04 August 2008 - Frieda

Monday 04 August 2008 - Freida



There was no entertainment tonight at the OTOP Market because the daily rain came at 6:00 PM rather than the typical 2:00 PM.

As I previously wrote, I will use this blog to write about some of the people that I have met. Today I am writing about "Freida".

I have tried to include a photo in this blog and have come absolutely frustrated. It is not as straight forward as you might expect or hope it to be.

Fortunately I can describe Freida fairly easily so that you will be able to see her in the 92 streaming photos (5 in a row of her) on my profile page.

Freida is a beautiful young woman of the Padong, sometimes also spelled as Paduang minority of the Red Karen hill tribe. Freida follows the Paduang tradition of having brass coils wrapped around her neck. Often the Padong women are refered to as "Giraffe Women" or "Long-Necked Women".

I first met Freida on my second trip to the Maehongson region of NW Thailand in December 2006. On this trip, I visited her village for the first time. Freida is a state-less person living on the Thailand-Burmese border. She is a refugee from Burma which is also known as Myanmar. Her village is actually a refugee camp. The people there have fled from the armed conflict within Burma between the military junta and the Karen people who are fighting for independence. Many of the Karen people have crossed over into Thailand to escape persecution and prosecution from the Burmese government. Some of the refugees have been in the refugee camps for over fifteen years. They do not have passports and can not leave the camps without permission from Thai authorities. Most of the camps are off limits to outsiders. However the three camps that have Paduang women are open to tourists and are a source of income for the refugees as well as local Thai authorities. The entrances to the roads leading to the closed larger refugee camps are guarded by armed Thai soldiers and have posted warnings of land mines.

Freida, her 14 year old sister and her mother make their living by selling souvenirs to tourists. There is a great deal of controversy regarding these open villages. Some guide books and columnists write that these people are exploited and that the villages are human zoos. I have spent over 21 hours in the camps, know four of the Paduang people on a first name basis, spoke to many more and object to such elitist attitudes. The Paduang women that I met and spoke to do not object to wearing their brass coils. They wear them as part of their culture and traditions. Not all Paduang women wear the rings. I was told that the women have free choice and my observations indicate that the women who do wear the rings do not mind.

The reality of these open camps is that they provide a mechanism for the Paduang people to earn some money, and opportunities to communicate their plight to the outside world. Boycotting the villages will rob the inhabitants of some of the small opportunities that they have to earn a living.

As is too often the case nowadays, the media in their comfortable upper middle class environment pass judgement on other cultures based upon their socio-economic prejuidices rather than evaluating a particular situation based upon the facts and circumstances at that point in time.

I have not found the camps to be a zoo or a circus. The villages are much like the market areas that you find throughout SE Asia. On each side of a dirt walkway, there are stalls selling souvenirs. Behind the stalls are the living quarters of the vendors - again typical for SE Asia.

Some of the vendors are busy preparing meals, singing, sewing, and taking care of children. Again these are all common sights in villages and towns anywhere in SE Asia.

Groups of people on organized tours pass through the refugee camps. I observed the people to be interested and respectful of the inhabitants. Sometimes the walkways get crowded with the tourists but since they are part of organized groups on a schedule, the congestion clears up in 30 minutes.

Freida and her family live in a typical thatch roofed wooden stall/hut. The area where they sell souvenirs and soft drinks, is filled with drawings and photos of Freida. She is somewhat of a celebrity. Her picture has been used for travel posters that I have seen at the Chiang Mai Airport. I have been told that she has appeared in a documentary that was on air in the USA.

She speaks perfect English. Her skill in English includes the impeccable use of future perfect, conditional, past perfect tenses of verbs and all those other grammatical terms that I have forgotten about but take for granted. I asked Freida where she learned to speak English. She replied that she had learned from tourists. This is astounding - tourists spend about 2 to 4 minutes speaking with an individual vendor. I asked her about how much school she had attended. She has gone to school for only one year! I can not help but wonder what Freida could be doing if she had had the opportunity to attend school and university. She is obviously quite intelligent and definitely highly motivated.

Freida and the other inhabitants can not leave the village without authorization from authorities. They can not work outside the camp. They can petition the United Nation's refugee Committee to immigrate to another country but even then their departure has to be approved by the local Thai authorities.

I was told of four families who were granted immigrant visa from Finland but only one family that actually got to leave the camp.
In addition to Freida's beauty and intelligence, she has a wonderful outgoing personality. Freida also is extremely photogenic. Without too much effort I can imagine her as fashion model for an exotic Thai silk collection.

As I have found so many times in my travels around the world, there are many people who have not been able to live up to their potential due to the lack of opportunities that we have had. Even worse, are the people who have had the opportunities and not taken advantage of them.

On another first to Maehongson in April 2007, I was able to visit Freida once again. I gave her a 24"x36" print of a photograph of her that I took on my previous visit. She continued to impress me with her beauty, intelligence, grace, and motivation. She is a very unique person and a great spokeswoman for her people. From her I learned that the Thai authorities were planning on consolidating the three Paduang villages into a single new village.

Until the next time ...