1910 - 1917
The First Burmese Student at Emory University
room United States
Kyaw Nyun was the first Burmese student at the Atlanta College of Physicians and Surgeons which later became the medical school of Emory University, Georgia, USA. He arrived penniless in New York City in 1910, having been a “Head Master and Instructor of English at a school in Rangoon.” Apparently, all his money had been taken by a swindler (a so-called “crawling viper of humanity”) on the boat over from Burma. Somehow, Kyaw Nyun made his way to Atlanta and enrolled as a medical student that year.
Students from Burma were a rarity in American universities at the time. An article in the school yearbook (the Aesculapian) for 1913 records that upon graduation, Kyaw Nyun would become only the fourth or fifth Burmese person to have obtained an medical degree. The article emphasizes Kyaw Nyun’s intellect, sociability and good character (perhaps to preempt anti-Asian racism, but also to reaffirm the stereotype of the “model minority” student in an all-white college – it is notable that there are no black students in the yearbook). Kyaw Nyun is the only senior to receive a large two-page spread in the yearbook. He is described as “the most universally known, respected, and admired man in the undergraduate body.” The article notes: “the world needs men like Kyaw Nyun,— he is fighting for an Ideal. He is a philosopher and recognizes the fact that drudgery, calamity, exasperation, and want, are all instructors in eloquence and wisdom.”
In 1916, an American Baptist newspaper places Dr. Kyaw Nyun as the proprietor of a private practice in Meiktila. He had graduated fifth in his class. By 1917, he appears to have “left a successful medical practice” to engage in Baptist missionary work in Kengtung.