Profile piece on chef Win Tun Aung for The Myanmar Times

The door of Edo Zushi, on U Wisara Road in Kamaryut township, swings shut. A bell tinkles, and a waitress clad in a plain, dark kimono silently appears. Behind the sushi counter, sushi chef Win Tun Aung is busy filleting a 22-hour cooked, vividly purple octopus for the day’s customers. Mastering the art of sushi was a slow but rewarding process for the chef, as he explained during a recent interview at the restaurant. Wearing the same shirt, tie and chef’s robe combination that he wore for almost 20 years in Japan, the chef reflected on his time there.

Chef Win Tun Aung

“It was difficult”, he said. “I was the only Myanmar person at my school when I arrived. But I grew to have a life there.”

Win Tun Aung left Myanmar in March 1990 after the fall-out from the 1988 student uprising had calmed down. He wanted a new life, new opportunities. A friend of his father sponsored him for a Japanese student visa and like that he was off. At 17 years old, he did not know if he’d ever see Myanmar again.

Japan was, and continues to be an alien landscape for foreign visitors. The language, social life and day-to-day habits of the locals are mired in centuries of strict tradition. Win Tun Aung spent his first three years in Japan studying Japanese and business; life was difficult in an unfamiliar culture far removed from his family and the comforts of home. He described his first two months as existing on a diet of dry tofu sushi, as he found the idea of eating raw fish repugnant. This all changed one evening when, aided by some liquid courage, he tried his first bite of fish sushi. The experience was transformative. After Win Tun Aung graduated, he worked as a dishwasher at the now-closed Kandagawa Sushi in Asakusa, Tokyo. Two years later, he’d worked his way up to being a fully-fledged sushi chef.

Over the next few years Win Tun Aung tried several times to revisit his old life in Myanmar, yet he was only able to visit his family once, for a week in 1995. The urge to see his family never left him and he was finally able to move back to Yangon in 2000, but had to take up work at a travel agency. The lack of supply chains and quality fish markets meant that working in a Japanese-quality sushi restaurant was nigh on impossible. Win Tun Aung moved back to Japan and his life as a sushi chef a year later.

Chef Win Tun Aung working at Edo Zushi

Finally, after 23 years in Japan, Win Tun Aung returned to Myanmar in 2013. He says his decision was spurred by the government’s gradual reopening to the world and the promise of a new democracy.

“I wanted to see my country change in the same way that Japan has in the last 15 years,” he said. “For the better.”

Some things have already changed. He noted that, when he left in 1990, almost everyone wore longyis and most women wore their hair un-dyed and uniformly long. Myanmar’s current infatuation with the UK Premiere League, Korean television and American music all represent changes he’s noticed. Even the culture of chewing betel has changed:

“Only old men chewed betel in 1990. Now all the young men chew it”.

Win Tun’s sole word of warning is that he sees every-day inequality in Myanmar now as being greater than when he left, and that development has yet to reach its most desperate inhabitants.

“When I left, if you worked, you could eat”, he said. “That is not always the case now”.

Yet Win Tun Aung is optimistic about the future – of Myanmar, of Yangon’s restaurant scene, and of Edo Zushi. He welcomes the changes and introductions of foreign cuisine in recent years (and particularly loves chili chocolate gelato), and sees the explosion of restaurants in the city as a great opportunity; the more restaurants, the more competition, the better the food. Indeed, the fierce competition among the hundred or so Japanese restaurants in Yangon is part of the reason Edo Zushi’s food is so good – it has to be.