I have been quite active extending my business network since my last article a couple months ago. Within a few months I expect to sustain my family with mostly Myanmar income. One of the people I recently met was Jouni, who came from London to create the most innovative web agency in Myanmar. We plan …
Author Archives: Julien
Drivers Wanted
As we were returning from dinner with our good friends in Shwe Sa Bwe restaurant, we suspected that our driver is drunk, as he barely managed to extract our car from the parking lot, missed the crossing of Parami and Kaba Aye Pagoda roads, would not stay on the lane and in general took very …
Anxious Christmas
The Diva and her mother spent Christmas Eve in Mandalay, paid handsomely to entertain the guests of the Christmas party at the local Grand Hotel. They were to return to Yangon on the next day. On the morning of 25th December 2012, as the Diva was in the air, rumor spread that a plane headed …
Bubbles
This short article tells the tale of housing bubbles that I feel are growing to unsupportable levels here in Myanmar. Since I am writing this in November 2012, it can be interesting to compare with this article from January 2012 where office space in Sakura Tower rented for 50 USD per square meter per month, …
Nostalgy
On November 15th, 2012, a few days before Barack Obama’s historical visit in Myanmar, bank card withdrawals became possible in Myanmar. In a country where every transaction have always been done with cash (except a few checks for the wealthy), where banker is a physical job (imagine 50kg rice bags full of banknotes), where ATMs …
Visit to Children’s Hospital
Today, I visited with my wife the Yankin Pediatric Hospital in Yangon, not far from the Inya Lake. The hospital, initially a building from Ministry of Mining, has been reopened in March 2011 after undergoing extensive renovation funded by Zaw Zaw, owner of the Max Myanmar Group of Companies. We did not see many patients …
Thadingyut concert
In Myanmar, Thadingyut is the Festival of Light, three days to celebrate the end of the Buddhist lent. This year, Thadingyut happens between 29th and 31st October. In a middle-class township of Yangon, the former capital of the country formerly known as Burma, an improvised concert stage has been erected between two buildings. A large …