Wen-Chin Chang. Beyond Borders: Stories of Yunnanese Chinese Migrants of Burma. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2014, xiii+278p.

Abstract

Beyond Borders: Stories of Yunnanese Chinese Migrants of BurmaWEN-CHIN CHANGIthaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2014, xiii+278p.Responding to a call for studies on the varied ethnic Chinese societies in host countries around the world, Wen-Chin Chang's Beyond Borders explores the whereabouts of the Yunnanese Chinese who migrated to Burma before and around the Chinese Communist Party's access to power in 1949, and addresses the issue of their consequent socio-political marginality.General scholarly approaches consider migration as a flow of anonymous people, taken within a historico-political context that leaves them with little choice. They respond more or less effectively to impulsive economic ambitions and mercantile nature and are driven by despair and/or hope for a different life. In her account, Chang sketches a more subtle picture. Here, building on long-term relationships established within a community scattered over an extended territory that includes Yunnan, Burma, Thailand, and Taiwan and with some characters particular to the past two decades, Chang succeeds in bringing back faces, names, stories, anecdotes, and the individual experiences of these people. Anonymous heroes of forgotten struggles, incredible families, and motivated entrepreneurs all come to life through their stories. Chang's work sheds light on the fundamental entanglement of this community with unstable foreign and risky contexts that have compelled individuals to constantly redefine their very conditions of survival.The book is organized into two main sections that each includes four chapters: the history of Yunnanese migrants' mobility in Burma, and their involvement in cross-border trade. Each of the chapters starts with a description of the author's field site and her approach to her informants through connections that echo throughout the whole book. This provides the reader with a sense of the importance of the community network. Chang also presents personal narratives that in their own way shed light on migrant's experiences in Burma. The eight chapters are dedicated to one community of this group, in turn represented by one or several individuals or by one theme that reveals a specific aspect of the history and the economic strategies that framed their settlement.Be they refugees, soldiers, cross-border smugglers, caravans' muleteers, or jade traders, all have experienced extraordinary journeys that have led them and their families from Yunnan to Taiwan via Burma and Thailand over several generations. Chang approaches the success and failures of these groups which are characterized by their economic activity (with the exception of the Muslim Yunnanese and women) through several themes that emerge recurrently in most narratives: military conflicts, illegal trade, an underground banking system, drug addiction, constant displacement, the scattering of families, and social networks. In this specific context, the lives of Yunnanese migrants in Burma particularly enlighten Chinese diaspora diversity and struggles that sustain the laboring capacity that one more generally attribute them.Beyond Borders provides insights on the ways different groups of Chinese refugees from Yunnan, their families, and the subsequent generations established themselves in Burma and transcended their socio-political marginality. As refugees they lacked state recognition and protection and thus relied heavily on the support of the remaining Kuomintang army. Still, the accounts provided by Chang's informants give the impression that collecting the life story of any Yunnanese migrant in Burma can disclose a series of fascinating and challenging adventures. First of all, they show how trade and migration trajectories are intertwined with local politics, ethnic conflicts, and a balance of power that, according to the period, could favor or ostracize the presence of Chinese and their activities. Indeed, despite this uneven context, life stories also reveal how the constant interconnection between Yunnanese ethnic groups-be they social or military-and Burmese ethnic groups led to business collaborations that benefited many. …