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Published: November 9th 2004
The village
This is a view of the actual village, i think there are maybe 300 hundred people there; but i forget.i just got back from an Akha village in Chiang Rai and here are some pictures. Maybe i should fill in some details a bit.
Similar to the situation in Canada , hill tribe people have somewhat of a minority standing here in Canada for several reasons. Most are not traditionally from Thailand and immigrated here as early as 30 years ago, due to such things are world war 2 , the vietnam war etc. They came from Burma, Laos, China and Vietnam. And as many came so recently to Thailand they do not have thai citizenship which makes them illegal squatters on land and affords them no rights when the government does such things as making a national park out of their village.
So some common misconceptions of these people are that they are opium growers, a threat to national security and destroyers of the forest. This isn't entirely false as hilltribe people in the past have grown large amounts of opium due to the force of outside pressures to grow it, some have practiced and formed communist parties and sometimes they're slash and burn methods of cultivating the fields gets a little out of hand.
To combat the growth
Akha baby
This baby and others were around all the time, another baby was carried around and looked after all day by an probably 10 year old. Some children usually come to the fields with their parents as this picture was taken on a pretty steep hill in the fields. The baby is also wearing a typical Akha hat. of opium, the thai government implemented the Royal Projects where hilltribe people are given substitute crops to grow as opposed to opium. Such as cabbage, coffee etc. This had worked to some extent as the opium production in thailand has decreased rom 150 tons a year to about 30 and it has been taken off of the US list of countries who are major opium growers; the first and only country who has been able to accomplish this. Burma however, neighbouring thailand is still a huge grower of opium and drugs are still trafficked through the north of thailand.
One of the problems with the Royal Projects is that they force the villages to intensively use their field and they encourage mono cropping; which will in time lower the richness of the soil and thus the crops.
Due to the three stereotypes above of hill tribe people, (drugs, forest destroyers, threat to security) government policy is formed with these ideas in mind. The result is often ineffective legislature and is often contradictory. For example, hilltribe people are told to integrate into the state, and then a few years later they are told to stay where they are and are not
The Swing
This is the Akha swing typical of all the Akha villages. It is used mostly in ceremony by girls and in September to mark the beginning or ending of the harvest season. allowed to leave. They are told they will destroy the forest, and in order to protect the forest humans should not live in it. This is opposite of what these people actually believe themselves.
Anyways i could go on about this for awhile because it is mostly what i am learning about in school, but i'll spare the details. Point is relations are tight, just as they are in Canada. The weekend was a great time, the people were extraordinarily nice and liked to have tons of fun, i learned a lot and it was a good weekend all around! and i didn't get left behind this time so that was an added bonus! hope you enjoy the pictures!
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