Seven years after the military junta silenced pro-democracy demonstrations in September 1988, Burma – swiftly renamed Myanmar by the reigning dictatorship – found itself in the woods. Battling a suspension of foreign aid, trickling volume of trade and foreign debts of over US$5.5 billion (S$7.8 billion), nothing glittered for this country that was once known as the Golden Land. In the midst of it all, an eight-year-old Singaporean boy stood in the lobby of The Strand Hotel – one of Yangon’s most exclusive addresses or, depending on how you view it, a fading relic of colonial rule – unimpressed by the dust and chaos of a city on the mend.