Colonial subjects caught up supporting colonialism have often been seen as either engaging in an encounter of ambivalence or seen as traitors in post-independence nationalist historiography. Rather than following this established binary of possible subject positions, this article considers the unique biography of a filmmaker known in Indonesia as Dr Huyung. Prior work on Dr Huyung has either considered the pre and post 1945 stages of his life in isolation thus making incomplete assessments of his life and contributions. By bringing these two periods into conversation, a complete biography enables a more complex idea of colonial subjectivity to emerge. Huyung's life provides an alternative history of colonialism and an entry point in which to interrogate the limits and opportunities available in Asia of the 1930s to 1950s.

This article traces the life of Dr Huyung from his birth in Korea as Hoe Yong, his life under Japanese occupation when he became Hinatsu Eitaro and moved to Japan to study film, to Indonesia as a Japanese propaganda officer, and finally to a new identity as Dr Huyung in independent Indonesia. As a trans-national subject operating across multiple subject positions – including colonial subject, colonial agent, and supporter of independence – this article challenges how subjectivity is thought about under colonialism and the historiography of national cinema in Indonesia, and contributes to understand his role in helping define and shape arts and culture in post-colonial Indonesia.

Since the opening of the Sino-Burmese border trade in 1988, the movement of goods and people from both sides has increased rapidly. In 2011, China became Burma's largest trading partner and over half the total volume of goods was accrued in cross-border trade via Yunnan. However, national figures on import-export volumes are derived solely from legal flows, while contraband is largely overlooked. To date, academic studies on contraband have remained insufficient, partly due to the difficulty accessing Burmese border areas, and partly due to the mere challenges in obtaining information about smuggling from those who engage in such activity. This paper, based on multiple fieldwork sites over several years, examines a particular contraband – the smuggling of Chinese motorcycles to Burma on the ‘new’ Burma Road. This shadow economy thrived between 2000 and 2014. While highlighting its economic rationality beyond state control, I attempt to make diachronic and synchronic comparisons by engaging with dialogues within the historical trading mechanism of the mule convoys in the region and also with theories of shadow economies generated from contemporary case studies in other parts of the world. I argue that the formation of this shadow economy is not haphazard but adheres to the ethos of the mule caravan trade, predicated on local knowledge and social networks.

This paper investigates the new and hitherto unstudied boom in cross-border Burmese amber (Burmite) trade between Myanmar and Tengchong, Yunnan province. Based on interviews with amber dealers and local officials, it describes how since 2012–13 the amber trade has become increasingly lucrative for Chinese and Myanmar traders, and has attracted a large number of people to Tengchong, which, within Yunnan, virtually monopolises the trade. After a brief historical introduction, the paper analyses the conditions that, in both countries, have made the Burmite trade boom possible. It further describes the current composition of the amber market in both Myanmar and China, before analysing recent attempts to monitor and regulate the amber trade through the institution of the Tengchong Amber Association by the city's main amber traders in collaboration with local authorities.

Although biographical and life history approaches are potentially important tools for historical geographers, biographical methodologies have rarely been used to specifically investigate borderland dynamics. In this article, I argue that biography can be useful for understanding the ways in which borders have been recognised and negotiated historically. As a case study, I examine the life of Chao Sone Bouttarobol, a member of the Champassak Royal House, who was born in 1895 and died in 1979. As his life story illustrates, the emergence of new national borders had a significant impact on Sone, although family ties and relationships allowed him to cross the national administrative borders that now exist between Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, often with relative ease. Studying one individual makes it possible to explore the ways in which he interacted and negotiated with borders that cut across the Champassak Royal House's traditional space of influence.