This country is devastated by war, but its wealthy only feel "good vibes"

YANGON, Myanmar — Pasada la medianoche, en medio de una guerra, el DJ animó a la multitud.

YANGON, Myanmar — Past midnight, in the middle of a war, the DJ fired up the crowd.

"Are you ready to party?" he shouted into the microphone, adding a profanity for emphasis.

The patrons of Pioneer Plus, war-torn Myanmar's most exclusive nightclub, were ready.

The DJ had, after all, traveled from Croatia.

Young people gyrated on the stage.

Johnnie Walker flowed, but only Blue Label, because that's how the high rollers have their fun.

Reserving a private table for the night — with a hookah, imported fruit and pyramids of frosted shot glasses — costs hundreds of dollars.

In the bathrooms and on the dance floor, in moments stolen between flashes of strobe lights, some Pioneer Plus regulars swallowed pastel-colored pills that left their breath smelling of vanilla or grape.

The effect of these mixtures of methamphetamine and caffeine, labeled with the names of local drug cartels, lasted for hours.

Myanmar, which plunged into full-scale civil war five years ago after a military junta overthrew the elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, is desperately in need of distraction, escape, a prolonged moment of euphoria.

No one in Myanmar is untouched by the conflict, which has turned more than half the country into a battlefield, though cities have barely been affected.

Half the population lives in poverty.

Drones, fighter jets and land mines terrorize civilians.

Military conscription applies to both men and women.

Myanmar's government is once again an international pariah, as it was during the previous decades of military rule.

But even in wartime, life goes on.

The party class must keep partying, and its consumerism is ostentatious.

International sanctions imposed by Western governments on military leaders and their business partners — arms dealers, drug traffickers, natural resource tycoons, middlemen for Chinese companies — may have curbed shopping trips to New York, Paris and London.

Still, there is always Dubai, Shanghai and Bangkok.

Yone Lay — whose stage name means Bunny — is a regular at Pioneer Plus, a venue located in an upscale neighborhood of Yangon, Myanmar's largest city.

He raps ("Stupid," "Someone Who Was Unlucky in Love"), acts ("Original Gangster," "Underground") and lends his popularity to military galas.

On one occasion, he filmed a music video praising U Min Aung Hlaing, the former military chief who orchestrated the coup five years ago and became Myanmar's president in April.

When Yone Lay saunters into the nightclub, his entourage in tow, security guards surround him like a fine layer of Burmese silk.

The cordon is not decorative.

Some celebrities who publicly support the military junta, rather than protesting the army's killing of unarmed demonstrators, have become targets of urban guerrillas.

In 2023, an acquaintance of Yone Lay's, Lily Naing Kyaw, a singer who socialized with the generals, was shot in the head and killed in Yangon.

Months earlier, Yone Lay was approached by a man with a knife, but escaped unharmed.

A year later, a bomb went off in his vehicle.

No one was in the car at the time.

"Those people want to prove that even if you're famous and have connections in the army, we can kill you," Yone Lay said one recent evening. "From the outside, people don't realize that people like me are also oppressed."

Memory

Yone Lay, 40, remarked that it's easy to forget how much Myanmar has changed during his lifetime.

Less than two decades ago, the internet barely existed.

In secret, Yone Lay listened to Eminem, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg on pirated cassette tapes.

But the arrival of economic and political reforms in the 2010s, including the 2015 elections that ushered in a semi-civilian government, appeared to modernize the nation at a dizzying speed.

Yone Lay rapped about his concerns of that era:

"Girls, parties and showing off."

Now, he says, his concerns are existential.

He travels with bodyguards.

The stress, he says, makes relaxing in the most lavish nightclubs a necessity.

"We have to find ways to be happy," Yone Lay said.

"Why can't we just love all our leaders and live in peace?"

Yangon, which during the reform years buzzed with activity — new construction and advertisements for investment opportunities and business English classes — has largely returned to a state of decay.

Most Western companies have left; billboards that once advertised American soft drinks and German sedans now display local instant coffees and bathroom pipes.

Yet with a little imagination, it is possible to pretend that life in Yangon is not so different from what it was before the coup, at least for a privileged segment of the population.

