Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Lu Du Daw Ah Mar

LU DU Daw Amar and Paw Oo Thett's paintings

I have never met Lu Du Daw Ah Mar in my life, nor will I have chance to meet her. Yet, she is one of the most famous and respected women of Burma.

Five years ago,my husband and I went to visit her house in Mandalay. Someone told me she possessed some paintings of Paw Oo Thett. Wanting to see the paintings of Paw Oo Thett may be a great reason to go and meet her, I thought. We took a taxi to her place. It was very easy to find the place as taxi drivers already knew who she was and where she lived. When we arrived her home, we met her son. We told him we were art collectors and came to see the paintings of Paw Oo ThettShe. He told us Daw Ah Mar was very sick and, apparently, under oxygen treatment at that moment. So he took us around the house, we saw a few paintings of Paw Oo Thett hanging in different rooms.

In fact, the goal of my husband to see Daw Ah Mar was quite different from mine. Since he did not know much about Daw Ah Mar, his aim was to go and learn what she had, and if it is possible, to buy the paintings. These paintings are very rare and he believed that the value of the paintings will eventually go up in the future. However, when we saw the paintings, we realized that the paintings were bad conditions; they certainly needed urgent restoration. So we asked if they would like to sell these paintings, instead of leaving them without proper care; because everyone seemed to be so busy and did not seem to have much knowledge of taking care of these precious paintings. Even though Daw Amar's son was quite nice and let us look at all the paintings they had, he told us his mother would not be interested to sell any of these paintings. The reason was that they had been given to her by Paw Oo Thett himself as gifts. I personally understood her attachment to the paintings, but felt sorry that they seemed to be eventually have destruction if they could not restore them in near future.

Anyway, this happened 5 years ago. Now Dw Amar has passed away. When I saw the news of her death, I felt that she gave up everything, not only the paintings she received from Paw Oo Thett, but also her ultimate desire to see the victory of our people- democratic reform for our land and our people.