Both a travelogue and a cultural document, Where China Meets Burma: Life and Travel in the Burma-China Border Lands is a vivid pre–World War II portrait of one of Asia’s most remote and culturally layered frontiers. Writing in the 1930s, Metford draws on several years spent accompanying her husband, a British official stationed in the region, to capture a world rarely seen by Western eyes.

Her journeys take readers from the bustling colonial streets of Rangoon and Mandalay to the winding Irrawaddy River, and onward into the highlands of the Shan States and the rugged fringes of Yunnan. Along the way, she offers finely observed ethnographic notes on the people who inhabit these borderlands — Shan, Kachin, Lisu, Chinese traders, and many others — describing their traditions, social life, costumes, and belief systems with curiosity and respect.

Metford’s pages brim with the sensory richness of the frontier: elephant handlers guiding their massive charges through forest paths, markets alive with color and dialects, and the dramatic landscapes shaped by the Shweli and Salween rivers. Whether recounting life in places like Sinlumkaba and Bhamo or encountering diverse mountain communities, she presents a compelling tapestry of cultures meeting at a crossroads of geography and history.

1935, London & Glasgow, Blackie & Son, hardcover, 231 pp., one map, 32 black & white photos. Boards show some soiling, tight binding, overall remains in a good condition.