Published in Mizzima Business Weekly on 11 February 2014

Burmese Minister in court dress – Photo by J. Jackson

“One man brought his children back with him on his second visit, because they didn’t believe that ministers actually used to wear such grand costumes made of gold and velvet – they’d only seen it in the movies,” said Shwe Yinn Mar Oo, the trust’s senior communications officer.

She added that Transport Ministry personnel have visited the exhibition to see a rare photograph of one of the vessels owned by the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company, which at its peak in the 1920s operated the largest fleet of river boats in the world. The Scottish-owned company operated from 1865 until 1948, when it was reconstituted as the state-run Inland Water Transport Board after Burma’s independence from Britain.

An Irrawaddy Flotilla vessel in Rangoon – Photo by Felice Beato

The exhibition features 44 photographs from a collection of 100 owned by a Yangon-based French businessman, Gilles de Flogny. The exhibition, which is being co-hosted by the trust and the Italian embassy, features the work of three photographers.

“The photographs are a window into our past that will help us understand our present, and perhaps even tell us something about our future. They include many portraits and show Myanmar in all its wonderful diversity,” said Dr Thant Myint-U, the trust’s founder and chairperson.

As well as depicting another era, when the country was under siege from Britain and undeveloped – as the photograph of a lonely-looking Sule Pagoda demonstrates – some aspects of life remain unchanged to the present day.

In “Burmese Beauty” by Felice Beato, which is also featured on the cover of the modern Penguin edition of George Orwell’s novel, Burmese Days (1934), the motifs on the young woman’s silk lungyi remains popular among Myanmar women today, along with the padauk flowers worn in their hair, said Shwe Yinn Mar Oo. The extra reams of fabric worn by women during ceremonial occasions, however, were perhaps jettisoned for practical purposes.

Burmese Lady by J. Jackson

Exhibition visitor, Gon Lynn Htun, who previously worked as a translator for the US embassy, the ornate costume depicted in a photograph by J. Jackson was worn by ministers for centuries until King Thibaw, Myanmar’s last monarch, was exiled to India by the British after they captured Mandalay Palace in 1885.

“Despite being laden with gold, the traditional attire wasn’t overly heavy. Around the time this picture was taken [of the minister] and when Lower Burma had been annexed to the British, Burma had sent several ambassadors and plenipotentiaries to France. You could say that the Kingdom of Burma was flirting with France, and it made the British very uneasy,” Gon Lynn Htun said.

“I’m extremely interested in Burmese attire and I have my own archive of photographs at home –they are mostly pictures of my great, great grandparents and many of the photos are more than a hundred years old,” he told Mizzima Business Weekly.

For several decades spanning the 19th and 20th centuries, photographer Klier owned studios in Mawlamyine and Yangon, and due to the reputation he acquired during his time in Japan as a portrait photographer, he attracted an impressive clientele of wealthy Myanmar, who commissioned him to take official portraits.

Another of the photographers featured in the exhibition, Italian-British citizen Felice Beato, had a studio in Mandalay, in addition to running a highly profitable antiques shop. He is widely regarded as being the first war photographer and one of the first photographers in East Asia. Little is known about the third photographer featured in the exhibition, J. Jackson.

Sule Pagoda – Photo by J.Jackson

Shwe Yinn Mar Oo told Mizzima Business Weekly that although visitors from a range of age groups had seen the exhibition by the time it neared its second week, it was attracting only about 25 visitors a day, including Myanmar and foreigners.

“The tragedy is that young people aren’t interested in Burmese history and culture – they are fascinated with Western and South Korean cultures,” said Gon Lynn Htun.

“Most young people simply want to leave Myanmar to earn a better salary abroad – this is their main priority because our country was kept in the dark for so long and opportunities here are still very limited. It’s only the scholarly types, which constitute a very small minority, who will come [to this exhibition] and who are interested in Myanmar’s past,” he said.

Minister in Court Dress and Servant – Photo by J. Jackson

Although the photo captions are disappointing because they contain little information about the subject or the photographer, and no background information about Myanmar’s place in history during the 19th century, the exhibition certainly takes an important first step in what may be a long process of reviving interest in Myanmar’s fascinating past.

The exhibition is open to the public until February 28. Tickets are US$3. Yangon Heritage Trust is on the first floor of 22 Pansodan Street (lower block), in Kyauktada Township, Yangon. For more information, visit yangonheritagetrust.org

Yangon Heritage Trust should also be applauded for using social media to engage with the younger generation – an even wider collection of photographs is posted on the trust’s Facebook page, which can be viewed at facebook.com/theyangonheritagetrust

Published in DVB on 11 January 2014

A massage room in Bago

No data exists about the number of women who work in the “grey area” of Burma’s sex industry, such as karaoke lounges and massage parlours. Yet even the most casual of observers cannot fail to notice the multitude of neon signs advertising “KTV” in virtually every metropolitan area across the country.

Although it’s “well understood that additional services may be provided” at these venues, the majority of managers on the premises will vehemently deny the fact that any sex work takes place when a health worker comes knocking on the door, said Eamonn Murphy, country coordinator for UNAIDS.

This is chiefly due to Burma’s stiff legal penalties against it. The Suppression of Prostitution Act (1949) was adapted from a colonial era law and stipulates a punishment of one to three years imprisonment for sex workers and pimps – however clients are not penalised. The legal definition of a brothel was broadened in 1998 to include any place used habitually for sex work, which Mr Murphy said was in response to a surge in the number of massage parlours and karaoke lounges.

“A lot of our outreach workers are told, ‘We don’t do sex work here so we don’t need condoms,’” said Anne Lancelot, director of Population Services International (PSI). PSI provides sexual health services in 330 of Burma’s 330 townships to those most at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS, which includes sex workers, men who have sex with men and injecting drug users.

“But let’s be very clear – I don’t know of any KTV girl who is not engaged in sex work,” Ms Lancelot added.

While government data from 2012 estimates there are 60,000 sex workers in Burma, Population Services International (PSI) said the figure is closer to 80,000 – and that there are 15,000 sex workers in Rangoon alone. However Ms Lancelot added that due to the fragmentary nature of the industry in Burma, the figures are a “rough estimate”.

“Myanmar has no red light districts, other than in some border cities such as Muse. Overall it’s very scattered and the sex worker population is highly mobile,” she added.

A karaoke lounge sign in Yangon

“It’s not clear cut: sometimes the managers are telling the truth, because [sex] takes place at a nearby guesthouse rather than on the premises. Women are unlikely to tell their bosses about what happens with a client due to the illegal nature of their work – and there’s also a lot of confusion due to the stigma associated with it,” said Mr Murphy.

“Those in the grey area of the sex work industry are seriously left out of HIV/AIDS strategies and activities because managers are concerned that being categorised as a sex work venue could get them in deep trouble,” said Sid Naing, country director for Marie Stopes.

Ma Su (not her real name) works at a massage parlour in a derelict building on the outskirts of Pegu. The neighbourhood has around half a dozen massage parlours and three brothels, and at least 20 KTV venues exist throughout Pegu itself.

The 26-year-old said that she moved from Three Pagodas Pass to Pegu after she divorced her husband as a result of his gambling and alcohol addictions, as she didn’t want to return to living with her step-mother in Mawlamyine. Ma Su is paid 700 kyat for every hour she spends with a client and can only leave the premises between 5am and 10am. She is provided with free board in a dormitory in a separate building plus two meals a day, and she cannot take a day off unless she is sick.

Ma Su told DVB that Marie Stopes International was the only non-government-organisation she’d encountered whilst working at the massage parlour during the past year. Outreach workers had taken blood tests of the 10 women who were working there at the time.

“Everyone was fine,” she mumbled. Ma Su said that she didn’t want to discuss whether or not she has sex with her clients as she also doesn’t tell her bosses, but conceded that she was dependent on tips and that she is sometimes abused by her clients.

A person who spoke on condition of anonymity said that he brings about two foreign tourists to this particular massage parlour every month.

“They’re mostly from Japan and Korea. Others are from America and sometimes they’re European, though that’s very rare. Western tourists are very wary. They don’t want to go to prostitutes, so I bring them here.”

He said that foreigners are charged more than locals – up to K10,000 for 15 minutes as opposed to K4,000 for an hour and that they are charged more “if they don’t come out of the room in time.”

“The women get paid the same no matter what,” he said, and added that some of the women working there are 16 years old.

Ms Lancelot explained that a common scenario at KTV lounges is for an owner to pay a woman K30,000 for a month’s work, which may include going to a hotel with a client.

“Payment is made up front, which locks the woman into the deal. Officially nothing happens at the KTV lounge, although the karaoke rooms are locked. She may earn a lot more from a client, but it will all go back to the KTV owner,” she said.

Ms Lancelot added that there are a large number of brothels in Rangoon which don’t permit the women to leave at all. Health workers must negotiate with the pimps and madams to bring the women back after they visit one of PSI’s drop-in centres, which provides a range of sexual health services, as well as a safe place to relax.

“However in most cases the women prefer to be taken in by pimps because it’s a lot safer than being out on their own on the streets. And yet it’s borderline slavery – they’re living in bondage,” she said.

Published in Mizzima Business Weekly on 26 January 2014

A “dancing show” at Thiri Mingalar market in Yangon. The feather boa denotes that the woman has been “auctioned” to someone – not necessarily for sex.

Harsh, outdated laws and police corruption are hindering efforts to safely regulate Myanmar’s commercial sex industry

As a cool breeze blows through the open windows of a ramshackle house that serves as a massage parlour on the outskirts of Bago, the shrill sound of a mobile phone pierces the silence during yet another power cut. The manager of the massage parlour listens anxiously for a few seconds, then hangs up and says, “We’ll stay open tonight.”

The manager had been contacted by someone working at a nearby brothel who told him there was no need to worry about a police raid – for that night anyway.

As a pimp at the massage parlour explained, “Police are on a drive to make as many arrests as possible – the drive to fill certain quotas starts in December every year and continues until the end of January. We often have to shut for the night, or even a few nights – it’s not easy doing good business at this time of year. If the problems last too long, we’ll move to another house.”

The penalties for commercial sex work in Myanmar are tough: the Suppression of Prostitution Act (1949), adapted from a colonial law, provides for a jail term of up to three years for sex workers and up to five years for pimps. Clients, however, are not prosecuted under the law.

As the pimp explained, the massage parlour is in regular contact with the brothel – as well as local police officers, who warn of a possible raid in exchange for “protection money”.

“We have problems when police from outside Bago, such as Yangon or Naypyitaw, turn up un-announced,” he said.

The manager has been to prison several times – mostly for sentences of about six months.

“Whoever is on reception [when the police arrive] will go to jail, along with the women working here,” he said.

Krittayawan Tina Boonto from UNAIDS, who conducted a legal review of the laws surrounding commercial sex work in Myanmar last year, said police harassment is a major issue among sex workers.

“Sex workers spoke repeatedly of harassment – for example, a policeman will use a person’s reputation as a sex worker to arrest her, even after she stops being a sex worker. To get out of it the woman has to pay a bribe, which can include providing sexual services to police.”

Unlike Vietnam, which recently abolished the practice of keeping women in detention centres before they are charged for commercial sex work, Myanmar has two female detention centres in Yangon, and one each in  Twante and Mandalay.

“It’s a cross between a jail and a rehab centre. They are horrific. Women are forced to sew clothes and what not, before they are told whether they’ll be charged. It’s not at all voluntary – the women cannot leave. It’s not a solution we encourage,” said Anne Lancelot, the director of the Targeted Outreach Programme at Population Services International.

“Vietnam is now considering other ways to prosecute sex work; rather than forcing women to stitch bed nets in the detention centres, the government is considering introducing fines,” said Eamonn Murphy, the country coordinator in Myanmar for UNAIDS.

Inconsistency in the law

“The laws are impractical and difficult to enforce and are applied with varying degrees of severity. Those who are most disadvantaged tend to be the hardest hit and that’s unfair,” said Sid Naing, country director of Marie Stopes International.

Kay Thi Win, policy officer for the Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers and founder of the AMA Sex Workers Network in Myanmar, which provides support to women who have been imprisoned for sex work, said “Evidence has shown that criminal penalties surrounding sex work drive the industry underground. It is in these unsafe settings with no protection from the law that sex workers are vulnerable to violence.”

Government figures for 2012 say there are 60,000 commercial sex workers in Myanmar, with a HIV/AIDS infection rate of 7.1 percent, compared to a rate of 0.5 percent among the general population.

Health experts say that while HIV/AIDS prevalence is decreasing among this risk group, their efforts to further reduce the infection rate are hampered by the harsh penalties for sex work, which can be a deterrent to seek health services out of fear of prosecution.

“The laws have very negative consequences on controlling the HIV/AIDS epidemic because sex workers don’t want to get tested. It’s an extra barrier,” Sid Naing said.
There are other laws that affect safe sex practices – not just among sex workers but the general population.

Police can prosecute anyone considered to be “loitering with intent to solicit” – as well “loitering after dark without adult supervision.”

“There can be situations where a police will say to a woman, “You have condoms in your purse and you have been standing at this bus station for two hours – so you are obviously loitering and soliciting,” said Ms Lancelot. “Some people joke that with all the power cuts in Myanmar, almost any time can mean ‘after dark,’” she said.

