For five decades, a military dictatorship
kept the people of Myanmar, also known as Burma,
virtually cut off from the rest of the world.
The military regime stopped people
from leaving the country, and people and goods
from outside weren't allowed in.
Ethnic minorities were persecuted
and critics of the government
were imprisoned, tortured, or killed.
And Myanmar became one of the poorest
and most isolated countries on the planet.
But in 2011, Myanmar's government began loosening
many of the restrictions on speech, trade, and consumption.
What happens when 55 million people suddenly
have access to the world outside their borders?
I don't understand why they suddenly stopped
all this censorship.
Maybe they got tired of controlling us, I don't know,
but the thing is they should have done it, like, way before
so I'm not gonna give them credit for
oh now I'm giving you what you deserved
all your life.
Before 2011, people in Myanmar
had to use the black market
to get anything that was interesting.
We generally think of black markets
as places where dangerous things are sold.
We met some kids who used the black market
for something only the government thought was dangerous.
This is Koh Nguyen.
Skateboards, just one of the many things
prohibited by Myanmar's repressive military junta.
In much of the world of course, skateboarding is normal
but in Myanmar there's a different perception.
What did other people
think of you skateboarding?
Those old people, they're not wrong.
Myanmar's youth are being influenced
by western popular culture, but they're also
making that culture into something new.
Something that's their own.
Some skateboarders from western countries
have actually come to Myanmar to check out the new scene.
It just exploded out of nowhere.
When I first came here it was only a few guys,
but now it's in the hundreds, even to thousands of skaters
so overnight, literally overnight.
Before social media wasn't super accessible before.
They didn't have a preconception about skating was.
It was really cool to see them
make up their own names for tricks.
For example the ollie on a skateboard
is a kind of traditional jump,
they call like a dolphin jump.
'Cause like dolphins jump out of the water.
The internet has been in Myanmar since 2000,
but until 2011 it was heavily censored by the government.
Violators were fined or thrown in jail,
but now mobile phones are ubiquitous
in the city of Yangon
and millions have joined Facebook and YouTube.
Fashion, music, video games.
All the elements of western popular culture
are winning the attention of Myanmar's youth
and in many cases, setting them free.
Every day, even right now they're
sitting back there watching videos,
watching these skaters you know?
And they just couldn't before 'cause of censorship
and now they can, so they're kind of like oh
trying to like go back and get as much as they can
on all the history and what's cool and what's not
or whatever, so they're glued to their phones.
And we've been here all our life from the,
hidden away from the modern technologies
and all these IT and stuff
and then suddenly you're in the middle of the sea you know,
like bang and Facebook and all these social websites
and you know you're surrounded by all this stuff
and people just need to be prepared.
Imagine, no television, internet,
news, cellphones, Spotify, Tinder, Facebook,
YouTube, and then all of a sudden
you're thrust into the middle of all of it.
Kids on skateboards, graffiti bombers on trains,
and women doing things they weren't allowed to do.
Even the most conservative members
of Burmese society are experimenting with this new world.
But while the government's reforms
have triggered a flood of western pop culture
coming into Myanmar and Burmese people
are doing all sorts of things that were once forbidden,
this has not been a complete revolution.
The military is still a powerful force
with veto power in the country's constitution.
The government continues to censor dissidence.
And the army has conducted a campaign to purge
ethnic minorities from rural areas
with reports of killings, torture, rape, and arson.
The benefits of reform have hardly been universal,
but for millions of ordinary people,
everyday life is radically different.
I think freedom is where you
no longer need to ask what freedom is,
or such question as are we free?
There is no concrete stuff to hold on.
You have to just try and some people
they die trying you know?
So it's rather tough.
The rate that the pop culture
is growing here is powerful,
but like I said, we just are catching up with the world
you know, so it's still too early to tell
but it's very forceful I think.
No one knows what will happen
with the new freedoms in Myanmar.
But it sure seems unlikely
that the people will give them up easily.