The
Long Neck
Women.
Today
I started writing the chapter in my book of my adventures in
Thailand.
This
particular adventure involves a girlfriend and I ( whom is just as
badd ass as I am. We are from the same breeding ground you see. Small
country town Australia ) hitching our way through parts of Thailand,
meeting a Burmese man that was hiding from the Thai government and
sneaking into the refugee camp that he had called home so he
could see some of his family.
My
friend and I were housed behind the tourist gates of the compound
where the Dragon women and their families are held. Incorrectly referred to as the "long-neck" women, girls can be as young
as five-years-old when they begin to be fitted with brass rings
around their necks. To be chosen for this life ritual is a divine sign from birth with many
layers involved.
Longer rings are added as
they grow older, in effect deforming the chest and shoulders to give
the illusion that their necks are abnormally long.
With
refugee camp # 3 just meters away behind the water well, many
tourists do not realize that these women with their necks ringed in
brass are actually Burmese , not from Thai hill tribes.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s due to conflict with the military
regime in Myanmar, many Kayan tribes fled to the Thai border area.[
Not
unlike a "human zoo," this northern Thailand’s Padaung
Karen hill tribe village is amongst the country’s most
controversial tourist attractions. My friend and I spent our days
there taking tourists aside and telling them what was really going on
and even showed a few of them the huge refugee camp just a few steps
away.
When
we spoke to those we stayed with many women talked with pride of
their choice to wear the rings out of a genuine desire to carry on
with the tradition. Yet for some of these villages have no access to
electricity, roads, healthcare and schools.
To
get there we had to hide in safe houses at night and crawl our way
through rice paddies to be met with open arms by a family living in a
house made of card board boxes.
Making
our way past the well we were then welcomed by our Burmese friends
extended family where we stayed for three nights whilst he gathered
more stories for the book he was publishing.
I
have moved onto many other adventures, my girlfriend has been further
a filed, had many babies and returned back to Australia, whilst our
Burmese friend and off the beaten track tour guide has published his
book “From The Land of Green Ghosts”, all those that welcomed me
into their homes and hearts are still living in their state of no
mans land with each day the same as the last.
Please.
If you are in Thailand and you know others that are thinking of going to visit these people, know that the money you pay to get in does not
reach the people that are on “show”. Go in, take good food and pay
them directly.
Then
protest that it should be happening at all.
I am a mama of a wild 10 yr old boy living in the jungle of Costa Rica.
A wild life Living in the Jungle
Instagram..JungleLoveWild
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