What’s it really like to live in…Myanmar?

It’s five‑o’clock in the morn­ing and the sun is ris­ing over Sule Pago­da, turn­ing the sky gold and orange. On the cor­ner of Maha Ban­doola and Kon Zay Tan streets, in the heart of the Indi­an Quar­ter in the city of Yan­gon, tea shop buzzboys lay out the tables and coloured plas­tic stools where local men and women sit as they catch up on cur­rent events or qui­et­ly read the news­pa­per.

Yan­gon sleeps ear­ly and wakes up even ear­li­er: at this time in the morn­ing it’s easy to find a food joint that will serve you the tra­di­tion­al mohin­ga (noo­dle soup and fish) and lapeiyeh (black tea with con­densed and evap­o­rat­ed milk) for about £1. Taxis and trishaws are already run­ning as locals go to work, or gath­er in parks for yoga and tai-chi prac­tice.

Dai­ly life in Yan­gon is pret­ty much like being in a time cap­sule. In a coun­try that remained iso­lat­ed from the rest of the world for over forty years, what you see is refresh­ing­ly unique: while younger gen­er­a­tions are slow­ly becom­ing part of the dig­i­tal world of Face­book and Twit­ter, old­er peo­ple still pre­fer to socialise out­doors over tea, relax in the shade or take strolls in parks – the parks here are well-kept and built around lakes, with long board­walks, leafy trees and hide­outs for cou­ples look­ing for some pri­va­cy away from the watch­ful eye of their par­ents.  Out on the side­walks, thou­sands of peo­ple set up shops each day offer­ing goods and ser­vices from street food, fix­ing umbrel­las by hand, repair­ing sewing machines, cut­ting keys or sell­ing smart (and not so smart) phones.

The Myan­mar peo­ple are said to be amongst the friend­liest in Asia. They are gen­uine and relaxed, respect­ful and hum­ble. Yet, beneath all of this, lies a deep sense of pride, nation­al­ism and almost blind love for their leader, Nobel Peace Prize-win­ner Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

The best place to get an idea of local idio­syn­crasy and thought is by talk­ing to locals in tea shops. Locals will also read­i­ly try to prac­tice their Eng­lish with for­eign­ers and will hap­pi­ly dis­cuss pol­i­tics. And, unlike oth­er places in Asia, it’s high­ly improb­a­ble a for­eign­er will be has­sled to buy or pay for any­thing. The Myan­mar peo­ple are easy­go­ing when they bar­gain and nego­ti­a­tions usu­al­ly end with both par­ties smil­ing hap­pi­ly.

It is a place that still offers many mys­ter­ies for those will­ing to sac­ri­fice west­ern moder­ni­ty for a jour­ney into the past

Much of life in Yan­gon revolves around reli­gion. Ear­ly morn­ings are a time for monks and novices to go on alms while peo­ple line up to offer food to them. Evenings and morn­ings are times when peo­ple of any denom­i­na­tion go to their respec­tive places of wor­ship to pray. Calls to prayer from mosques and ser­mons from tem­ples are heard on loud­speak­ers all over the city. The peo­ple are, for the most part, deeply engaged in spir­i­tu­al prac­tice. Indi­vid­u­als of all ages go to med­i­ta­tion cen­ters dur­ing the hol­i­days to become a ‘monk’ or ‘nun’ for lim­it­ed time. Plus, many of their Face­books posts are relat­ed to their prac­tice and ‘doing good deeds’. Accu­mu­lat­ing mer­it is an impor­tant to this nation: peo­ple flock to tem­ples and pago­das with mon­ey and food, to wash the Buddha’s head, or sim­ply pray. The effect of this can be seen in sim­ple things: there are no mug­gings, it is com­plete­ly safe to walk alone at night and you can leave your shoes out­side your house know­ing they will be there in the morn­ing. Even if you for­get a bag, keys or phone some­where pub­lic it’s like­ly they’ll get returned to you – a short while back, a back­pack­er left a bag in a taxi, which con­tained his pass­port, cred­it cards and mon­ey. The dri­ver found the trav­eller and returned every­thing the same night.

The con­cept ‘cash-econ­o­my’ has a whole new mean­ing in Myan­mar. Due to for­eign sanc­tions, there are almost no cred­it cards, most peo­ple pay cash for every­thing. Bank trans­fers are done by with­draw­ing mon­ey from one bank, tak­ing it to the oth­er and mak­ing a deposit. As a result, peo­ple walk around with their wads of cash in plas­tic bags. Shops, as well as banks, have mas­sive note-count­ing machines with one pro­fes­sors job ded­i­cat­ed to keep­ing these devices clean and func­tion­ing – using a feath­er duster!

Anoth­er inter­est­ing fact about life in Myan­mar is the dat­ing cul­ture. For most locals, dat­ing means mar­riage. There’s no such thing as going on dates for fun, cohab­it­ing or dat­ing just to get know each oth­er. Rela­tion­ships are tak­en very seri­ous­ly and the pres­sure on both sides is intense. Dat­ing is usu­al­ly kept with­in eth­ic groups,  with for­eign­ers is frowned upon ad. There are Indi­an-Burmese, Chi­nese-Burmese and Burmese, and each group holds tight­ly to their cus­toms and tra­di­tions: mar­ry­ing out­side of one’s group is rare and heav­i­ly dis­cour­aged.

So, life in Yan­gon is a dai­ly adven­ture that usu­al­ly leads to the dis­cov­ery of quirky, unique ele­ments of a soci­ety that are wel­com­ing and gen­uine; both hum­ble in their demeanour and proud of their his­to­ry and her­itage. It is a place that still offers many mys­ter­ies for those will­ing to sac­ri­fice west­ern moder­ni­ty for a jour­ney into the past.

Tourist tips

• If you are not used to Asian street food but want to indulge in local cui­sine, stay away from street stalls and choose local din­ers instead. Hygiene stan­dards will vary dra­mat­i­cal­ly from one stall to the next, and most food is han­dled with­out gloves and left in the sun for hours. Local eater­ies are gen­er­al­ly quite safe, clean and extreme­ly cheap. A plate of noo­dles with meat is less than a dol­lar.

• Always car­ry an umbrel­la with you. In the sum­mer, it will pro­tect you from the burn­ing sun – hats or caps won’t do. And in rainy sea­son, (which lasts any­where from three to five months), it’s sim­ply essen­tial. Local women usu­al­ly own a cou­ple in dif­fer­ent colours to match their out­fits.

• Make an effort to learn the local lan­guage. Locals will tru­ly appre­ci­ate it and it will allow you to deep­en your expe­ri­ence. The Myan­mar peo­ple don’t speak a lot of Eng­lish (Eng­lish teach­ing was banned for almost an entire gen­er­a­tion, so old­er peo­ple will speak just a few words). The lan­guage is not tonal like Thai or Chi­nese, which makes it eas­i­er, and locals will gra­cious­ly attempt to under­stand you if you try to com­mu­ni­cate. Num­bers, direc­tions, names of the foods you like and greet­ings will get you by.

• The peo­ple in Myan­mar are extreme­ly polite, hum­ble and respect­ful in their exchanges with for­eign­ers. Like in any coun­try, but espe­cial­ly Asia, adher­ing to local rules of respect will go a long way. Peo­ple on the street will say hel­lo to you; they don’t want any­thing but a friend­ly chat.