“It’s impacting youth terribly,” she added.

Not enough condoms

Until a directive was issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 2000, possessing a condom could be used as evidence of sex work.

However, UNAIDS says most people are unaware of the directive – and this includes members of the police, who continue to use possession of condoms as circumstantial evidence to make arrests at the street level.

“There is a need for more comprehensive police instruction that prohibits police from interfering with the right of all persons to carry condoms for HIV prevention or contraception,” said Mr Murphy.

Until the situation changes, condom sales in Myanmar are likely to remain dangerously low. The biggest seller of condoms in Myanmar is PSI; it sells Aphaw brand condoms at a subsidized price of between 20 percent and 50 percent of the retail value.

“We distribute condoms free to sex workers and men who have sex with men, because they are most at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS,” Ms Lancelot said.

“PSI sells 20 million condoms in Myanmar each year but that’s not that much for a population of 60 million or so. I think we need to be selling five times as much,” she said.

“People should be encouraged to buy condoms, even if they don’t use them. In a lot of cases, the mindset of police is still ‘no sex before marriage and marriages should be faithful’ in terms of public health. But in reality this is not what happens – so we should go where the reality is,” said Mr Murphy.

Thuza Win, the founder of the Sex Workers in Myanmar network (SWIM), an advocacy group for commercial sex workers, told Mizzima Business Weekly said that although prostitution is also illegal in neighbouring Thailand, where the World Health Organization estimates there are more than 200,000 sex workers, less severe policing tactics make it easier to spread health and legal awareness messages.

“I visited HIV/AIDS projects in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Mae Sot and found that the sex industry is more regulated and that it’s easier to get condoms. It’s also easier to hold HIV/AIDS education sessions in Thailand, and to reach out to people with the disease,” said Ma Thuza Win.

“People in Thailand will admit they have HIV/AIDS, but in Myanmar, some prefer to die.”

Published in The Bangkok Post on 9 December 2013

Cigarettes are often sold individually in Myanmar – particularly at beer stations like this one as well as in tea shops.

Myanmar’s tobacco market is set for a shakeup following the return this year of the world’s second largest cigarette manufacturer, British American Tobacco, which entered into a joint partnership to locally manufacture its once ubiquitous London brand of cigarettes. However BAT faces an uneasy coexistence among a thriving black market of duty-free cigarettes and renewed efforts by the Ministry of Health to enforce existing anti-tobacco laws and bring new ones into effect.

Smoking rates in Myanmar are relatively high, among men at least. According to 2012 data from Myanmar Survey Research (MSR), 30 percent of males in the two largest cities, Yangon and Mandalay, are occasional or regular smokers. An additional 15 percent of urban males smoke the traditional, hand-rolled cigars, known as cheroots. MSR said that the chewing of betel nut is far more prevalent in rural areas – where 70 percent of Myanmar’s population of an estimated 60 million resides – than any other form of tobacco because of its low cost. Yet the study found that only 1 to 2 percent of urban women smoke either form of tobacco on a regular basis – however this may be starting to change.

According to a Yangon tobacco retailer with 30 years of experience in the trade and who spoke on condition of anonymity, 10 percent of his customers are now young Myanmar women.

“I’ve noticed a big increase [in the numbers of women buying cigarettes] lately, which may be due to the emergence of a nightclub scene in Yangon.”

Local and international brands aplenty on display

The retailer stocks more than 100 brands of cigarettes, which he buys from pilots and cabin crew flying in from countries such as Thailand, The Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore and Indonesia. He sells major brands such as Marlboro and Benson and Hedges for less than $2 because each carton was purchased duty-free.

“Supermarkets are also involved in the black market trade of duty-free cigarettes,” he told Asia Focus.

Whether cigarettes are smuggled across Myanmar’s porous borders or flown in on duty-free allowances, the likes of BAT are well aware of how illicit trade damages their chances of success among price conscious consumers in Myanmar.

Rehan Baig, BAT’s managing director in Myanmar told Asia Focus, “Duty-free cigarettes are meant to be sold through the travel trade channel [but] they are sold in the domestic market through illicit channels. BAT is willing to work closely with government and industry stakeholders such as law enforcement agencies, customs officials and international organizations, such as the World Customs Organization, to counter illicit trade.”

The retailer said that cigarettes from Singapore are by far the most popular because the packets don’t contain graphic warnings about the effects of smoking. It seems BAT has done its homework well: London cigarettes, which are already being manufactured in Yangon, contain a small written warning in Myanmar along the side of its packets, which also states that a person must be over 18 to buy cigarettes.

Yangon resident Khin Thanda, 30, who has been smoking since she was in her mid-20s, told Asia Focus, “I’ve never once heard of anyone being asked to prove that they’re 18 when buying cigarettes.”

Stricter controls

Local tobacco competitors Red Ruby, Nine and Premium

Myanmar’s Ministry of Health is starting to get tough on the blasé attitude towards the dangers of smoking. Anti-smoking seminars are currently being planned to take place in schools and a new by-law about tobacco is being drafted. There is even talk that a ban on smoking in public areas, such as bars and restaurants, is on the cards.

An expatriate hotelier from one of Yangon’s busiest hotels told Asia Focus: “There have been rumours for some time that a smoking ban in public indoor areas will come into effect in the next six months or so. Expats in Yangon seem to be the heavy smoker types, but we get a lot of complaints from tourists – particularly Americans – who resent others smoking around them.”

Another hotelier said that although he’d not received any information via government channels, a report in a Myanmar language newspaper two weeks ago stated that preparations to enforce a smoking ban in public areas are underway.

“Sure, it will hurt business, but we’ll all be in the same boat,” added the expat hotelier, who is not authorised to speak to the media.

In theory at least, BAT would endorse such a move. Mr Baig said, “We support sensible regulations which are based on sound evidence. We believe, by working together, we can develop effective regulations which meet public health objectives, but not damage the livelihoods of farmers and people who are related to tobacco business.”

However Mr Baig stressed the need for stakeholders to be consulted before any new regulations come into effect.

The introduction of a smoking ban – in addition to the ban on advertising tobacco products already in place – would be in accordance with the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which Myanmar signed up to several years ago. Until recently, implementing such laws was problematic, if not outright impossible, because tobacco production was monopolized by two military-run companies, the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings (UMEHL) and Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC). According to Marita Schimpl, head of marketing research at MSR, “It wasn’t until 2010 that other companies had the right to manufacture and distribute cigarettes.”

BAT’s links to UMEHL caused its downfall a decade ago: the company was forced to leave Myanmar on the request of the British government, following an investigation by Burma Campaign UK establishing it was linked to the military-backed UMEHL.

Mr Baig said that BAT selected its new local partner, I.M.U. Enterprise Ltd (which is part of Sein Wut Hmon Group) because it “brings considerable experience and expertise in distribution and trade marketing of consumer goods across Myanmar, and provides the infrastructure and capabilities required to build a sustainable business.”

A young girl preparing betel in downtown Yangon

Indeed, London cigarettes are already saturating the market and BAT may soon achieve its goal to knock local brand Red Ruby off the top spot in mid-range cigarette sales.

According to the editor-in-chief of Myanma Freedom Daily, Thiha Saw, who is also deputy chief of the Myanmar Journalists Association, “The real money has always been in mid-range brands. That’s still true today, although mid-range cigarette companies are no longer in the hands of drug-lords.”

In Myanmar, a mid-range brand costs less than a dollar, while low-end brands can cost as little as $0.25.

Unfortunately for BAT, it seems that despite its “exhaustive consumer research” to “understand the preferences of adult consumers” in Myanmar, the London brand hasn’t struck the right cord among Myanmar’s smokers, who have a strong leaning towards heavy cigarettes.

“London’s not selling well – customers are telling me they’re too light,” the retailer said.

Published in Mizzima Business Weekly on 20 February 2014

Kyar Pauk onstage – Photo by Chris James White – http://www.chrisjameswhite.com

Kyar Pauk is a vocalist, guitarist and producer for Bloodsugar Politik and the former lead man of Big Bag. He talks to Mizzima Business Weekly about his life as a musician under censorship and what makes him tick as songwriter.

What made you decide to become a musician?

I grew up in Taungoo in Bago, where there were no playgrounds, TVs, or toy stores. As kids we used to play guitar and drums for fun. There was literally nothing else to do. My father was a drummer and I started learning drums from the age of four, and did my first recording as a 13-year-old. My grandfather actually started an orchestra in that tiny town… Anyway, by the time I was 16 I was never at home. I grew up on the streets, hanging out with friends who were a lot older than me and playing gigs. I flunked my exams and slept in the studios. I guess you could say I was a gypsy type.

I eventually got a degree as a dental surgeon and married my professor’s daughter at the age of 23, which is pretty young. At the time my professor was pretty much looking after me because I was never at home. But after two years I backed out of being a dentist because I was unhappy. I hate the 9-5 life and all I wanted was to make music. So I dropped out of the clinic in 2009 and started working at a radio station. No regrets. Music is one of the few very things I’ve chosen in my life – otherwise I was just doing stuff to please my parents.

Your first album with Big Bag was released back in 2003. Was what it like being a musician back then?

Getting approval from the censorship board was standard procedure for me, but so many of my songs were rejected. One album had a quarter of the songs knocked back. Censorship was a really complicated process and sometimes it could take up to six months to get the permission needed to legally distribute an album. The first stage involved providing several copies of an entire album’s lyrics, and if the board thought that certain words conflicted with their laws or was anti-government, they’d cross them out and say, “You can’t use it.” The second stage was applying the changes they told me to make on an audio CD, and submitting that to them. However by that time I was already performing the songs as I’d originally written them. It was so f*&%king crazy!

Photo by Chris James White – http://www.chrisjameswhite.com

The rules and regulations were very unpredictable: it was one rule for one person. The censorship board would check a singer’s background for certain actions: did the person make an anti-government speech on stage? I hadn’t done that, fortunately.

I’d get a call being summoned to meet with the censorship board. I never dressed up or anything for those meetings. I found it impossible to reason with them. They would rewrite my lyrics and say, “Sing it, sing it – it’s okay, right?” My reply would be, “It’s okay, I won’t bother.” And then I’d put the recording up on the internet. It wasn’t that those people insulted or threatened me, but all the same, it was a bully speech.

What sorts of lyrics were disallowed?

Jail, imprison, sentence, inmate – they never let musicians use those words. Although it was tricky, I managed to find loopholes. Take for example my album title “One second sentence” – how can anyone possibly know what I’m implying? I’ll tell you that what it meant was the feeling of being imprisoned for a fleeting moment. It used to be part of a normal day to have those feelings – for example if I read the propaganda newspapers or watched the 8pm news. I’d feel totally speechless when I saw something extraordinarily stupid or stunningly cruel… I don’t have that sensation anywhere as often anymore.

Another thing is that Myanmar words are kind of tricky – one word can have three or even four meanings, so it’s easy to twist them. I would tell them it’s about this or that, but it’s wasn’t. And as their English was so limited, I’d translate any approved lyrics into whatever I wanted.

One other trick I had was “bleeping.” I started the “bleep trend” in Myanmar actually. I barely use harsh words in my daily life but I did so in my songs because I was angry and wanted to prove that censorship was idiotic. I did it album after album, and they didn’t realise what I was doing because they thought a bleep is a musical sound. They don’t know what music is.

Photo by Chris James White – http://www.chrisjameswhite.com

What do you write about in your songs?

I don’t write stories: I’ve always tried to mock the system. One song I wrote, for example, is about having no power, no electricity and no water in my toilet.

Does Myanmar have a healthy indie scene nowadays?

I can’t say that it does. It’s really hard to invade the current scene with new sounds. There’s a yearly awards system organised by City FM but it’s such a joke because the awards are given to people who sing cover songs. And the live scene is really difficult because we don’t have enough venues to support live gigs. Newcomers will find the existing venues impossibly expensive.

Will you take your music outside Myanmar?

I’ve already performed in London, but I’m not looking for international recognition. But I do want to perform in front of international audiences in English. I want the world to know that there are people like us doing this kind of thing in Burma.

But the reason I sing in English isn’t because I’m good at it or anything – this sounds weird but sometimes I can’t express my feelings in Burmese.

Why did you set up Bloodsugar Politik while Big Bag was such a success?

Frankly, we got bored. We’d been playing together for almost 10 years. When we started that band I was a drummer, but then our singer went to prison for drugs so I took over. He’s out of prison now but he’s not in the band. All of had the feeling that we wanted to start experimenting, to do something new, something not “us”. We all knew that one day Big Bag would come to an end. So I told the band that I wanted to do a side project and they said, “So do we.” So we’ve been able to do it together and that’s been really good.

For more info about Kyar Pauk and Bloodsugar Politik, visit http://www.reverbnation.com/Bloodsugarpolitik

Published in Mizzima Business Weekly on 8 March 2014

It takes a bold restaurateur to put potential profits on the line by pledging “No good, no pay” for every meal served. Yet it’s also a very clever marketing strategy that makes Aroma (2) stand out from the rest of the restaurants in Bagan’s tourist hot spot of Nyaung U – which is no easy feat. As Mizzima Business Weekly discovered, competition is fierce along “Restaurant Street” (a.k.a. Yarrkinnthar Street) and consumer loyalty is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to maintain, as most diners are tourists that flit in and out to see Bagan’s temples, likely never to be seen again.

