Episode #136: Breaking Glass Ceilings, Documenting Atrocities
“I usually do what I want,” Nyein admits openly. Somewhat unusual for a woman in traditional Burmese culture, it is an attitude Nyein cultivated during the democratic transition period of the 2010s when new opportunities were suddenly available for the first time in generations, allowing women to follow their dreams while also challenging the society’s traditional gender roles. In Nyein’s case, that meant seeking out a career in photojournalism. Since the coup, she has become quite possibly the country’s only female photojournalist, one who has captured some of the most violent examples of military oppression.
To trace back the development of her career, Nyein describes attending a photography exhibit in Yangon. Under military rule, photo exhibits had not possible because freedom of expression was not allowed, and so this new experience left her deeply moved. “Photos can be sad, or any other thing,” she recalls thinking, “That kind of excited me, so in 2015 I started walking around downtown in Yangon with a camera, and I started shooting.”
She began by posting her pictures on her Instagram account, which led to being discovered by The Myanmar Times and offered an internship there. While her family had hoped to see her focusing on something like medicine or engineering, Nyein made it clear that she intended to pursue her newfound passion. Her internship led to a fulltime job at Frontier Myanmar, where she collaborated with journalists to cover all kinds of news, from politics to features to lifestyle. She soon realized she needed to better familiarize herself with what was going on in order to more effectively report on it, and so began reading up on daily developments.
From there, things steadily improved professionally for Nyein. She was contracted to go to Buenos Aries in 2018 to cover the Summer Youth Olympic Games, and then invited to attend a sports journalism seminar in India at which some of the leaders of the field came to teach. This led to a collaboration on a one-year project with a New York based photographer, which resulted in her own exhibition.
However, even as she was emerging as a leader in this field in her country, Nyein was never able to quite escape from the confining limitations of gender discrimination that still plagued her culture. “Most people think that I can't do my job probably or I don't know what I'm doing,” she explains. “And then they started judging what I wear, or what my body looks like, and when they see me, they judge a lot, like that I'm taking photography for fun… But still, I got some kind of some kind of benefit from that way of thinking, because they don't pay any attention to me! I kind of took photos in prohibited areas, and then when they told me I just smiled at them, like I’m somebody who didn't know and that I'm just messing around.” Nyein found it particularly ironic that even at a time when Aung San Suu Kyi seemed to be breaking down gender stereotypes at the highest level, the reality was still that Burmese women and girls had to prove themselves in the most basic of ways.
Then came the one-two punch of the COVID pandemic and the coup. And although the covid lockdown interrupted her upward professional trajectory, she was still able to use the downtime during covid to explore street photography and improve her technique. But the coup changed everything! She still remembers where she was when she heard the shocking news that the military had overthrown the democratically-elected government. “I was really freaked out, frankly,” she says. “But then, I remembered that I'm a photojournalist and I have to take photographs.” She happened to be in the capital of Nay Pyi Daw, and came upon a tank parked on a street. She snapped a photograph of it which became an important image in visually confirming the military’s actions that day even as the generals were trying to downplay the military’s presence in the city.
As the nonviolent protests began to grow, Nyein went out to the streets to document the movement despite her parents’ pleas to stay at home because of the danger. But knowing this was by far the biggest story she had ever seen in her young career, she knew she had a duty to go out and report on it. “This is a great opportunity that I have to contribute to the international news,” she explained to them, and eventually they understood. Still, as the only female photojournalist in the midst of the conflict, she was concerned that she would stand out. And when four colleagues were killed by soldiers, it made her all the more aware of her vulnerability.
Fueled equally by fear and adrenaline, her first order of business when reaching a protest was always locating an exit point, just in case. Although the protests were dangerous for everyone with the constantly imminent threat of military violence, her dedication to her profession made it all the more risky for her because when the police began to crack down and people ran for their lives, she would often choose to stay behind to document the ensuing melee until the last possible moment. She describes one terrifying incident when a policeman veered in her direction and lunged at her, and she barely escaped his grasp before quickly fleeing to safety.
But she would experience an even more terrifying situation not long after. On March 14th, 2021, she was taking pictures of a protest in Hlaing Thayar when she became trapped among the protesters who had barricaded the streets. Suddenly, the military opened fire, and Nyein saw bodies falling all around her. Not being familiar with the neighborhood, she didn’t know who she could trust, but eventually she managed to find an apartment balcony where she hid for hours. This perch, however, also provided her with an aerial perspective to continue capturing what was happening below. “There were a lot of gunshots everywhere, like continuously, and I saw a lot of smoke,” she recalls.
Prior to that day, Nyein had always been able to cope with whatever she had to face on the job. But after that experience, she suffered a complete mental breakdown, and for two full months was unable to sleep. She also couldn’t even look at any of the photos she’d taken, as it immediately brought back the trauma. She turned to meditation, aromatherapy, consulting with a psychologist, and ultimately had to take serious medication. On one night, police were searching her neighborhood looking for a cache of weapons, barging into all the flats. The residents were terrified. But as Nyein had a background in rock climbing, she had been keeping a rope ready to drop over the side of her apartment complex as a getaway if necessary. Even though she didn’t need to use it that night, with an increased police presence and her growing reputation as a female photojournalist, she no longer felt safe staying at her home and began changing where she slept every night.
One day, with great sadness, she came to the realization that she needed to leave Myanmar. The day of her departure at the Yangon Airport was nerve-wracking. Her knees shook uncontrollably and she had to rush to the bathroom several times, as she was convinced she was going to be apprehended and arrested before her flight took off. Fortunately, she managed to get out safely.
Nyein laments how many Burmese journalists have been arrested, killed, or forced to flee. With so few local reporters able to cover the story and the international media largely ignoring it, and internet shutdowns becoming ever more common, she’s dismayed to find news of the resistance garnering so little attention now. That lack of information carries the added danger of allowing the military to operate with impunity.
Now in Thailand, Nyein has had to adjust to a very different life. “I couldn’t do any jobs for like four or five months,” she tells, “because I had to take care of my mental problems. I had to get a lot of counseling, and I had to heal a lot.” Since regaining her mental balance, she has tried to continue her work as a freelancer, with large influxes of refugees fleeing the conflict over the Thai border, but it has been hard to find work. And she still has to battle gender discrimination, because her breakdown has led to some suggesting that women photojournalists are less able to handle the emotional pressures of the work.
Despite all the difficulties Nyein has passed through since the coup, her determination to seek her own path is as resolute as ever. “If you're really interested in photography,” she says, “whether something about your gender, whether you're gay, you just have to have to follow your dreams.”