In sleepy Mawlamyine, Myanmar youths can’t wait to leave as city becomes shadow of its former self

Mawlamyine (or Moulmein) in Myanmar is one of those Southeast Asian cities like Sandakan (Malaysia), Bacolod (Philippines) and Songkhla (Thailand) – where the past looms large but the present seems faded and unpromising. The kinds of places that young people yearn to leave in search of jobs and money. Home to just under 300,000 residents, the capital city of the three-million-strong Mon State has a slightly forlorn, neglected air. After all, its glory years were well over 150 years ago,…