The week started off with a bang, literally.
Early Monday morning, news flashes started appearing that the Myanmar military had taken the ruling members into custody and have placed them under house arrest. This was the same day where the new parliament was supposed to be sworn into power after NLD’s landslide victory in last Nov’s general elections.
As an aside, I have come to know Myanmar better over the last 7 years since I started to visit the country for work in 2014. My old private equity company had started a joint venture with a local business group to build a new microfinance firm from the ground up.
The country had just started to open up after having closed itself to the rest of the world for 50+ years after the last military coup in 1962. Not much was known about the country for many years until it opened up to prepare for the first general elections in Nov 2015. Some said that the junta was forced to open up as the US had threatened to freeze all their funds that were held in S’pore if they do not hold democratic elections.
My relationship with the country continued into 2016 as I visited them a few times and marvelled at how fast the country was growing and modernizing in the first few years. It was a rapid catch up to the modern age as the people realized how big the outside world has become and they had their first taste of consumerism.
I remember watching the late Anthony Bourdain’s first season and episode 1 of Parts Unknown which was about Myanmar. They were so closed to the outside world that most were basically scrapping through used vehicle parts imported from neighbouring countries to adapt to their automobile needs. Food was scarce and most were living from hand to mouth. A merry-go-round in Yangon shocked Anthony as it had no engine but was kick-started by a few men pulling the frame manually to create the momentum to make it go around… I should watch the episode again to see how much things have changed since then.
Intro to Parts Unknown S01E01 Myanmar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrSULRKOUdU
The full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L8ZY0-E4Ho
I left the company in Apr 2016 and lost touch with the country for a while, until Jan 2018 where I joined an ex-colleague who had become the CEO of a local MFI to become a Treasury consultant. It was focused on providing loans to farmers and I had to travel to Yangon monthly. This helped me to develop a new and deeper understanding of the country.
I remember my first trip there around 2014/15. The beat-up old car that was supposed to pick me up at the airport broke down halfway to the office and I had to hail a cab instead. Traffic was super bad with jams along the old roads and multiple very old cars honking around us. There was limited hotels available then and the few that were offered charged almost USD300 per night. The standards were pretty bad for that price but foreigners were flooding the city as it started to open up again after 50 over years of self-isolation.
Cut to Jan 2018 until my last monthly trip there in Feb 2020. Over the more than 20+ trips there where I spent a few days in Yangon every month, I saw first hand the transformation of the country as it modernizes and caught up with the modern world. Everyone now has a mobile phone and internet access to most means a Facebook account. I had developed strong relationships with the people of the senior team and also had numerous lovely meals in the new restaurants popping up all over the city while observing the changing landscape of the country.
It is a lovely place with very kind people who were getting used to no more secret police watching over your shoulders nor having to think about where your next meal is going to come from, to a generation of people hungry to succeed in life. Most of the over 50s were unable or were too late to make the transition but those below 50 were all trying to make up for the lost time, career-wise. Probably motivated by the Lady leader, I see around me mainly women that were striving to get more education, learn to communicate in English. They were generally more hungry to learn than the local men.
Alas, this week the world came crashing down for the country when the military coup happened. It was a reality check for everyone who thought that this possibility was too remote after 2 democratic elections. The main NLD party had just won a landslide victory in Nov and now the military had done a Trump on the whole country.
There were seething tensions and undercurrents between the NLD leadership and the junta for a while before it exploded to the surface on Monday. The military was disappointed that its claims of voter fraud were not seriously looked into. That was the main reason given.
But I suspect that they and the business community were unhappy with the progress of the country under NLD to date. It was like one step forward and 2 steps back approach for the last 5 years. The NLD’s senior management was mainly staffed with people who were absolutely loyal to the Lady and had been jailed together with her previously. There were hardly any qualified technocrats in the parliament who can help drive the huge potential which Myanmar had to offer. It was unlike the time just before the military handed power over to the NLD in 2015. During that time, there were swift reforms and changes made by technocrats appointed by the military to prepare the country to open up to the world.
All the telecommunication providers were told to shut down on Monday for half a day and it was radio silence throughout the country during the coup. Things became better on day 2 as bank ATMs started to operate. But the tension is rising into the weekend and mobiles went silent again yesterday. The situation is still evolving and I feel for the people of Myanmar as they go through this uncertain period in the midst of the COVID19 pandemic.
On the personal front, I strongly believe that when a door closes behind you, many other doors will open in front of you. The retail business that I was planning to start late last year did not happen for various reasons. I did my 2021 New Year Resolutions and wondering what I should be doing for the rest of the year, given that the virus and vaccination process will probably extend into the rest of the year and that we will likely be confined to our countries for a little longer. I received good news in Jan that I was accepted to the IBM AI (Artificial Intelligence) course to become a full time student. This heavily subsidized course by the government will occupy me for the next 6 months and even provide me with a student allowance while I study.
https://webibmcourse.mybluemix.net/SGUnitedProgramme
The Chinese New Year CNY period is about to begin. Lotsa reunion dinners and eating to start, albeit in a more subdued fashion with many restrictions, given the virus situation. We should count our blessings and be glad that we have things under better control than most of the other countries in the world. What we can do now is more than what a lot of other people outside S’pore can safely do as the rush is on to get the vaccines out to all to achieve herd immunity.
It has already been a year into the pandemic. Mother Gaia is healing itself, people are living a healthy lifestyle with no late nights and partying as all nightlife is closed. Everyone should emerge from this episode stronger than before and not take simple things in our lives for granted.
Leave a Reply