Among the teachers and writers of the overseas Chinese community in Burma, Ma Weizhong was a man of talent, influence, and ambition.
Within Burmese Chinese education and the amateur literary world, people like him—university educated, grounded in classical literature, and able to write both classical and vernacular Chinese—were exceedingly rare.
He did not spend long in Burma. Yet during those eight short years, he consciously remolded his worldview and courageously threw himself into the overseas patriotic democratic movement. Moving with the times, he changed from a Kuomintang county magistrate into an influential democratic figure and an enlightened, progressive teacher deeply loved by overseas Chinese students.
I
Ma Weizhong was a native of Haiyan, Zhejiang. His difficult life had the drama of a legend.
From childhood, he resolved to “save the nation through education,” but in cruel reality his ideals were frustrated again and again.
He joined the Kuomintang twice, hoping in a stable environment to do something to help the people and serve the country. But even his moderate ideas were not welcomed by the authorities, and his steps could not keep pace with the conservative and increasingly declining Kuomintang of the time.
When Japan’s invasion brought the nation into crisis, he too wanted to rise and resist, but the rulers who insisted that “internal pacification must precede resistance to foreign aggression” took away his weapons.
After the August 13 Incident, he left China’s eastern coast with his family and wandered all the way to the farthest southwestern frontier.
He resigned as principal and teacher, worked as a journalist, and rose as high as county magistrate. He wanted to practice “saving the nation through education” by reformist means, but met a Don Quixote-like tragic ending. He wanted to establish a new style of government within an increasingly dark and corrupt official world, but instead acted out the black comedy of “an honest official sent to prison.”
He persuaded the county defense force to defect and helped liberate Cheli, then served as head of civil affairs in a guerrilla unit. Yet he was treated as an outsider and eventually had to flee with his family into Burma.
In Burma, Ma Weizhong had relatively greater freedom. He eagerly studied materialism and Marxism-Leninism, picked up his pen, and fought against the old society and old forces.
He resolved to follow the “Chinese Communist Party.” He sent his eldest son back to the motherland to study. Later, he brought his wife and other children back as well, hoping to contribute his strength to New China.
Yet the Socialist Education Movement ultimately destroyed his wish to “serve the people.” He was suspected, criticized, struggled against, and isolated. In the end, he could only throw himself into the Xitiaoxi River by Lake Tai and go in search of his kindred spirit—Qu Yuan.
II
Ma Weizhong was born into an era of violent political change: the fall of the Qing dynasty, the founding of the Republic, warlord chaos, the May Fourth Movement, the Northern Expedition, the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, and more. This succession of upheavals and transformations deeply influenced his thinking.
He was born into a family combining a professional livelihood with the ownership of a small amount of land. His father was a traditional Chinese physician with two medicine shops. Their home region around Haiyan was fertile and prosperous. As he put it, “Even a beggar had a way to survive.” But under Kuomintang rule, heavy taxes and levies, together with large imports of foreign goods, bankrupted grain farmers and silk farmers. In 1934, a severe drought struck Jiangnan. Pressed by debts from every direction, his father became depressed, fell ill, and never recovered. His second younger brother also died soon after. From then on, the family declined.
Born in the spring of 1910, Ma Weizhong completed primary school in the Haiyan area and junior middle school in Jiaxing. Influenced by the Northern Expedition, he joined the Kuomintang at fifteen. But new ideas and new publications gradually led him to disagree with the party’s policies. During Chiang Kai-shek’s party purge in 1927, he was expelled.
The following year, he went to Hangzhou for senior middle school. His writing stood out among his classmates and won the appreciation of his Chinese teacher, Liu Zixing. Teacher Liu wanted him to join—or rejoin—the Kuomintang. Although already disillusioned, Ma filled out the form to avoid suspicion.
Even so, he was not enthusiastic about the party. The progressive ideas he had absorbed were “incompatible” with the Kuomintang. He was still a young man growing into adulthood, his thinking not yet fully formed and still unsettled.
III
At twenty-one, he entered National Jinan University in Shanghai, studied under Zheng Zhenduo, and specialized in education. He graduated near the top of his class in 1935 and was retained to teach in the senior division of the university’s affiliated middle school.
