To have only just heard of Myanmar?

[staceybeaker]

Watching the news about the coup there and I thought it must be quite a small country but now I've looked it up it's really not. Obviously I am embarrassed about my own lack of geography knowledge. Has everyone else heard of it or known much about this country before?

I knew it as Burma, think it's only fairly recently it's changed to Myanmar.
Don't really know much about the country though, will have to read up!

Touloser

Really?! Wow...

Not everyone has the same knowledge, you know

Ok I’m normally pretty clued up so am mystified about how I didn’t realise Burma and Myanmar are the same country and it turns out the USA still refer to it as Burma and the BBC has used both interchangeably up until recently. Since 2014 they’ve been using Myanmar. Some people use them interchangeably. The Liberal Australian politicians call it Burma and the Labour ones call it Myanmar.

In April 2016, soon after taking office, Aung San Suu Kyi clarified that foreigners are free to use either name.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Myanmar

@BubblyBarbara

There’s a country called Eswatini as well that’s almost as big as wales

Funnily enough I've only heard of this country recently and have been meaning to look it up, thanks for the reminder

@BubblyBarbara

There’s a country called Eswatini as well that’s almost as big as wales

Ha! Thanks for this. I didn't know there name had been changed.

This is a good article about the politics of using Burma v Myanmar OP

Aung San Suu Kyi's preference is for Burma.

www.usip.org/blog/2018/06/whats-name-burma-or-myanmar

@BubblyBarbara

There’s a country called Eswatini as well that’s almost as big as wales

Now I see it's what used to be Swaziland, so a name change like Burma, I did wonder how I'd never heard of it

Ha! Thanks for this. I didn't know there name had been changed.

Czechia is another one that tripped me up a while ago although it is at least guessable!

... and I just thought BURMA was what overseas service personnel wrote on the envelopes they sent home.

20:30Quaagars

Well with your language you're probably the same as op

Others ignorance isn't anything to feel superior about - it's a sad state of affairs when someone from the UK asks about a country that has been in the UK news for decades.

@TrappedAndDepressed

You're clearly ill-educated and / or hasn't watched the news in the last 15 years at least.

Or a child / teenager that doesn't watch the news.

I believe applications for Who Wants to be a Millionaire are open, sounds like you'd ace it, you clearly know everything

Thank you orangenasturtium

To be perfectly frank TrappedAndDepressed is correct, Myanmar/Burma has been in the news so many times over the last few decades.
So if you haven't heard of the place or Aung San Suu Kyi, there are only two obvious explanations.

BUT thats ok, there is no real reason to know this.

I said exactly the same to DH! But have heard of Burma - l watch the news every single day but didn't know about any of this!

I was there for a month at the end of 2019 and it was absolutely incredible. Everyone in Myanmar seemed to call it Burma still.

It's been called Myanmar since the late 1980s so I'm surprised you've never heard of it.

OP this isn't a dig at you or question just for you, apologies for highjacking. Just wondering from the people here who were educated in Britain and studied history. Did you have to learn about the empire and if you did, did you learn what the colonised countries were/are? Again I'm not having a go but it's such a huge part of the history I'm wondering how much is taught about it.

I wonder why the OP (and others who hadn't heard of Myanmar) noticed it in the news now, but didn't notice the numerous other times it has been a big news story over the years. I thought that Aung San Suu Kyi was world famous too. She's a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

@BubblyBarbara

Ha! Thanks for this. I didn't know there name had been changed.

Czechia is another one that tripped me up a while ago although it is at least guessable!

Increasingly hearing Czechia instead of Czech Republic was confusing to me although it was obvious what it was.

You would think that the media would actually explain that the country had changed its name, and use the 2 names in parallel for a while.

@TrappedAndDepressed

You're clearly ill-educated and / or hasn't watched the news in the last 15 years at least.

Or a child / teenager that doesn't watch the news.

That's nasty. If the OP didn't know she didn't know. No need to sneer at her.

20:34Ch3rish

I'm sure I'll get the news affair questions correct, affairs that have been in the news constantly for the last 15/20 years!

Next some clown will ask what led to WW2!!

Nobody knows EVERYTHING including you @TrappedAndDepressed I'm
Sure there are things op knows that you wouldn't have a clue about so drop the pathetic arrogant superior attitude!

Yanbu not to have known op, but those of us who regularly watch the news will probably have heard of it due to the recent issues in the country. It's been referenced in several tv dramas for this reason too mainly political dramas like madam secretary, I think scandal, maybe even west wing?

I'm pretty good at keeping up with current affairs but I'm dreadful at geography in terms of where countries are and name changes which generally happen for very good reasons can however be very confusing. I still struggle with the balkans for example, as I grew up "knowing" Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia and the area changed after I left school and I still find it hard to fix the new countries and names in my mind.

@staceybeaker My brother has worked in Myanmar for the last 4 years (still there now unfortunately) . I've lost count of the number of people I've explained where it is & what's happening there. You are certainly not alone.
For those people who say they have not seen much on the news the Myanmar situation has been woefully ignored in recent years. I often need to search online to find details of events that my brother tells us about - he is based in Rakhine so has seen the worst of it.

20:44RuggerHug

I've come across natives of this country that don't even know about their own history let alone world history.

UK schools even state schools used to cover world history - colonialism (aka thieving, lying rats) I have no idea about the last 10 years, if the curriculum has changed. I'm guessing the OP is older than 20.