At Yangon's restaurant, partly owned by Min Aung Hlaing's son, the menu is lavish and European, featuring dishes such as foie gras and caviar.

According to a maître d', with enough advance notice, a sommelier can be brought in from Singapore.

On social media, Ma Christina Lim, 36, and her husband, Ko Thu Rayn Kyaw Moe, 38, showcase their fabulous lifestyles in Yangon and elsewhere, such as at Club Med in the Maldives and at the Great Wall of China.

Coordinated outfits in leather and velvet are on display, along with more than 200 brand collaborations with companies such as Samsung, Carlsberg and a local nautical club.

On YouTube, Facebook and Instagram — the latter two officially banned in Myanmar and requiring a VPN to access — the couple has accumulated millions of views with their baby gender reveals (a balloon that bursts and releases pink confetti for their firstborn, a girl) and photos with celebrities close to Min Aung Hlaing's family.

"Our content focuses on positivity, only positive vibes," said Lim.

"We want viewers to feel good after watching our videos."

In the days following the coup, Lim, like many members of Myanmar's English-speaking elite, posted photos on social media of the couple joining protesters who were peacefully marching to oppose the military intervention.

Millions of people had taken to the streets across the country in support of the ousted civilian leader, Suu Kyi.

Within weeks, the army began shooting protesters — as well as children who happened to be nearby — and imprisoning dissidents.

An armed resistance took shape in the tropical jungles of Myanmar's border areas.

Celebrities and influencers denounced the brutal military crackdown. Lim posted on Facebook a photo of the couple making the three-finger resistance gesture and paying tribute to "the martyrs who can never return home."

Then the couple fell silent.

In early 2022, in their first post since Myanmar's civil war erupted, Lim and Thu Rayn Kyaw Moe celebrated their wedding anniversary, dressed in crimson.

In the years since, the couple, whose families amassed fortunes in real estate, paper, imported vehicles and cold storage, have kept out of politics, preferring to speak enthusiastically about luxury cars, breast pumps and American vitamins.

They praise the finest dishes at the city's best French restaurant.

They lavish attention on a French bulldog named Blue, as well as their two children.

"I feel like what happened, happened," said Lim, referring to the coup and its violent aftermath.

He acknowledged that "it's dark," but due to chronic electricity shortages.

"At the same time," he added, "people just go to work regularly, go to school regularly."

Even their most trivial posts draw a large audience, but perhaps that is the point.

A Facebook video of Thu Rayn Kyaw Moe frying eggs and ineptly cooking instant noodles reached 1.1 million views.

Changes

The coup and the civil war have laid bare the choices of Myanmar's wealthy.

In Mandalay, the country's second-largest city, Chinese traders who once came in search of jade and other gems have all but disappeared.

Homemade bombs are occasionally thrown at military officers or people considered collaborators with the regime.

Yet Ma May Nwe Htun, an actress, singer and influencer better known as Sweet, said she has no interest in fleeing Myanmar, where her family owns a gold business.

Many friends have gone abroad in search of a safer life, she noted, but this is her home, with its bustling teahouses and golden pagodas.

"We have to have fun, darling," said May Nwe Htun.

"We have to give our best if we want to stay in the country we love."

One recent evening, she threw a birthday party for her teenage son, who attends an international school that has now lost most of its international students.

There was a basketball-themed cake and a group of transgender performers.

In the dark, sweltering sky, fighter jets roared on their sorties toward rebel-held territory, where civilians are terrorized by airstrikes.

Along the river in Mandalay, the thunder of bombardments echoes through the night.

Back in Yangon, at Pioneer Plus, the singer and girlfriend of rapper Yone Lay drank shot after shot.

A member of an ethnic minority with a large militia at war with Myanmar's military, she fears, she said, being branded a traitor for dating a musician close to the military regime.

She spoke to The New York Times on condition that her name not be revealed.

"People on the outside only know that the military kills, they only know one version of events," she said.

"I just want to be an artist, not a businesswoman or a politician."

She struggled to her feet, alcohol clouding her movements.

Her friends took her by the arm, steadying her.

—Let's dance —she said, extending a hand with well-manicured nails, mascara running from tears—. Let's forget everything.

c.2026 The New York Times Company

About the byline

Newsletter Clarín