A newcomer to teaching and small in stature, he blushed and his heart raced during his first classes. Seeing female students not much younger than himself, he often stood at the lectern and forgot the lesson he had prepared. To overcome the embarrassment, he rose early every day and rehearsed his teaching in advance. Gradually he won the students’ trust and broke down the distance between teacher and pupil.
After the August 13 Incident of 1937, the Japanese occupied Shanghai and Jinan University moved its classes into the International Settlement. Ma Weizhong felt that living under the protection of imperialists was intolerable. So he went into rural Jiangxi to put his ideal of “saving the nation through education” into practice.
At the Wanjiafu Experimental District of the Jiangxi Rural Improvement Society near Nanchang, he served as director of general affairs and concurrently as academic director of the Jiangsu Rural Construction Personnel Training Institute. There was too much work and too few teachers. Whenever a course had no instructor, he taught it himself—teaching by day, grading papers at night.
Young, energetic, and concerned about his students’ lives, Ma won their affection, but for the same reason aroused the jealousy of the district leadership.
The experimental district possessed four hundred rifles and more than forty thousand rounds of ammunition. Ma used these weapons to mobilize the people and actively train an anti-Japanese guerrilla force in preparation for fighting the invaders. Unexpectedly, Xiong Shihui of the provincial security command used the pretext of expanding anti-Japanese forces to confiscate every rifle.
Unhappy in Nanchang and unable to fight Japan, Ma accepted an invitation from his classmate Yang Yusheng and went to teach in Baoshan County in western Yunnan, once again trying to realize his educational ideal.
While at university, Ma had visited Tao Xingzhi many times and became an informal disciple. In the summer of 1938, after reaching Baoshan, he taught while also working in the name of Baoshan Normal School with the local government to establish an educational experimental district in Beixiang outside the Little North Gate, modeled on Tao Xingzhi’s experience in rural education.
He put on straw sandals and led normal-school trainees out to teach. Teachers and students enthusiastically dug the earth, planted vegetables, cooked meals, and leveled the schoolyard, winning the welcome of local people. Within half a year, enrollment rose sharply and the program expanded to three schools with twelve classes. Farmers nearby asked them to help establish schools in their own areas. Ma negotiated with the Baoshan county magistrate and took over several primary schools near Beixiang. The local education chief was jealous and tried to obstruct them, but by then they had already put down roots among the people, and the work continued.
When Japan occupied Southeast Asia, overseas Chinese students fled back to China in large numbers. The National Government decided to establish an overseas Chinese middle school in Baoshan, and Ma took part in its preparation. In May 1940, National No. 1 Overseas Chinese Middle School in Baoshan was founded, with Ma concurrently serving in academic affairs. Before that, he had also helped the Burmese Chinese brothers Chen Xiaoqi and Chen Bianmin establish the Western Yunnan Overseas Chinese Industrial Reclamation Company and served as its public-relations director.
In March 1942, after the Japanese invaded western Yunnan, Ma left Baoshan and became academic director at Kunming Normal School while also teaching at Kunming Women’s Normal School and supervising student teaching at the affiliated primary school.
At night, he also edited education supplements for the Justice Daily, People’s Opinion Daily, and Sweep Away Daily, and worked part-time as an education-news reporter for the city.
IV
During this period, Ma came into contact with many democratic and progressive figures, including Wen Yiduo and Chu Tunan.
But he also misjudged the situation. He thought the Kuomintang was “old” and without hope, while the Three People’s Principles Youth Corps recruited young people who would surely become the future builders of the nation. He therefore joined the Youth Corps and was appointed secretary of the provisional executive committee of its Kunming Normal School branch preparatory office.
Yet he was an “outsider from another province,” and his thinking leaned somewhat to the left, so he received little attention or trust. For a time, Ma fell into uncertainty and disappointment.
In 1944, hoping for a chance to apply his social ideals on a larger scale, Ma took the qualifying examination for county magistrates on the recommendation of the Yunnan Provincial Department of Education. Although he ranked near the top, he had no patron. Only two years later was he finally sent to Cheli—today’s Jinghong County in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture—to serve as county magistrate.
Cheli was considered difficult to govern: vast, sparsely populated, and poor. Ma, however, saw it as an ideal place to practice his reformism and transform society.
