The Opium Queen

February 6, 2023
Journalist Paluch debuts with a detailed and compassionate portrait of Olive Yang (1927–2017), a “gender-queer opium kingpin of noble descent” in Kokang, “a strip of land nestled in mountainous gorges” along the Myanmar-China border. While covering a 2015 rebel uprising in Kokang, Paluch first heard about Olive, whose personal army, known as “Olive’s Boys,” was rumored to have been funded by the CIA in the 1950s and ’60s. Interviews with Yang family members reveal that Olive, the strong-willed second daughter of Kokang’s hereditary ruler, resisted traditional foot binding, was expelled from Catholic school, dressed like a man, loved women, and wore an artificial penis. In the early 1950s, she joined anti-communist forces in Kokang, earning a reputation as a Burmese Joan of Arc while sparring with local chieftains, the Chinese army, and rival family members for control of smuggling routes in the region. Paluch, whose investigation culminated in a sit-down with Olive shortly before her death, makes a persuasive case that the CIA was heavily involved in the opium trade, but her efforts to untangle Myanmar’s complex ethnic and political history are less successful. Still, it’s a jaw-dropping study of a lesser-known yet larger-than-life figure.