Kyaing Kyaing

Kyaing Kyaing was born in Kaw Kyaik Township, Kayin State, Myanmar. She is of Pa-O descent. She is the fifth daughter of nine siblings. She was educated in Moulmein.[5] They have five daughters, Aye Aye Thit Shwe, Dewa Shwe, Khin Pyone Shwe, Kyi Kyi Shwe, and Thandar Shwe, and three sons, Kyaing San Shwe, Thant Zaw Shwe and Htun Naing Shwe.[6][7]

Kyaing Kying is said to share her husband’s superstitious ways, and she has been seen sometimes taking on the role of a mystic medium. She oversees the preparation of all her husband’s meals. Nobody gets to meet Than Shwe without her approval. Government and military position appointments also have to meet with her approval. Her hire-and-fire influence reportedly nets her big rewards: luxury homes in new housing developments and business concessions. Myanmar's business community say that as the Burmese New Year approached, Kyaing Kyaing demanded from them gifts worth at least 6 billion kyat ($5 million), reported the Democratic Voice of Burma. She displayed signs of delusions of grandeur, expecting people to address her as "your majesty" and to drop to their knees in her presence. She suspected that she had a hand in the mob attack on the pro-democracy activists and her supporters in May 2003.[8]

She visited the Shit Myet Hna Pagoda in her husband’s birthplace, Kyaukse for a yadaya ritual. The revered site is known as the "Eight Faces" pagoda because it faces eight points of the compass. Kyaing Kyaing is reported to have prayed symbolically there for support from all sides for her beleaguered husband and his despised regime.[9][10]

In 2009, Kyaing Kyaing donated and placed the diamond and jewel encrusted hti, the seinbudaw (diamond orb), and the hngetmyatnadaw (pennant-shaped vane), atop the uppermost part of the 2,300-year-old Danok Pagoda.[11] Many people believed that the ceremony was a yadaya and seeking divine blessings for her husband's glory.[12] However, the pagoda collapsed, killing at least 20 people and injuring about 150[13][14][15]