in Burma. Over time, as the Chinese immigrants became more ambitious in business, they sought more aggressive entrepreneurial and investment activities, such as liquour stores and pawn brokerage shops. Today, Burma's Chinese community is now at the forefront of opening up the country's economy to conduct foreign business and direct investment, especially catering it towards mainland China and other Overseas Chinese businesspeople and investors. The Chinese government has been very proactive in engaging with the Overseas Chinese business community and using China's soft power to help Burma's Chinese community stay close to their ancestral roots and foster business ties. Foreign investment from mainland China continues to be channelled through Overseas Chinese bamboo networks today Like other Southeast Asian businesses owned by those of Chinese ancestry, Chinese-owned businesses in Burma often make corporate partnerships with other Chinese and Overseas Chinese businesses to focus on new business opportunities to collaborate and concentrate on. However, most Burmese businessmen and investors have voluntarily chosen to stay in Burma or concentrate their efforts on surrounding Southeast Asian markets such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand or the Greater Chinese market including mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. Many Burmese entrepreneurs of Chinese ancestry also have friends and extended family members in mainland China, as China's economic reform in the late 1970s produced conditions supporting wealth accumulation by introducing the wholesale market of Chinese-made products into Burma and other Southeast Asian markets. Besides sharing a common ancestry, cultural, linguistic, and familial ties, Chinese Burmese business success and entrepreneurial dynamism has been attributed towards a confluence of being flexible and adaptable towards changing business environments and economic climates, an desire to acquire wealth and business networks, a culture of hard work and delayed gratification and prudentially in a business setting, an ability to sell and market and making the most of the opportunities when they present themselves, looking towards the future, and upholding family honour. Chinese businesses in Mandalay Chinese enclaves have sprung up in major cities, particularly in Mandalay. Mandalay is now the economic and financial nerve center of Upper Myanmar and is considered the epicenter of Burmese Chinese business culture. After the 1980 fires in Mandalay, huge swaths of land left vacant by the fires were purchased, mostly by the ethnic Han Chinese, many of whom were recent immigrants from Yunnan. This influx transformed Mandalay rapidly into the prosperous business center with Chinese-built and Chinese-owned