Dee Mantha | Universal Peace Buddha Temple
Olympus OM-2N | Fuji Neopan 1600@3200 | Kentmere VC Select RC
Dee Mantha, 68, is on his second temporary monkhood in three years at the Massachusetts temple, and comes to New York with the head monk for special events. Retired and with an understanding family, he goes into monkhood for a year at a time.
Dee felt compelled to leave Myanmar after the 1988 demonstrations against the regime. Education had been going downhill--he felt 5th graders were at a kindergarten level--and he didn't want to continue raising his family there. Poverty was rampant. After the uprising, he sensed it would only get worse.
His parents had moved out of Burma in the 70s, so they helped him get his green card. Like many people at the Universal Peace Buddha temple, Dee is of Chinese descent and says that Chinese-Burmese people had always been conscientious about helping their countrymen leave. Burma had still been an English colony during Dee's youth, which explained his ease with the language. But when he arrived, he couldn't even get a job at McDonald's due to lack of experience. Eventually his work in Burma as an accountant helped him land a job at the New England Bank, and later Fleet.
He has no interest in ever returning to Burma, due to seeing the misery and poverty of the people there.
Universal Peace Buddha Temple, Prospect Heights
