ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the Chinese Nationalist soldiers from Yunnan Province in Southwest China who settled in the Golden Triangle of northern Thailand after 1949. It provides a comparative case study that will be illustrative of issues related to Chinese immigration to Thailand, and especially the trade-offs involved in converting one's ethnicity to Thai middle-class status, and their emerging transnational orientations. The chapter shows how the Chinese cultural networks are formed, deployed and capitalized in the increasingly competitive global community through the process of familial reproduction. It also provides a brief history of the Yunnan Chinese and their settlement in northern Thailand. The chapter discusses the changing allegiance of the Yunnan Chinese due to changing local and global conditions to which they must adjust, and the changing ethnic identity of their offspring in this new host society—the Thai nation-state. It describes the general conditions of Maehong Village, including how familial relationships and education are deployed to sustain ethnic identity.
