Photo Essay: Modern Myanmar

It is the upper class moving on, tasting the beginning of a golden age, dealing with the challenge of transforming the hard-working Myanmar people—both in their wallets and in their mentality—after decades of isolation, limitations and repression of free speech. Globalization is affecting all segments of Myanmar society as never before, and the younger generations have understood it is time to get involved. American, Japanese and Chinese companies are betting heavily on this new market, creating infrastructures and jobs. Tech companies from Qatar, Norway are flooding the market with the first cards for low-cost mobile phones, a real revolution for a people that until now had them in limited numbers and at exorbitant costs.

With new building yards for international visitors popping up like mushrooms in Yangon, global tourism has put Myanmar in the center of the map.

Myanmar is becoming more and more pop, on the cusp between recent ethnic strife and a future of possible Westernization and the costs and benefits of epic change.

A group of teenagers play a game of night soccer in the streets close to the Sule Pagoda.Andrea Frazzetta

Peddler sells balloons in the night market of the Yangon Chinatown. Andrea Frazzetta

Carousel for children at Full Moon Festival.Andrea Frazzetta

Ferris wheels with no engine are turned by acrobatic men at the Full Moon Festival.Andrea Frazzetta

Bumper cars at the Happy World Amusement Park, between the Shwedagon Pagoda and the Kan Taw Min Lake. Andrea Frazzetta

Passengers wait on a bus stuck in the traffic of the Shwedagon Pagoda Road, Yangon.Andrea Frazzetta

A group of residents of Yangon enjoy the cool of the evening near the Sule Pagoda.Andrea Frazzetta

Young woman in traditional clothes poses in the photo stand at the Full Moon Festival. Andrea Frazzetta

Hairstyle samples hang on the window of a barber shop near 17th Street, the Chinatown of Yangon. Andrea Frazzetta

A child poses in a photo stand, one of the attractions of the fair near Bhamo. Andrea Frazzetta

Teenagers watch the filming of a movie in the streets of Yangon, near the Central Station. Andrea Frazzetta

A statue in the gardens of a Buddhist temple in the center of Bhamo.Andrea Frazzetta

Advertisements in front of the Yangon Central Station promote upcoming cheap mobile phone cards.Andrea Frazzetta

Posters of the leader of the National League for Democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi, hang in a bar in the Thingangyun Township, Yangon.Andrea Frazzetta

A man gets a tattoo at Full Moon Festival.Andrea Frazzetta

A young couple looks at cell phone on a bus in Maha Bandula Road, the road that leads to the central Sule Pagoda.Andrea Frazzetta

A group of monks sit in the front row at an open-air meeting of the National League for Democracy, the political party of Aung San Suu Kyi, in San Chaung Township, Yangon. Andrea Frazzetta

Two young men pose in a photo stand, one of the main attractions of the Full Moon Festival. Andrea Frazzetta

Men relax and sing at a karaoke bar in the center of Yangon.Andrea Frazzetta