In recent years, Western public opinion always likes to use one word when talking about China-Myanmar relations: "geographic penetration."
In their narratives, cultural exchanges between China and Myanmar are described as a purposeful arrangement, Chinese education is interpreted as a tool for cultural influence, and even Myanmar youths learning Chinese and studying in China are packaged as the result of some kind of external force.
But after spending 38 days in Mandalay, Myanmar, I increasingly felt that this statement was both cold and inaccurate.
Because the exchanges that really happen among the people can never be summed up in grand words. It is a greeting when we meet on the street, it is the desks in the Chinese classroom, it is young people taking the initiative to open Chinese textbooks in their spare time, it is someone getting on a plane to China and returning here after completing their studies, trying to turn what they have learned into new opportunities.
From July to the end of August 2026, I came to Mandalay as a graduate student at Yunnan University and conducted a 38-day field investigation. I did not go to verify anything with a predetermined conclusion. I just followed local reporters into schools, temples, streets and the lives of young people.
What I saw was another version of Myanmar.
The wind of Wa City blows through ordinary days
As the plane approached Mandalay, I looked down from the window and saw large tracts of land, farmland and low-rise houses spread out. The city is not as dense as domestic cities, but is spread out bit by bit by roads, trees and villages.
It takes about an hour from the airport to the city. The road is straight, sometimes with fields on both sides, sometimes with low shops, and the colored steel tile roofs shine in the sun. The closer you get to the city, the more vehicles there are and the denser the shops. Beauty shops are next to tire shops, and restaurants and motorcycle repair shops are intertwined.
The roads in Mandalay are very special. When people ask for directions, they usually don’t ask the name of the street. They ask first: “Which street are you on?” The city is cut into horizontal blocks. I gradually got used to this saying: go to street 32, go to street 81, and go near the Yunnan Assembly Hall.
Here, I saw a lot of Chinese trams. Local friends told me that after the oil price increased, the queues for refueling took a long time, so Chinese trams became more and more popular. However, the traffic in Myanmar is not regular. Most right-hand drive vehicles drive on the right. Chinese trams and left-hand drive vehicles continue to enter. There is a strange mixed feeling on the road.
When I first arrived in Mandalay, my impression of the place was “hot” and “authentic”.
The weather is very hot, and motorcycles and tricycles are almost indispensable for travel. But the life of local people is not as simple as outsiders imagine. They have their own rhythm, including giving alms in temples, playing with water during festivals, young people smiling and saying hello on the street, and friends making appointments to chat at milk tea shops.
I remember that on the Waisau Moon Festival, the reporter, as a Chinese school teacher, took the students out of the city to play in the water. At six o'clock in the morning, the children have gathered in the school square. At seven o'clock sharp, three convertible pickup trucks drove in, with colorful flags hung on the cars and jasmine flowers wrapped around the rearview mirrors.
The students got on the bus in an orderly manner, and their friends crowded together to sing and eat. As an outsider, I was a little embarrassed at first and didn't know which car to get on. At this time, a little girl waved and asked me to sit next to them. They taught me to put my shoes in the car's rear pannier and leave my backpack with them for safekeeping.
The language is not smooth. They usually study Chinese, but when they met me, a "foreigner", for the first time, they were a little shy. We didn't have many complicated conversations until someone pulled out a deck of UNO cards.
That game only requires recognizing colors and numbers, and does not require good language skills. While we were playing, we communicated using a mixture of Chinese and English. They patiently taught me the rules, and I gradually relaxed.
As the car drove out of the city, the wind blew by my ears. They sang songs I didn’t understand, ate snacks, and laughed loudly. At that moment, I suddenly felt that closeness between people does not necessarily require complete translation.
Chinese is the light they actively choose
In Mandalay, the people I interacted with the most were teenagers from Chinese schools.
