It was 1967 when U Win Mra, Burma's most successful Elvis impersonator, relinquished his dream of a singing career.
As a teenager, he had twice won nationwide contests for mimicking the king of rock 'n' roll. Three songs he recorded for the national broadcasting service became radio hits.
But in Burma, a socialist dictatorship that was steadily sliding into diplomatic isolation, Win Mra saw no future for himself onstage singing Western music.
Reluctantly, he says, he chose a more sensible career in the Foreign Ministry.
Nearly five decades later, the crooner still entertains visitors with renditions of "Don't Be Cruel" and "Love Me Tender," but his day job is heading the National Human Rights Commission in Myanmar, as the country is also known today.