Y2K a Mystery in Southeast Asia

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Y2K a Mystery in Southeast Asia

Updated 1:02 AM ET December 29, 1999

By MATTHEW PENNINGTON, Associated Press Writer

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Boonsri Harttalay runs a beach bungalow resort on Ko Ngai island, one hour's boat ride off the coast of southern Thailand. She won't be answering the telephone over the New Year.

She's afraid of catching Y2K.

Like many people in remote parts of Thailand and its poorer neighbors, Cambodia and Myanmar, she's still in the dark about the millennium bug and what it really means if computer chaos strikes Saturday at the start of 2000.

"My sister warned me not to pick up the phone on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 because I can catch germs traveling through the line," said Boonsri, who is prepared to lose a little tourist business as a result.

"Better to be on the safe side. I've also heard we might not see the sun or the moon on those two days."

Y2K causes as much concern in poor parts of the world as it does in richer countries - where doomsayers foresee airplanes plummeting from the skies if old computer programs misread 2000 for 1900 and malfunction.

In parts of developing Southeast Asia, where there are fewer computers, many are being misled as high-tech anxieties get translated through the rumor mill into more traditional tales of terror.

Thai Deputy Prime Minister Trairong Suwankiri, chairman of the National Y2K Command Center, said Monday that rural Thais have asked whether the computer glitch is a disease. Some fear a seven-day electricity blackout, he said.

Really low-tech countries like Myanmar and Cambodia, however, are less afraid.

"The world will jump to 2000 years, even if the date on the computer will not," reasoned Iem Sarom, 44, a school teacher in Phnom Penh, after he was told about the risk of computers mistaking years. "Most Cambodians are poor and they don't care about what will happen to computers."

Those that have started to grasp the information age in the Cambodian capital, like freelance photographer Keo Saroeun, 36, appeared little wiser about the bug.

"What? A bug in a computer? How can this happen? How can it get in there?" he asked.

In Yangon, Myanmar, where power outages are an everyday occurrence, the risk of crumbling utilities suffering from a computer crash is not keeping citizens awake at night.

"I've heard about Y2K," said Htay Htay, a gems seller in Yangon's Bogyoke market. "But it's really the concern of developed countries. My life is very simple, and I don't have to worry at all."

However, it has struck a chord among the upwardly mobile, among whom Y2K is a trendy marketing catchword used to sell everything from drinking water to thanakha, the traditional face makeup worn by virtually every Myanmar woman.

"It's the most popular theme of the year," said Aung, who was so taken with the Y2K idea he named his cosmetics shop after it.

Thais are less enthusiastic. The country's more developed economy and the use of computers in just about every walk of life - especially in the Bangkok metropolis - leaves people more vulnerable to Y2K.

Bangkok housewife Chanjira Piyatassri has withdrawn all her savings. She figures that since Thai banks proved incapable of dealing with the Asian economic crisis, they can't be trusted with computer glitches.

"I don't know what will happen," Chanjira said. "But I don't want to risk losing my money I've saved up for years."

Thailand's government has been vigorous in preparations and opened a national Y2K emergency center today, but it is urging citizens to stock up on water and candles just in case.

Secretive Myanmar, run by the military since 1962 and one of Asia's poorest nations, says it has taken necessary "preventive measures" but offered few details. Cambodia never got around to setting up a national Y2K committee, judging itself too low-tech to worry.

Nervous computerheads across the world have something to learn from many poor Asians, who are more worried about getting enough to eat than about Y2K.

Perhaps the best cure-all for the millennium bug blues comes from Myanmar, courtesy of local pop singer Sithu Lwin, whose latest album is titled "Y2K."

"While the rest of the world is searching for solutions to the Y2K problem, me and my lover have found the answer - love," he sings.

=================================== End

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.co,), December 29, 1999


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