Hence the owner of Aroma (2), Rajendura Kumar (who simply goes by Mr Raju), believes that his food is so good that his greatest challenge is getting people to try it. When asked why he feels it necessary to make such a commitment to his customers, he almost seemed surprised by the question.

“How else will people know that my food is good?” he said earnestly.

That’s why “No good, no pay” is written in large letters on the signs outside, and the mantra has been translated into more than 50 languages on the back of the menu, just to be sure everyone understands the deal.

Only three diners have ever refused to pay for their meals at Aroma (2) since it opened in 2005. The first was a stingy backpacker who claimed to have left his wallet in his hotel, only to run off the following day when he bumped into Mr Raju at the local market. One lady simply refused and left on the premise that the food contained MSG (it doesn’t), and a local woman claimed the next day that she got sick – and called the police. Mr Raju had to pay the woman a fine, despite describing in detail to police how well he maintains hygiene and that it simply wasn’t possible to have made someone sick. He looked pained at he described the past encounter. Nonetheless, the fact that such incidents have been so rare is a stellar achievement on the part of this family-run restaurant, and proof that the food is made with love and served with pride. Further evidence of Aroma (2’s) merits lies in the fact that it remains the top choice for a meal in Nyaung U in Lonely Planet – it’s been recommended in every edition of the guidebook for the past nine years.

Aroma (2) is one of the few places in Nyaung U that doesn’t take a shot at serving multi-cuisines; most of the other restaurant signboards decry a choice of Indian, Chinese, Thai, Western, Italian and of course, Burmese. Depending on your perspective, these signboards could actually sow seeds of doubt in a potential diner’s mind about whether it’s a case of being “a jack of all trades but a master of none” type of place. Thus it was with some surprise that at two other restaurants further up Restaurant Street, the Indian food served was actually extremely good. The meals definitely didn’t lack authenticity – and one restaurant had the same delicious condiments, albeit offered in tiny serves, as at Aroma (2).

However Mr Raju feels very bitter towards one of these restaurants in particular because he claims that its owner dined at Aroma (2) every day for a week after it opened, expressing a professed interest in Indian cuisine. Mr Raju told the owner all that’s contained in the meals and how Indian food is prepared, and he was staggered to find his dishes replicated at the other restaurant shortly afterwards.

“Another mistake I made was to close Aroma (2) to help out my wife with Aroma (1) in Inle Lake during the low tourist season in Bagan. By the time I came back, a bunch of places offering Indian had opened,” he lamented.

Nonetheless, Aroma (2) boldly claims to be “Number One” for Indian food in Myanmar, and it certainly outranks any Indian I’ve ever tasted outside of India itself – even Yangon’s Coriander Leaf (whose prices are about double that of Aroma (2’s). There’s no longer an Aroma at Inle Lake because the family closed it down so as to be able to live together.

Customers who have fallen in love with Aroma 2 in days past have designed cartoons for the signboards and menus that depict the “before and after” eating experience. One such cartoon depicts a “normal” stick figure arriving for a meal and being carried out with a bulging belly in the back of a trishaw. I heard Mr Raju’s son, a waiter, gently telling another diner – with a definite twinkle in his eye – to “take it gently”.

Mr Raju said that other diners have helped to refine his initially very broad menu to include a selection of the greatest Indian classics, such as tandoori chicken. He is constantly on the lookout for suggestions to improve the dining experience and although busy, he’s clearly happy to chat away with customers, including the balloon pilots, who are some of his regulars. And if you’d curious about what it’s like to actually live in Bagan as a local, get the lowdown from Mr Raju’s bubbly daughter Chadni, who waits on the tables (“The low season is incredibly boring because there’s nothing to do without the tourists here…”)

Meals begin with massive, melt-in-your-mouth poppadums, followed by the plain, potato or garlic naans and chapatti, which accompany the authentic flavours contained in northern Indian dishes such as tikka masala. The amount of spice in the curries will be tailor-made according to your individual preference. Then there’s the refreshing raitha (a mix of curd and cucumber) and no less than six complimentary chutneys, including tamarind and mint. Obviously it’s not obligatory to have as much food as this, but if you have any sense, you will – and it will cost around $30 for two people to eat like kings.

Aroma (2) boasts a small bridge as an entrance-way to the open air restaurants and a warm glow is cast over diners at night with attractive lamps. Beer is served icy cold. However the table arrangement is perhaps a little too cosy, which means that other diners’ conversations are easily overheard, as are your own. Whilst this can be a little awkward, it made it possible to confirm that other diners appeared to be in raptures over their meals on the two evenings I dined at Aroma (2). Expect to hear a lot of happy sighs.

Published on DVB on 14 March 2014

Burma is blessed with a gilded, gravity-defying rock, thousand year old temples and a natural lake that’s bigger than San Marino, yet one of the country’s more understated experiences is no less memorable: drinking local wines where the grapes are grown. Burma has two wineries, both located in mountainous Shan State, where the elevation is high enough to produce very decent white wines and velvety reds.

“We’ve had only positive feedback [about the winery],” said Bert Mosbach, the managing director of Myanmar’s first wine producer, Myanmar Vineyard Estate Co. Ltd. Its Aythaya label is named after the village the winery is located in, which lies at an altitude of 1,200 metres.

However Mr Mosbach said he plans to have a sound barrier installed at the winery to wipe out every last trace of noise from cars en route to or from nearby Taunggyi, the state’s bustling capital.

“Paradise shouldn’t have any noise,” said Mosbach, who boasts that his winery, which is run by fellow German compatriot, winemaker Hans Leiendecker, “is the nicest place in southern Shan State.”

Indeed, by the time the sampling of four wines was complete (K2,000) and as the sun was casting its final glow over the rolling hills, it was easy to imagine that life doesn’t get any better. By the time the first bottle of sauvignon blanc was emptied and the shiraz delivered to the table by our friendly Chin waiter, it was more than mere imagining. The only distraction to conversation became conversation itself: a plump, bossy white duck chased a smaller version of itself across the pond in front of the restaurant’s balcony with as much huff and puff as Daffy Duck.

Gradual intoxication, the murmurings of French tourists nearby and a dozen or so Burmese taking selfies on the pavilion created a pleasant sense of confusion. My husband ordered spicy chicken wings and I had an avocado and a seafood salad – one local, one Western style.

According to Mosbach, the cosmopolitan nature of the guests at the winery – the majority of whom are now locals – is something he’s always tried to cultivate.

“It used to be only the Europeans, Americans and Canadians who came to the winery, but lately a lot more Asian tourists have been coming. While I’d say that wine appreciation is definitely growing in Myanmar [Burma], there wasn’t a tipping point as such… It kept Hans and I wondering when that moment came, when local consumers took over as the majority.”

After years of trials and tribulations – such as having his basmati rice farm in Loikaw, Karenni [Kayah] State, confiscated by the former military government, then having to abandon his first winery (also in Loikaw) due to armed conflict between government troops and ethnic rebels, Mosbach is now literally reaping the fruits of his labour.

He told DVB that Aythaya’s sales are at an all time high. Whilst it’s no surprise that local wine sales benefitted from the government’s sudden crackdown on imported alcohol and tobacco in the lead-up to Christmas last year, Mosbach said that many consumers were converted.

“It was a moment for many wine drinkers who had never touched Myanmar wine to try it. And they’ve stayed with us since, which is wonderful,” he said.

Mosbach said that sales in January broke December’s record, and that February was even stronger. Although he declined to provide sales figures, he said sales volumes are “already double what they were in 2013.”

In fact, it’s now local wines that are out of stock.

“We sold out of our white wines last Friday. It’s still in the shops, but we can’t fill our new orders. It’s the first time we’ve had this problem. We can’t sell more until the wine is ready – which is about three weeks from now.”

Mosbach is considered the pioneer of wine-making in Burma, having set up Myanmar 1^st Vineyard in 1999 – however he does have one award winning competitor: Red Mountain. Its winery has a more rustic feel and lies in a valley close to Nyaung Shwe, with magnificent views of Inle Lake. Its altitude is slightly lower, at 950 meters above sea level. Unfortunately however, the white wine was served in a bucket with an awkward slab of ice and wasn’t properly chilled, while the food and service was somewhat mediocre.

“Competition stimulates business and there’s room for more of it,” Mosbach said with a smile. He added that Aythaya is outperforming Red Mountain with “significantly more sales.”

Mosbach is also adamant that Burma’s climate is “perfect” for making quality white wines, which gives it an edge over regional rivals. In Thailand, for example, most vineyards have been set up in low altitude, tropical climates, of between 0-200 meters above sea level. According to Red Mountain’s winemaker Francois Raynal, “Thailand’s sauvignon blanc and pinot noir are not growing well.”

“It’s no accident that we’ve sold out of white wine,” Mosbach said.

“There was a 300 person function held recently for the German President’s visit, and people there told us that Aythaya is the best white wine in Asia. This confirmed my own opinion.”

When DVB told Mosbach it had heard through the grapevine that an Asian Wine Producer’s Association is in the process of being set up, and that it already has 10 founding members from the wine producing countries of Japan, Thailand, China, India and Indonesia, he sat bolt upright in his chair.

“Tell [the association] that we want to join,” he said.

Published in Mizzima Business Weekly on 13 March 2014

Josephine Price is a director of Anthem Asia, an independent investment group which was established two years ago and adheres to the United Nations’ principles of responsible investment. Anthem Asia made its first investment in Myanmar in September last year – a US$1 million office rental firm called Hintha Business Centers. Ms Price was originally a lawyer and prior to cofounding Anthem Asia, she spent three decades working in investment in frontier markets across Asia. She talks to Mizzima Business Weekly about why sustainable investment matters in Myanmar.

What exactly is “responsible investment”?
There’s often a lot of jargon thrown around in terms of being “responsible” and “sustainable” when it comes to investing. So let’s start with what we mean by “sustainable:” businesses that create value within the community in which they’re investing and that are sustainable in the long term. For us its’ a commercial approach – we’re not an NGO. We want to make money, but we want to make it responsibly.

Sometimes people assume that sustainability means that you reduce your investments return. We believe that gradually, people will start costing their environmental and social impact into their investment, which means that investments which are sustainable should have a higher long term value, because the risk profile is reduced. It’s not free to take things from the earth and it’s not free to pollute. Well, it may be now, but it won’t be forever. So having a sustainable investment is a better business model because the risks are a lot lower.

This sounds like the idea of the “triple bottom line,” a phrase that was coined in 1994 by British consultant John Elkington. Is your concept about factoring in more than traditional notions of profit?

Sort of – it’s one of the benchmarks for measuring the environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) of a company. However while there are hundreds of academic papers on how this is achieved, when you look and who is doing it and how, you find that the practical demonstration on the ground is much less frequent than academics seem to suggest.

Could you provide an example of a successful case study of responsible investment?

In the commodities sector, there are some big players working with farmers to improve crop yields and to improve how their products are being purchased so that farmers get a better deal. Usually a farmer is in a vicious cycle of borrowing to buy seed at an appalling interest rate and then has to sell their seed to someone who takes a big cut as the middle man. This leaves farmers in a cycle of poverty. So some of the big commodity companies have been working to improve yields and trying to buy crops directly from farmers, at fixed prices. This is more sustainable because farmer become better educated about their business and there’s a more effective use of fertilizer and so forth – you create a much more beneficial cycle. There’s been a lot happening across Southeast Asia in working more sustainably with farmers.

One of the sector’s Anthem Asia works in is tourism – what’s your take on Myanmar’s tourism industry?

At this stage we’ve had limited experience in tourism but we believe it’s going to be a great sector. What will be difficult is how to manage to the large volume of tourists that will be coming without destroying the environment. We like to work with those who are working with local partners and are sensitive to local communities. We also believe that tourists like it. I think this makes commercial sense and it’s more sustainable: the entire tourist dollar shouldn’t be leaving Myanmar and with little or no benefits going to the local community.

We held a workshop two weeks ago and have been talking to members of the government along with development agencies about how to cooperate on a range of issues, such as conserving the environment and providing better training for staff in the tourist sector. I think the government is very willing to work in cooperation and is trying to get a working group together, which is positive.
Obviously, plonking down big hotels in the middle of nowhere has a lot of unfortunate consequences. But just to reiterate, we aren’t an NGO – our mission is to do what we do right, to try to no do no harm. We’re not out to change the world but to change the little bit that we deal with.

How do you convince potential clients to do the right thing in a country such as Myanmar, where it may be somewhat easier to simply go down the “pure profits” path?

It’s no different from anywhere in the world – we find clients through networking. We tell people what we do, and I actually don’t believe it’s a hard sell here in Myanmar. There’s a culture of giving back to the community, whether it’s by setting up a schools or making merit – you should try it in places like China. Here, I think there’s a lot of sensitivity to the idea of investing sustainably. However do bear in mind that we target small to medium business, not huge, complicated, well-connected businesses.

How does Myanmar as a frontier market compare to the likes of China, Vietnam and Indonesia, when they were first opening up to foreign investment?

