I am in Burma
On Nov. 7, the reclusive nation votes for the first time in two decades. Photographer Rian Dundon
takes the pulse of the twenty-something who will inherit the country's future
On the Scene
Estimates suggest that one-third of the Burmese population is between the ages of 15 and 24 years old. When photographer Rian Dundon visited the notoriously cloistered nation, he fell in with some of the young people in the country's largest city, Rangoon. He met this trio at a hip hop concert staged in the gardens of an abandoned mansion。
takes the pulse of the twenty-something who will inherit the country's future
On the Scene
Estimates suggest that one-third of the Burmese population is between the ages of 15 and 24 years old. When photographer Rian Dundon visited the notoriously cloistered nation, he fell in with some of the young people in the country's largest city, Rangoon. He met this trio at a hip hop concert staged in the gardens of an abandoned mansion。
Tattooed
"The young people I met were cosmopolitan," Dundon says. "They spoke English and talked about plans to work or study abroad. Dundon’s mini camera has their photos. Their fashions and mannerisms were that of young people anywhere but beneath a veneer of internationalism I glimpsed a barrage of conflicting influences and identities. Kids in Yangon were beer guzzling club DJ's and skateboarders one day and vegetarian Buddhist monks the next."
"The young people I met were cosmopolitan," Dundon says. "They spoke English and talked about plans to work or study abroad. Dundon’s mini camera has their photos. Their fashions and mannerisms were that of young people anywhere but beneath a veneer of internationalism I glimpsed a barrage of conflicting influences and identities. Kids in Yangon were beer guzzling club DJ's and skateboarders one day and vegetarian Buddhist monks the next."
Skate Park
"On my second day in Burma," Dundon recounts, "I stumbled upon this ramshackle skate park, where a handful of local teenagers and twenty-something's were hanging out and practicing their tricks. Little more than a roughly hewn cement crater dug into an embankment, the park would hardly be noticeable were it not for the graffiti splayed across its transitions and the bare neon bulbs that light it after dark."
"On my second day in Burma," Dundon recounts, "I stumbled upon this ramshackle skate park, where a handful of local teenagers and twenty-something's were hanging out and practicing their tricks. Little more than a roughly hewn cement crater dug into an embankment, the park would hardly be noticeable were it not for the graffiti splayed across its transitions and the bare neon bulbs that light it after dark."
Renovations, Shwedagon Pagonda
"I was surprised how devout average Burmese could be. One of the skaters I'd met suddenly shaved his head and disappeared one night. His friends told me he had gone to live at a Buddhist monastery for a time of study — common practice for Burmese, most of whom spend various periods of their life living as Buddhist monks. It is difficult to express in words or pictures the ubiquitous persistence of the Buddhist faith in Burmese society. It is present at once in the iconography, the architecture, and the national character." But I still takes photos with them with my USB camera.
"I was surprised how devout average Burmese could be. One of the skaters I'd met suddenly shaved his head and disappeared one night. His friends told me he had gone to live at a Buddhist monastery for a time of study — common practice for Burmese, most of whom spend various periods of their life living as Buddhist monks. It is difficult to express in words or pictures the ubiquitous persistence of the Buddhist faith in Burmese society. It is present at once in the iconography, the architecture, and the national character." But I still takes photos with them with my USB camera.
Girls
"Though lots of young people had access to the outside world via the Internet, there remained a wide disconnect between what they understood of other places and what they were experiencing in their own lives. This is surely one of the only countries in the world where young people are not perpetually thumbing text messages on their cell phones. In Burma just buying a mobile number runs close to $250, a fee almost no one can afford." Girls will buy cellular phone to be photographed, for their part, taking pictures is very simple, as long as the posed photos, click the button, it is OK!
"Though lots of young people had access to the outside world via the Internet, there remained a wide disconnect between what they understood of other places and what they were experiencing in their own lives. This is surely one of the only countries in the world where young people are not perpetually thumbing text messages on their cell phones. In Burma just buying a mobile number runs close to $250, a fee almost no one can afford." Girls will buy cellular phone to be photographed, for their part, taking pictures is very simple, as long as the posed photos, click the button, it is OK!
Rest Stop
In the evenings, when it got too dark to skate, Dundon joined the skateboarders for drinks at a "beer station" or outdoor eatery for barbecued meats and cheap drafts. Young people will record their life with their pen camera.
In the evenings, when it got too dark to skate, Dundon joined the skateboarders for drinks at a "beer station" or outdoor eatery for barbecued meats and cheap drafts. Young people will record their life with their pen camera.
Kandawgji Park
"I went to Burma," Dundon writes, "in order to try and understand something about its citizens' experience in the year leading up to the country's first democratic elections in decades. What I found in a traumatized nation of extreme poverty and neglect was a people who refused to be despondent. My last night in Yangon was spent drinking beer out of plastic water bottles at a popular roadside turnout. Planted on the hoods of battered Toyotas and patchwork Hondas that blared Akon and Lady Gaga, I was enraptured by the persistence of the beautifully disjointed city, its pain and its revelry. As we sat and drank, groups of local kids would gather at the spot the way they do at a California sunset: grounded in the presence of something greater than themselves."
"I went to Burma," Dundon writes, "in order to try and understand something about its citizens' experience in the year leading up to the country's first democratic elections in decades. What I found in a traumatized nation of extreme poverty and neglect was a people who refused to be despondent. My last night in Yangon was spent drinking beer out of plastic water bottles at a popular roadside turnout. Planted on the hoods of battered Toyotas and patchwork Hondas that blared Akon and Lady Gaga, I was enraptured by the persistence of the beautifully disjointed city, its pain and its revelry. As we sat and drank, groups of local kids would gather at the spot the way they do at a California sunset: grounded in the presence of something greater than themselves."
