Modern Capitalism vs. Buddhist Traditionalism in a Newly Opening Myanmar

There was a teenage girl, donning a trendy T-shirt, tight-fitting jeans, and high heels in the middle of the night market in a remote corner of Yangon outskirts.  As the people went about its narrow pedestrian-only alleyways buying vegetables and other daily needed goods, her team put up a small boom-box and lighting system in one of the more spacious intersections.  The boom-box started blasting the latest English club hits, the lights turned on to the small space on the streets in front of the boom-box.

There the girl stood, and then she started dancing by herself in the spotlight.  Soon, people started gathering at the intersection, perhaps attracted by the music that is loud enough to be heard within three blocks in each direction.  Stone-faced middle-aged men in traditional man-skirts quietly gave disapproving looks, while excited pre-teens (and your author in attendance) happily nodded to the beats, giving sly smiles to the girl with the sick moves and hot body.

Despite all that, the girl ignored the commotion around her and just danced and danced, all by herself, not afraid of the looks and with no signs of stopping.  Perhaps this was just some PR stunt of small clothing business, but any Western witness seeing this would gladly hail the brave teenage girl as a heroic pioneer and a vanguard soldier of “modernity” in a country that only opened to foreign influences a few years ago (and still has little pop culture scene).

Yet, to say that the Myanmar still without nightclubs and entertainment celebrity-studded TV shows is “not yet modern” would be quite inaccurate.  For instance, as he roamed the Buddhist pagoda-filled cities of Yangon and Bago, the author discovered just how popular and widespread smart-phones have become.  With mobile shops on every street corner and even Buddhist monks toying with their Samsung Galaxies, the country is well on its way to adopting mobile Internet as its favorite pastime. 

But, at the same time, the speed at which “modernity” is being accepted shows how lacking needed infrastructure to sustain modern development still is at the moment.  Mobile Internet is popular because LAN and Wifi are terribly slow and unreliable.  Roads are decent, but vehicles are such shortage that imported second-hand cars running on the streets can be right-hand or left-hand drive.  And that night market where the girl was dancing?  It is in the middle of a residential area dense with old apartment blocks.

And that is just the entrepreneurial spirit of a country newly open to private business.  Sure, there are shortages of appropriate business real-estate or even clearly defined commercial areas, but with relaxation of laws, no one can stop people from turning first floors of decrepit apartments into stylish shop-fronts.  The chain of clothing boutiques, restaurants, electronic shops, and street stands peddling anything imaginable together light up an otherwise grim, rundown concrete jungle without any functional streetlights.

All this is happening despite passiveness of both the government and the Buddhist clergy, two of the most powerful and moneyed institutions in Myanmar.  Like the elders watching the dancing girl in the night market, they quietly disapprove of the disorderly ruckus that is private entrepreneurship in its current organic small-shop style.  And they have not at all helped in investing in a better business environment.  In fact, from all visual indication, the government is still prioritizing Buddhist building schemes.

We see continuous renovation of the country’s famed golden pagodas (basically re-gilding the whole thing with pure gold to replace ones battered away by monsoon rains) and building new monuments in honor of the Enlightened One.  Every year, new (gigantic) Buddhist statues and pagodas go up when the money can better be used to fix up schools, clinics, and roads.  Instead, every concrete building, even in central Yangon, looks like they are about to fall apart at any moment. 

It is certain that once allowed to exist, no one can eradicate the presence of private businesses that are now sprouting rapidly everywhere.  They are met by a population that exponentially enriched by the influx of foreigners eager to see the previously inaccessible country.  People with motor vehicles (a.k.a. “taxi drivers), restaurant owners, and hoteliers are getting richer by the minute.  And with that, soon the traditionalists in the government and the pagodas will no longer be the moneyed ones. 

In the dancing girl at the market is any indication of entrepreneurial resilience, the opening up of Myanmar is heading in a beautifully good direction at the grassroots level.  The bureaucrats and monks can stare and disapprove all they want, and not lend a single hand in support.  But guess what?  No one can stop the private entrepreneurs from being heard, seen, and attract attention by doing what they do best.  They will just ignore the haters and continue unabated.  And that is what Myanmar needs to become fully open.