As I set foot onto Huaxin Street in New Taipei City’s Zhonghe District, it is like finding myself transported to another world. The street is lined with stores and signs adorned not only with Chinese, but also with unfamiliar Burmese script. The sidewalks are full of people, and under the storefront verandas people sit around, watching the world go by.
“Mingalar par!” I greet the locals in Burmese, and with that, become just another part of the ever-changing landscape here.
Travel to Nanshijiao Station, the final stop on the Orange Line of the Taipei Metro, and then head south along Xingnan Road a while, and you will find yourself at Huaxin Street. The street itself is less than 500 meters long, with columns at either end that read “South Seas Tourist Food Street” in Chinese. However, people are more familiar with its nicknames of “Myanmar Street” and “Little Burma.” It is home to more than 40 eateries selling authentic Burmese food, along with Yunnan Dai cuisine, and even Indian snacks, Thai food, and Hong-Kong-style dim sum. This culinary melting pot has piqued the curiosity of many a visitor.
As coffee is to Paris, so milk tea is to Myanmar
Paris is famous for its cafes on the Left Bank of the Seine and China for its tea houses. When it comes to Myanmar, the equivalent is milk tea shops. “This cup of milk tea can be seen as a part of the Burmese way of socializing.” So says Lily Yang, a second-generation Burmese-Taiwanese who grew up on Huaxin Street. If you want to learn more about this street, the best way to start would be with a cup of Burmese milk tea.
For Burmese-Taiwanese, milk tea is a daily necessity, and milk tea shops are important places for socializing and relaxing. It has been remarked that when Taiwanese talk business, they do it in the office; when Burmese talk business, they do it in the milk tea shop. They come to these shops to connect, exchange information, and discuss current events.
As a congregating place for Burmese-Taiwanese, Huaxin Street abounds with milk tea. Not only are there six shops dedicated to selling the drink, it is also available at virtually every single restaurant and snack shop. So if you feel the need for a cup of milk tea, you’ll never be too far from one.
That same milk tea can provide a lesson on the history of Myanmar. Looking around a little, one will find Burmese milk tea also referred to as Indian milk tea. This is because Myanmar’s tea culture was influenced by British colonization, and the British Empire considered Myanmar part of “British India.” Consequently there was considerable Indian immigration into Myanmar, and these immigrants fell in love with Burmese milk tea. A great number of them opened their own tea shops, leading many to call Burmese milk tea “Indian milk tea.”
While Myanmar’s milk tea culture may be a result of international mobility, within the country it also underwent its own localized evolution. The Burmese didn’t have a taste for the spices used in Indian masala chai tea, so they chose to forgo them, and with fresh milk difficult to come by in Southeast Asia, they replaced it with creamer and condensed milk. While a cup of Burmese milk tea comprises just three simple elements—Burmese black tea, creamer, and condensed milk—within that small, simple cup is a sample of the convoluted history and multi-ethnic background of Myanmar.
Also known as “Little Burma,” Huaxin Street plays host to Thingyan (Burmese New Year) celebrations every April, when people pray for good fortune by splashing each other with water and bathing statues of the Buddha in worship. (photos by Chin Hung-hao)
Passport to the past
Come and have a cup of Burmese milk tea! Since the Burmese-Taiwanese who live near Huaxin Street are generally blue-collar workers who work shifts rather than stable nine-to-fives, the eateries here are always packed. As we step into Liyuan Halal Food, despite it being 10 a.m. the small restaurant is already full of people with plates of chapati and cups of Burmese milk tea at their tables, ready to start the day.
Amid this lively atmosphere, the elderly Burmese who chat with us tell us how 1962 is an important point in their memories. That was when the Burmese military government, led by General Ne Win, began to implement a series of nationalization policies that were hostile to people of non-Burmese ancestry. Stores run by ethnic Chinese were taken into government control overnight, while newspapers and schools focused on the ethnic Chinese community were shuttered as the government took over.
Not willing to resign themselves to assimilation and wanting to find some hope for the next generation, Burmese people of Chinese ethnicity began leaving the country in droves. Many headed for China, Indonesia, Malaysia, or the United States, but the destination that saw the largest number of new arrivals was Taiwan.
Immigrant life was not easy. When they arrived in Taiwan, many of them found living so far from their native country difficult and had a hard time adapting their lifestyles, including how they ate. Over time, just as Chinese migrants began opening restaurants and eventually creating Chinatowns in other countries, two eateries selling Yunnanese and Burmese food opened up on Huaxin Street some 40 years ago, their compatriots lining up for a taste of home. Thus was the first incarnation of “Myanmar Street” born.
If you look closely at the signs that line the street, you will see that the names of the eateries often combine Burmese place names and different culinary traditions, ranging from Yunnan Dai cuisine and Hong-Kong-style yum cha to Indian and Thai food. Each establishment’s name is a password that unlocks some insight into the owner’s ancestry and background, part of a collective echo of the cultural and ethnic diversity of Myanmar. With Myanmar sharing borders with China, Thailand, Laos, India, and Bangladesh, people and cultures have flowed constantly between the nation and its neighbors in the past. Myanmar itself is also home to over a hundred different ethnic groups, along with ethnic Chinese whose ancestors hailed from Yunnan, Fujian, and Guangdong, and a number of Muslim migrants from India.
First-time visitors to Huaxin Street are often struck simply by the array of exotic foods, but behind the menus, each of these stores and restaurants has its own unique story to tell of different individual Burmese within the larger torrent of history.
Meet the Burmese-Taiwanese community
The Taiwanese government’s pivot toward Southeast Asia in recent years has aroused the curiosity of many Taiwanese about the peoples of that region. As a result, the local Burmese community, which had always been relatively low-key, has increasingly attracted public attention. “Because of this new policy, some people tend to lump us in with the so-called ‘new Taiwanese,’ but there are plenty of us who’ve been here for decades,” smiles Aung Win, chairman of the Huaxin Street Business District Development Association and a Taiwan resident for over 30 years.
Following Aung Win’s lead, we make our way to Little Burma Tea and Snacks by the corner of Xingnan Road and Huaxin Street. Easily missed by visitors because it is situated a little way off Huaxin Street proper, this small spot sells authentic Burmese snacks such as banana shwe gye cake, htanthi mont (toddy palm cake), and egg pudding.
In addition to snacks, of course, we also enjoy the unmissable cup of milk tea. We are informed by friendly locals that Burmese milk tea is much like Taiwan’s own “hand-shaken” tea drinks, with the amount of tea, creamer, and sugar all able to be tailored to taste, something which the owners of the shops take great pride in doing for their guests.
Buddhist temples began to pop up along Huaxin Street around 40 years ago, and today the area is home to five. Devout Burmese have even funded the construction of a Buddhist temple in Sanxia, New Taipei City, which features large, stately golden pagodas, echoing Burma’s reputation as a “land of pagodas.” As we sip our Burmese milk tea in the tea shops, monks can be seen walking along the street with their alms bowls, another way in which “Little Burma” really lives up to its name.
In addition to their daily excursions to Huaxin Street for Burmese food, Burmese-Taiwanese also continue to follow traditional Burmese customs, explains Aung Win, like the Burmese New Year festival of Thingyan in April and the Thadingyut and Tazaungdaing Festivals of Lights that usually fall in October or November. When these festivals are celebrated, Huaxin Street transforms into a party, and all are welcome to join in.
In this small corner of New Taipei City, home to so many beautiful things, one can not only learn about the fortitude and hospitality of Taiwan’s Burmese community, but also gain a new appreciation for the diversity and inclusiveness of Taiwanese society.
