Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown

Chances are you haven't been to this place.

Chances are this is a place you've never seen,

other than maybe blurry cell phone videos,

old black-and-white newsreels from World War II.

Chances are bad things were

happening in the footage you saw.

Myanmar: after 50 years of nightmare,

something unexpected is happening here.

And it's pretty incredible.

In Yangon, capital city of Myanmar, it's dark.

Blackouts are frequent with the ancient power grid.

What sources of light there are

in the street cast an eerie, yellow/orange hue.

For almost 100 years under British rule,

this was Rangoon.

In 1948, after helping the

British fight off the Japanese,

and with a new taste for self-determination, the

country gained independence.

After a decade of instability, however,

the military consolidated power and never let go.

Elections?

They came and went.

The results ignored, opposition punished

or silenced entirely.

Burma, now Myanmar, where Orwell had once served

as a colonial policeman, where he'd first grown to

despise the apparatus of a

security state, became more

Orwellian than even he could have imagined,

a nation where even having an opinion

could be dangerous.

I am very honored to be here at

this university and to be the first President

of the United States of America

to visit your country.

Morning in Yangon.

To nearly everyone's surprise,

there have been some huge changes in recent months.

The most difficult time

in any transition is when we

think that success is in sight.

Nobel Prize-winning democracy champion

Aung San Suu Kyi, for nearly 15 years under house

arrest, was released, and has now taken an active

role in politics.

Just as the door is opening,

my crew and I are among

the first to record what has

been unseen for decades by most of the world.

Meanwhile, this Southeast Asian

country of 80 million people

is collectively holding its breath,

waiting to see what's next.

And will this loosening of government grip last?

Of course, morning in Yangon

has always been about tea.

It's black, Indian-style tea,

usually with a thick dollop

of sweetened condensed milk.

You want it sweet, less sweet, very sweet, strong,

less strong?

Everybody's got a preference;

everybody's got a preferred tea shop

where they know, presumably, how you like yours.

I said I'm only less sweet, and a bit strong.

Journalist and publisher U Thiha Saw.

We meet at the Say Thai Cha Tea Shop.

Anything could happen in a tea shop.

This place mean, uh, a lot

of things, not just a place for

breakfast and snacks.

For 50 years of paranoia and repression,

tea houses were also the main forum for guarded and

not-so-guarded discussions of the daily news,

where you tried to piece together the real stories

behind the ludicrously chopped

and censored newspapers.

Carefully, of course, because

informers and secret policese

were also heavily represented

in these hotbeds of sedition and discontent.

So, given your profession,

how have you managed to stay out

of prison all of these years?

No. I was there.

Oh, really?

Two times.

Two times.

Once special Burma Police

called me. "Hey U Thiha Saw,

will you please come into office? We need to talk."

Right.

So I went over there and the total was...

89 days in the prison.

There was this very serious

control that came with the first

military government.

Right.

Press scrutiny and registration debacle. So...

Oh, that doesn't sound good.

We need to send in our copies

to that office and then take a look at everything.

They would say, "Take this out.

Take that out or black this out," or just,

"Take the whole story out."

Magazines that would come

into the country would they cut out...

Literally cut out the-the pieces.

Well, the people under this

kind of tight censorship, people become more,

I think, creative.

Take a look, careful reading,

there may be something between the lines, messages.

Right. It was something you were accused of, uh,

sending these secret messages.

In the back, a cauldron of salty little fish

bubble over hardwood coals.

Fingers work mountains of sweet bean,

one of the fillings for

the variety of pastries that are stuffed, shaped,

and put into an old stone oven.

In another corner, the heartening slap of

fresh bread, pressed against the clay wall

of a tandoori.

And, of course, eggs bob and spit in the

magical hell broth of fish, spice, and herb.

Mohinga?

Uh, this I must have.

Correct me if I'm wrong,

if there's a national dish, a fundamental,

most beloved dish, would it be... would it be this?

Yeah, for example, take a look at all this sweet

stuff.

This is Indian.

These are Chinese, et cetera.

But then mohinga is a local thing.

And it's popular not in the city

but also in the rural areas,

too, in a fish base with some rice or noodles.

We would sometimes we put in some crispies,

like fried beans or... fried guts.

Mm.

So, these are some coriander leaves.

Yeah.

You can mix some-some limes.

Sprinkle some in here.

Mm. Good textures.

Particularly in the light of,

uh, Obama's recent visit,

these are interesting times.

Significant changes for the

first time in, you know, 50 years.

Yeah.

There's one thing which is quite significant.

For example, take a look around.

All kinds of people, all age groups.

But a couple of years ago,

people would be... when you're

talking about politics, you... you tone down.

Right.

I mean, you would be whispering.

But nowadays, people just being

more... are being, uh, outspoken.

So, this has all become much more open.

In last July, they're sort of

relaxing the rules about censorship.

August 20th, we were called

into the Unintel office,

we being publishers, editors.

And the director general of

the department said, the boss,

"Okay, 48 years and 20 days of censorship is gone.

That's it."

Feel good?

Yeah. That's what we've been

waiting for so many years.

I love the-the-the answer.

It's a careful yes.

Yeah. First, people within

the country, we have some doubt about,

"Okay, is it real, the changes and the reforms?"

But, as now it's about a couple

of years, and then now people start believing that,

"Oh, maybe, maybe it's real."

The process is still very young.

It is still possible when the

generals stop and think, "Okay,

that's enough is enough.

Let's turn back all our stuff

"I'm optimistic about the changes and the reforms.

But I'm still cautiously optimistic.

In Yangon, motorbikes are outlawed.

Why is a matter of much rumor and speculation.

So, it's the bus for me.

Something seems almost out of sync.

Not too long ago, even filming here officially

as an open, professional Western film crew

would have been unthinkable.

In 2007, a Japanese journalist