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Nando Times - Myanmar is Y2K-compli



Subject: Nando Times - Myanmar is Y2K-compliant, more or less 

Nando Times
Myanmar is Y2K-compliant, more or less
By PATRICK McDOWELL

YANGON, Myanmar (July 25, 1999 9:42 a.m. EDT Nando Times) - Looking up from
his keyboard, Myint Thein says he doesn't get all the buzz about Y2K.

Whether the world's computers crash on Jan. 1, 2000, because old software
doesn't recognize the millennium change, won't matter much to him or,
indeed, many people in low-tech Myanmar.

Myint Thein, 64, will do what he does every day - set up shop at a rickety
wooden table under a big shade tree across the street from the Yangon
courthouse and churn out official documents, in triplicate.

He won't use a laptop and laser printer, but something far more efficient in
a country where electricity is rationed and computers are expensive and
restricted - his trusty Remington manual typewriter, streaked with rust and
grease.

"I've never had an electric typewriter or computer," Myint Thein says. "When
computers first arrived, I was worried, but not anymore. There's still a
good future for public typists in this country."

Every major town in Myanmar, also known as Burma, has people like Myint
Thein making a living pounding out documents for countrymen who don't have
their own typewriters but need typed papers in dealings with officialdom.

In Yangon, hundreds of public typists do business outside the courthouse and
other government buildings and next to the gilded Sule Pagoda downtown,
which also does a brisk business in fortunetelling.

Customers range from Buddhist monks filling out forms for new identity
papers to lawyers needing court transcripts to writers of dime novels.

The technology remains well suited to Myanmar. Foreign currency for imported
computers is lacking. Electricity is on for just a few hours a day - less in
many areas. And the military regime tightly restricts the availability of
modems and fax machines, fearing dissidents could use them as revolutionary
weapons.

Myint Thein types at about 50 words a minute, fingers clattering over 33
characters and 18 accents in the local alphabet. A page takes 20 minutes,
for which he charges 40 kyats, about 14 cents.

"A page from a computer would cost 100 kyats," he says. "People here can't
afford that."

On a good day, Myint Thein earns about $3.50.

Across town at the Armed Forces Convention Hall, exhibitors at a recent
computer show agreed that computers face serious obstacles to displacing
Myanmar's old technology.

The country of 50 million people is short of trained engineers, relying
largely on students who have had some training in friendly Asian neighbors
like Singapore or Thailand.

Though larger businesses might like computers, the poor electricity supply
limits their use to concerns and people who can afford their own power
generators.

Access to the Internet also is strictly limited by anti-modem laws. Illegal
possession can lead to a prison term.

Tun Thura Thet, the managing director of Myanmar Information Technology,
says the country is unlikely to experience many problems with the "Y2K bug"
given its low technology base.

His company has worked with the government in updating software for
computers that handle telecommunications and billing systems.

"The worst thing is that people here don't know how far behind they are" in
the use of technology, said Aung Yin, another exhibitor at the computer
show. "They think everything is OK. They've never been exposed to Silicon
Valley."

The show was aimed at exposing the curious - mostly students and
businessmen - to high-tech, as well as selling accessories to the
computer-owning elite. Pirated games and educational programs did a brisk
trade.

"People coming here are very interested in the Internet and high
technology," said K. Laring, the exhibition manager. "Many of them are
young."

Myint Thein wasn't one of them.

Back at the courthouse, he spooled three new sheets of paper layered with
carbons into his old Remington, sipped on a cola and reflected on his own
youth.

"I learned to type in India when I was 20," he said. "Back then, it was a
skill that could always get you a job. I just want to keep on doing what I
know how to do."