Thailand's Northern Hill Tribes
Mae Hong Son Province is home to a variety of ethnic tribes
Speaking different languages and worshipping different spirits the villages of the Akha, Maew, Lisu and Karen are a big attraction for trekkers and tourists.
Just over two decades ago, Mae Hong Son in Northern Thailand was virtually unknown to the outside world and accessible only by elephant. Today, daily flights into this modern-day Shangi-La and vastly improved road from Chiang Mai has opened it up.
Settlements of Akha, Maew, Lisu and Karen hill tribes, tribes different in culture, language and beliefs, farm the high ground in the Province of Mae Hong Son, growing garlic, soya bean, cabbages and carrots – cash crops that the Thai government encourages them to cultivate instead of the opium poppy which was once their staple crop.
Some farming is also done by the long-necked Karen, The Paduang, ethnic Burmese who fled Burma some years ago and are now settled just 3 miles from the border of their former home in Burma. Most of them however, make and sell their handicrafts to visitors.
The older men mind the children indoors while the attractive, pale skinned women, looking like exotic porcelain figures, sit sewing on their verandahs, their skins accentuated by vivid lipsticks and smudged eye make-up. Their erect posture is due in large part to the 20 or so heavy brass rings worn around their necks, placed round their necks yearly, from an early age.
Payment is required to enter their village and many people regard this as exploitation, but paying an entrance fee to the village seems preferable to the begging that goes on in other 'free' hill tribe villages. The entrance fee provides them with a living, they sell their handicrafts and they don't have to beg for money. They are a dignified people with a great sense of fun, and no hint of resentment or antagonism comes from them.
The flamboyantly colourful Lisu, originally from China, are the sartorial peacocks of the hill tribes and wear bright, multi-coloured tunics, beaded and tasselled turbans, great quantities of silver and full ceremonial outfits whenever possible. Like the Padaung, they build stilted houses which keeps them well above the mud in the rainy season and affords cover for the livestock and domestic animals. They are a musical people and play hauntingly minor-keyed music on home-made bamboo instruments called kaengs.
In complete contrast to the colourful Paduang and Lisu villages are the Hmong villages. Dun-coloured huts of wood and thatch line dirt roads, half shaded by dust-covered trees. Old women, lips stained black with betel, sit outside their houses smoking pipes, while pigs, chickens and strange looking dogs forage in the dirt. Without even rudimentary sanitation, the houses have packed-earth floors, and strips of pork and vegetables hang from the ceiling, well beyond the reach of the rats. The houses have fires, but no chimneys.
The hill tribes defend their heritage with ferocity, fearful that their cultural identity is being diluted by the education of their children. The land they now occupy is not always good for farming and while they may enjoy the most stunning scenery in Thailand, some of them live in pockets of utter misery.
They desperately want many of the benefits of civilization, things like radios, pick-up trucks and above all, television. Can their life seriousy be continued in the face of the dazzling, artificial, but attractive life shown on television, and is it cultural arrogance to think the west has the answer?
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