provinces, with local influences. Spices such as turmeric and chili are commonly used. Also, the use of soy sauce, bean curd, bean sprouts, Chinese pickled mustards, and dried mushrooms can be attributed to Chinese influence. The following is a partial list of Chinese contributions to Burmese cuisine. These are an established part of today's Burmese cuisine, and are hardly differentiated as a foreign cuisine. Pauksi: steamed buns Bèkin: roasted duck Igyakway: fried Chinese doughnut Htamin kyaw: fried rice La mont: mooncake Mi shay: thin rice noodle soup Mi swan: thin wheat noodles San byoke: rice porridge Panthay khauk swè: Panthay-style fried noodles Sigyet khaukswè: literally "noodles laced in cooked oil," usually with chicken Kyay oh: literally "beehoon soup with chicken or pork," Kor Yay Khautswe: noodle with thick starchy gravy History Pre-colonial The earliest records of Chinese migration into present-day Myanmar were in the Song and Ming dynasties. In the 18th century, Ming Dynasty princes settled in Kokang (the northern part of present-day Myanmar). Chinese traders, however, travelled as far as the capital city as well as northern towns on the Irrawaddy such as Bhamo. Some of them stayed and started a Chinese community at Amarapura, and when King Mindon moved his capital to Mandalay in 1859, the Chinese were the only community that decided to stay behind. Many of their descendants intermarried into the host society and remain important and respected citizens of Amarapura. British Colonial period Another wave of immigration occurred in the 19th century under the British colonial administration. Britain encouraged immigration of the Indians and Chinese to British Burma, and such incentives for work opportunities and enterprise and for accumulating wealth attracted many Chinese immigrants. They primarily came to Burma via British Malaya. The Chinese quickly became dominant in the highly lucrative rice and gem industries. Many Chinese merchants and traders owning both wholesale and retail businesses. Unlike in British Malaya, where most Chinese were coolie labourers, the Chinese in Burma were largely from the artisan and merchant classes. They integrated well into Burmese society not least because they, like the Bamar, were of Sino-Tibetan stock and were Buddhists, implicit in the nickname pauk hpaw (, lit. "sibling"). During British rule, marriage between the Chinese and Burmese, particularly Chinese men and Burmese women, was the most common form of intermarriage in Burma, as evidenced by a High Court ruling on the legal status of Sino-Burmese marriages