A Decision To Be Made

Welcome to the rabbit hole. Yes, I know there are many...

Many opportunities to choose the red or the green, the black or the white - there is no right decision or wrong. The choice is simply yours.

We made ours when we decided to come back to the Thai-Burma border and do a project with the Kayan Lawhi, (a.k.a. Padaung or "long-neck" women). Well, that's how it started, but as I said - this is a rabbit hole and it's turning out to be a mighty long one with a cavernous, intricate world underneath that can make you nauseous with every turn at the same time it drives your curiosity even deeper.


You may have heard about them, seen them in some report, photos - National Geographic, YouTube and you may have even visited the Mae Hong Son Province in Northern Thailand and spent some time in one of their villages here along the Thai-Burma border.
At first, it seems that they are one of the "hill tribes" people of the area: Lisa, Lahu, Karen, Chinese... and a genuine interest in cultures and peoples may draw you in to make a visit to their village. But once you come upon the entrance and read a pre-printed form in English that talks about 'your donation of an entrance fee' which will help them build schools, houses, sustain their community as you are permitted to walk among them and see them in their 'natural habitat' - something seems askew and maybe those past articles you had skimmed across once before connects in your brain and you realize there's something inherently wrong with paying to see a human being in their ´natural habitat´.

When we made our initial visit in February 2008 we debated at the entrance a good while since we were thrown off by this revolting idea; but then I convinced Paco that since we had talked about visiting these people for 3 years and finally made the 3 day trek to do so.. we should at least see if we could make a connection with them and perhaps find out what's behind all this.
With a fair amount of persuasion, we entered to find a small community of about 30 houses - with a main road lined with bamboo crafted souveneir stands selling hand-woven scarves and trinkets with a majority of the items linked to their brass coiling tradition. Dolls, keychains, statues; at the time the statues were of their African counterparts who also practice the same ritual of coiling brass around their necks.

I stopped and spoke with a young girl weaving a scarf but our limits in one another's language pushed Paco and I back to the dirt road. We ended up at the end of the village about 200m from the entrance and in a vacant volleyball court. There we turned towards the school and saw a foreign couple speaking with a couple of young "Long Neck" women - in English.

We hovered a bit, loitered by the classrooms - and when the two other tourists left, we awkwardly made our way towards the young girl who could speak English.
This is Sarah. She looks as if she could pass for 15 but she soon told us she was a teacher in the school and was already 20! After a bit of small talk, she invited us to join her at her house - she didn't seem so worried about school anymore and we followed her to her home. We soon were introduced to her one month old baby named John Newman (they usually take the Christian name from the day that their son's are born), her mother - a brilliant woman who chain chews on beetelnut, her father Tino, who turned out to be the village headmen and her 2 youger sisters.

They invited us to join them for a meal, and then to stay the night and opened up their home to us. We stayed for three nights as there was a lot of commotion in the village due to the wedding of Hla Quan and Mu Na, who lived right in front of Sarah's house.

Over the course of those three days and nights we began to discover an ugly truth that we have been ignorant to for too long.

Francis, also a Kayan Lawhi and a high school history teacher in the refugee camp 1km away, gave us a crash course on the plight of his peoples who have been resisting the Burmese military junta's persecution along with other ethnic nationalities in Burma since independence was gained from England. Yes, refugees.

This 'hilltribe' of Kayan Lawhi's were actually from Burma. They had escaped to the Thai-Burma border due to the relentless persecution by the military junta. Due to their 'distinctive look' they were soon given the 'privilege' of living in a separate village from the other refugees; and a business was born in Thailand.

Meanwhile, there were over 20,000 people in the refugee camp 1 km away and over 150,000 in total along the whole Thai-Burma border. Some people had already been living there for over two decades! Some were born there and new nothing else. With Thailand dealing with their own political turmoil over this time, these refugees were left in limbo. And since 2005, the UN High Commisioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had began their resettlement plan to take these people to third countries: Finland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.S. among them. This area was next on the list with the intention of resettling 10,000 people within the year.

Now, the decision was up to the people. Did they want to move to yet another country? Were they ready to learn another language? Another culture? Were they ready to leave their homeland behind? Would the Kayan Lawhi have to take off their rings?

Our eyes were open to the complexities of this situation and the decision that these people were faced with. In our increasingly homogenized world, would yet another culture face extinction?

For this, we have returned to give a glimpse into this momentous decision for these people, their heritage, our world in this corner of the globe.

Join us if you wish.