A contender for Eminem’s biggest fan runs an Indian restaurant devoted to the US rapper in a small town in southern Shan state.
The 28-year-old hip hop enthusiast declines to give his real name, instead going by “Stan”—a nod to Eminem’s hit song of the same name about an obsessive fan who drives his truck into a river.
Thankfully, this Stan intends to keep serving delicious curries with the help of his mother, who has mixed feelings about the music of her son’s idol, mostly because it’s on all day, every day.
“I feel my mom is Dr Dre and I am Eminem,” Stan told Myanmar Mix. “We work in the restaurant; nobody fucks with us.”
Quite the opposite, as customers from around the world rave about Innlay Hut, which is based in Nyaung Shwe, the main gateway to one of Myanmar’s top attractions, Inle Lake.
The space is filled with multilingual notes from happy diners placed between Slim Shady memorabilia; even the menu features his 2018 album “Kamikaze” cover.
The Wi Fi password is “313”—the area code for Eminem’s hometown Detroit—and the Wi Fi name is staunchly anti-Trump in alignment with the rapper’s disdain for the US president.
In fact, some US customers have turned away from his place because of the “FACK TRUMP” sticker, says Stan.
“I feel a little bit sad because I lose my business,” he added, but ultimately, “This is Shady’s world.”
The restaurateur says he is “100 percent inspired” by Eminem, especially his line: “Why be a king, when you can be a god?”
“Those are the most powerful words for me, because I don’t want to be the king,” he said. “Eminem is the rap god; I'ma be the food god.”
Songs such as “Lose Yourself” not only energize Stan but also connect him with customers and improve his language skills.
“I picked up all my English from Eminem,” he said.
Few people in the town share or understand his passion, with much of the local youth preferring “mumble rappers,” he says with a touch of disgust.
Though it does seem many visitors like a bit of rapid-fire rhymes with their butter chicken, as Innlay Hut has been one of the most popular local restaurants on TripAdvisor for the last three years.
“I’m the OG in this town,” he said, using the abbreviation for “original gangster.” But it wasn’t always that way.
Stan’s grandfather was a Nepali soldier in the British army who was sent to Burma during the Second World War and eventually settled in Mogok, where he married a Nepali woman.
They had a son—Stan’s father—who tragically died of a heroin overdose when Stan was just two months old. Struggling for money, his mother Malar, who only has one name, was forced to send him to live with his aunt in Mandalay where he finished high school.
In 2008, he found work dishwashing and then waiting at an Indian restaurant in Bangkok. All the while, Stan recorded the recipes and the tastes of the international clientele.
On his return to Myanmar in 2015, he took out a loan to open a small restaurant, which sometimes scraped the equivalent of US$4 a day. Some friends advised he work in a hotel, but Stan refused to go back to being “someone’s worker,” he says.
Listening to Eminem from a small Bluetooth speaker, he found the music gave him a sense of direction, and when one Canadian customer gifted him a photo of the rapper, he took it as a sign.
Stan called his mother, who was working as a housekeeper in Thailand, and asked her to open a new restaurant with him. They used her savings for the $1,000 lease and she took over the kitchen while he decorated the space.
His artist friends helped him with the logo, he put an “8 Mile” sign based on a film of the rapper’s life, and, crucially, he bought a bigger speaker.
Although he admits his mother complains about the music volume, “she’s happy with me,” he said. “I love my mother. We have only two [family members]: me and my mother.”
After the two-year lease expired, they were forced to close. But Stan found a vacant lot in 2017 and the opening coincided with “Revival,” Eminem’s first album for five years.
Stan marked the occasion with a tattoo of the album on his arm, to go with his other Eminem-related ink.
He now plans to open two more restaurants in the town: “Detroit City” and “Mom’s Spaghetti.”
“The main thing was, when my love for Eminem came out, my life was changed,” he said. “I always wish good health for him, because he changed my life.”
Stan wishes the musician would visit Inle Lake, which would arguably eclipse hip-hop royalty Jay Z and Beyonce’s tour of another top Myanmar destination, Bagan, in 2014.
“If I got even a little message from him I’d be happy,” he said.
With one year left to buy the land that his restaurant is on, Stan worries the landlord might evict him, like his last place. But if that happens, he promises to find the money and open an Indian restaurant somewhere else in Nyaung Shwe.
“I’ll beat it again with the Shady things,” he added.
Eminem once rapped, “At least once in a while… I scribble and doodle enough rhymes to maybe try to help get some people through tough times.”
At least one time, in southern Shan state, he did.
