Editor, Writer, Researcher
Along with the stories of King Thibaw and Queen Supayalat, The King in Exile tells of the strange, twisted lives of their four daughters and seven grandchildren. As foreign visitors surge in, drawn by the idea of a new frontier, the book erodes the mythology, so pervasive in the region, of a happier, fairer era when white European men kept the grateful dumb natives gently in place.
More than half of those 27 million-plus smartphone owners in Myanmar are regular data users, who check into Facebook daily and the Viber messaging and VOIP app almost as frequently. How can so many people afford phones when the average wage is $3 a day?
Meanwhile, in the past decade the consortium's annual budget has shrunk by half—to US $17.5 million—even while resident numbers declined by only 30 percent during the same period. Much of that drop is due to resettlements in third countries, such as the United States and Australia, but those left behind can no longer apply for such status.
Most women working in media in Yangon claimed they had never encountered sexual harassment but, among those working beyond the capital area, more than half said they had experienced sexual harassment in their workplaces, sometimes from sources ... “Harassment can be physical and verbal. When we want to interview men, sometimes they want to meet in private. There are stereotypes and misconceptions about women working in certain industries."
The goal of becoming once again the world’s rice basket is wrong: "If Myanmar emerged as the top exporter of rice and if farmers get rich, why not? But if farmers remain poor, what’s the point? … China’s policy is to reduce the rice-growing area. Vietnam has the target of being rice self-sufficient; it also has among the world’s highest use of agro-chemicals. So what if padi production goes down as a result?"
Susan J Cunningham 