At a newly opened tea shop named “Freedom”, the tea is brewed strong, then stirred with evaporated and condensed milk by a revolutionary on the lam.
Food is cooked over a gas stove by a 53-year-old woman forced to flee her home because of her support for the Myanmar opposition, and served by teenage waiters targeted by authorities for attending pro-democracy demonstrations. Customers pay at a counter staffed by a young woman with long hair and a sweet smile – a former pre-school teacher who refused to work under the generals who seized power in Myanmar early last year.
