From Burma to North Carolina: How a student in the 8888 Uprising built a life in Chapel Hill

She couldn’t know the truth.

Tun, who was 18, had joined thousands of other students fighting the one-party socialist government in Burma. They considered it their responsibility to overthrow it.

Ne Win — who had held power in Burma since 1958 — had recently withdrawn currency notes from circulation, wiping out students’ tuition savings and turning the rich to poor in a matter of seconds.

Tun watched as his father’s hard-earned money, which was hidden in their home since they had no banks, was deemed useless. He watched as the government shot people in the streets for retaliating.

He didn’t want to watch anymore.

That morning, Tun’s family assumed he was going to help his father work. Instead, he met soldiers in the woods near his home to begin their journey to the jungle to seek weapons to fight the government. He thought he would be back home in a week or maybe two.

He did not return home for 24 years.

———

Now, 30 years later, Tun sits in his home in Chapel Hill, smiling as he reflects on how far he has come: a wife, three children, a good job with Duke University.

His family lives minutes from the home he first lived in as part of the first generation of Burmese in Chapel Hill.

“It’s different over here,” Tun said. “We have everything. Over there, if you can make some money for today, that’s all that matters.”

Although he misses his family in Burma, his children are here. His life is here. His future is here. That is why he spends more time remembering the joys of childhood as opposed to the dangers of war.

“You just have to close your eyes and think about when you were younger,” Tun said. “I can see it now. We had a beautiful life.”

———

Tun was born in Burma in 1970. His father, U Maung Kyi, worked at the railroad station down the road from their house while his mother, Daw Aye Po, took care of Tun and his five siblings.

Although they did not have much, Tun had an exciting childhood. His mother instilled in the children a knack for reading, a passion for the outdoors and a love for music —something that Tun cherishes to this day.

Sometimes, Tun and his brothers and sisters curled up next to one another in the dewy grass underneath the great tree in front of their home. His oldest sister, Mimi Khaing, would make up stories to put the younger kids to sleep.

Po would look out at her children asleep in the yard under the dark blue Burma sky, the dim light of the moon and stars acting as a night light above them. Little did she know that one would separate from the pack. That she wouldn’t know if one was dead or alive for so many years.

———

Tun and his comrades were among the many students who fought the Burmese government in what is known as the 8888 Uprising.

“We were 18 years old and felt like we had all this power,” Tun said. “We started feeding the poor, giving supplies and helping at the hospitals.”

Tun became a lieutenant with the Karen National Union, which represented the Karen ethnic group in Burma. He joined 50 or so others on the front line to fight the government, which had an army of hundreds. Bloodshed was inevitable.

On one instance, Tun watched one of his fellow soldiers get shot. He and another soldier tried to save him, carrying him three hours back to the station. The soldier didn’t survive the trip. They left his body at the base before turning around to continue fighting.

Other times, the tragedies occurred on the other side of the line of fight.

“Sometimes, they would bring villagers, young kids, pregnant women to be their shields,” Tun said. “It was so early in the morning. We didn’t know. We would shoot them. All of a sudden you would hear kids crying, calling for their moms.”

They took breaks from fighting during the rainy season. Tun would take this time to teach social science at a missionary school in Thailand. This is where he met his wife, Nway Tun. As he spent more time with her there, Tun became more distanced from his life in Burma. In 1994, he decided to stay in Thailand to go to school. To start a new life. Three years later, he moved to America.

———

“I had never heard of North Carolina when I moved here. I called it ‘Caroleena,’” Tun laughed.

On June 20, 1997, Tun stepped off the plane from Thailand at Raleigh-Durham International Airport. He was wearing his best heavy jacket. Embarrassed to discover he was the only person wearing one, he quickly removed it. It only took a day or two under the North Carolina sun to learn he wouldn’t need it.

Tun came to America alone. His wife and son were still in Thailand — where he’d lived illegally for the past nine years — awaiting acceptance to come over.

“He is such a family man,” said Poe Wah, another Burmese refugee who Tun met during his move. “He works hard day to day for his family — does what he has to do.”

Transplanting Traditions provides piece of home for Burmese refugees in Chapel Hill

He spent his first months living in temporary housing with three other refugees. Mike Reed, a Chapel Hill resident who met them through church, offered the four men his spare bedrooms.

Communication between Reed and his new housemates was difficult at the beginning.

“Other than food, we communicated in two ways,” Reed said. “We would listen to their tape of the Eagles or my tape of Bob Marley, or we played chess. I couldn’t speak to these guys, but we could play this game together.”

Tun got a part-time job stocking shelves at Weaver Street Market. He remembers a customer asking for help finding spaghetti — he had to admit he didn’t know what spaghetti was. He took a second job working the sushi bar at Akai Hana, although he did not know what sushi was, either.

Between his jobs and the distance he had to bike to get to them, Tun got little sleep. One night, exhausted from his shifts, he looked up at the big oak tree in front of Weaver Street Market and decided to sleep beneath it. It was nothing like cuddling with his siblings under the canopy of a tree as a kid. Nothing like Burma. Nothing like home.

“I remember trying to sleep, but people thought that I was homeless and the mosquitos were biting me all night,” he said. “I had such a headache the next morning because I couldn’t get any sleep.”

Soon, his wife and son would gain entrance to the United States, and he would finally get in contact with his parents and siblings to tell them where he had been all those years.

———

The entranceway of Tun’s home is decorated with photographs of his friends and family. A combination of photographs from Burma and the United States blend his past and his present, his family there and his family here, although they have never met.

Tun has created a new family for himself in the friends he has met. Some of them, including Lettie Leidich, he has known since he arrived.

“Someone brought him to church and said that he needs a ride every Sabbath, he needs a meal and he needs a family,” Leidich said. “My husband and I invited him over, and we have been family since. He is Uncle Ye to my children. He is my Asian brother. We just grew together like that.”

After earning his GED diploma, Tun completed his degree in music production and recording online. Now a production technician at Duke University, Tun also produces music videos for local musicians and plays bass and drums at his church.

His three children, Jay, Leo and Melodie, have also developed their grandmother’s musical inclination — Jay plays the piano and saxophone, Leo the viola, and Melodie the piano and violin, in addition to singing.

Tun went home last year for the second time since leaving Burma in 1988. He said goodbye to his father, who died of lung cancer during his visit.

While there, Tun saw how the rising sea levels were destroying his home. His family had lost acres of land to global warming. He realized that no matter how much you work or how far you go, there is always something else that needs fighting for.

“I can’t help but worry… the reason I left Burma was because of one man, one party, one ruler,” Tun said. “Anytime I can smell something like that — one person or one party and one news organization — I worry. Seeing my daughter grow up and seeing all the disrespect for women in the news, I worry, too.”

“I came home from Burma and told my daughter ‘Close your nose, hold your breath and see how you feel.’ This is what we’re doing to the world right now,’” Tun said. “If we keep hurting the earth, one day we might not have the air that we’re breathing…”

“… unless we fight for it.”