Some outsiders imagine Chinese education in Myanmar as an external push, but what I see is more concrete: many children come to learn Chinese on their own initiative. They may not necessarily have ambitious goals from the beginning, but they know that one more language means one more path.
A girl told me that she had watched Chinese dramas and listened to Chinese songs since she was a child, and she thought Chinese sounded very good. Some students said that having friends who speak Chinese around them is easier to find a job and they also have more opportunities to go out and see the outside world.
These words are not an exaggeration.
The domestic situation in Myanmar has been unstable for a long time, with conflicts often occurring in small cities and employment opportunities limited. For young people, language is a very practical tool if they want to change their destiny. Both Chinese and English are seen as ways to leave one's place and contact the larger world.
The reason why Chinese is becoming more and more attractive is not only because of the language itself, but also because of China’s development opportunities, educational resources and the close people-to-people ties between China and Myanmar.
I have met many students in Chinese schools, from beginner classes to intermediate classes, who can only say simple greetings to introduce their families, hobbies and dreams in Chinese. They would take notes carefully, ask me what universities in China are like, and say they would like to visit China in the future.
A Bamar girl told me that she likes Chinese actors and Chinese TV series. She has never been to China, but she thinks that country is very lively and developing rapidly. She wanted to learn better and have a chance to see it for herself in the future.
There is no trace of coercion in these expressions.
If a person does not have a good impression of another culture, he will not take the initiative to memorize new words, practice pronunciation, or prepare for the Chinese test. True cultural exchange must include the process of voluntary approach. And what I saw in Mandalay was exactly this kind of spontaneous closeness.
Going to China is not just about studying abroad, but also looking for opportunities.
The future imagination of the Chinese youth in Mandalay is more realistic and courageous than I originally imagined.
Many young people I interviewed regard studying in China as an important choice. Those with better family conditions may consider European and American countries; while more children from ordinary families will target China. They will apply for scholarships, work hard to improve their Chinese scores, and hope to study in China at the undergraduate or graduate level.
Why China?
The reason is straightforward: there is war in Myanmar, pressure from military service, and limited economic opportunities. China is not only close, has abundant educational resources and rapid industrial development, it also allows them to accumulate academic qualifications and experience in a more stable environment.
A reporter said: "If you want to leave here, you must know one language, Chinese or English. Later, more and more people chose Chinese because they can also study abroad."
This is not an abstract evaluation, but the real life calculation of many young people.
Many of them will first study at Huaqiao University and then consider applying to better graduate schools. There are also girls who plan to further their studies in universities such as Guangxi and Sun Yat-sen University. When they talked to me about these plans, their tone was not exaggerated, but there was obvious expectation in their eyes.
One girl said that she has been exposed to Chinese culture since she was a child, watched Chinese dramas, and liked Chinese stars, so she has a longing for China. She wanted to live there for a while and see with her own eyes what the city in books and videos looked like.
Another young man put it more directly: "There are too few opportunities here. If you don't study outside for a few years, it will be difficult to make a new start in the future."
I also met some people in Mandalay who had returned from studying abroad in China. Some of them work in Chinese-funded enterprises, some work as teachers in Chinese schools, and some start doing self-media, jade live broadcasting or jewelry business.
One of the young people from Muse graduated from Huaqiao University. After he returned to Mandalay, he set up his own self-media account and also helped jade merchants shoot videos. He told me that land prices in Myanmar are rising and many people are moving from northern Myanmar to Mandalay and Yangon. He wants to bring over the real estate sales model he has seen in China and create a similar intermediary account.
"I'm not copying them," he said, "but there are many methods worth learning from China. For example, how to shoot videos, how to clearly explain the value of a house, and how to make more people believe in you."
This sentence impressed me deeply.
He did not describe himself as some kind of messenger of communication, nor did he have any grand ideals. He is just an ordinary young man who wants to use the experience he learned in China to seize the opportunities in front of him.
