Mohawks in Myanmar: punk rock runs wild in Yangon
Although closed off from the world for 50 years, the reclusive Myanmar still developed a punk rock scene. Kate Whitehead met some of the diehards in Yangon
With their mohawks and black studded jackets, Kyaw Kyaw and his punk buddies are easy to spot on the streets of Yangon. They hang out at a roadside stall just up from Sule Pagoda most afternoons, attracting the attention of tourists who stop and stare. Their guidebooks didn't say anything about this.
Kyaw Kyaw is angry and he's got attitude, but he's not like the young punks who came before him. He and his entourage say more about what's happening in Myanmar today than they do about music.
Closed off from the rest of the world for 50 years after the military junta took over in 1962, Myanmar's punk scene was a late developer. Sid Vicious was dead, his ashes scattered over girlfriend Nancy Spungen's grave, 15 years before his music came to Yangon, brought in by the sailors who were among the few foreigners allowed into the country.
"There's only one guy still around from that time - a first-generation punk," says Darko, lead singer in the indie rock band Side Effect. "He's still a punk and he runs a stall in the market."
You could get thrown into jail over nothing. The police used to pick up the punks and beat them up for no reason, and shave off their hair
At this kiosk-sized stall just out of town in Yuzana Plaza, 40-year-old Ko Nyan, the last of the original Myanmese punks, makes a living selling punk T-shirts and CDs. He was 21 when he fished a music magazine out of the bins at the British embassy and saw an article about the Sex Pistols. It changed his life. He didn't just want to play punk music, he wanted the whole lifestyle and he and his friends shocked Yangon with their edgy look.