otherwise I will probably be Win Naing Oo or Win Naing Htoo. These name in Myanmar is very meaningful but I found them as ugly and more on country man's names.
Anyway I was not well known as YE MIN WIN among my friends, colleges and relatives. My relatives call me Nyi Ye which is also followed by the meaning of my brother name called by relative. He was called Ko Ye, "Ko" mean elder brother and "Nyi" mean younger brother. These names were called by our childhood friends and relatives. But my mom is calling us "YE NYI NAUNG" (Ye Brothers) until now. I really love that words and whenever we were called by this name, I feel like become a small kid in front of my mom who is ready to listen whatever mom said.
I was called as YE GYI, when I was at university. At that time, putting the words "Gyi" after the first words of name is very popular among students and this is also a sign of expressing degree of friendship. My university friends are still calling me YE GYI. My IT friends call me English translated version of "YE GYI" which is "Giantcop". But they don't call the full nickname. They just refer me as Gcop. And I always use this name to participate in forum, newsgroup and other IT related activities.
This is a good thing for having the different nick names as I can differentiate easily my university friends , my childhood friends and my IT friends.
When I come and work at Singapore, I start to have problem with my name. My first boss suggests me to choose one of the English name so that they can call me easily and other people can remember my name easily as well. But I refuse to choose with the reason that I am afraid to get the bad luck because of my new name. So I have no special reasons and I ask them to call me "YE". Later I realize that "YE" is difficult to pronounce and nobody can pronounce correctly at first time. Some called me jeff , some jack and some called me yee. In fact I should have asked them to call me "MIN WIN". Whatever , now every people I get to know in Singapore from work are calling me "YE".
After 1 years in Singapore, I happen to have a chance to study for Master Program. At this time , I think carefully how I want my classmate to call my name. If I choose "MINWIN, it was very different from the well known name "YE" and nobody will be able to recognize me when they see my name at other place". Finally I decided to choose the name "YE MIN". So I start to introduce myself as "YEMIN" at my Master class.
After encountering a lot of incidents regarding with my names, I have another headache to choose the name for my future kids. I always wanted to have first name and family name. So I decided to implement the first name and family name system from my generation. So how would I choose the family name that will be after my kid's first name?
Would that be nice if it is "YE" or "YEMIN" or "MINWIN" or "WIN".
Appreciate any advise.....