Many of the challenges are similar – issues such as a lack of rule of law, a limited understanding of how contracts work, terrible accounting, very few people are paying tax… But what’s unique about Myanmar is that political reforms are coinciding with political ones. China opened up to business without opening up politically, which was the same case in Vietnam. Indonesia opened and then had its revolution. So the fact that the two things are coinciding here is a good thing, but it’s also very complicated because of the regulatory uncertainty – there’s ongoing political debate at the same time as trying to work out new commercial laws.

A recent report by Reuters described Myanmar as the poorest country in Asia after Afghanistan. When do you believe it will become a middle income country?

Not soon. At least 10 to 15 years. And remember that being “middle income” is still quite poor. Myanmar is starting off with such a low base. However I’d also that due to the fact there’s a lot of black money here, the size of its economy is very difficult to gauge.

Published in Mizzima Business Weekly on 22 February 2014

Glam rock stalwart Phyu Phyu Kyaw Thein talks to Mizzima Business Weekly about the ups and downs of life as a celebrity and the toll piracy is taking on musician’s livelihoods.

What are you working on at the moment?

I’m working on two solo albums, both of which will be released this year. One album will be similar to what my fans are used to, while the other will be a little bit different – you could call it an underground, new alternative to my music. I don’t have a title for that album yet, but it will be released after Thingyan [the Burmese New Year in April].

I’m working on the other album with the Lazy Club band and the album will be more like my last album, Damsel in Distress [released in August 2012] – it will have a mix of ballads, pop, rock and retro.

All songs on both albums will have original lyrics.

You’re often compared with Lady Gaga – how do you feel about that?

I was performing before Lady Gaga became famous but I think people say this because my sister designs my outlandish, glam rock outfits – she kind of tests me as to whether I have the guts to wear them! But I am a poor girl from a third world country so I dare not compare myself with her.

How much of a problem is piracy for you and the entire music industry?

Myanmar’s music industry is breaking down as a result of the uncontrollable piracy. Let me start with an example of how rampant it is – my best selling album took two or three years to sell just 10,000 copies – and that’s among a population of 60 million people. The amount of official CDs I sold is about the size of a single township’s population, but I believe that more than a million copies of my album sold were pirated versions.

Piracy is a big business and there is no rule of law to control it. It provides jobs for poor people, selling pirated CDs, and most are unaware that it’s a crime. But it’s also a big business for the rich people who own the factories that make the pirated CDS. Due to the fact that an official album costs $2 while it’s possible to buy three pirated albums for $1, musicians here have to make their money from live performances.

The Myanmar Music Association (MMA), of which I am the general secretary, is campaigning for tougher laws against piracy. But we’re not the authoritative organisation to actually bring about change. Under current laws, the penalty is either a one or two month prison term or a fine of no more than US$200 or $300. Of course the criminals opt to pay the compensation because it’s such a small amount. The big guys in the piracy business can make about $10,000 a day – that amounts to millions over a year. Plus there’s a lot of bribery and corruption – we get threatening phone calls and the judges are bribed. They will even bribe our own lawyers!

Can musicians make money from royalties?

The first radio station that signed a contract to pay musicians royalties was in 2008, and in December last year, City FM was the last station to come onboard. We had to meet with them many times to get them to agree to pay us royalties.

What’s the payment per song?

[Laughs] It’s a 600 kyat. And most of the time, it works out to be about 100 kyat per person, because we split the money in various percentages among the vocalist, musicians, composers, the producer, and the sound engineer. For a solo song, I’ll get a little more than 100 kyat, but if it’s a duet it will be around 50, 60 or 70 kyat.

In Thailand, the amount paid is fairly similar, but Thailand has so many more radio stations than Myanmar, which only has seven. We don’t have local stations, so the situation for musicians here is very different in terms of the money we can make from royalty payments. But things are better now in general because the MMA is made up of elected members. Prior to 2011, there were some musicians who were members, but they had to fight a lot with the members who were from the government or ministry. The government appointed the MMA members and often discussions would just come to an end with, “You have to do this or that – and don’t complain.” So the musicians belonging to the MMA were quite powerless to support us.

Were you affected by censorship?

Yes, of course. I was often told to change my lyrics. There was one song I performed called “Phensidyl” [a stimulant cough syrup containing codeine that’s produced in Myanmar and illegal in some countries] that is actually against the drug, and it’s also a love song. It was created by a legendary composer, but the censorship committee seemed to have an allergic reaction to the mere mention of the word “phensidyl.” They asked me to change the words and I didn’t want to, but I had to for the official recording. The composer had passed away by then, so one of his best pupils changed it for me. Then in 2010, just before the elections and the democratic reforms, one of my concerts was aired on a state-run TV channel. Before I sang the song live on air I pleaded to be allowed to sing the original lyrics. Although they didn’t exactly say yes, they didn’t cut transmission and I’ve been allowed to sing the original lyrics ever since. Even my plea was aired.

Does the media in Myanmar give celebrities enough privacy?

Yes, very much so. We have no paparazzi here in Myanmar and sometimes the media actually covers up drug scandals or what not from the public. Of course, people want to know about the lives of celebrities, but it’s possible for us to choose how much information we give to the public. And I don’t have much to lie about anyway [laughs].

Do you feel that success is tied to flaunting good looks?

I always try to look beautiful within the local cultural context. I don’t reveal too much – it’s just not my style. Being sexy in Myanmar is different from say, America. Take Shakira – she used to be a simple girl singing in her own language but when she went to America they sexualised everything about here. Here it just doesn’t sell. But that said, there’s some pretty revealing outfits among Myanmar’s hip hop scene!

Do you have any issues when you’re in public?

I hear a lot of “Oh my Gods” every day, but that’s okay for me. It’s become normal and I’m used to it. Even when I’m not wearing makeup, people still recognise me and follow me around. Sometimes I’m not even able to shop because people are asking for autographs and pictures, and of course I have to allow them. It’s a combination of boys and girls – and sometimes even really, really young kids!!

Have you thought of going out with a disguise – such as by wearing sunglasses?

No one wears sunglasses in Myanmar so that wouldn’t work. [laughs]

Have you had any stalkers?

Yeah I have. I was in Mandalay last year and was meant to be taken to a concert venue from my hotel. The hotel told me to go down and get in the car, so off I went with my makeup crew. By the time we reached the venue I realised it wasn’t the same chauffer that had driven me on other occasions because he clearly had no idea where to drop me off when we arrived. He was meant to take to me via a secret route so that I could get inside. It turned out that he was a creepy fan, but he wasn’t trying to harm me. But the concert organisers were shocked and security came as soon as I called them on my mobile and grabbed me out of the car. That’s been the only incident in my 10 year career.

You’ve said that your Christian faith is an important part of your identity, and you’re also a successful businesswoman, having achieved so much during your decade long career. Where do you see yourself headed from here?

It’s funny, you know – people call me a “doctor-singer” because I’m a qualified doctor, and when I release music clips, I’m an “actress-singer” – even though I’m not at all into acting. When I sing different styles of music, I come to know that I have different types of Phyu Phyu Kyaw Thein inside me. There are a lot of other parts that I don’t even understand yet. I think I might be at the beginning of an underground, alternate version of myself as a musician.

Published in DVB on 1 April 2014

Burma’s first privately owned English-language daily newspaper in 50 years, Myanma Freedom Daily, is suspending publication from 1 April 2014. The decision was announced on the cover of the 31 March edition, stating that the suspension will last “for a while”, adding that it will be back “soonest.”

Editor-in-Chief Thiha Saw, a veteran journalist who launched the newspaper last year after receiving one of the first licenses awarded by the government to print a private daily, told DVB: “We’ll be closed for one month – or two months max. Our editorial team isn’t going to change and our content isn’t going to change, but we need to restructure our business model.”

“Everybody’s shocked,” said managing editor Nyan Win.

“We’ve been trying so hard for the past two months – we were trying up until this morning. It’s a complicated story of investment matters, but basically we’re looking for a new investor,” he told DVB on Monday.

Myanma Freedom Daily was funded by family and friends; posing a stark contrast to the majority of other newspapers in Burma, which have the financial backing of local tycoons.

Thiha Saw said he’d been in talks with potential investors that morning and will spend the next four to eight weeks meeting others. He said that the need to travel both abroad and domestically would hamper the day-to-day operations of the newspaper, which was another factor in the decision to suspend its publication, along with the likelihood of moving its office from Bo Myat Tun Street in Pazundaung Township, “depending on the requirements of the new investor.”

Myanma Freedom Daily had a circulation of 10,000 copies a day and in a 31 March editorial it was stated that the electronic version of the newspaper had just exceeded 100,000 clicks.

“We’ve received a lot of messages of support from our readers,” he said.

However Thiha Saw cautioned that Burma’s media landscape is changing so quickly that by the time his newspaper re-emerges, competition may be even fiercer.

“There’s a price war going on and our new business model will have to take that into account. The Yangon Times Daily is just 50 kyat (US$0.05) a copy, as is the [state-run] New Light of Myanmar; and Eleven is the same price as us [120 kyat per copy]. It will take some time for The Myanmar Times to go daily, but there are so many newspapers now and some of them have deep pockets. They can afford the high operational overheads it takes to run a daily paper.”

Thiha Saw, who is also a member of the Interim Press Council and vice-president of the Myanmar Journalists Association, voiced criticism of the draft Public Service Media Law, which would see state-run media, such as The New Light of Myanmar, transformed into a government-funded, yet independently monitored media service.

The Interim Press Council has opposed the bill since it was first submitted to parliament last year. Several prominent members of the media have criticised the bill – whose details remain vague – for potentially allowing state-run media to outrun its private rivals on the basis of having access to funds from the state budget and a lack of transparency in regulation.

“The government isn’t attempting to confer any benefits on privately run media, such as giving us a two-year tax free period,” said Thiha Saw.

The suspension of Myanma Freedom Daily serves as a reminder that times are uncertain for journalists in Burma. The newspaper’s 40-odd staff were reportedly stunned by the announcement on Monday morning. Its offices and equipment were almost deserted by noon.

One staff member, who declined to be named, said, “This has totally messed up my April. I was even hoping it was just an April Fool’s joke.”

NB: I worked two shifts a week as a sub-editor on Myanma Freedom Daily’s news desk from October 2013 until its suspension.

Published in Mizzima Business Weekly on 23 March 2014

During the session titled, “Covering Burma from the outside: How the world got its news pre-media reforms”, one of the panelists, U Than Lwin Htun, the head of Voice of America’s Burmese service, gave a stark example of how the tone of state-run media has changed in recent times.

He showed a slide featuring a headline in The New Light of Myanmar of March 10, 2010, which proclaimed: “Do not allow ourselves to be swayed by killer broadcasts designed to cause troubles.”

The “killer broadcasts” listed as posing a threat were those of the BBC – which set up a bureau in Yangon this year – VOA and DVB. Likewise, Mizzima was constantly in the bad books until recently, as were all exile media organisations trying to report on Myanmar under a brutal military regime.

Fast forward to March 10, 2014, when presidential spokesman and Deputy Information Minister U Ye Htut said in his opening address at the East-West Center conference: “The president believes that the media has a clear role in democracy… It is a vital process for the evolution of democratic culture in our society.”

Nonetheless Time journalist Hannah Beech, who wrote the cover story for the magazine last year which featured an image of the Venerable U Wirathu accompanied by the heading “The Face of Buddhist Terror,” (the edition was subsequently banned by the government), was denied a visa to attend the conference on the somewhat ominous justification that it “could bring undesirable consequences on the event and to her”.

U Than Lwin Htun spent years reporting on Myanmar from outside the country and was all too familiar with the challenges involved – which he cited as distorted information, military propaganda, denial of access, and constant “information blackouts.”

“At one point, while I was working for the BBC, there a complete information blackout for four days. CNN in Hong Kong contacted me for information, assuming I knew more than most because I am myself Burmese. ‘Do you know what’s going on?’ they asked.

“I said I didn’t know anything and that my mother was in Rangoon – I hadn’t heard from her in four days and didn’t know whether she was alive or dead. People outside were so desperate for information.”

When rumours circulated in 2001 that former dictator General Ne Win had died, the BBC again asked U Than Lwin Htun to confirm whether the news was true.

“They asked me every day for a week, but still I couldn’t verify whether he’d died. As it turned out, he hadn’t – he died a year later.”

Another problem was the difficulty of sourcing – “there were so many fears and rumours, and hate and opinions,” said U Than Lwin Htun.

Even when people were willing to talk, the difficulty of verifying information often made it impossible to publish reports without risking credibility.

On one occasion, one of U Than Lwin Htun’s sources provided information and urged him to use her name.

“ ‘Are you sure?’ I asked, and she replied, ‘Of course I’m sure.’

But the day after the report was broadcast, the woman – who he said was as old as his mother – was arrested.

“I felt so guilty for being responsible for her imprisonment,” he said.

Even consuming news inside Myanmar was extremely risky. Nonetheless, in some ways, Myanmar people became even more determined to access it. The panel’s moderator, Jeanne Hallacy, director of programmes at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand told a story to illustrate just how valued Bertil Lintner’s articles on Myanmar were to people inside the country.

“There was one man in prison who used to ask his wife to go to Bogyoke Market to buy a bootlegged copy of a magazine that had one of Bertil’s articles in it. She’d then tear out the page and wrap it around the parcel of chicken biriyani she brought to him in prison. He’d go to great lengths to meticulously wipe off the grease so that he could read the article,” Ms Hallacy said.

