In this three-part series, the ChinaSource team presents stories that trace the longing for home, identity, and grace across borders. Through encounters with people once considered Chinese—and others who longed to be—the author reflects on what it means to belong when history, memory, and faith tell different stories.
Not long ago, northern Myanmar once again made headlines for its telecom-fraud networks. In that region bordering Yunnan, both the long-entrenched drug trade and the newer wave of cybercrime have been closely intertwined with China.
Many years earlier, not long after I went abroad, a classmate asked me, “Would you like to go explore the Golden Triangle during the break?”
I was taken aback. “The Golden Triangle? What for?”
“To see the old Nationalist soldiers there!” he replied.
I laughed in disbelief—the Nationalists? The “Chiang bandits”? I’d only ever seen them in revolutionary movies! Although the name Golden Triangle forever linked to opium and danger, sounded intimidating, curiosity soon outweighed fear. I decided to go. To avoid parental panic, I kept the trip secret. Only after it was over did I mail my parents a postcard from Bangkok—a photo of poppies—with a note assuring them I was fine. Naturally, they scolded me over the phone later.
In truth, the Golden Triangle wasn’t as terrifying as its reputation suggested. The air was warm, the hills lush and dazzling. Standing at the junction of Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos, beside the Mekong River, surrounded by mountains and lakes, I even felt a faint thrill—as if I were surveying the world from a high vantage point. Yet the lives of those I met there were far from enviable. Some stories still ache in my memory after all these years.
We spent most of our time visiting several Chinese settlements in the hills—villages granted by the Thai government to remnants of the Kuomintang (KMT) forces who had fled China at the end of the civil war in 1949. Over the decades, they had built small farming communities from the wilderness.
Walking from house to house felt like slipping through time. Had we not been reminded to address people by their old military titles—“Commander,” “Regimental Chief,” “Platoon Leader”—we could hardly have imagined that these weather-beaten, hollow-eyed farmers were once Nationalist soldiers.
Out of curiosity, I gently asked one of them whether he ever wanted to return home. Suddenly the dullness vanished from his eyes; they filled with tears and fire. Because I was the only visitor from mainland China, one old man grew so emotional that he nearly seized me in excitement. His hand on my shoulder made my knees tremble. Still, most of the old soldiers treated me with great warmth.
Sensing my loneliness, they took me to a small Chinese-language school in the village so I could meet two teachers who, they said, had also come from “New China.”
To my astonishment, the couple turned out to be fellow Shanghainese! When they greeted me in their stiff, half-forgotten Shanghai dialect, their eyes shone—made brighter by the tears within them.
They told me they had been among the sent-down youth (zhiqing) of the late 1960s—the generation of young Red Guardswho had once marched through Tiananmen Square to be reviewed by the “Great Leader.” Eager to serve the revolution, they had volunteered to settle in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, for the Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside Movement. Later, driven by idealism, they crossed into Myanmar to join the Burmese Communist Party in its armed struggle “to liberate all humankind from the bourgeoisie.”
When the Burmese Communist Party collapsed, their comrades who had stayed in Yunnan returned to the cities. But those who had crossed the border were branded illegal border-crossers and could never go home. With no identification papers, they drifted south along the Mekong until they reached northern Thailand, where the exiled Kuomintang maintained a base. Ironically, they found refuge among their former ideological enemies, teaching Chinese and basic sciences to the children of the Republic of China loyalists. To go any farther south, they would have needed identity cards—something they didn’t possess.
I couldn’t help asking how these former Red Guards managed to get along with the old Nationalist veterans—and how they taught their children. The couple didn’t answer directly. Instead, they suggested I visit their classroom.
The school looked strangely familiar. Inside and out, it resembled the rural Hope Project schools back in China, except that the children were smaller and thinner. When I entered a classroom and tried to sit quietly in the back, the students’ attention instantly fixed on me. Only one boy—sitting in the front row by the door—did not look up.
After class, I asked the female teacher, “When I walked in, all the children stared at me as if I were from another planet. Why was that boy the only one who didn’t even glance at me?”
She sighed and told me his story.
The boy’s father had been a respected pastor in Myanmar. One day, while visiting church members, he was caught in a roundup by Khun Sa’s forces—the notorious Shan warlord and opium king—and was forcibly conscripted. During training he refused to carry a gun or learn to shoot, insisting that he would not kill. The enraged officer executed him on the spot in front of the recruits.
According to Khun Sa’s military code, the bodies of the dead were to be returned to their families. When the soldiers brought the pastor’s body home, they found only his wife and twelve-year-old son. Seeing the boy, the officer asked, “How old is he?”
“Twelve,” she answered.
“Then he’s old enough to carry a gun. He comes with us.”
Summoning desperate courage, the woman pleaded, “Please, let him bury his father first. I’ll send him afterward.”
The officer agreed. “Fine. I’ll come back for him.”
As soon as the soldiers left, the mother grabbed her son and fled into the mountains, heading south toward Thailand. They dared not take the main roads or enter any villages for food, surviving only on what they could find in the forest. By the time they finally crossed the border into Thailand, their bodies were covered with wounds. When local villagers brought them to the nearest Chinese settlement, the mother had already lost her mind. Day and night she clutched her son’s hand and refused to let go.
Standing outside the classroom, I looked through the window at that silent boy, unable to guess what he was thinking. The teacher’s quiet words have stayed with me ever since:
“This child is Chinese, too.”
Her reminder struck me deeply. I suddenly realized that in the dull, distant eyes of the old soldiers, the teachers, and the children alike was the same mark of flight—the shared imprint of people who had once fled. Their stories differed, but all were refugees of history.
That day I was the only Chinese among them who had not fled from anything. Yet instead of feeling fortunate, I felt the immense weight of what it means to be Chinese.
Almost instinctively, I raised my right hand—not to clench it into a fist, but to open it fully. Closing my eyes, I prayed silently:
“Lord, may this child’s eyes one day shine again.”
Editor’s note: This article was originally written in Chinese and published by New Territory and was translated and edited by the ChinaSource team with permission.
