View source for That South East Asian Country

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[[File:Myanmar-map_7708.jpg|frame]]
{{quote|'''First Pepperpot:''' Burma! 
'''Second Pepperpot:''' Why'd you say "Burma"? 
'''First Pepperpot:''' I panicked.
|''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'', Episode 22}}

This country is known in English by two names. Firstly, its colonial name, Burma. Secondly, the name the ruling military government has given it in 1989, Myanmar. The renaming is understandable, because "Burma" led to confusion as the country is made up of one large ethnic group called the ''Burmans'' (or Bamar) and a huge number of smaller ones, who are collectively called ''Burmese''; Myanmar is a more neutral term. However sensible the renaming, a ''lot'' of media outlets and governments continue to use "Burma" as a symbolic protest against the military dictatorship that ruled it from 1962 to 2010. Basically, it's Asia's version of [[Britain Versus the UK]].

From 1992 to 2010 Burma was a military junta ruled by General Than Shwe, who pursued a largely isolationist foreign policy, with the exception of friendly relations with the [[Red China|People's Republic of China]].

In 2010, the junta stepped down, and handed power to a civilian government after flawed elections. However, the military continues to have strong ties with the government. Thein Sein (pronounced "Tane Sane") is the current president, famous for his democratic reforms and reconciliation with the west.

There is great controversy over the government's brutal treatment of various minorities, such as the native Karen. Burma has been involved in a civil war since 1948, the oldest ongoing war in the world.

In fiction, it is generally a nasty [[Holiday in Cambodia]] and an [[Acceptable Political Targets|Acceptable Political Target]], portrayed as an oppressive and genocidal military junta with little regard for human rights or for political dissidents. Then again, [[Justified Trope|in a place where using a modem without permission carries a 15-year prison term...]]

Oh, and the map on the left is slightly out of date - for whatever reason, the junta moved the capital from Rangoon/Yangon to a purpose-built central city called Naypyidaw in 2005.

[[File:Flag_of_Myanmar.svg|thumb|That South Eastern Asian flag]]

{{examples|Appearances by this country and its inhabitants in fiction include:}}

== Film ==
* Its people appear as the villains in the fourth ''[[Rambo]]'' movie, which proved highly popular with Karen rebels (especially since the government [[Banned in China|banned it]]).
* Mentioned by Alfred in ''[[Dark Knight Trilogy|The Dark Knight]]'', when he had visited it when it was under colonial rule and [[Cryptic Background Reference|encountered a mad diamond thief]].
* ''[[Bing Crosby|The Road to Mandalay]]'', of course. And the same poem by Kipling, naturally.

== Literature ==
* Burma has a [[Fictional Counterpart]] in [[Ligon]], a [[Fictional Country]] in the works of [[Kir Bulychev]], based on his time there.
* French-Canadian cartoonist Guy Delisle did a book, "Burma Chronicles," about his year living there with his wife and son for his wife's job with Medecins Sans Frontieres France

== Live-Action TV ==
* Appears in an episode of ''[[Seinfeld]]'' in which [[Cloudcuckoolander|J. Peterman]] has [[Going Native|Gone Native]] (and insane) in a parody of ''[[Heart of Darkness]]''. The business over the name is also mentioned.

== Puppet Shows ==
* Mentioned in [[Spitting Image]]'s "I've Never Met a Nice South African", as featuring unicorns. [[The BBC]] noted it as being somewhat of a [[Funny Aneurysm Moment]], as a song that was ridiculing the evils of [[The Apartheid Era]] referred to a country that would, in future, be host to even worse things.

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