‘Moe Thauk Kye’:
The First Burmese Library in Japan
Soe Win Shein
Editor-in-Chief of the Monthly Bulletin ‘Moe Thauk Kye’
We are very grateful to you for having given us an opportunity to makethis presentation. Now, I’ll explain the facts about our library. You can
get the details in the already distributed pamphlet.
Introduction
First, let me introduce myself. My name is Soe Win Shein. I am aBurmese. I am a founding member of the Moe Thauk Kye Burmese
library in Tokyo, Japan. The name of our library means ‘morning star’ inEnglish. I would like to explain the aims of our library and the services
that we provide.
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Aims
Our aims include the following.
1. to collect hard-to-obtain books and preserve them.
2. to collect the historical writings of our country for the reference of thenext generation.
3. to safeguard and preserve the customs, traditions, and the culture of ourcountry.
4. to encourage every library user to study the differences between ourmotherland and our present temporary residential country, Japan.
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About the library
Moe Thauk Kye library is a Burmese library. We founded the library
Ahhara (food for thought) in 2000 and then we changed into the present
name, Moe Thauk Kye (morning star) in 2004.
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We started this library with only 1,500 books and a few volunteer staffs,
but now, it has over 5,000 books in three languages, Burmese, Japanese,and English, and more volunteer staffs.
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Our collection was made up of donation by friends, authors, andpurchases by mail order from Burma through our friends living there.
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Books are now arranged alphabetically by authors’ names. We are not yet
ready to use computer system. Eventually, we will promote the online
public access catalogs so that everyone can access our collection throughthe internet.
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As we cannot afford to establish a library in separate building, we share
an apartment by dividing it between living quarter for my family andlibrary space.
Slides-8Activities
We collect Journals, poetry books, traditional humors, folk tales, social
science, and some books which are banned by Burmese military junta in
our country.
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As our regular activities we publish books on culture, politics, poetry andmonthly journals.
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These are monthly distributed free Moe Thauk Kye Journal.
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This picture shows members of Moe Thauk Kye volunteering in thepublishing of the monthly journal.
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The celebration of the literary day is one of our most popular activities.
We annually invite Burmese writers who live around the world to comeand talk about Burmese literature for the Burmese community.
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This picture shows the celebration of the fist literary day at Tokyo, in2001.
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We invited two famous exiled Burmese writers in 2005 to talk about
Burmese literature on the literary day. They are Maung Swan Yee andMaung Sin Kye.
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Maung Swan Yee is one of the noted literary critics in Burma. He has
also been a teacher and a librarian. He is a poet, too. His poems wereonce taught in high schools in Burma. Now he lives in America as apolitical dissident. He is a patron of the Moe Thauk Kye Library.
Maung Sin Kye is an ethnic Karen writer from Burma. Now he is writing
anti- military literature .He has won the national literary award. Now, helives in Australia. He is also a patron of the Moe Thauk Kye Journal.
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There is a program to help Burmese migrant workers living in Japan who
have trouble with health, seeking employment, immigration procedures,and others.
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Our fund-raising projects for the education of children who are living inBurmese-Thai border were a great success.
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We donated cash to self-help schools located on the Burma-Thailand
border. These schools are run for the children of refugees and internallydisplaced citizens and are managed by concerned Burmese citizens
groups.
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With the affiliated libraries, such as “Thu Ta Tha Har Ya Library” ofNagoya, Japan and “Shwe Thin Ga Har Myanmar Association Library”
of South Korea, we collaborate to organize literary day and publish books.
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We have so far invited the following authors and held literary talks
previous years and we have also published their books.
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The title of this book is ‘Master of our own fate’. It is written by Tin
Maung Than. He mentioned gentlemen’s spirit and master spirit in hisbook.

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Tin Maung Than was a medical doctor and the editor-in- chief of theThink Ba Wa (Your Life) Magazine. He has been writing weekly politicalvoice-articles for a radio station called Democratic Voice of Burma basedin Norway for several years. Besides, his voiced articles were aired byRadio Free Asia, another Burmese radio stations based in Washington,U.S.A. He has published a few books on his political thoughts and essays.
He is also a political dissident residing in U.S.A.
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The title of this book is “Diary written on the falling leaves" which waspublished in 2004. It is written by Tin Moe.
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Tin Moe is well-known Burmese poet. He was also the editor of thepoetry section of the daily newspaper Lu Du (Mass) in 1966. He joined
the Translation and Publishing Department of the University. He hasreceived the National Poetry Awards twice in 1957 and in 1975
respectively and the Prince Clause Award from the Netherlands in 2004
for Poetry, too. He has published about 7 Poetry books until now. He isalso a patron of the Moe Thauk Kye Journal.
The military junta of Burma does not allow their names to appear in theentire media inside Burma.
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We will continue to learn and improve the library in order to provide
better services for our readers. We have performed to the best of ourcapacity as volunteers to establish the library. With the assistance andadvice of Japanese librarians, we are going to make our library more
systematic and effective.
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One of our Burmese affiliated libraries is in Seoul, Korea. We will visit
there at 9:00 AM on 25th August. Those who are interested are welcome
to join us.
Thank youSlides-27
Contact us
The library can be contacted by telephone or e-mail• General information; 813-3364-5163

• Location maps;
E-mail- mtk@s2.dion.ne.jp
Home-Page- http://www.moethaukkye.com/Library hour
Saturday, Sunday, and Holidays; 11:00 AM-11:00 PM
We are closed on all weekdays. Library book drops are available at alltimes for returned items.
Location
1-11-7(301) Ochiai Eiko Mansion
Shimoochiai Shinjuku Ku 161-0033, Tokyo, Japan