Professor Hla Pe, when he retired from The School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in 1979, could lay claim to being the longest-serving member of The Department of South East Asia and the Islands. Formally associated with the department since 1948 when he took up his duties as Lecturer in Burmese, he had worked closely with Professor J.A. Stewart and others in the preparation of the Burmese-English Dictionary since 1942. The dictionary was the centrepiece of his scholarly work, but he published widely in the fields of Burmese language and literature, and cultural studies.

Every scholar is known and remembered by his publications. This is certainly true of Hla Pe, but his friends may reflect that in them he has expressed only a part of himself. To say so does not in any way reduce the value of the works he has published but rather it is to highlight the good fortune that this volume has brought to notice an aspect of scholarship that often disappears forever as the sound of a speaker's syllables fade upon the air. This is the justification for the publishing of this book of lectures, edited by his friends. The ephemeral has been made permanent. Not that there is anything ephemeral, in another sense, about Hla Pe's lectures. The reader will soon see that they deal with important subjects with great seriousness of purpose and that they were structured with scholarly care. However, he will also discover that the informality of the lecture can provide a deeper insight into the nature of the man who delivered it. In this, Hla Pe has been particularly helpful because he tells us so much, so simply about his personal life, and relates it at every turn to the development of an academic career in a foreign land.