A photo taken sometime in 2013 from the railway bridge near Yangon’s Central Railway Station
I came to Burma/Myanmar for the first time in 2013 on an assignment to scrutinize the country’s “opening up” from a foreign investor viewpoint. Over the next six years, I returned on several occasions, primarily to learn more about the built environment of its former capital Yangon. The cityscape was a mirror of the rapid development the country was now undergoing: Everywhere were cranes and bulldozers, growing traffic was choking the busy downtown area, an air of change and optimism was palpable. Some colonial-era heritage buildings were becoming speculative assets, some were still forlorn and grown over by trees and bushes behind high but porous fences, while some were torn down to make space for new buildings. The growing political role of Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD made the incumbent civilian-military leaders increasingly nervous, and a coup restored the junta to power in 2021. Since then, Myanmar is locked in a familiar-seeming chokehold of civil war, economic destitution and international isolation. Was the liberal decade just a dream? Several books help disentangle this conundrum and shine some light at this fascinating country in Southeast Asia that holds so much potential yet has fallen short to live up to the aspirations of its peoples.
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