Nationalist Chinese Soldiers Cemetery Cemetery

After the Nationalist Kuomintang army lost the struggle for China to the Communists in 1949, its soldiers fled across borders in every direction to escape certain death. Many Yunnanese Nationalists crossed into Laos, others into Burma only to be evicted years later, with a number pushing on into northern Thailand across the Mekong, where they settled, took partners and began new lives. Ethnic Chinese villages still dot the hills along the river among the hill-tribe settlements, the largest being Mae Salong.

A little-known point of pilgrimage for Chinese heritage lies in Chiang Khong’s Nationalist Chinese Soldiers Cemetery, where around 200 hillside graves each face north into China, their occupants fading into history with honour. The cemetery has not been well tended in recent years and the gates are often locked; add its inconvenient location on a steep hill just outside town, and a visit hardly seems worth it unless you have a particular interest in the Kuomintang in Thailand. The soldiers’ third-generation descendants have adapted well to northern Thai life, and many of the young in particular have been assimilated into Thai culture, though the older generation have worked to keep a Chinese cultural identity alive.