I love the Myanmar Times; the English version that is.  Probably the most popular newspaper with expats, it has a circulation of around 500 000.  I have subscribed for the past year and it gets delivered to my house every Monday (which is a good job because it’s actually quite hard to find in stores and from the newspaper sellers on the road).

One of the most interesting parts of the paper are the trade mark cautions, which appear haphazardly all over the pages. At just 1/8 of a page they are announcements from various brands to warn readers that they are officially coming into the country and anyone taking their name in vain, so to speak, had better watch out.  Probably a good idea as there’s all sorts of copies going round.  Most of the names I’ve never heard of, pharmaceuticals and financial brands and so on.  But, interestingly, since the ‘opening up’ of the country more and more familiar names are appearing. First off was Dior.  Dior!  As though that’s the luxury brand Yangon really needs.  Then Nestle of course, taking up a whole page with lists and lists of their trademarks and copyrights.  Most recently KFC, Pizza Hut and even Taco Bell have taken out ads. It gives you a good idea of companies about to enter the country and of course nowadays the paper is full to bursting with TMC’s on every page.  I wonder if eventually they will die out, but for now, it’s an entertaining few minutes on a Monday afternoon.  One of my absolutely favourite ones appeared recently – see photo above.  Bring on the ambassador’s party!

10.02.14 This week’s TMC’s include; Teavana, Vupe, McDonalds, Tiger, Asics, Lactana, Midori, Marriott, Black & Decker, Avis, thegoldenlane etc, Esprit, Hedex, Kracie and more…

17.02.14 – this week’s TMC’s include; BP, Davidoff, Angry Birds (yeah, good luck with that one!), Remy Martin, Ageless (?), Pomellato, Complan, NEC, Bostik and more…