The Back Page (June 2007)

Brazilian Coach to Work with Burma’s Young Footballers

Burma’s struggling Football Federation has hired a Brazilian veteran, Marcos Antonio Falopa, to coach the country’s under-23 soccer team. The Myanmar Football Federation announced that 58-year-old Falopa, technical director of the Brazilian Football Coaches Association, would work with three Burmese coaches to improve the performance of the side in international contests.

Falopa, who has worked as a technical director in Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia, signed a o­ne-year contract worth US $72,000. He succeeds Bulgarian Ivan Kolev, who was sacked after Burma’s under-23 side was knocked out in the early stages of the 23rd Southeast Asian Games in 2005.

His immediate task is to train Burma’s under-23 selection of 32 young footballers for upcoming contests, including the 24th Southeast Asian Games in Thailand in December.

“Our football teams have been trained mostly by European coaches, so it will be interesting to see what results now,” commented Khin Maung Htwe, a leading sportswriter.

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Talk About Type-Casting…

When the producers of the latest Rambo movie went looking for two actors to play evil Burmese army officers, they found what they were looking for in two former guerrillas who o­nce fought for the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front.

 

Maung Maung Khin and Aung Aung matched all the casting requirements—“Burmese male, 32-40, military-looking man, character face, unlikeable.”

Unlikeable? Actually, Maung Maung Khin and Aung Aung are nice guys in real life, both thrilled at the chance of appearing o­n the big screen alongside Sylvester Stallone. The Hollywood star plays an aging Rambo, who is pulled out of retirement to lead a mission to rescue a group of missionaries abducted in Burma.

The mission brings him up against two sadistic Burmese army officers, Maj Tint and Lt Maung Aye. The two ABSDF veterans who play them were selected from nearly 300 applicants for the roles—“No o­ne knows better than us how to portray Burmese army officers,” Maung Maung Khin told The Irrawaddy.

The US $50 million Rambo movie took two months to shoot in northern Thailand. General release is reportedly scheduled for next February.

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Internet DJs Beat the Censors

Thanks to the Internet, young Burmese hipsters can now watch the latest music video of Rangoon’s top DJs, Thxa Soe and DJ Jay, bypassing a ban by Burma’s notorious censorship board.  The Press Scrutiny and Registration Division of the Ministry of Information took exception to the VCD’s scenes of young women dancers performing an ancient Burmese supernatural ritual, Nat Pwe, describing them as “inappropriate.”

 

The audio version of the production escaped the ban—“I have no idea why,” said Thxa Soe.

The video is available o­n the Web site http://ayesay.multiply.com/video/item/4. Its success is inspiring other young people with the technical know-how to put their music videos o­n the Web and bypass the stodgy men in suits at the Ministry of Information, who seem powerless to stop the trend.

The MTV-style VCD, titled Sine-kyite-tae-maung (“Man who adores music”), has its origins in an experimental album that blends western electronic sounds and Burmese traditional music, complete with drums, gongs, oboes, “clappers” and other centuries-old instruments. The album has taken Burma’s music scene by storm since its release last year.

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‘Land of Smiles’ Home of the ‘Third Sex’

Thailand has long been praised for its warm embrace of tourists and its tolerance of unconventional lifestyles. The kingdom has no laws banning homosexuality, for example. Bangkok, Pattaya and Phuket all host annual gay festivals. Thailand has also become o­ne of the most popular destinations for individuals seeking gender reassignment surgery.