<p>AT a street corner in Kamayut Township, Yangon, a young man does what would be seen as freakish in his country just three or four years ago – he lowers his head, fixes his eyes on his smart phone, swipes the screen and smiles at it.</p> <p></p>

<p>RANGOON, Burma – Five years ago, Nay Phone Latt tried to kill time by reading, doing yoga, and writing letters, short stories, and poems. But on a recent gloomy Monday morning, the blogger could hardly answer a phone call as he rushed about before he took a bus to Burma’s administrative capital to help change the law that sent him to prison.</p>

<p>SINGAPORE – Twenty-two-year-old Wendy (not her real name), on her first day as a Hospitality Intern in a budget tourist hostel in Chinatown in Singapore, speaks surprisingly frankly on a seemingly taboo subject, much to this writer’s relief.</p> <p>Clad in a colorful traditional gown, the native Singaporean is taking a break from washing dishes and chatting with guests to talk about how free people and media in her country are to criticize the government – a subject which senior Singapore-based journalists were extremely reluctant to discuss with the writer.</p>

<p>RANGOON—Two years&nbsp;ago, Freddy Lynn was spending most of his time at a public access centre in&nbsp;downtown Myitkyina in Kachin State. There he was introduced to&nbsp;a&nbsp;world that he did not learn in his university or heard about in his community that had been slowed&nbsp;down&nbsp;by more than six decades of armed conflict.</p>