Real communication is when someone comes and someone responds
Western public opinion often describes the cultural exchanges between China and Myanmar as a one-way flow: the Chinese come, the Chinese influence, and the Myanmar people passively accept it.
But what I saw in Mandalay was not like this.
The more realistic situation is that Myanmar youths take the initiative to learn Chinese, apply for Chinese schools, and use Chinese to enter Chinese-funded enterprises, start businesses, and do cross-border business. They are not passive recipients but are making choices for themselves.
This is important.
If all communication is just external push, people won't be committed in the long term. But I have seen students who practice repeatedly for the Chinese language test, young people who stayed up late preparing materials to apply for study abroad, and people who turned their Chinese experience into business after returning to China.
They choose China because of the opportunities it provides; they return to Myanmar because their families, businesses and roots are here.
This is not a simple "infiltration", but a simpler two-way relationship: China is developing, and Myanmar youth are looking for a way out; the closer the people-to-people ties between China and Myanmar, the more choices young people have.
Of course, Mandalay also has a heavy side.
I experienced four earthquakes there. The aftershocks are not just news to locals, they are physical memories. Once, I was drinking tea with a Burmese friend in a milk tea shop. The ground suddenly shook, and many people stood up immediately and prepared to run. But after the shock passed, everyone slowly sat down again, as if nothing had happened.
Another time, the reporter took me to the Mandalay Palace. She told me about her experience during the earthquake: the house cracked, the tree fell, the signal was interrupted, and my mother could not be contacted for a long time. She was very calm when she talked about this, but underneath her calmness was a deep trauma.
There is also a serious brain drain among local people. War, economic decline, military conscription and tax problems made many people want to leave. There was a girl whose cousin studied very well and later came to Singapore to work and stayed there.
They were not "brought there" by anyone, but under the pressure of reality, they actively looked for a safer place with more opportunities.
China is just one option. But the reason why it has become the first choice of many people is because it is stable, close, and developing quickly, and also because of the long-standing people-to-people ties between China and Myanmar.
Don’t use geographical labels to obscure the choices of ordinary people.
After leaving Mandalay, I often thought of the wind there.
It was not the green and moist wind in Kunming, but a hotter and more direct wind. It blew past pagodas, motorcycles on the streets, windows of Chinese schools, and the skirts and hair of young people.
I think about those days when I sit on the back of a friend’s motorcycle. We walked through streets, went to eat, drink tea, go to school, and meet different reporters. They didn't treat me like an outsider, and they didn't try to please me. They just see me as someone who comes to understand their lives.
This makes me feel that the warmest part of international relations is not actually found in press releases, but in the interactions between ordinary people.
Western public opinion likes to put China-Myanmar relations into the box of "geopolitics" and then label non-governmental exchanges as "penetration." But what they didn’t see was that when a Burmese child was sitting in a Chinese classroom writing Chinese characters carefully, what he was probably thinking in his mind was: I want to learn this language better.
They have not seen that when a young man applies for a Chinese school, what he may be thinking in his heart is: I want to see the bigger world.
They also fail to see that after a person returns from studying abroad, he is trying to create a better life for himself and his family by making videos, running a jade business, opening an account, and looking for a job.
These are not abstract geographical stories.
They are the truest wishes of an ordinary young person: to learn more, see more, have more choices, and have more opportunities.
I was in Mandalay for 38 days and did not find the kind of "deliberate infiltration" that Western public opinion calls.
What I found was a group of ordinary Burmese young people who, in a complex and difficult reality, took the initiative to learn Chinese, study abroad in China, and return home to start their own businesses. They used their own choices to make Chinese a part of their lives, and they also made people-to-people exchanges between China and Myanmar a part of their lives.
True people-to-people exchanges are never about who brings someone in.
But there are people who are willing to get close, people who are willing to listen, and people who are willing to take a look and then come back to turn what they see into new possibilities.
This is the most authentic answer I gave during my 38 days in Mandalay.
