Taw Paya Galay's three brothers were well known and much admired for their efforts to foster sports and culture through youth clubs during the Japanese occupation during World War II.

By the late 1950s the Thibaw Commercial Syndicate Ltd was exporting lacquer sap to Japan and imperial Jade to Hong Kong, with branch offices in each of those places.

He often flew to Tokyo and Hong Kong to oversee sales, and by the early 1960s his business was booming, with export contracts in rice worth K30 million.

However, General Ne Win took power in Burma in a coup d’état, and Taw Paya Galay's company, along with all others, was nationalised.

[3] Taw Paya Galay and his brothers actively supported Thakin Kodaw Hmaing, the revered "father of nationalism".