Taiwan's 'Little Burma'

choi

David Prentice, Taiwan's 'Little Burma;' Huaxin Street in Taipei is home to many of Taiwan’s 40,000 Burmese immigrants. The Diplomat, Mar 18, 2019.
http://thediplomat.com/2017/03/taiwans-little-burma/

My comment:
(a) I have doubts. Taiwan was once poorer than Burma?  To hear DPP tells it, Taiwan had the second highest living standard (after Japan) while a Japanese colony. (I have doubt about that, too. Many people in US said that honor belonged to the Philippines, which was an American possession.

(b)
(i) "A short five-minute walk from the Taipei metro terminal station of Nanshijiao [南勢角站] lies Huaxin Street [華新街]. It is here, nestled away in the concrete jungle that makes up Zhonghe District [新北市 中和區]"
(ii) Regarding 南勢角.
(A) 台灣各地名由來、地理知識. Tsung's Blog, July 24, 2015
https://blog.longwin.com.tw/2015 ... ledge-history-2015/
("Q：雲林土庫鎮、東勢鄉[:]  * * *「勢」是台語，指一個大區域的某方位的角落的意思。「東勢」就東邊的角落。「勢」這個字眼作為地名，在台灣很普遍，像台中有東勢鎮，屏東竹田鄉有西勢村，台中沙鹿有北勢里（標哥你好），台北中和有南勢角")

Indeed, 南勢角 is the southern part of 中和區.
(B) 南勢角溪
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/南勢角溪

Of hand, I can not tell whether the place name or creek name came first.

(c) Kuomintang in Burma
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuomintang_in_Burma
("Technically termed the Yunnan Anti-communist National Salvation Army [雲南反共救國軍] (sometimes also referred to as the 'lost army' [zh.wikipedia.org has a page titled 泰緬孤軍]) * * * After its military efforts and appeal to the United States failed to resolve the KMT problem, Burma submitted a formal complaint to the United Nations in March 1953 [KMT ostensibly withdrew soldiers and dependents from November 1953 to May 1954, but KMT actually kept supplying those remaining in Burma, until] With the assistance of Communist Chinese troops, the Burmese Army conducted a series of successful military operations in 1960–1961 that finally 'broke the back' of the KMT irregulars")

This explains a lot. If, as The Diplomat states here, KMT soldiers left Burma in 1954, and they spent just four years there. How could they have learned to speak and write Burmese?