For his part, Mr Lintner, quipped that he wasn’t actually “Journalist Enemy Number One” of the military regime as many had assumed, “because there was another journalist who was publishing articles about Myanmar every day, while I was only writing one once a week.”

Mr Lintner first came to Myanmar in 1977, aged 24.

“I came as a traveller – I never had any formal training as a journalist, but I soon became fascinated with the country after realising that the outside world knew nothing about it. ‘Burma’ could have been ‘Bermuda’, for all people knew,” he said.

Despite initially writing under a pen name, it wasn’t long before his identity was uncovered and he saw it was fruitless not to use his own name. Mr Lintner was blacklisted in 1985 and was only able to return to Myanmar last year.

He gave a poignant example of how asking one simple question could become a matter of life and death.

“I was able to ask [the head of Military Intelligence] Khin Nyunt whether he could confirm reports that a BBC stringer who had been arrested was being tortured.

“ ‘Can you confirm or deny this?’ I asked – and he replied, ‘Well, he’s a communist.’

“I said I didn’t care what the man’s political orientation was and then Khin Nyunt told me he was fine. Then, just to prove that I was wrong, Khin Nyunt arranged for a doctor to visit the stringer and his diet in prison drastically improved.”

Mr Lintner applauded the bravery of all of Myanmar’s unsung heroes, who risked imprisonment or worse – to inform the world about the situation inside the country.

“People had to suffer because they provided [journalists] with information. Without them, we would have had nothing to write about.”

Panelist U Zin Linn, a prolific writer who contributes to Burma News International, Asian Correspondent, Asian Tribune and Myanma Freedom Daily and is based in Chiang Mai, spent seven years in prison for his involvement in the student pro-democracy movement. He was also regularly used by journalists as a source inside Myanmar. U Zin Linn was sentenced to an extra seven years for setting up a prison newspaper, but was subsequently released and fled to Thailand in 2001.

“Even inside prison, our determination to know what was going on outside never left us,” he said.

“But we worked under an atmosphere of extreme control, with phone calls most often being tapped and recorded.”

When a member of the audience asked Mr Lintner if he is confident that Myanmar’s newfound press freedom is not at risk of reverting to the dark days of the past, he replied: “It’s hard to believe that the situation could go back to what it was in the 1980s. But there are indications that Myanmar’s government may adopt the Singapore press model, which curbs freedom of expression through endless litigation in the courts. It’s an abuse of the law and just as serious.”

Published in Mizzima Business Weekly on 22 February 2014

Heather MacLachlan is an Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Dayton in Ohio, United States and the author of Burma’s Pop Music Industry – the first book to be written about Myanmar’s pop scene. She talks to Mizzima Business Weekly about some of her most interesting findings, as well as what’s changed since her book was published in 2011.

What triggered your interest in Burmese pop music?
I first came to Yangon to conduct research on a traditional form of Karen poetry and song. However that tradition no longer exists in Yangon – all the Karen singers I met were involved in pop music – so I decided to study the pop music industry instead. Scholars are always under pressure to publish “original research,” that is, to write about something that no one else has written about before. So it was partly a strategic choice, because no other scholars had written any serious, book-length, English language study of Burmese pop. I came to know a lot of people in the industry, and they have been incredibly kind to me and I consider them my friends. So I became deeply interested in their issues and wanted to represent them accurately and respectfully.

Did you find anything unique about Burma’s pop music scene and in what ways is it distinct from say, the American pop scene?
Yes, the differences are something I discuss at length in my book. The Burmese pop scene is structured very differently, as are the concepts of a band, a composer, a producer and so forth. While I was conducting research from 2007 to 2009, there were no record labels – at least not in the US sense of the word. Crucially, the “Big Four” oligarchic recording companies (EMI, Universal, Sony, Warner) have no presence in Burma. There is no Billboard Magazine, which calculates album sales and the like, and there aren’t any organized fan clubs – and so on…
Secondly, Burmese pop musicians have rather different perspectives and value systems. In the United States, “selling out” is a terrible insult – good artists are supposed to value “originality” and “independence” above all else. But in Burma, commercial success is an index of artistic quality, and it is an honourable thing to closely imitate excellent (which translates to “commercial successful”) sounds.

Has pop always been political in Burma, in terms of musicians trying to convey a message through their lyrics?

“Political” is such a nebulous term and it’s debated by pop music scholars along the lines of “What is political?” or “Is it ever possible for pop music to challenge power structures?” What I would say is that Burmese pop musicians do label some songs as “political” and others as not so. So-called “political songs” were banned before 2010, so they were rarely heard. Musicians now claim that it’s easier to record such songs, but from what I can tell, there’s not a ton of explicitly political songs being created.
How would you describe Phyu Phyu Kyaw Thein’s place among Burma’s pop music industry?

She is a major figure. She has made many recordings which have sold well and – as I understand – commands a high fee for live performances. She has also performed abroad for the Burmese diaspora communities in other countries [such as Australia, Thailand, Singapore, South Korea, Japan and the United Kingdom].

She is also the first democratically elected General Secretary of the Myanmar Musicians Association. She would not have been elected to this position if members of the MMA (which is dominated by pop music industry people) didn’t broadly support her.

How did censorship impact the creative process for musicians and do you think it will take some time for there to be a creative blossom

ing of sorts?

Musicians tended to adopt one or more of four strategies in response to censorship: submission, defiance, subversion or avoidance. It’s important to remember that musicians see themselves as autonomous agents, and strongly assert that even if they had to pay bribes or change their lyrics, they still take pride in their artistic product (that is to say, the music wasn’t written just to please the censors.) Chapter 5 of my book is devoted to this topic.

However the whole idea of “creativity” needs to be questioned: What constitutes creativity? All artists, across all fields, work with pre-existing tools and ideas. In pop music, for example, we talk about “licks” and “beats.” So my question to you would be: Why assume Burmese pop musicians are not creative? How much of their work would have to be “original” (which is another problematic word) for it to be considered “creative”?

My book discusses three examples of fusion, which is music that deliberately includes elements of international pop sounds and Maha Gita [Burmese classical music]. Ethnomusicologists, like journalists, tend to focus on fusion genres, seeing these as more “creative.” There wasn’t a lot of fusion work happening when I wrote the book – there may be more now. However one thing is certain: censorship was not the reason why fusion was uncommon. In fact, government functionaries sometimes required pop songs to include the sounds of local instruments and what not, in songs commissioned for government purposes.

Some reports in the media have claimed that until as recently as the 1990s, it was difficult for people inside Myanmar to obtain Western CDs. If this is correct, how could the “copy” industry have come about?

Prior to 2010, Burma was less of a closed country than is popularly supposed. Musicians cultivated contacts with foreign ambassadors, sailors and the like, and these people brought LPs and later cassette tapes, into the country. That’s how recordings could be copied. I describe this in more detail in Chapter 4 of my book.

The distribution industry was also well-developed in Yangon by the 21st century, when high-speed computers became available in Yangon. Distribution companies hired staff to fly to Bangkok or Tokyo and to spend a week buying mostly English-language CDs. They flew back to Burma with these CDs in their suitcases. The distributors would then burn copies of the CDs, photocopy the cover art, and print dozens or hundreds of copies. These copied CDs were sold legally, in retail stores like [Citymart]. This wasn’t considered piracy, as the term “piracy” referred to a different phenomenon, in which criminals made illegal copies of Burmese albums and sold them on the sidewalk or on the black market.

What impact do you think the lifting of censorship has had on the Burma’s pop music industry?

I’ve recently given a couple of papers on this and I’ve stated that musicians are cautiously optimistic about the new freedoms. They are glad they can record “political” songs, although they are mostly not doing this… They are in the business to please fans, after all – and fans want to hear love songs, as they always have. There is a fair amount of concern that the new freedoms will be abused and the MMA, under Phyu Phyu Kyaw Thein’s leadership, is trying to deal with this. Some are worried that uncensored recordings will promote socially destructive messages (such as smoking or prostitution) or that which is racist (especially against Muslims). So the MMA has come up with a couple of different schemes, essentially making it a kind of replacement for the old government censors. As can be imagined, a significant number of musicians don’t want to cooperate with this.

Has Myanmar’s pop scene undergone significant change since your book was published in 2011?

Yes – musicians are dealing with new payment structures (such as the royalties to be paid by radio stations), new understandings of intellectual property and copyright (which affects their opinion of the viability of copy thachin), the new market of the Burmese diaspora, and new non-Burmese players in the industry (especially Westerners who are promoting new bands on the international stage) – to name just a few off the top of my head. None of this is in my book, so even though it’s very current by scholarly standards, it’s in fact a kind of historical study. Phyu Phyu Kyaw Thein has said she wants to publish a Burmese-language version of Burma’s Pop Music Industry because it will provide “a history of our industry.” She’s right – although that wasn’t my intention!

Click here to buy Burma’s Pop Music Industry on Amazon

In February I was interviewed by the editor of Mumbrella, Robin Hicks, about the challenges of reporting in Myanmar.

Below is a snippet of the interview – to read the full interview, click here

In this interview with Mumbrella Asia editor Robin Hicks, Melbourne-born journalist Jessica Mudditt talks about the challenges of reporting on a country that is – in fits and starts – loosening its grip on press freedom after decades of oppression.

What’s the hardest thing about reporting on Myanmar?

For me, it’s the lack of data available. Previous military regimes appear to have had zero interest in obtaining information about the people of Myanmar (other than for intelligence purposes!). A census hasn’t been conducted in more than 30 years, so even something as straightforward as the total population of Myanmar is merely an estimate, and the estimates vary quite a lot from organisation to organisation. And because Myanmar was a closed country for so long, the research that would normally have been amassed by civil society groups such as INGOs simply didn’t exist until recently. This makes it difficult to identify trends and changes in society, which is what makes an article or an angle robust. For example, when I wrote about women working in the “grey area” of the commercial sex industry, such as at massage parlours and karaoke lounges, there simply wasn’t any data available about the number of women engaged in such work.

So it’s often quite time consuming just to gather enough anecdotal material to find an angle worth pitching to an editor. Another problem is that although government ministries are now actively collecting data and are usually very glad to share it with journalists, very little of it is available online.

Published in the October edition of My Magical Myanmar

Although Yangon offers the option of a few truly swanky bars, anyone seeking a relaxed, open air drink and barbecue combo should head for Chinatown’s 19th Street.

Also known as “Beer Street” by locals and expats, this popular al fresco dining destination between Maha Bandoola and Anawratha streets is largely free of vehicles – a rarity in Yangon.

It’s a pleasant experience to stroll this lane, where eateries spill out on to the road, and soak up the frenetic atmosphere, which includes hawkers selling anything from fried crickets to foam toys – as well as a handful of incredibly talented street performance singers. If you’ve opted for an outside table, be sure to look up at the charming yet decaying traditional Chinese shophouses lining the street. Sticks of incense jostle for dominance over the barbecue grills, while cats forage for fishy treats from customers…along with the fat rats that occasionally dart out from the gutters.

It’s not a street steeped in history and culture, though for better or worse, no attempt has been made to sanitise the experience. Chinatown is, of course, busy at any time of the day – but as soon as the sun starts to dip, people begin arriving at 19th Street in droves. Although Yangon has never been considered as a city that doesn’t sleep, it’s possible to booze on here past midnight – at the very least.

The two most popular venues among at least a dozen are Kosan and Kaung Myat, which are conveniently located side-by-side, about half way along the street. Kosan is a Japanese-owned franchise, with another at Hledan Junction (on a street often frequented by Yangon’s punks – it’s rather similar to Camden in London). It’s possible to order food from both places regardless of where you’re seated, as long as you pay the bill up front.

Kosan is somewhat upmarket in comparison to its neighbour, but the prices will still appeal to those travelling or living on a budget. Arguably its most popular drink, a mojito, is just K800 – and it’s a decent serve of rum with the fresh lime. There’s air-conditioning inside as well as a few tables outside on the street. Kosan also has an an upstairs area that is ideal for groups of about 20 (although you sacrifice on atmosphere). Its hyper-efficient waitresses dart back and forth in their trademark “Route 99”-styled Kosan T-shirts and black denim hot-pants. The Mexican grub is excellent, if not something of a speciality.

There’s nothing that makes Kaung Myat stand out from its other competitors in terms of appearance and its barbecued fare is largely the same as that at other 19th Street eateries. Nevertheless, for expats at least, it is a favourite meeting place on the street. Stay in Yangon for a few months and you’re bound to spot a familiar face there during your evening. A glass of Myanmar Beer is K600 and the barbecue is buffet style – you can pick out a selection using tongs and a pink plastic basket.

As well as snacking on lotus root, liver, tandoori chicken sticks, squid, broccoli (happily, the list is too long to complete), Kaung Myat also serves enormous steamed or grilled fish with mouth-watering sauces. Alerted to its popularity, US celebrity foodie Anthony Bourdain was filmed drinking and eating there – and he waxed lyrical about both. Surely there could be no stronger endorsement for a venue than that.

Published in Mizzima Business Weekly on 31 March 2014

Long-term expats with a total of more than a century in Myanmar talk about how times have changed since they first arrived.

