Here’s a snippet of my interview about being an expat in Myanmar, which was published on expatsblog.com
Jessica Mudditt is a journalist at The Myanmar Times and she has lived outside her home country of Australia for the past seven years. Jessica moved to Myanmar in July 2012 and her blog contains feature articles, light-hearted accounts of life in Myanmar, book reviews, photo essays and short documentary style films made during her travels. Jessica was accredited as a newspaper journalist in the United Kingdom in 2009 and afterwards moved to Bangladesh, where she worked for Bangladeshi newspapers for almost three years. She lives with her Bangladeshi husband in Yangon and hopes to travel extensively throughout Myanmar in the coming months and years – the best bits of which will be published on her blog.
Here’s the interview with Jessica…
Where are you originally from?
Melbourne, Australia
In which country and city are you living now?
Yangon, Myanmar.
How long have you lived here and how long are you planning to stay?
I came here in July 2012 and hope to stay at least until the elections are held in 2015. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, boycotted the 2010 elections, however she is now a member of parliament. Although constitutionally she is ineligible to be president because she married a foreigner, there has been so much positive change in Myanmar since 2010 that I think the lead up to 2015 will be fascinating to observe. Myanmar is a very exciting place to live right now.
Why did you move and what do you do?
I moved because I was offered a job at The Myanmar Times. I had been living in Bangladesh for almost three years, working for the United Nations as a stringer and as a special correspondent for a national newspaper called The Independent. I had no idea I would live in Bangladesh so long – I initially came from London to do a six month internship with another Bangladeshi newspaper called The Daily Star. It was an incredible time for me, both professionally and personally (I married my translator!), however Dhaka is one of the world’s most densely populated cities and after a few years I began to feel worn down and longed for a new opportunity.
I work for The Myanmar Times as features supplement editor and really love it.
Did you bring family with you?
Yes, my husband Sherpa came with me and he is now the editor-in-chief of another newspaper in Yangon, called Myanmar Business Today. It took us a few months longer to arrive than we hoped because getting visas from Bangladesh was difficult. We also brought our cat and have since adopted a street dog called Ripley.
Click here to read the full interview…
