The Burmese Elvis & Jenny Ko Gyi

Tony Hundley (aka Bo Bo Han, The Burmese Elvis) and Jenny Ko Gyi, Rangoon 2011

Not surprisingly, the Burmese Mermaid has significant human ties to Burma. 

Exhibit A above: cousin Tony Hundley, aka Bo Bo Han, stage name The Burmese Elvis, famous Burmese pop star at his zenith in the 1970s.

Here he is with Jenny Ko Gyi, my babysitter and long time family friend of the Hundley's. Jenny is a Buddhist scholar, highly respected in Burma and in the Buddhist West. 

Jenny is a teacher and translator at the International Theravada Buddhist Missionary University in Rangoon, Burma.

 https://itbmu.org.mm/

I revere these elders inside Burma. I wish them safety, wellbeing, health, happiness and freedom. They live in a country ruled by a military junta whose aim is to exert absolute power: it oppresses the people using imprisonment, torture, murder,  and suppression of dissent. 

Bo Bo Han traveled to the U.S. in 2006 and performed a concert at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, New York. A large number of American Burmese turned out for the concert. Tony (Bo Bo Han) is famous and still has many fans inside and outside Burma. I was determined to talk to him while he was in the states and got his cell phone number from Tony's sister, my cousin Mary Hundley in Los Angeles. I tried to reach him many times but was unable to. It's very possible he was being closely monitored and censored by military authorities assigned to travel with him.

I found Jenny on Facebook a few years ago and reconnected as best as Facebook and censorship will allow. 

Bo Bo Han, more recently in concert.

Bo Bo Han, The Burmese Elvis

Tony Hundley (first row, far right) and friends, 

Thingyan (Buddhist New Year Water Festival), April 1967.