Since the major policy change of 2011, Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) has been a hotspot for many from outside the country, including social scientists, who are eager to explore one of the least understood, yet fastest changing, social landscapes of our time. Among many topics about Myanmar, its relationship with China and the Chinese people remains one of the most talked-about issues in the context of geopolitics, and any breakthrough here is considered highly desirable and hotly debated. Yet, Myanmar is not that easy to understand, nor accessible, for most recent converts. It requires painstaking work in the field, deep understanding of and respect for its languages, cultures and peoples, and a full dedication and long-term commitment undeterred by ups and downs of Myanmar's unpredictable political climate. Fortunately, in the last few years we have seen the fruits of a new generation of international scholars who approach the subject through everyday life and ordinary people, and whose researches are often drawn from decades-long fieldwork despite the country's isolation prior to 2011. Roberts's ethnographic study on the Hokkien Sino-Burmese in Rangoon (Yangon) therefore provides an invaluable and timely picture of contemporary life in Myanmar. Along with recent publications such as Eric Tagliacozzo and Wen-Chin Chang's edited volume Burmese Lives: Ordinary Life Stories Under the Burmese Regime (Oxford University Press, 2014), Chang's Beyond Borders: Stories of Yunnanese Chinese Migrants of Burma (Cornell University Press, 2014), and Mandy Sadan's Being and Becoming Kachin: Histories Beyond the State in the Borderworlds of Burma (Oxford University Press, 2013), they present a living experience of Myanmar's multi-ethnic population, weave present with history, personal experience with high politics, and manage to show the world a very different, less institutional yet more personal, face of Myanmar with vivid narratives and in a highly readable style.

Originally trained as an architect, Roberts maps the Sino-Burmese community in Rangoon, the colonial entrepôt in the 19th century and the social and economic centre of the country today, arguing for the separation of territory and ethnicity in the study of Sino-Burmese. In order to understand how the Sino-Burmese, “a person of Chinese descent who was born in Burma, identifies with the country, and has chosen to remain” (p. 4), makes a place for himself/herself, she arranges the book in five chapters, each focusing on important aspects of Sino-Burmese lives, and skilfully folds in key factors of identity and ethnicity (such as transnational network, language and festivities). One by one, the book looks at grassroots associations of the Chinese, a community temple worshipping a syncretized pantheon of deities, Chinese schools, Chinese commercial ventures, and finally, the most important festival in a Chinese calendar: the Lunar New Year. Although in each chapter she gives a historical review, tracing back the issue to colonial and early post-colonial eras, the most interesting and revealing part is no doubt her observation and analysis of present-day Sino-Burmese in their everyday conduct and candid comments that we, the outsiders with impassable political, social, language and cultural barriers, are not able to obtain otherwise.

Throughout the book, Roberts uses the word tactics, “the makeshift manoeuvres of the disenfranchised, exercised within strong constraints, to create momentary opportunities,” (p. 24) to accurately describe the survival strategy and swift adaption of this ethnic-minority, ex-migrant community. Indeed, the mentality of being tactical is almost a defining feature of the Sino-Burmese in post-independence Myanmar, applied in a wide variety of real-life situations. It could be putting Buddhist gods in the altars of almost every grassroots association to indicate its explicit compliance with the state's main religion, or teaching Chinese language in sutta study classes, or taking ad-hoc risks to sell live prawns to overseas restaurants, or performing lion dances by multi-ethnic practitioners during the Chinese New Year celebration, following latest fashions in Singapore and Malaysia. In some cases, the alterations were carefully calculated steps taken by community elders in a hostile environment; others, such as the recent revival of Chinese language education and Chinese festivities, suggest the irreversible localization of ethnic tradition in response to, sometimes unconsciously, transnational influences from the country, the region and the world.

In her book, Roberts convinces us that the Sino-Burmese today “have made a home for themselves in Burma and see their future as intimately bound to the fortunes of the country” (p. 145). Yet it is noticeable that she prefers to use ethos (or kokogo belo nale dele in Burmese, meaning “how do I understand myself,” p. 5) rather than identity, an academic staple in post-war Chinese diaspora studies. Although she, like other scholars working on Chinese diaspora, tends to focus on the origins and development of Chineseness, Roberts explicitly avoids dealing with any “identity crisis.” She thus prompts us to investigate a potentially new, more localized and organic perspective of diaspora communities living in this post-Cold War multipolar century, when nation-state, transnationality and ethnic divisions are deemed to be inadequate to interpret present-day social fusions and ethnic transgressions. This book is not only a long overdue study on the Sino-Burmese, a diaspora community that academics and the general public alike want to know more about, but also a close examination of a challenging relationship among place, nation, community and ethnicity that could apply to communities in other parts of the world.

As a fellow scholar working on Myanmar, I find great consonance in Roberts's inexhaustible walks in Tayout Tan (Chinatown in downtown Rangoon). Our research in Myanmar, like many others in this field, is often based on “walking” the streets, chatting with anyone who is willing to talk to a strange pedestrian on any topic they like, and grasping piecemeal information to stitch together. Some readers will agree with me that each chapter of this book could be a book in its own right, with ample existing literature and extensive ethnographic material. Therefore, one occasionally feels wanting when specific subjects are lightly touched upon, or when a comparison with counterparts in the country or the region is cursorily made. But maybe, after all, this is the “Burmese way” of conducting research, a make-do methodology against all odds, past and present; and we as scholars have to be in a constant contemplation and frustration while patiently walking our paths towards a clearer underlying picture of Myanmar.