The Golden Triangle and its trade conducted by various groups, particularly the Yunnanese migrants (frequently mixed with the remnants of the KMT army) always interests readers. Myths, rumours, and legends about the Triangle have been told and retold. The traders themselves — struggling with jungles, diseases, warfare, internal conflicts and international turmoil — are sometimes portrayed as evil, sometimes as brutal but loyal followers, sometimes as profit-seekers, and at other times as risk-takers. Wen-chin Chang in Beyond borders: Stories of Yunnanese Chinese migrants of Burma takes an ethnographic approach and combines oral history with letters, bringing Yunnanese migrants back as ordinary individuals and groups who experience suffering and joy, happiness and sadness. Beyond borders is the result of Chang's nearly two decades of researching and visiting the area, and many of her informants have become good friends.
Beyond borders is well structured in two thematic sections. The first section of four chapters traces the migration histories of a number of families. The four protagonists in the first three chapters are deliberately chosen, varying in age, gender, experience and life history. Zhang Dage, a key informant Chang has known since 1996, born in a village in the Shan States in 1962, settled in Taiwan in 1980; he eventually returns with his Taiwanese wife to his parents' home in a Yunnanese Han village near Chiangmai. Ae Maew, a second-generation Yunnanese migrant in Burma, studied in Taiwan, working to support her family. Mr Li, once an officer in the Ka Kwe Ye force and now residing in Taunggyi, and his son, Li Guoguang, provide competing narratives, thus providing an interesting comparison of two generations within one family. Chapter 4 highlights Islamic transnationalism by narrating a distinct subgroup within the Yunnanese Chinese diaspora, namely, the Yunnanese Muslims. Their identity as both Chinese and Muslim has facilitated their survival and networking in Burma, Taiwan, and beyond.
The second section consisting of three chapters turns to the historical transnational trades among the Yunnanese: the mule caravan trade which crossed mountainous borders (chap. 5); Yunnanese women traders (chap. 6); and the transnational jade trade conducted by two families across Burma, Hong Kong, Yunnan, Guangzhou, and Taiwan, which allows for the tracing of the historical and contemporary dynamics of the Yunnanese diaspora (chap. 7).
The life stories of these migrants at the margin make for compelling reading. Chang covers a wide range of themes, such as cultural and religious identity, family, kinship and friendship, fluidity and the dynamics of cross-border diasporic networks. And Chang's gendered and sensitive approach makes the book touching and powerful, as in her depiction of the lives of the female Yunnanese traders. Chang finds greater acceptance and trust among her female interviewees, while simultaneously finding that her gender acts as a kind of barrier with male informants. Issues of gender (and family) appear throughout the book. For example, Ae Maew, a hardworking girl and good daughter, has struggled from Laikha in Shan State to Taiwan and is devoted to supporting her family. Her mother, often silent and submissive, having been separated from her husband and worked alone on her farm, spends her last years under the same roof as her assertive sister-in-law, who is the head of a family riven by internal tensions. Though they share one house, however, each woman has her own kitchen.
The three maps in the book enable readers to trace the Yunnanese migration and trading routes. Combined with the rich ethnographic material, and names of villages, towns, and cities, the physical ‘routes’ of Yunnanese Chinese migrants become clearer and their distant world closer to readers.
Readers surely will notice the presence (or absence) of China between the words of interviewees who are descendants either of imperial migrants during the Ming and Qing periods, or, more recently, in the 1940s to 1960s. It is a pity that Chang does not discuss the motivations of those who left Yunnan, for example, around 1957/58, or in the early 1970s. The years 1957/58 saw the flight of many from Yunnan to Burma, as a result of major political campaigns in China, such as the Anti-Rightist Movement in 1957, the Great Leap Forward in 1958, and the subsequent Great Chinese Famine (1959–61). Another wave of emigration in the early 1970s derived from Mao's earlier support of the Communist Party of Burma's armed struggle in the Shan State. A few thousand Chinese youth (Red Guards) had joined the CPB's forces and a few of them had grown into crucial leaders in the local forces that were actively involved in cross-border trade. The book could have provided a brief introduction to these major political factors underlying these more recent waves of migration.
Nor has Chang paid appropriate attention to migrants' efforts to reconnect with their Yunnan homes in the post-Mao period. Zhang Dage, a crucial informant, in 1997 paid a visit to his Yunnan home where he met his eldest sister and his 94-year-old grandmother, who passed away soon after. The missing China link of some recent migrants may have helped further reveal the transnational networks and multiple cultural identifications — as illustrated by the jade merchant families, the Duans and the Pengs. Likewise, Zhang Dage's Taiwanese wife could have been a great opportunity to illustrate Yunnanese migrants' experience of and connections with Taiwan. Some brief and pertinent discussion of these issues may have helped the book better address the ‘roots’ of various Yunnanese diasporic groups.