After taking office, he introduced a series of reforms: building roads, opening schools, establishing a hospital, reducing taxes, and more. In personnel matters, he brought local tusi leaders into county government. Zhao Cunxin, who later became the first governor of Xishuangbanna Autonomous Prefecture, was appointed by Ma as a section chief. Ma ordered a ban on opium cultivation and drug use, registered all smokers in the county, and organized a defense force whose members did not use opium, to “balance” the existing police bureau, where the chief himself and practically everyone under him smoked.
These reforms naturally harmed the interests of the “vested-interest groups.” Under Kuomintang rule at the time, such measures could not be tolerated. Not long after taking office, Ma was denounced and persecuted.
At the end of 1947, the Yunnan provincial government sent an inspector to Cheli. As soon as he arrived, the inspector “demanded” seven liang of gold from Ma.
Ma replied: “I’m a poor county magistrate. Where would I get that much gold? I’ll call the township heads together. If they say there is gold, let them hand it directly to you.”
The inspector could do nothing openly, but seethed inside. After returning to the provincial capital, he fabricated accusations that Ma had been “ineffective in suppressing opium” and “ineffective in suppressing bandits,” and had him removed from office and placed under investigation.
The so-called “bandits” were poor people rebelling against the government. Ma did not favor “suppression.” He favored pacification and education. Naturally this displeased those in power.
After Ma left office, the new county magistrate also wanted to extract something from him. He demanded three thousand silver dollars. When Ma refused, the new magistrate searched his home on the charge that his accounts were “unclear.” After turning everything upside down, they found only one hundred silver dollars. Furious and humiliated, the new magistrate threw Ma into prison.
Ma’s family was forced into a small side room and forbidden to leave the county government compound freely.
Ma had thought that being an honest official would be enough. How could he have known that after serving less than two years as an honest magistrate, he would spend eight months in a dark prison?
V
Under Kuomintang rule, officials took bribes and broke the law, exploiting people layer by layer until villagers could bear no more and rose in rebellion.
Around 1948, people’s guerrilla forces sprang up everywhere. Because Ma sympathized with them, his superiors accused him of “ineffective bandit suppression,” removed him, and imprisoned him. From prison, he persuaded the commander of the county defense force to make contact with the Third Detachment of the Yunnan Border Self-Defense Army and secretly guide them across the Lancang River, locally called the Jiulong River. Cheli was peacefully liberated.
After the guerrillas took Cheli, Ma regained his freedom and became head of civil affairs in the detachment. A month later, a party representative arrived. The detachment commander, Lu Wencong, was put under investigation, and Ma was also thrown into prison and fitted with wooden shackles. Later the guerrillas withdrew—or perhaps corrected the error—and Ma spent only two months in the guerrilla prison.
That July, hearing that Beijing had been liberated, Ma planned to return home by way of Thailand. But when he reached Tachileik in Burma, Thailand was in the midst of an anti-Chinese campaign. He therefore had to remain in Tachileik and teach at the Chinese school there.
By May of the following year, with help from Yunnanese friends, Ma finally reached Rangoon. He and his family lived on the second floor of the Jiangsu-Zhejiang Native Place Association on Hundred-Foot Road, with shops below. New to Rangoon, knowing few people, and with a family of six and no work, Ma became depressed. One day after a couple of drinks, he went downstairs and somehow quarreled with a customer. Perhaps language differences caused the misunderstanding to escalate. Someone called the police, and Ma was taken to the station. His wife found Chen Xiaoqi, who learned what had happened and bailed him out. This was Ma’s third time in prison.
Although his life had been full of reversals, after those three imprisonments things finally began to change. On Xiaoqi Xian’s recommendation, he taught first at Wanhua Chinese-English School and later at Overseas Chinese Middle School.
Teaching was Ma Weizhong’s passion and the lifelong expression of his dream of “saving the nation through education.” In an overseas community desperately short of Chinese teachers, an educated intellectual like Ma was rare and valuable.
In the past, he had tried to put his ideals into practice through social reform and failed. Now, in a foreign land with relatively greater freedom, surrounded by democratic and progressive people who supported and trusted him, and by students who liked and respected him, Ma was like a fish returned to water. He opened himself fully and put his educational abilities to use. In his first years, he served as director of academic affairs and then director of instruction at Overseas Chinese Middle School. In 1955, he became chairman of the school affairs committee.
In 1951, through the introduction of Zhou Caishu, Chen Baiya, and others, he joined the China Democratic League.
