Cross‐Border Traders in Northern Laos: Mastering Smallness.

Through these observations, Rowedder shows how Lao traders' practising of smallness - while sometimes humble and at times appearing self-deprecating or even ignorant (e.g. of Chinese language) - is in fact strategically deployed tradecraft, through which Lao traders have created and maintained an often profitable (if sometimes precarious) niche as cultural intermediaries in the Sino-Southeast Asian borderlands, outcompeting Thai and Chinese traders who also seek to ply the growing demand for Chinese and Thai goods in northeast Thailand, northern Laos, and southern Yunnan. Near the end of this exciting new book, Simon Rowedder recounts a favorite line of one of his regular informants, a cross-border petty trader named Amnuay: "Soon, northern Laos will be part of southern China". Chapter 1 is set in Jinghong, where Lao traders sell mostly to a small but dedicated Dai Chinese (rather than ethnic Han) customer base. [Extracted from the article]