Myitkyina

The town's Jinghpaw and Burmese names both refer to its position on the great river: Myitkyina stands on the west bank of the Ayeyarwady a little below Myitsone, the confluence of the Mali and N'Mai rivers where the Ayeyarwady is traditionally held to begin. For centuries this was a river and caravan crossing on the routes between upper Burma, the Kachin hills and Yunnan, with jade and amber coming down from the mines to the west.

Britain annexed Upper Burma in 1885 and campaigned into the Kachin hills over the following years, governing them separately from Burma proper as Frontier Areas. The railway from Mandalay was pushed north to Myitkyina under British rule, making it the country's northernmost railway terminus, and the town became the administrative and trading centre of the far north, a garrison and mission station at the end of the line. American Baptist missionaries, at work here from the late nineteenth century, converted much of the Kachin population and gave Jinghpaw a written form in the Latin alphabet.

In the Second World War the town's airfield and railhead made it a prize on the supply route to China. Japanese forces took it in 1942, and Allied and Chinese troops retook it in 1944 after a siege lasting several months, which destroyed much of the town; the Ledo Road from India was pushed through to link up with the route east soon afterwards. Kachin leaders signed the Panglong Agreement with Aung San in 1947, but the Kachin Independence Army took up arms in 1961, and the town has lived with the consequences of that long conflict ever since.

Myitkyina is the cultural capital of the Kachin, a group of related peoples that includes the Jinghpaw, Lisu, Rawang, Lhaovo, Lachik and Zaiwa, each with its own language and dress. Most are Christian, largely Baptist and Catholic, and church life shapes the week: choirs, youth groups and church-run schools and clinics are central institutions, and Christmas and Easter are the biggest family occasions of the year.

The town's great public event is the Manau, a mass dance held around tall painted poles in January, near Kachin State Day, in which lines of dancers in red and black woven dress follow leaders in hornbill-feather headdresses. Kachin women's woven skirts, silver ornaments and the dance's drums and gongs are the images most associated with the state. Older animist practice survives behind much of the ceremony, and traditional law and clan obligation still matter in village life.

The town is not only Kachin. Bamar, Shan, Chinese and Nepali-descended families have lived here for generations, Buddhist pagodas stand along the river, and Burmese is the shared language of business and administration alongside Jinghpaw. Identity here is bound up with a long struggle over the place of the Kachin within the state, and local churches, language and organisations are part of daily loyalty. Visitors are expected to be discreet: politics is not discussed openly with strangers.

About 150,000 people live in Myitkyina, which makes it the largest town in the far north. It is an administrative centre, with government offices, a university, hospitals and the headquarters of church denominations, and a trading town, where goods from China and central Myanmar are broken up for the surrounding hills. Jade and amber from the mines to the west, gold, timber and farm produce all pass through, and much of that trade runs across the Chinese border.

Daily life is lived early: markets open before dawn, teashops fill soon after, and offices and schools start early and finish in the afternoon heat. Most housing is single-storey, in compounds around the centre and along the roads out of town, and motorcycles are the way most people move. The surrounding countryside grows rice, maize and vegetables, and fish come from the river.

Since 2021 the rhythm has been shaped by war in the countryside. Large numbers of displaced people from the surrounding townships shelter in camps run by churches and aid groups, electricity, mobile signal and internet are cut for long periods, and prices of fuel and food have risen sharply. Kachin State also carries one of the country's heaviest burdens of heroin and methamphetamine use, and church-led campaigns against drugs have been a prominent part of public life for years. Many young people have left for Yangon, China, Thailand or further afield.

Kachin cooking is one of the most distinctive in Myanmar and is best known in Myitkyina's restaurants. It is built on cold-climate and forest ingredients: rice, potatoes, bamboo shoots, foraged herbs and greens, river fish and game. Shat jam, boiled rice mixed with beans, vegetables, mushrooms and fried onion, is the everyday staple and is often served on a banana leaf. Japhtu, a pounded relish of chilli, garlic and herbs, goes beside almost everything, and salted or fermented bamboo shoots give many dishes their sour edge.

Meat and fish are usually grilled, or steamed in banana leaf or inside a length of green bamboo with herbs and a little rice — a method used for chicken, pork and river fish alike. Kachin food uses less oil than Bamar cooking and more fresh herb and chilli, and a meal is typically a spread of small dishes shared around rice rather than a single curry.

The town's other kitchens reflect its mixed population. Bamar curries, mohinga noodle soup and laphet thoke tea-leaf salad are everywhere, Shan khauk swe rice noodles are a common lunch, and Chinese-style stir-fries and noodle shops reflect the trade with Yunnan. Teashops open before dawn for sweet milk tea, fried dough sticks and steamed buns, and remain the place where news is exchanged. Home-brewed rice liquor and rice beer are part of village celebration, and the market sells dried fish, pickles and hill fruit in season.