akha people
TRANSCRIPT
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THE AKHA PEOPLE
By M.G. Edwards
The artisan village near Mae Chan,
Thailand that my family and I visited October 24was home to members of the Akha and Kayan
Lahwi indigenous groups. Two minorities that
normally did not live together had joined forces
to improve their livelihoods by promoting
tourism and selling handicrafts.
The Akha, who lived on the opposite side
of a small creek from the Kayan Lahwi, were the
first people I met. Although the “long-neck”
Kayan women were the primary draw for
tourists who visited by the village, the Akha
were the gatekeepers who collected entrance
fees and ran a small motorcycle-powered ice
cream cart. The cart was an odd sight in the
middle of a “traditional” village, but it revealed
ingenuity as yet another way for the villagers to
earn extra income.
I
did not
realize that different ethnic groups lived together
until I went back to the Akha side of the creek and noticed that the women there looked different
from the Kayan. The Akha women wore
distinctive headdresses bedecked with silver
circlets instead of brass coils around their necks
and
more
formal ceremonial clothing. Women who
managed the market stalls eagerly tried to sell us
handicrafts as we passed on our way to the
Kayan side. The men I saw manned the ticket
booth and parking lot at the village entrance.Tourists tended to buy arts and crafts from the
Kayan, passing by the Akha’s stalls without
another thought. I conjectured that the Akha
were in charge of collecting entrance fees while
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the Kayan drew
crowds. I surmised
that when the
Kayan fled from
Burma in the 1980s
and 1990s theywere invited by the
Akha to live and
work together in
order to attract
tourist dollars.
One of six major hill tribes in Thailand that include
the Lahu, Karen, Hmong/Miao, Mien/Yao and Lisu, the
Akha have traditionally engaged in subsistence farming in
a region stretching from China to Thailand, Laos, and Burma. They have come into
conflict with governments and other interests over engaging in slash-and-burn agriculture
and living in areas with protected ecosystems or forestlands. During my visit, I noted thatthe Ahka engaged in small-scale banana and rice cultivation.
I spoke with
one Akha woman
about life in her
village. She said in
English that her two
children attended a
public school in
Mae Chan for “a
better life” and that
she worked to help put them through school. She did notlike living there but could not move because she did not
have a permit to live elsewhere. She said that life there was
not easy. I was touched by her story and wondered what, if
anything, I could do for her.
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© 2011 Brilliance Press. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be
reproduced or transmitted without the written consent of the author. To read more
stories by M. G. Edwards, visit http://www.mgedwards.com/ .