During his seven years at Overseas Chinese Middle School, from July 1950 to June 1957, his achievements were striking. The highest institution of Burmese Chinese education grew from thatched buildings into Western-style school structures; enrollment rose from just over two hundred to more than a thousand. Truly, spring winds and transforming rain spread learning everywhere.
On the eve of China’s National Day in 1956, Ma prepared to return to China for a visit. While processing his re-entry documents, he was harassed by the immigration authorities and ordered expelled. After losing his legal challenge, he took his entire family back to China in May 1957. His departure was a serious loss to Burmese Chinese education. Principal Li Guohua, Xiao Weimei, and other colleagues wrote to him:
“Through your many years of assistance and planning, Overseas Chinese Middle School made great strides. In every respect it displayed a vigorous and flourishing spirit, advancing continuously and giving society an excellent impression. All this was of course the result of the joint effort of the entire faculty and student body, but your quiet hard work and exhausting devotion made the greatest contribution. This achievement was plain for all to see and widely spoken of.”
VI
Ma Weizhong had deep literary cultivation and strong writing ability. In Kunming, he had edited education supplements for three newspapers and periodicals. During his years in Rangoon, he was a contributing writer for New Rangoon Daily, Life Weekly, and China Daily, and an editor of a People’s Daily supplement.
He used pen names including Qin Yi, Zhechao, and Chuge, and wrote hundreds of pieces. But because his life was turbulent and repeatedly disrupted, many works were lost in Kunming and Huzhou. According to what his children later collected and organized, only a little over fifty pieces have been found.
His writings took many forms: essays on education, prose, miscellaneous essays, poetry, and classical verse. By subject, they can roughly be divided as follows.
Educational theory was his specialty. He wrote “The Constitution of the People’s Republic of China as an Encouragement to Burmese Chinese Cultural and Educational Workers,” “Looking Toward Science and Education on National Day,” “The May Fourth Movement and Education,” and “Educational Thought of the Practical School in the Qing Dynasty.” Drawing on teaching practice, he identified problems and wrote such pieces as “The ‘Three Goods’ Movement Among Teachers and Students at Overseas Chinese Middle School,” “What Should Be Noted in Punishment?,” “Punishment and the Democratic Spirit,” and “Causes and Prevention of Student Truancy.”
He also proposed teaching methods to help young teachers: “How to Be a Homeroom Teacher,” “How to Arouse Students’ Interest and Attention,” “How I Tutor Chinese,” “How Primary-School Chinese Should Be Taught,” and others.
For Burmese Chinese education, he offered many valuable suggestions, including “On Strengthening the Organization of the Burmese Chinese Teachers’ Federation,” “What Is the Central Problem of Burmese Chinese Central Schools?,” and “Work to Establish a Systematic Continuing-Education System for Burmese Chinese Teachers.”
These educational theories, teaching experiences, and methods were highly suitable, badly needed, and genuinely useful in a Burmese Chinese educational world short of trained teachers. They had lasting influence in carrying forward Chinese culture and educating the children of overseas Chinese.
From childhood he loved Sun Yat-sen, enjoyed Lu Xun’s work, revered the educator Tao Xingzhi, and admired the noble character of the poet Qu Yuan. He therefore wrote pieces including “Sun Yat-sen and the Chinese Communist Party,” “Sun Yat-sen’s ‘Land to the Tiller,’” “Our Beloved Fighter for Peace—Soong Ching-ling,” “The Development of Lu Xun’s Thought as Seen in ‘Forging the Swords’ and ‘Controlling the Flood,’” “The May Fourth Movement and Lu Xun,” “How Lu Xun Taught,” “People’s Educator Tao Xingzhi,” “Remembering Tao Xingzhi,” and “Remembering Wen Yiduo.”
Through these portraits and commentaries, Ma released his “hatred” of the old society and his “love” for the new one, while also revealing the transformation of his own worldview.
He also wrote travel notes and observations, including “A Thousand-Li Journey Through Southern Yunnan,” “Things Seen and Heard in Simao-Pu’er,” “Notes from the Northern Burma Frontier,” and “Kuomintang Remnant Bandits Entrenched in Northern Burma.” These pieces sharply exposed the corruption and darkness of Kuomintang rule and how corrupt officials ran rampant and squeezed the people. His writing struck directly at the point, frightening reactionaries. His literary friends therefore praised him as wielding “a giant brush that stirs wind and thunder.”
