Dec 7, 2018
Dr Yi Li, Associate Lecturer at Aberystwyth University, discusses her book Chinese in Colonial Burma: A Migrant Community in a Multiethnic State. How did Burma fit into the worldviews of settler Chinese during the British colonial period, especially in the context of the much larger Nanyang migration waves occurring at the time? How did Chinese migrants choose to come to Yangon over other British colonies in Southeast Asia, such as the Straits Settlements? And is it true that the Chinese in colonial Burma were merchants, with a predisposition for vice and a lack of interest in politics?