Few countries in the world have undergone change as rapidly as Myanmar has in recent years.After half a century of military rule ended in early 2011, the former pariah state launched a reform process which inspired the United States and the European Union to lift or relax their sanctions, precipitating a rush of foreign investors and an influx of expatriates. After the military under General Ne Win seized power from a democratically-elected government in 1962, the regime adopted as state policy a bizarre mix of Socialism and Buddhism and closed the country to the world. Foreigners were expelled, foreign organisations were banned and tourist visas were limited to a maximum stay of three days. Yet despite Myanmar’s hermit identity, an expatriate community has existed for decades, albeit in negligible numbers. Many of these “old hands” came when the military successor to Ne Win’s regime opened the doors a fraction in the early 1990s.

“There weren’t very many expats living here full-time because it was a really hard place to live. The backpacker crowd and the young crowd that’s here now just didn’t exist,” said Damon Zumbroegel, an American architect who moved to Myanmar 10 years ago.

“Nobody encouraged us to come,” said Aysha Bhuiya, a Bangladeshi who moved to Yangon with her family 15 years ago.

“But due to the expense of international school fees back in Dhaka, we saw my husband’s transfer as the opening of a door for our children’s education.”

Most foreigners, however, weren’t convinced that life in Myanmar could offer any advantages.

“The embassy postings and NGO jobs used to be considered the non-desirable ones. I have a friend working for an NGO and he said to me the other day: ‘It’s insane: we’re getting thousands of applications to come to Myanmar,’” Mr Zumbroegal said.

Indeed, until after the installation of the Thein Sein’s reformist government in early 2011 there were frequent reminders that Myanmar was a police state, determined to “crush all external and internal destructive elements as the common enemy.”

“Up until six or seven years ago, you couldn’t talk about building a university,” said an expat who spoke on condition of anonymity. “My colleagues and I would turn off all the lights [in the office] and whisper so that no one could hear us talking about it,” said an expat who declined to be named.

Universities have long been distrusted by authorities, as they have often been the hub of protests, such as during the suppressed democracy uprising of 1988.

In fact, anything linked to education was a sensitive topic and expatriate journalists who worked on Yangon publications in the early 2000s can remember being instructed by government censors to change any references to privately-run schools to “educational institutions”.

Peter Swarbrick, a British writer who came to Yangon with his Myanmar wife and son in 2007 said: “Almost everybody I met told me to assume I was being followed. There was just a kind of general feeling that it was a military regime and supposedly xenophobic, though the people themselves are not xenophobic at all.”

Australian Geoffrey Goddard, who arrived in mid-2001 after being appointed editor of the English edition of the Myanmar Times, discovered that even seemingly innocuous behaviour could result in unwanted attention from the authorities.

Mr Goddard and the then Deputy Head of Mission at the British embassy, Martin Garrit, were laying a trail of shredded paper for a Yangon Hash House Harriers event in Shwe Pyi Thar Township one Saturday morning in 2004, when they were detained by government intelligence agents and taken to a community hall.

“There were four of them and they sat us down in the hall and began the interrogation, asking what we were doing and writing down our names; I think we might have been detained longer had Martin not been a diplomat,” he said.

“My most vivid memory of the experience is that one of these young men was looking at me with an expression of pure hatred.”

In the 1990s, the Saturday afternoon events organised by the Yangon Hash almost always took place under the close and conspicuous surveillance of intelligence operatives, including filming the participants. And sometimes the Hash incurred their extreme displeasure.

When the Hash was planning an event in 1999 which was being quietly promoted as the 9-9-99 run, a combination of numbers not likely to enthuse the authorities due its astrological link to the 8888 uprising 10 years earlier, one of the group’s organisers received a threatening call from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“If you value your continued good health, we advise you not to run tonight,” the caller said.

Other interactions between foreigners and the authorities were less sinister, but equally bewildering.

American architect Amelie Chai, who came to Myanmar in 2004 to join her husband, Zaw Moe Shwe, who launched Spine Architects the previous year, was driving through Yangon’s poorly lit streets one night when she ran into a ditch.

An official from the local township office accused her of damaging the ditch and told her she was lucky not to be fined.

French citizen Natasha Schaffner, who owns the Alamanda Inn in Yangon’s exclusive Golden Valley neighbourhood, has lived in Myanmar for nine years. She is required to give authorities three weeks’ notice before hosting a function.

“I think they’re stricter now than in the past,” she said.

“This might be because Myanmar people are out drinking a lot more, whereas in the past no one used to go out late in the evening,” she added.

Ms Schaffner cited acute electricity shortages and a lack of imported foods as the biggest challenges to running a French restaurant in Yangon, though fortunately neither is anywhere near as severe a hindrance today.

Another expat, who declined to be named, said that while Myanmar people were constantly on edge about being monitored by the country’s countless spies and informants, foreigners were able to move around more freely.

“It wasn’t like going to East Germany back in the day and literally knowing that over your shoulder was some shiesty little guy following you.”

However, friendships between Myanmar and foreigners were strongly discouraged. In 2001, the Myanmar Tourism Promotion Board issued an order for officials to limit “unnecessary contact” between locals and foreigners. The director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, Brad Adams, was quoted as saying in 2004: “Average Burmese people are afraid to speak to foreigners except in the most superficial of manners, for fear of being hauled in later for questioning or worse.”

Aysha’s husband, Fahmid Bhuiya, who is Chief Operating Officer of Pact Global Microfinance Fund in described the relationship between Myanmar and expatriates when they first arrived in the 1990s as “uneasy”.

“Locals had some sort of reservation – not fear, but a reservation to meet foreigners.”

His interactions with neighbours were limited to basic pleasantries: “There was no socialising.”

Mr Zumbroegal explained that a great deal of trust had to be established before friendships were formed.

“I was never going to get into trouble, but whoever I was associated with would. There really was a lot of fear. People opened up to me, but very, very slowly. But then there were times when I’d get in a cab and the driver would roll up the windows and say, ‘This is the way my country is …’”

Until imported vehicles began in flood in to Myanmar about three years ago, there were far fewer cars on the streets, and many of them were ramshackle rust buckets.
Until the import restrictions on vehicles were eased, cars were a preferred investment, along with real estate, because they retained their value.

Mr Zumbroegal said that in 2009, a second-hand Mitsubishi Pajero cost about US$120,000 (about K116 million), with the permit itself costing up to $60,000.

For those whose costly new cars didn’t match the new requirements, there were two options, as Mr Zumbroegal explained.

“You could get a car ‘re-licensed’ if you knew people and paid money under the table, or you could cut the back off with a chainsaw to make it resemble a lightweight truck.”

People opted for the latter in droves.

“I still see a lot of cars with the backs sawn off,” Mr Zumbroegal said.

Mobile phones were also rare, due to the prohibitive cost of SIM cards, which in 2003 was set at an exorbitant $5,000.

“It seemed that mobile phones were for the privileged – well-connected businessmen and high ranking members of the military,” said Mr Goddard, now an editor with Mizzima Media Group.

The cost of a SIM card hovered at about $1,000 until President Thein Sein’s government slashed the price to $1.50 in July last year. However, the number of SIM cards available is inadequate and there have also been allegations of corruption in the awarding of “SIM lotteries.” Most people continue to buy SIM cards on the black market, for about $100.

Few businesses had internet connections in the early 2000s, but the situation had begun to improve within a few years. But with limited internet access and international telephone calls from landlines prohibitively expensive at up to $8 a minute, many expats felt cut off from their family and friends.

“We gave our letters to the French embassy to post so as to be sure they would arrive,” Ms Schaffner said.

“I felt suffocated by the information gap; that was the biggest problem for me,” Mr Bhuiya said.

His teenaged son told him a few years ago that he was unable to compete with students elsewhere in the world because his school did not have internet facilities.

“He told me his school was 20 years behind.”

Mr Zumbroegal said he and his young family were so isolated that for days after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 they were unaware of the devastation it had caused.

“We’d been trying to get flights to Bangkok but travel agents refused to sell them or give an explanation as to why. We finally got a note from one of our parents a few days later – they were going crazy because we were supposed to have been vacationing in Phuket over Christmas.”

Horizon School Principal Vugar Bababayev from Azerberjian arrived in Myanmar 17 years ago and initially lived in Mandalay, where there was no internet whatsoever. When the technology did arrive, internet cafes were under a state monopoly and it cost $1 to open or send an email.

The concept of privacy was unknown, as Mr Bababayev explained. “A few days after I first went to an internet cafe, someone there phoned to say that I’d received a new email,” he said. “When I returned to read it, I was shown a piece of paper with my colleagues’ email addresses and passwords and was asked to choose which one was mine. It was bizarre.”

As well as the monitoring of online content, internet speeds were exceedingly slow.

“I remember sitting for hours in an internet cafe waiting for a page to load,” Ms Schaffner said.

Two years ago, an internet connection at home cost $1,700. Connections are available now through wi-fi on ubiquitous smart phones.

Yet despite the hardships of everyday life, many of Myanmar’s long-term expats share a fondness for the past, when the streets were quieter, prices lower and the pace of life was more relaxed.
“As an expat, I do kind of treasure some of the past, the quietness,” Ms Chai said. “I have mixed feelings about Myanmar opening up, though it is of course good for the economy.”

“When my wife and I first came to Myanmar, we felt we’d found a place on Earth that wasn’t caught up in the crazy materialistic cycle like the rest of the world. Until a few years ago, that is,” Mr Zumbroegal said.

“A lot of my friends who have been here 20 years have been making an exit strategy, and others have already left for Chiang Mai or Nepal,” he added.

Published on DVB on 15 April 2014

Than Win can kill, pluck and disembowel a chicken in less than three minutes. He does it at least a hundred times a day, seven days a week and makes around 300,000 kyats a month. While sipping green tea in a blood-stained singlet and longyi at a roadside teashop opposite Burma’s largest poultry market, known simply as the “Chicken and Duck Market” in Rangoon’s Mingalar Taungnyunt Township, Than Win explained that his shift begins at midnight.

He and a small team travel by truck to collect about 1,300 chickens from some 50 different homes in Pegu Division and Rangoon’s northernmost townships of Taikkyi and Hmawbi.

“Most farmers live in small huts and each owns about 1,500 chickens,” he said.

The mission is usually complete by 4:30am, after which time the chickens are brought to the market in time for its 6am opening.

He said most buyers are Burmese and Indian-Burmese restaurant and shop owners, while “The Chinese prefer to shop at the wet markets downtown.”

The market is a cacophony of sounds and nauseating smells, and many of the chickens are in bad shape. In addition to having their legs tied together in groups, many are virtually bald or emaciated, and even those in the shade pant thirstily with open beaks. A man mercifully tosses a bucket of water over a cage crammed full of layer chickens, but drinking water itself seems non-existent.

With the exception of the day-old chicks crammed into large cardboard boxes, most of the animals lack the energy to even utter squawks of protest. Whether it’s the dire conditions that made authorities decide to ban photography inside the market is uncertain – however the workers themselves were jovial, posing goofily with eggs in hand.

Aung Ko Min, 12, told DVB that he began work as a “chicken cleaner” at the market five months ago.

“I work with my older brothers and I like it because I’m strong,” he said.

Aung Ko Min said he started chewing betel 10 days earlier, and that there are 50 to 60 boys of the same age also pulling 12 hour shifts.

Far away in Insein Township, Khine Zar Win runs a shop called Win Win, which sells day-old-chicks, feeds and medicine. She got into the trade because her father was a vet and her family owned a poultry farm.

“We’re selling around 20,000 day-old-chickens every week and sales are improving every year, because Burmese people are consuming more meat. I think CP Freshmart outlets have encouraged us to eat chicken as a snack, which is something we didn’t use to do.”

She said that the chicken and duck market sells about 40,000 chickens a day, the vast majority of which are broilers, bred specifically for meat.

However Khine Zar Win added that due to increasing competition, Win Win sells to farmers on credit, with a 50-day repayment period.

“We have so many competitors nowadays that our business depends on having good relationships. However, if market prices drop, we’re unable to get the money back,” she said.

She explained that ever-increasing profits are due to the expansion of existing farms rather than a wave of newbies deciding to set up poultry farms.

“Some farmers, particularly the smaller ones, lack knowledge about biosecurity. A lot of chickens are getting sick from respiratory tract infections as a result. Myanmar CP Livestock has a technical group for small farmers who will send out their vets – but awareness about this is low.”

She added that mortality rates are currently “unusually high” and said she suspects at least some of these deaths are caused by bird flu, which was first detected in Burma in March 2006.

“For the past three or four years, most cases of bird flu have been in Yangon [Rangoon]. It’s also a problem in Bago [Pegu] and parts of Ayeyarwady [Irrawaddy] regions, and I’ve heard of cases of it in Mandalay also,” Khine Zar Win told DVB.

“When bird flu was first discovered in Myanmar [Burma], the government undertook widespread culling and many farmers lost everything. I myself lost 60,000 birds and because the market was destroyed, I wasn’t able to get back the money owed to my feed mill from buyers. I lost more than US$200,000,” said Dr Hla Hla Thein, who is vice chairperson of the Myanmar Livestock Federation (MLF) and chairperson of the Broiler Association.

“The military government had no concept of our suffering. Compensation was never more than five percent – and sometimes compensation was in the form of a mobile phone! When we asked why, we were told that communication was important,” she added.