He wrote pieces praising Sino-Burmese cultural exchange as well, such as “Performance by the Burmese Ministry of Culture Troupe,” “Overseas Chinese Middle School Sports Meet,” and “Chinese Arts and Crafts Exhibition.” After performances of the play Qu Yuan, the Fujian opera The Refined Seal, and The Butterfly Lovers, he wrote impressions, notes, and behind-the-scenes pieces.
He also produced many studies of the history, politics, marriage customs, legends, and other aspects of ethnic minorities along China’s borders: “Historical Legends, Politics, Marriage System, and Wedding Customs of the Baiyi,” “Funerals of the Dai Le Brother People—Their Belief in the Confucius Temple,” “The Kawa Who Sacrifice Human Heads to the Grain,” “The Troops Left Behind by Zhuge Liang,” “Fragments of British Imperialist Activity Among the Kawa,” “Long Yun Sends Troops to Suppress Minority Peoples,” and others.
Not much of Ma’s poetry was published. I suppose he was too busy teaching and writing essays to spend much time composing verse. But from the memorial text he drafted on behalf of the teachers and students of Overseas Chinese Middle School—see the appendix—we can see his command of classical poetic language.
On June 6, 1951, the patriotic Burmese Chinese leader Zeng Shunxu was assassinated by reactionary forces. Ma wrote a memorial in parallel prose, a form that emphasizes antithesis, tonal harmony, and ornate diction. Few in Burmese Chinese society could write it. Parallel prose is difficult even to read, much less compose. His literary friends therefore praised him as “a brilliant brush acclaimed year after year in the southern land.” When he “returned to the motherland, returned to his homeland,” everyone found it hard to part with him and wrote many poems of farewell and remembrance.
After returning to China, Ma worked at Huzhou Normal School in Zhejiang. During the Socialist Education Movement, however, he came under suspicion and investigation. “Since no one understands me, why should I still cherish the old capital?” In June 1965, he followed the path of the ancient poet Qu Yuan, whom he had revered throughout his life. All who heard of it grieved.
Appendix
Memorial Address for Mr. Zeng Shunxu, Drafted on Behalf of the Teachers and Students of Overseas Chinese Middle School
On June 9, 1951, the fourth day after Mr. Zeng’s martyrdom, all teachers and students of the Burma Overseas Chinese Middle School respectfully offer clear wine and seasonal foods before the spirit of our chairman, Zeng Shunxu, and say:
Alas! Mr. Zeng: from youth you knew self-discipline and early showed uncommon talent. In mature years you devoted yourself to commerce, astonishing all with your foresight. You possessed the resourcefulness of Zhu Gong and the learning of the Wang family’s blue chest. Democracy filled your heart; though your footsteps were among marketplaces, you were never vulgar. Patriotism was your moral character; though your ambition lay in commerce, you loved benevolence. Thus, in promoting education you gave with sincerity, and the young all received the benefit of your virtue; in conducting business you upheld righteousness, and near and far all relied upon your connections. We expected your great undertakings to renew themselves day by day, opening sources of wealth overseas; in patriotism and democracy, you stood as a model for the Burmese Chinese. Yet because you always spoke boldly for justice, you incurred the hatred of bandit agents. On June 6, 1951, you were cruelly shot on your way home. The bullets struck vital places and you died gloriously. Your name shines in the history of the overseas Chinese, your righteousness weighs heavily in the human world.
Alas! Who has no wife and children? Who has no sons and daughters? A frail wife weeps through the night; who will care for the orphaned children? The murderer remains uncaught, sorrow and grievance cannot be redressed. How can this not be grief? How can this not be pain?
Our Mr. Zeng was a hero of the Burmese Chinese. A martyr in aspiration, he rendered service in a foreign land. Struck down by treachery, he gave his life in loyalty to the nation. You rescued people lost on the road and helped overseas Chinese education flourish. In death you fulfilled righteousness; in life you rendered service. Your honored name spreads through the universe; history will preserve your fragrance without end. A patriotic overseas Chinese leader possessing such a martyr’s spirit proves that democracy must triumph. The Chiang clique’s secret agents, using such gangster methods, prove only that their tricks are exhausted.
