For anyone with experience of Vietnam's historic opening to the world in 1994, the atmosphere in Yangon now carries a sense of deja vu as Myanmar becomes the region's 'next big thing'.
The few hotels are jammed with all manner of carpetbaggers, from thrusting New York private equity types to trend-chasing aid workers and Eastern Europeans eyeing gems while flogging second-hand machinery. The air in the hotel lobbies and coffee shops crackles with hot talk and high expectations.
Then there are the envoys and statesmen beating a path to the doors of senior government officials they would have shunned just a couple of years ago, each trying to secure a little glory for their capitals - and future deals for their traders.
Of course, there are differences. Vietnam is Communist Party-run and was then emerging from decades of war, isolation and a crippling US economic embargo far beyond the sanctions imposed on Myanmar. It also had an extensive reservoir of goodwill and was opening up at the height of the East Asian economic boom.
Myanmar has been run into the ground by an inept- and brutal- military junta and is now nominally civilian-led with an elected parliament. It carries little of the ideological or historical baggage of Vietnam. And it also has Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
But the similarities- at the time of opening, at least - provide lessons. Both are roughly the same size with a young population that is desperately poor. Both are plagued by hidebound bureaucracies prone to corruption and lacking a technocratic class, a transparent legal system or even a reliable banking set-up. Capacity - or lack thereof - is the buzzword.