Due to lasting bitterness about the lack of compensation provided, many farmers remain reluctant to inform the Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries and Rural Development about suspected cases of bird flu.

“Farmers don’t want all their chickens killed, so they try to arrange their own biosecurity measures and just kill the chickens themselves,” said Khine Zar Win.

She added that the government itself isn’t announcing cases of bird flu – only one case was ever officially confirmed. In the 7 March edition of The New Light of Myanmar, it was reported that while a “controlled zone for chicken farms will be established [in Tamu] at the border with India to prevent an outbreak of bird flu… Myanmar has so far not reported any outbreaks of bird flu.”

The MLF is an NGO which was set up in 1999 and has 13,000 members, although it is only active in Rangoon Division – which Dr Hla Hla Thein asserts is unaffected by bird flu. However, if a case is suspected elsewhere, its representatives will travel to the area to investigate and will report to the ministry as necessary.

“MLF doesn’t have the technology to confirm bird flu – only the ministry does,” she said.

One of the core aims of MLF is to raise funds so that farmers can be adequately compensated in the event of loss, whether it be the result of culling or a market collapse – the latter of which has happened several times in previous decades. Since 2008, MLF has raised US$100,000, which was accrued through a 1 kyat payment being contributed to a fund for every chicken bought and sold in Rangoon’s markets and farms.

It also sets market prices as a means of helping local poultry farmers compete against the Thai-owned behemoth, CP Chicken, which entered Burma in 1997.

“CP would like to kill all business for local farmers. However it can no longer monopolise Myanmar’s poultry market because we’ve actively fought against it,” she said.

CP declined to be interviewed for this article or respond to allegations about its purported attempts to monopolise Burma’s poultry industry. According to Khine Zar Win, CP has a 50 percent market share in feeds.

Soon after Burma’s political reforms began in 2011, members of the international community stepped in to help develop the sector. The US Agency for International Development, for example, works with MLF to support local farmers by providing vocational training and spreading knowledge about the use of technology to keep production costs down.

Unfortunately, however, although one of MLF’s aims is to liaise with the ministry on policies and issues affecting livestock, the relationship isn’t productive, according to Dr Hla Hla Thein.

“The ministry people are just soldiers – it’s the departments that have the professional expertise, but they aren’t listened to. I always submit my ideas to the government – I recently suggested that the ministry hasn’t done us any favours by extending itself yet again to include rural development, and before that, fisheries. I’ve openly fought with the minister and one time he said to me, ‘You are the lady that talks too much.’ But I don’t care,” she said defiantly.

Burma’s poultry sector has a lot at stake – if the various problems confronting it can somehow be overcome, it could be a boom area for national economic growth.

Analysts have already predicted that Burma’s meat industry could explode over the coming decades. In a May 2012 article in FEED Business Worldwide titled, “Myanmar: Asian feed and livestock’s new frontier,” F.E Olimpo and Eric Brooks wrote, “With a population of over 64 million… ample untapped arable land and a per capita meat consumption of just 10kg, Burma contains the same ripe elements for exponential feed and livestock expansion that China had in the early 1980s and Vietnam in the late 1990s”.

Moreover, as Burma’s neighbours include the growing economic powerhouses of India, China, and Thailand – which have a combined population of 2 billion people –this “represents a great market for exports of meat, feed or both.”

At present, Burma exports negligible quantities of poultry to China and India through border trade, however Khine Zar Win told DVB that Vietnam and Korean investors are beginning to show an interest in setting up joint partnerships.

“Not all farmers have the opportunity to travel outside the country to learn new farming techniques. We want foreign investors to come here, which is why we hold three expos a year,” said Dr Hla Hla Thein.

Despite its enormous potential, it is uncertain whether foreign investors will simply feel too overwhelmed by the inherent challenges poultry farming in Burma presents.

Published by Travel Indochina in the stunningly presented “Welcome to Burma” series  on 20 May 2014

A morning spent wandering through the bustling markets of Taunggyi, the capital of Myanmar’s mountainous Shan State, is a delight for any photographer, as the produce and people are colourful, exotic and – in the latter’s case – overwhelming friendly. In the Old Market, vendors wearing eye-catching tribal costumes fanned themselves under the sun in front of huge stacks of dried fish of assorted shapes and sizes (and smells) as well as an astonishing range eggplants and spinach, blood red tomatoes and of course, Shan State’s famous tea leaves. There was also a vast array of electronics on display in the New Market, as Taungyyi lies close to the border with Thailand, making it a hotbed of trade – not all of which is legal.

After building up a hunger so powerful it could no longer be ignored, my husband and I returned to our driver outside Golden Island Cottages, where we were scheduled to meet our Pa-O guide, who would accompany us to the legendary Buddhist site of Kakku. Kakku is considered the most breathtaking site in all of Shan State and it’s the heart of Buddhist worship for the Pa-O tribe, whose population in Shan State is estimated to be around a million, although very little scholarship about them exists. Anthropologists believe the Pa-O are originally from Tibet, and migrated to Myanmar more than 2,000 years ago. As a Burmese journalist wrote in a 2004 article called, The Pa-O – The Forgotten People, “The traditions and customs of the Pa-O are little known and gradually disappearing.” The Pa-O are nowadays chiefly known for the bright turbans worn by female members of the tribe – the turbans have a chequered pattern, with the base colour usually orange, though the brightest of pinks are also commonly worn.

Despite the fact that our guide was of course wearing one of these eye-catching, loosely coiled orange turbans, along with a navy blue blouse, long skirt and jacket, it was her inquiring eyes, framed beneath a pair of thickly rimmed spectacles, which first grabbed my attention. Smiling widely, she shook our hands and asked where we were from – and without further delay we began the 45 kilometre journey to our destination.

Suu (who shares part of her name with Aung San Suu Kyi) chatted away happily with our driver, who I guessed was also in his early twenties. Although Myanmar people are among the world’s friendliest, many international visitors are struck by a general shyness among men and women alike (which is not be confused with being aloof, or even stand-offish). Whether it’s because Myanmar was a closed country for so many decades or simply a cultural norm, there’s a certain quiet gracefulness about Burmese people that I’ve not encountered elsewhere. For example, even in Myanmar’s commercial capital of Yangon, it’s extremely rare to hear someone shout in public. The honking of horns is a new phenomenon, brought about by a flood of imported cars on the roads. Most people are softly spoken in the workplace also, so Suu’s extroverted nature intrigued me. For the next four or so hours, she seemed never to stop smiling, and was as curious about our life as we were about hers.

We stopped after about 20 minutes at a quiet village and ravenously devoured bowls of Shan noodles, which is a simple but delicious traditional dish comprising flat, wide noodles, chicken broth, tomatoes, chilli and peanuts.

Once I was feeling full enough to regain my concentration, I asked Suu about the history of the Pa-O turban.

“Let’s order some green tea,” she said, before settling into the story.

“A long, long time ago there was a female dragon who lived alone in a lake. One day the dragon saw a hermit man drinking from the lake, and he was so handsome that she immediately fell in love with him. So as the hermit wandered off into the forest, the dragon transformed herself into a beautiful woman and followed him to his small hut. The two fell in love and began living together, but the hermit was often away on long pilgrimages. The woman sometimes reverted back to being a dragon in his absence, because it was after all, her natural form. One day, unaware that the hermit was about to return home, he discovered her sleeping on a mat in the hut and was horrified by her appearance. He also felt deceived, so he left her, never to return. By that time, however, she was already pregnant. Distraught and alone, the dragon-woman laid three eggs, before returning to the lake. The Pa-O are descended from one of those eggs, which is why we wear a turban – it resembles the head of a dragon. And Pa-O men dress like the hermit father, wearing brown robes and a turban which is draped to one side, just as a hermit might wear his hat,” she said.

Having already discovered that Suu has a degree in economics and was a huge fan of Korean movies and Facebook, I was curious to know whether she considered the story real or mystical.

She paused for a few moments before saying, “I’m not sure if I believe it anymore – of course I used to when I was young. But my grandmother and mother would be angry if I told them I had my doubts,” she said with a shrug.

Suu then confided that she only wears the turban when she’s working with tourists or attending a Pa-O wedding, because her hobby is tailoring clothes and her passion are Western designs.

Nonetheless, Suu said that she observes many of her grandmother’s superstitions at home, though I sensed this was more about keeping the peace than anything else. When intergenerational change happens so rapidly – which nowadays is common in Myanmar – rifts can often lead to serious conflict, as many of my Burmese friends have told me. Her grandmother cannot speak Burmese, only the Pa-O language, and she is also illiterate and passionate about maintaining tribal customs. Naturally therefore, she disapproves of Suu not wearing traditional dress, but a compromise has been established within the family.

I asked Suu whether it’s possible for a Pa-O to marry someone who doesn’t belong to their tribe, such as the majority Shan tribe.

“Sure – now it would be possible for me to marry a Shan man if I wanted to. But we are not allowed to remarry after divorce. Only if we’re widowed, like my mother,” she explained.

Suu’s father died when she was 10. He belonged to the Intha tribe, who are also predominantly Buddhist and reside in the tourist hot spot of Inle Lake, which is 25 kilometres away from Taungyyi. The marriage was opposed by her father’s relatives, and Suu said her mother has forbidden her to visit Inle Lake.

“I wish I could see it – it looks so beautiful in pictures. But my mother and grandmother don’t want me to see my father’s relatives and I don’t want to upset them,” she said wistfully.

We continued on to Kakku, passing colourful fields of onion, potatoes, mustard, cabbage, tobacco and sesame, but the crop that dominated all others was garlic – a staple in Pa-O cuisine and a major source of local livelihoods.

“A Ukrainian tourist once told me that garlic is used to ward off vampires in his country. But Pa-O people love garlic – we even do rain dances to ensure our crops are successful,” she said.

I tried to explain that the tourist had been pulling her leg, but she looked at me doubtfully so I didn’t press the matter.

We arrived at Kakku as the afternoon sun was beginning to lose some of its heat. The astonishing site is thought to have been founded way back in the 3^rd century BC, by the Indian emperor Ashoka. Over time, the 2,478 stupas were built in various colours and designs by different rulers, and some of the stupas have carvings of humans, animals and mythical creatures, while others are quite plain. Although restoration has been carried out quite extensively, my favourites were those that had been left to crumble gently over time and were overgrown with trees and vines.

At one point, when Suu was a few paces ahead of me, I called out her name so as to take a photo of her walking through the maze of stupas. She spun around with a grin, made the “Victory” sign with one hand – and stuck out her tongue.

Bemused, I said to Suu, “You look like Miley Cyrus when you do that.”

“I love Miley Cyrus! Well, only when she was on Hannah Montana. Now she’s weird,” Suu replied with a giggle.

Published in the May edition of My Magical Myanmar

If an award existed for the “City with the Most Improved Nightlife,” Yangon would be highly likely to take home the trophy. In less than a year, Yangon has transformed itself from KTV capital to eclectic party town, with an ever increasing number of options for night time revelers. So why not swap a sedate beer station for one of these exciting options next time you’re venturing out?

Escape Gastro Bar

Despite the fact that it’s located in a quiet residential neighbourhood far north of the downtown area, Yangon’s party people are making a beeline for Escape Gastro Bar. Arrive early and enjoy a Thai fusion meal, or skip that and start with one of the 20 or so cheekily named shots presented to you on a laminated chart, such as Bong Water or Motherfuc*ker. Gastro also serves whole watermelons filled with liquor. Yum.

Address: 31D Kan Yeiktha Street, Bahan township

Union Bar and Grill

When “Union” opened in 2013, it became the first establishment to seriously rival 50^th Street Bar and Café. This is a chic nightspot that regularly throws parties (ie Halloween) and consistently serves up great food, speedy wifi and two-for-one deals, such as its menacing margaritas and tasty pizzas. While other spots may come and go, Union feels like a permanent addition to the city. And guess what? Union’s owners opened a second establishment in a converted colonial building last May. Gekko Bar serves up sake, yakatori and cigars (in addition to having a well stocked bar and tapas style dishes).  Gekko’s managing director, Nico Elliot, describes it as a “Japanese drinking den, with a Western touch.”

Union Bar and Grill – 42 Strand Road, Botahtaung township

Gekko Restaurant and Bar – 535 Merchant Street, Kyauktada township

50^th Street Bar, Restaurant and Café

If you love drinking beer while watching rugby or cricket, then this place is your home-away-from-home. It has big screen TVs, pool tables and a stunning spiral staircase leading to the upstairs lounge area. Well known local bands such as Side Effect play on occasion upstairs and the acoustics are great. Sadly, meal portions aren’t great value for money.

Address: 50^th Street (just off Merchant Street)

Captain’s Bar

Captains in the Savoy Hotel used to be one of the very few places in Yangon to sip a gin and tonic and it still maintains a crowd of regulars. However its popularity among the 20- and 30-something crowd is virtually non-existent these days. Perhaps it’s time for the nautical theme to be overhauled?

Address: Savoy Hotel on Inya Road

Mojo Bar

Across the road from Captain’s Bar is the recently renovated Mojo Bar, which sports exposed brick walls, long timber tables with candelabras and an overall industrial look. It has an upstairs area for parties, and the music in the downstairs bar is sure to get you inching for a dance (for which you will need to visit a club, listed at the end). Recommended: an electric blue Smurf Kiss shot.