Now all teachers and students of the Burma Overseas Chinese Middle School remember your loyalty and righteousness and honor the example you set. As the time of burial approaches, we respectfully offer sacrifice to your loyal spirit. We swear to fulfill your great aspiration, so that beneath the springs you may rest in peace. Your heroic spirit is not far away; you will surely hear the news with which we come to comfort you. May your soul return to your ancestral homeland and receive the rites of the motherland. Though your loyal remains stay in a foreign land, a gravestone shall be raised before your grave, so overseas Chinese may come to pay respects and never forget your virtue. Today all teachers and students bow together, offering these modest rites to express our sincere reverence. Heroic spirit before us, come and receive our offering. Alas! Grief! We respectfully present this sacrifice.
All teachers and students of the Burma Rangoon Overseas Chinese Middle School, respectfully offering sacrifice together.
Originally published in Burma’s New Rangoon Daily, June 13, 1951.
Note: Mr. Zeng Shunxu, a leader of the overseas Chinese in Burma, had always been enthusiastic about public affairs. He served as chairman of the Burma Xing-Shang General Association, vice chairman of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, and chairman of Zhongzheng Middle School. In early 1950, he was elected chairman of the board of Rangoon Overseas Chinese Middle School. At the beginning of New China, he strongly advocated the adoption of the new democratic, revolutionary textbooks published in China and the abandonment of old editions. At that time, struggle between new and old forces in Burmese Chinese society was intense. The dispute over textbooks split Zhongzheng Middle School in two; two-thirds of the students voluntarily chose the new textbooks and held classes separately. Mr. Zeng stood at the front of that struggle and was therefore murdered by agents of the Chiang clique. The teachers and students of Overseas Chinese Middle School, tears in their eyes, joined patriotic Burmese Chinese in holding a solemn funeral for the martyr Zeng Shunxu. This was the memorial address read at the ceremony.
The memorial’s language is compressed and sparing. The opening section, beginning “from youth you knew self-discipline,” uses barely a hundred Chinese characters to present Mr. Zeng’s character, philosophy of conduct, and political position. The middle section, “Who has no wife and children,” in thirty-two characters fully reveals the family’s grief. Then the eighty-seven-character section beginning “Our Mr. Zeng” sends the indignation of the overseas Chinese surging onto the page. Through concentrated language, the memorial expresses the feelings of those offering sacrifice. The reader’s voice and emotion could shake the soul; listeners were brokenhearted and wept freely.
This memorial was drafted by Ma Weizhong, then director of academic affairs at Rangoon Overseas Chinese Middle School, and appeared in New Rangoon Daily on June 13, 1951. The newspaper clipping has been lost, and only a photocopy of the manuscript survives. The title was added by Baopuzi. For ease of reading, uncommon and difficult expressions in the original were annotated:
1. Maqian: to conduct business.
2. Zhu Gong: Fan Li of the state of Yue, famous for commerce and known as Tao Zhu Gong.
3. “Blue chest”: according to the History of the Southern Dynasties, Wang Biaozhi was widely learned and stored his writings in a blue chest; later generations used “the Wang family’s blue chest” to mean profound learning.
4. Shichan: marketplace.
Parallel prose requires balanced and antithetical phrases, with attention to harmony of sound and ornate diction. It flourished during the Six Dynasties and declined in the Tang. Because its form could become restrictive and lead to empty ornament, later generations often criticized it. Fine examples were therefore rare in modern times and even rarer in Burmese Chinese society. This memorial uses parallel prose with four-four, four-six, four-seven, and five-seven paired phrases, varying the patterns so that the language does not become monotonous. Most remarkable is that a thirty-four-character long couplet is embedded so naturally that it is difficult to detect. These forms create movement and variation while maintaining regular rhythm and a harmony suited to recitation.
In content, the memorial begins by praising the martyr’s character, then moves to the crimes of the agents and the hatred of the overseas Chinese. After grief and anger comes the pledge to “fulfill his great aspiration and honor the example he set”—that is, the young teachers and students resolve to turn grief into strength and one day bring news of victory before his spirit. The memorial skillfully joins thought and art. In a little over five hundred Chinese characters, it combines ancient parallel prose with living reality. It can serve both as an example of patriotism and as local material for the study of Chinese in Burma.