Foreign Correspondent: July 1

Foreign Correspondent‘s Sally Sara reports on the new Myanmar, comparing old and new in the hub of Yangon.

What happens when a vacuum-sealed, strictly-controlled nation loosens up, opens its doors and ushers in aggressive international businesses, hungry global developers and hoards of curious tourists? Can Myanmar’s sensitive culture, fragile and beautiful heritage and infant democracy cope with this strange, invasive and transformative surge?

It’s too early to tell. But it turns out some enterprising locals aren’t just standing by waiting for change. They’re taking their opportunities now and they include a power-pop princess with world charts in her sights and a former US-based Google executive who’s returned home to build a business. Myanmar’s even letting in nosey reporters, so we sent our own Sally Sara to witness this historic collision of past, present and future.

In an urban rehearsal space, three 20-somethings practice their co-ordinated moves and punch out a power dance track. Across town a young former Google executive is finessing his online travel-agency start-up. At a riverfront cocktail party, people gather to launch a swish new retail space.

Welcome to Yangon, Myanmar.

Since the curtain came down, and the stifling junta eased its white-knuckle grip on the nation, dramatic change is evident in some parts of Myanmar while in other corners deprivation and dislocation prevail.

There are many challenges for the newly emerging Myanmar. How will it cope with developing commercial interest from the outside world and harness economic benefit for all? How will it balance preservation concerns with an influx of developers keen to transform the place?

”You get an awful lot of people coming in thinking this is the next frontier. [But] companies who have come in have realised they probably need to take things slowly, because it’s not straight forward.” VICKY BOWMAN, Former British Ambassador

And how will the people of Myanmar take their place in a bustling and aggressive Asian neighbourhood and in the wider world? Super-confident, ambitious pop star-in-the-making Ah Moon knows exactly what she wants. She and her band already have an international recording contract, now they’re hoping global fame is just around the corner.

“Girls should be loud and brave and stronger than they used to be. I think now, that’s ok. It wasn’t ok before.” AH MOON, Singer, Me An Ma Girls

Young entrepreneur Nay Aung gave up a job with Google in the US to return to his native Myanmar to be a part of the emergent business class.

“Oh, the risk was very high. I was actually leaving a very stable career in the States. But, I felt very strongly that Myanmar was opening and that it was opening for real.” NAY AUNG, Online Travel Entrepreneur

But the old Myanmar is never too far away. Across the river in one of Yangon’s poorer districts, Dalah, kindergarten teacher Vung Deih Lun leads a classroom of bright-eyed kids. Prosperity seems a million miles away. It costs parents $3 per term for their children’s education and that money is hard to come by.

“We don’t want them to be poor forever, we want to direct them. The old people, we cannot change them anymore. But, when this generation come up, Dalah will definitely change’.” VUNG DEIH LUN, Kindergarten Teacher

Foreign Correspondent’s Sally Sara explores the old and the new, the past and the prospective future, for Myanmar in this striking and revealing excursion through Yangon.

8pm on Tuesday on ABC1.