Jon Mark Beilue: Bright future, difficult past

Biak Nung, scholarship winner, ‘tastes what success feels like’

In what Biak Nung described as the toughest time of his life, he had trouble sleeping. Often, in the middle of the night, he walked into the kitchen for a drink. Before his eyes adjusted to the darkness, before he could clearly make out figures, he heard a soft voice.

It was his mother, Tial.

“She was praying in the middle of the night,” he said. “Just pray, pray, pray. That’s all she did. She instilled in me faith in God, and that He would not leave me as long as I trusted in Him. We were brought here for a reason, and that inspired me to have big dreams and place my mind on bigger things.”

The road to West Texas A&M University from the Chin State in Burma was rocky and full of crevices. It was anything but tranquil and easy.

At age 10, he left with his mother Tial Hniang from the political strife of divided Burma in southeast Asia. They were reunited with their father, Bawi Ling, who worked in Malaysia and the United States. They came to the U.S. in December 2011.

Biak dropped out of school in the fourth grade to help his mother. In the U.S., not only did he not know English, but he was woefully behind in school.

“I had forgotten how to do basic math, even 2 plus 2,” he said. “It was very hard to start from ground zero.”

Biak and his family lived in Lewisville, Salt Lake City and Austin. He heard racial taunts and was goaded into fights. He took boxing lessons at the encouragement of his father to better defend himself.

Only when he moved to Amarillo in 2017, while living among other refugees from the Chin State, did things start to settle down. By then, Biak could finally see light peering through the gloom.

Photo: WT senior Biak Nung recently earned two scholarships rewarding his diligent work in the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice.

Now, this oldest son of a refugee family carries a 3.9 overall GPA while working for an Amarillo law firm as he begins his last two semesters at WT. When he graduates in May, he plans to enter law school.

He recently was rewarded for his diligence, persistence and academics. Biak earned the $5,000 Maxine Durrett Earl Charitable Foundation Scholarship in Political Science as well as the $4,000 Dr. Travis McBride Scholarship. The Earl foundation provides scholarships across Texas, while the McBride award is within WT’s Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice .

“This is my seventh year at WT, and Biak is the most gifted student we’ve had in this time,” said Dr. Justin Moeller, associate professor of political science and the department’s program director. “He’s good at everything which is very interesting considering his unique family and life situation.

“He’s good at math. I mean, he’s good at everything. He’s very appreciative of everything around him and he doesn’t take anything for granted.

‘Been a tough road’

“How would you like to be addressed?” Biak asked as the interview began.

Yes, not your ordinary student.

“He’s very much influenced by what has happened to him and what he’s experienced,” Moeller said. “There is a connection with people around him that is a product of the circumstances he’s faced.”

With 135 ethnicities in Burma, the Chin State is not Buddhist like 90 percent of the country, Biak said. That ethnicity felt persecuted especially from the government.

Biak’s parents divorced when he was a baby. Their son prayed nightly for their reconciliation which came prior to leaving Burma. The family—which would soon add two younger siblings, Phillip Thang and Van Zathawng—eventually settled in Lewisville, north of Dallas. Biak started fourth grade as a very raw and ostracized student.

“It’s been a tough road – I’m not going to lie,” he said. “Since I didn’t speak English, I got into a lot of fights there even though I didn’t want to. They were telling me to go back to China even though I’m not from China, and made fun of my eyes.”

Biak’s family was there through his eighth-grade year before moving to Austin in 2015. His parents were going into the sushi business there, but life again took an uncertain and serious turn when his father was felled by a debilitating stroke.

The family left for a 1 ½-year stay in Salt Lake City where his mother’s brother was in the sushi business. They returned to Texas, this time to Amarillo where many of Bawi’s relatives had settled in the Chin community.

“Initially I did not plan to come with them,” Biak said. “I didn’t want to keep moving around. It’s hard to make new friends all the time. I was the only Asian and Chin kid in my class most of the time.”

But Biak arrived at Tascosa High School in the middle of his sophomore year. Much earlier, he homed in on learning English with the help of tutors and made up for lost years in education. Since middle school, he was an honor student.

In Amarillo in general, and Tascosa specifically, he thrived. While excelling in the classroom, he also participated in choir, played saxophone in the band, dabbled in football and soccer. Away from school, he worked to support his family and since 2017 has been a worship leader at the Amarillo Chin Christian Church.

Biak graduated from Tascosa in the pandemic year of 2020. College was a priority, and WT made sense educationally and logistically. It seemed like another world away from eating small portions of rice and vegetables they grew near their home in the Chin State of Burma.

“Without faith in God, I would not have been able to get through what I had to get through,” he said. “God has a bigger plan for me than my mind can comprehend and that reassures me. God will never leave me. He will keep his promises.”

Photo: Biak Nung credits his faith for helping him thrive after a difficult childhood.

Tial, Biak’s mother, had him memorize three Bible verses that have sustained him during anxious times: Jeremiah 32:27, Jeremiah 33:3 and Isaiah 41:10.

“When I feel afraid or lost in life, these verses bring me back to God,” he said. “I see a future for myself and that fire inside of me is so strong that it’s hard for me to give up. The only chance I have is education so to complain and give up does no good. I’ve got no choice but to move forward. If I give up now, I’ll never taste what success feels like.”

Biak’s interest in leadership and government actually began at a church in his native country. An adult took him aside one day to tell him of his potential as a leader of people.

“I was just 7 years old, but that encouragement inspired me to dream big,” he said.

Biak works 20 hours a week as a courier for the Amarillo law firm of Courtney, Countiss, Brian & Bailey, a position he’s held since May 2021. Each hour of Biak’s day is accounted for including helping his little brothers with homework.

Money is precious for a family whose father is disabled and mother and oldest son must work. The two scholarships are crucial to his future, one that has been shaped by his unique past.

“He certainly gives back a lot in terms of community and WT,” Moeller said. “It has shaped who he is to a large degree.”

Do you know of a student, faculty member, project, an alumnus or any other story idea for “WT: The Heart and Soul of the Texas Panhandle?” If so, email Jon Mark Beilue at jbeilue@wtamu.edu .