There is no more obvious sign that the door is cracking open in this repressive Southeast Asian nation than the sight of Aung San Suu Kyi's face everywhere.
Hawkers weave through idling traffic offering cheap color posters, pamphlets and magazines featuring Burma's most famous dissident, which was until a few months ago essentially banned. Street sellers along the commercial capital's main drag pin up dozens of versions of her image, Photoshopped to appear alongside that of her father, independence leader Aung San.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's leading opposition figure, talks about how recent government reforms are the most significant in two decades, but it's not yet time for the U.S. to lift economic sanctions.
At an art gallery in a crumbling colonial structure, artists have painted her image into their latest works.
"We paint her because we can," said one of the artists.
Burma is still far from being an open and free society in the sense commonly understood in the West. Reforms in recent months have allowed more public debate and expanded rights for workers, but the government still holds hundreds of political prisoners and continues to restrict discussion of some sensitive topics.
'In the reform process, let's say we have lovers.'
Skeptics of the government—and there are still many, especially Myanmar citizens in exile—say authorities aren't serious about long-term reform, and are merely trying to fool Western leaders to end long-running economic sanctions.
But for some dissidents living in Rangoon—a dilapidated city of 1980s-era cars and crumbling tea houses—there is a sense that this time reform may be for real, and not another of many false starts over five decades of authoritarian rule.
A visit to Ms. Suu Kyi's headquarters found a bustling scene of volunteers and workers selling party memorabilia and chatting about the changes. Loudspeakers played Burmese versions of Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" and Bachman Turner Overdrive's "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet." At the entrance facing the street was a red and black sign of Ms. Suu Kyi in the style of the iconic Che Guevara photo.
A government ally, presidential adviser Nay Zin Latt, said in an interview that it is only in recent months that he has been allowed to engage with the foreign press. He called such openness a "yardstick" of the government's commitment to reform. He compared the reform process to a couple falling in love and growing closer and closer. "We are getting ready for the wedding," he said.
After a 2010 election deemed fraudulent by the West, Burma's new military-backed government has unblocked the BBC, YouTube and other websites and has begun to allow small protests. Authorities have also welcomed the return of exiled dissidents.
Civil-society organizations say relations with the government are the best they have been in years, if not decades, and small businesses, too, are excited. It now takes two days instead of a month to get a license to import or export goods. An export tax has been suspended for six months and many expect that to be extended. To further encourage foreign investment, the government has floated a proposal to extend the limit on foreigners leasing property to 60 years from 30.
The government has even moved in at least one sector to dismantle a monopoly on palm-oil imports that many saw as symbol of the worst of the country's cronyism. Within weeks, the price of edible oil dropped 30%, easing food costs for poor families.
"We have received a lot of promises that didn't come true" in the past, said Ye Min Aung, secretary-general of the Myanmar Rice Industry Association, which has pushed to loosen rules on exporting the country's mainstay rice crop. This time, "Myanmar is changing—this is for real."
There are still some ominous reminders of the past. Across the street from Ms. Suu Kyi's headquarters, a well-dressed man sat inside a thatched hut observing the scene, taking notes on the people who came and went, though it wasn't possible to confirm what his purpose was.
Nightly television newscasts continue to broadcast clumsy government propaganda, including long paeans to the country's new parliament, with sweeping shots of somber lawmakers in white robes and yellow hats, while a speaker manages the elaborate affair from a golden chair. The video plays on a repeating loop.
Nay Zin Latt, an adviser to Burma's president, discusses recent political and economic reforms in his country, the government's relationship with China, and why he believes it is time for the U.S. to ease economic sanctions.
The information vacuum remains, despite the looser media reins, so that ordinary citizens still aren't really sure who is in charge. Thein Sein, a former military commander, assumed the post of president earlier this year, but it is unclear what has happened to the country's former paramount leader, Sen. Gen. Than Shwe.
He is supposed to have retired, but some say he still pulls the strings from behind the scenes. Others think he is in China or Dubai, too afraid he might be prosecuted as the country opens up. One Yangon resident said he had it on good authority that Mr. Than Shwe is suffering from brain cancer. Another said he spends his time meditating at a monastery, where he kneels before Buddhist monks.
Government officials have said Mr. Thein Sein is fully in charge and intent on continuing with reform.
Either way, the changes are coming so rapidly that some residents now say their biggest fear is that the opening will go too far—and trigger a backlash from hard-liners in the government who fear losing control.
"It's going so fast—maybe too fast," said Win Myo Thu, the managing director of a local economic-development organization known as Ecodev who has also worked on environmental campaigns. He compared what he is seeing in Burma now to installing an updated version of Windows on an old computer that doesn't have enough capacity to run it.
As for Ms. Suu Kyi, who has met several times with top officials to negotiate reforms, she describes Mr. Thein Sein, as "very straightforward. He struck me as an honest, open kind of person."
Sitting ramrod straight in her traditional Burmese outfit, a long skirt and high-cut blouse in matching shades of green, during a recent interview, she reflected on the new mood of her countrymen, saying they "aren't as frightened as they used to be."