Address: No.135, Inya Road (corner of Inya and Dhammazedi roads)

The Strand Bar 

Though it seems implausible now given its stately feel, this bar was actually once used to stable Japanese troops’ horses during the Japanese occupation of Yangon. However for who knows how long, this bar has attracted Yangon’s wealthiest clientele. Happy hour lasts all night long on Fridays.

Address: 92 Strand Road

Sapphire Bar and Lounge

The oppressively hot staircase from the top floor of Alfa Hotel opens up to a bar with stunning potential. Like Vista Bar at Shwegondine intersection, Sapphire Bar and Lounge has magnificent views of Shwedagon Pagoda and generous outdoor seating. With the addition of fans and a wider variety of food available past 9pm (the menu limits itself to noodles at this time), this could become one of Yangon’s most popular night spots.

Address: No. 41, Yawmingyi Quarter, Nawaday Road

The Water Library

With two branches in Thailand already hugely popular, this high-end establishment is truly impressive – but expect to pay premium prices. Although there are apparently some issues with finding and keeping the right chef, The Water Library arguably has the widest selection of spirits and liquors in the city. And the staff behind the bar really know how to toss a cocktail mixer.

Address: 83/95 Corner of Manawharri and Pyay Road, Dagon township

Vista Bar

Arguably the best place to soak up the view of the Shwedagon Pagoda by night (minus the noise of the intersection below), this sleek little spot has a lot to offer. During inclement weather – that is to say, during the monsoon season, a glass roof is rolled across the open air space like a major sporting venue hosting a tennis match. Even when it’s raining the views are still spectacular because it’s located on the rooftop of the building next to Yves Rocher (remember this olive green store as a landmark because Vista’s sign is rather small and the venue is new in town) and the side partitions are entirely made of glass. Sit in a spacious booth for four to six or at a long table to the left of the well-stocked bar. The food and drinks here are on the costlier side, but the service is prompt and the music is loud enough to make yourself festive without being a barrier to conversation. Tapas is on the menu too. Dig in!

Address: 188 West Shwegondine Road

Nightclubs

Take your pick! While Yangon isn’t on a par with the likes of Bangkok or even Phnom Penh, there are several options for nightclubbing these days, and the number of people heading out late for a good time is on the rise. Try LV Pub, The Flamingo Bar, The Music Club (at Park Royal Hotel), Pioneer, Paddy O’ Malley’s or GTR and DJ’s Bar, both of which are in the sprawling Inya Lake Hotel.

Published in Mizzima Business Weekly on 13 April 2014

Global health organisation Population Services International plays a leading role in preventing and treating malaria in Myanmar – treating about 250,000 people every year with the parasitic disease. PSI’s senior malaria adviser (Asia-Pacific) Chris White told Mizzima Business Weekly about  the critical effort to prevent drug resistant malaria spreading from Myanmar to the Indian Subcontinent, from where it could spread to sub-Saharan Africa.

What is drug resistant malaria?

Think of drug resistance as an arms war between the parasites and whatever drugs we have available. This is not a new war – it’s a decades long war. Every time scientists find a new drug to kill malaria parasites, those parasites become exposed to the drugs over time and eventually, at some point, they develop a genetic mutation that confers some advantage to them. It’s widely acknowledged as a serious threat to global efforts to eliminate the disease.

The malaria-causing parasite that’s resistant to the most effective medicine available, artemisinin, is a subset of populations of Plasmodium falciparum. The type of malaria that is drug resistant is known as “severe malaria.” It kills more people around the world than any other.

When was drug resistant malaria discovered in Myanmar?

Drug resistant malaria was found during the last five years. That doesn’t mean resistance here is new, but that we’ve only become aware of it recently. Pockets of resistance have been found along south-eastern Tanantharyi Region near the Thai-Myanmar border, neighbouring Kayin State and in the highlands of eastern Shan State. The reason why it’s commonly found in border areas is because malaria is often transmitted by human movement. In the past, there were people moving from Myanmar to Thailand to the Cambodia border to work on gem mines and a lot of those people were Burmese. Then when they moved back, the parasites moved over the border. It’s human migration that moves the parasites around – obviously mosquitoes themselves can only travel a few kilometres. So what we are trying to do is put a wall up to stop resistant forms from reaching India, Bangladesh – and eventually, Sub-Saharan Africa. We have to stop the westward spread.

What has PSI been doing to stop drug resistant malaria from spreading?

Well, the first thing is just to try to bring down malaria as a whole. That means preventative steps, such as sleeping under mosquito nets. But the most important thing is taking good quality medicine instead of medicines that can drive the problem up. So we’ve been working with our donor agencies to distribute a drug that’s more effective, and importantly also, cheaper. Many people in rural communities buy medicines from the informal private sector – that is a kiosk style pharmacy – and most can only afford a partial dose of a mono-therapy drug, for about 500 kyat. From a curative standpoint, the mono-therapy drugs were effective. The problem is that they have one active ingredient. The way around this is to protect the miracle drug artemisen by combining it with another drug. The two anti-malaria drugs work in very different ways on the parasite, so the chances of a parasite developing a mutation are minimised, because the probability of two mutations is minuscule compared to having one active ingredient.

The really powerful part about this project is that we recognised that AA Medical in particular and another company dominate the anti-malarial market with about an 80% market share. So we persuaded them to work with us and we’ve had legally binding contracts in place for two years. Donor money subsidises the price of the more expensive combination therapies, which means we can outcompete them.

How do you measure tangible success?

A survey carried out by PSI in June 2013 at 3,500 outlets in the priority resistance containment region of eastern Myanmar found that the volumes of combination therapy being sold relative to monotherapy increased from 3 percent in mid 2012 to 73 percent in mid 2013. Our target had been ambitious at 50 percent, but we exceeded it. This was in just one year after we implemented it – it was a remarkable change.

We also have people coming in from the Chinese border and they are all saying the same thing – that they aren’t seeing the “bad” medicine. I challenge anyone to find it in the market nowadays.

Has the government been cooperative?

Yes, the Ministry of Health has been very supportive and the minister himself takes a personal interest in it. The fact that the Food and Drug Administration banned the previous monotherapy medicines was very important to our success. A few years ago, things weren’t so straightforward – it was much more difficult. There’s been dramatic improvement over the last few years and decentralisation is more common, which means that township officials have more control over what is going on, which is helpful.

Does regional cooperation also exist?

It used to be fairly fragmented but in recent years there’s been a tremendous push –  and there’s a global plan for fighting resistance malaria, along with a regional plan. Within the Greater Mekong Region there are country-specific plans, though each with a similar language, identifying consistent themes and approaches. In any given month I’ll go to one or two donor coordination meetings. Could things be better though? Yes. There are different agendas for combating malaria. What I’d say is that there’s always room for improvement, but there is an enormous effort on right now.

How is Myanmar succeeding as compared with other countries facing this threat?

In the past in Myanmar, we used to talk about drug resistance containment – but increasingly we don’t use the word “containment.” We talk about limitation. There’s a big drive in the Asia-Pacific region as a whole to move to elimination, such as in Cambodia, Nepal and Laos.

Myanmar remains in the containment phase, that is, bringing down the transmission to a level where it’s the pre-elimination stage. Pretty soon Myanmar will be recognised as being in the pre-elimination stage. That’s the goal we’re focused on for the next few years. But it’s not straightforward – there are lots of technical, epidemiological challenges. But we need to move in that direction.

Is there a risk the parasites will eventually become resistant to these new drugs? What happens then?

It’s increasingly recognised that the only long term solution isn’t new drugs – it’s wiping out the parasite population entirely (this is not to be confused with wiping out mosquitoes, which would be impractical). So while we’ve solved one particular piece of the puzzle, we are buying time until we have new alternatives. It’s an arms war remember, so at some point, we will need to change medicines. In the past we had the luxury of having an alternative drug in the pipeline. The reason why everyone is so worried is because there isn’t a new drug ready. It gets harder and harder to develop a new drug because it requires finding new compounds. That  said, thanks to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, there’s more spending on scientific research than ever before. So we at least have potential options, but they aren’t ready for deployment.

Published in Mizzima Business Weekly on 15 May 2014

Following hot on the heels of the success of Union Bar and Grill is Gekko Restaurant and Bar, which officially opened in downtown Yangon on 27 March. The general manager of both establishments, Oxford-born Nico Elliot, talks to Mizzima Business Weekly about his latest addition to the city’s burgeoning drinks and dining scene.

How would you describe Gekko Bar and Restaurant?

It’s a Japanese cocktail lounge built around a charcoal yakitori [a Japanese type of skewered food] grill. I have a friend who owns a restaurant in Hong Kong called Yard Bird, which was the inspiration behind Gekko’s food and drinks menu. I love Japanese food and have spent a little bit of time in Tokyo, but I’m not an expert on yakitori. I just really like the concept of it. We’ve westernised the theme a bit, but as there are a lot of Japanese people in Yangon now, hopefully we can get some of them here. We also have a wicked sake menu. The name “Gekko” is Japanese – it has nothing to do with the animal – the two symbols are a direct translation of “moon” and “shine”.

Union Bar is very different from Gekko – Union is very much western food – simple comfort foods of pizza and burgers. Here it’s mostly Japanese items such as ramen, as well as a couple of Korean dishes. Gekko also has more of a sharing menu, a tapas style of eating. Except for the noodle dishes, everything can easily be passed around a table, rather than “Matt” is having this and “Ben” is having that.

Is Gekko more of a drinking den than a restaurant?

I’d say it’s turning out to be 50:50. It’s definitely got a loungey feel, but a lot of people are eating. But it’s the customers who will decide – we’re too young to know yet which way it will go.

Unlike Union Bar, which fairly recently introduced a non-smoking area, Gekko has no such limitations. Why is that?

For me, the noisy, smoky, drinking dens in Japan lend themselves to a smoky atmosphere so we’re going with full smoking and cigars are on the menu. We have proper ventilation – the air being sucked in and taken out as we have an open grill.

Why did you choose this particular building for Gekko Restaurant and Bar?

Someone told me there was a stationary shop that was closing down, so I went to have a look. As soon as I walked in I fell in love with the space. The tiles on the ground floor are stunning – they were made in Manchester and shipped put to Yangon in the early 1990s. I also love the original steel beams, which are from Scotland. I’ve met the great, great grandson of the building’s original owner, who filled me in with lots of cool stories. The building itself was finished in 1906.

We’d paid the rent up front long before we walked out the back of the building and saw what a disaster it was. There was sewerage a metre-and-a-half deep. It was worse than anything I’ve ever seen, but by then I’d paid up front so I didn’t have much choice but to go ahead. So I showed the mess a sewerage expert and he took one look and giggled when he saw it and said, “Good luck with cleaning that.” Initially YCDC charged us to do a very bad job at it so we decided to do it ourselves. It took us a month and a lot of people to get rid of it.

The music is very eclectic – who chooses it?

I do. I have a huge collection and I choose songs from the 1920s to 1950s – nothing beyond that. I also choose some jazz and reggae tunes, always with a slow tempo. Union Bar is a bit more upbeat.

Was opening a second bar and restaurant in Yangon something that was always on the cards – and will any others appear?

I’ve been working with groups in Hong Kong – Kothai and Aylmer Capital – who are involved in restaurants and we came here with a view to doing more than one, assuming we could make one work. I don’t have a food and beverage background so it wasn’t certain, but as the first was doing reasonably well, we decided to look for number two.

And yes, a third restaurant is on the way. It’s going to be wood-fired pizza restaurant and it will be uptown, in between Pyay Road and Kabar Aye Pagoda Road in Parami. There’s a huge amount of offices uptown and there’s a lot of people who would like to come downtown but it’s become too much of a hassle. We hope to open it by the end of June and it will likely be called Parami Pizza. However while the rent downtown is still pretty reasonable, that isn’t the case further north. But it was a real challenge to get Gekko opened, because like many of the old colonial buildings, there’s no infrastructure. We had no lighting, power, sewerage or water, so we had to put all those basic things in ourselves.

And if the first three places are a success, we’d love to do more. We could also go into hotels if we found an opportunity.

Are you feeling any heat from competition, as an increasing number of food and drinks establishments open up in Yangon?

For me it’s a case of the more the merrier. The more places there are that people like to go out to – and having many in one area – is a positive. There’s a long way to go before it hits saturation point. Personally, I’d also like to eat at more restaurants than the dozen or so I do. I’m all for it.

If you don’t have a F&B background, what is your professional background?

It’s a mixture of things – I’ve set up education-based businesses in India and in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, I ran a hotel school for two years. Dhaka is a tough place but I had great mates and good fun.

How do you keep your staff motivated to ensure great service in a city known for its lack of human resources?

Keeping my staff happy is key to making it work. I try to keep them challenged and we do a lot of training. I’ve brought in people from Singapore and Hong Kong to train local staff – having set up a hotel school in Dhaka, I have a bit of experience in training. And we try to have fun, not take life too seriously. Another thing is paying your people well. We try to pay the higher end of the salary scale and we charge a 5 percent service charge, the entirety of which we give to our 35 staff members here – we don’t charge 10 percent and keep five for ourselves as some places do.

Gekko Restaurant and Bar is located on 535, Merchant St, Kyauktada Township in Yangon

For more information, visit www.gekkoyangon.com