Mae Hong Son Hill Tribe Update: The Karen

For years, I knew the word “Karen,” and heard Thais speak of the “Galien people.” I finally realized that they were the same thing. There’s the g/k confusion, and of course the ongoing r/l miscommunication, and some vowel abuse too, but the Galien become, in print, the Karen.


This is the tribe of long neck women (see picture, above). They came over the hill from Burma because those generals don’t know how to get along with anybody, much less hill tribes where the women use brass rings to lengthen their necks. In Thailand they are officially “stateless,” no one will give them a passport, they can never become Thai citizens, and the children born to the tribe have no rights in any country in the world.


Ripe for exploitation! And the rumors fly that they are coerced by local power-players to play up the long neck thing, and “protected,” for the mere payment of a portion of their meager earnings from selling things to tourists. They have no recourse for any of this, being stateless.


Almost all of the sellers are women in traditional clothes, with the brass rings and all. They are very sweet and friendly, and they start a little high with the prices so that they can demurely reduce the price, just for you. I did notice, though, that when no tourists were close by they sometimes used a tone of voice with each other that was more bitter recrimination than sisterly devotion.


Can you blame them? How would you feel, with the permanent neck pain, the political weirdness, the grinding poverty, and everything else? My sidekick talked to a couple of women at length and was told that yes, the neck thing is really a permanent pain in the ass. Part of the vig that they pay to their protectors is forcing their young daughters to start with the rings to deform their necks as much as possible, the better to attract tourist dollars. They are absolutely not culturally bound to it: there are Karen people all over Northern Thailand and as soon as they can they drop that long neck thing like a hot brick.

Why I Avoid Farang In Thailand

Sitting on the veranda of my cheap hotel in Chiang Mai, reading a Ripley novel, I heard an angry throat clearing on the stairs behind me. It was my neighbor from a few rooms down, a tall, fit, 60-ish American wearing jeans and an awful orange t-shirt, topped off with one of those horrible leather cowboy hats, sunglasses and a mustache, no smile or greeting. Quietly following him was a Thai woman, 35 or so, full figured buy not unattractive. He reached his door, turned to her and said, “please hurry,” not in a polite way. She answered low, “I’m sorry,” without altering her pace. When she got to his side, he held out his hand and said, “key.”

There are Thais who think that this is typical American behavior. These guys should be keel-hauled.

Religion Hedges Its Bets In Thailand

Most Thai temples, and most Thai houses for that matter, give some space to the other Gods. Maybe just to be polite, maybe just to be on the safe side. Maybe God is Hindu after all! Or Chinese!

This is a nicely maintained Chinese Deity surrounded by Hindu Gods prominently displayed on the grounds of the mountain top temple in Mae Hong Son.

Thailand is a "crossroads culture," right in the middle of China, India and those millions of islands that I refer to as "the Archipeligo countries." So it all comes together here: the languages, the alphabets, the architecture, the religions, the shape of the eyes, the skin color, hair texture, everything. Maybe that's how they tolerate Farang so well.

Mr. Fred's Poetry Corner: Before the Object

Before the Object

Not in the manner of anarchists
Screaming curses at some World Bank limousine,
Rather, the silent projection of thoughts into space time,
Unsure, wondering . . . is anyone there?

The Object of this enterprise
May have preferences,
May prefer to be approached
In a manner set down by Itself,
There are those who believe
That the Object Itself has composed a book
Containing prayers, Psalms,
It may be a good idea to try those,
Their beauty, divine or otherwise,
Will at least please the supplicant.

There is evidence
That the Object is desirous of worship,
So it may behoove the communicant
To include a little praise,
Sweeten the offering,
Erring on the side of hyperbole is recommended.

Hat? No hat?
Beard? No beard?
Please check the local rules,
The Object may be a stickler for details.

A little grace
Is never out of place,
So any such enterprise,
Directed at the Object or mere humans,
Should begin with a sincere expression of gratitude
For benefits already accrued,
But take heed, you cosmic wanderers,
Your fellows may be simple prey
To your machinations,
But the Object, if attentive,
Certainly knows your heart better than you do,
Be sure to express only genuine appreciation.

Prayer comes to the lips of some
Who find themselves about to burst with love
For the Object of their devotion,
Others wish to petition the void
With an eye to some benefit,
By way of leaving no stone unturned
In their search for earthly happiness.

Myself, I choose not to pray,
Not wishing to draw attention to myself,
For fear, not so much of judgment,
But of indifference.


April, 2009

Big Burmese Style Wat In Mae Hong Son

Mae Hong Son is an interesting place. As many people speak Burmese as Thai, the Thai's mostly speak the Northern dialect of Thai, the place is full of various hill tribes who have their own languages, and there's a good sprinkling of Chinese speakers as well. The polyglot of signage is impressive. Lots of NGO's in town, most of the Burmese and hill tribe people are stateless refugees.

This is the big Burmese temple, most of the monks here are Burmese, or Burmese-Thai. They have a nice museum, pix to follow.

Monk Party In Mae Hong Son

I went up to visit the "big," well, important, local mountaintop temple in Mae Hong Son last week and caught them preparing for a big party of some kind for mostly high-school age monks from the area. They all looked really happy about the whole thing. Here's a bunch of them erecting some kind of tent.

Always A First Time

I’ve been over here for some time now, and I’ve eaten some pretty wild stuff. Lots of Thai people think it’s good fun to seek the limits of a Farang’s tolerance for Thai food. So I’ve eaten giant snails, very spicy of course; curries made from bi-valves that live in irrigation canals, or ant eggs, or pig skin; raw shrimp that may or may not have been chemically cooked by the incredibly spicy stuff they’d been soaked in, but I don’t think so, because they were as clear as glass; preparations of the leaves of mango trees, or pond scum; ground up small birds, minus only the beaks and feathers. I eat it all good-naturedly, and until this week I have tolerated it all very well. I had never, in fact, gotten the ejection furies, the body’s reaction to a substance of, hell no, this stuff has to go. Not until last Thursday. There’s a first time for everything.

I was up in Mae Hong Son, and I think an item of lunch was the offending substance. On the menu’s “Local Food” page, which may in fact be something to avoid generically. Innocuously described as “Stir Fried Chicken with Turmeric,” it contained, in addition to actual turmeric, a mountain of what passes for herbs in Northern Thailand, which looks more like a collection of bark and wood shavings, with some roots thrown in. I’d seen this stuff before, or stuff just like it, and it hadn’t killed me yet.

It wasn’t really bad tasting, a little bitter maybe, spicy and bitter, but definitely edible at the get-go anyway. Within a couple of hours the revolution had started; and after a couple of more hours lying on my side in bed with a wary, confused look on my face, the ejection process began, at the front end, and continuing through the night, ultimately joined by ejection from the back end. It was a rockin’ ungood time there for twelve or fourteen hours.

It was Sunday before I felt rehydrated and relatively normal again.

But notice that after five years of asking for it, I finally got it, and that’s really typical Fred luck right there. Just God’s little way of reminding you that these occurrences are rare, the Fates soliciting a little gratitude from a loved one.