Thailand

Akha Hill Tribe People

This is a never-before-posted photo from July 2014, when Shelly and I were visiting the Chiang Mai area in Thailand.  Our former exchange student Ratha Thiradanon is originally from Chiang Mai and she set us up with a personal guide for a day.  He took us to a hill tribe village where people from some half-dozen hill tribes live and create crafts for sale to the tourists.   I didn’t post it at the time because I felt conflicted about visiting what seemed like a human zoo.  I’ve since found that the story is more complicated than that.

The Akha are one example of the hill tribes inhabiting northern Thailand.  Depending on who you talk to, the Akha originated either in Tibet or the Yunnan province of China.  Either way, their people traveled east and settled in countries such as Laos and Burma (now known as Myanmar).  At the beginning of the 20th century, many Akha fled Burma because of ongoing civil war there.

Unfortunately, many of the hill tribe people are stateless even though their families may have been in Thailand for a century now.  They can’t work or even travel within Thailand without an identity card, and they can’t get the card because they’re not officially Thai citizens.  (see link in comments below for an example of how tough life is for these stateless people).  Therefore, tourism and the modest income they make from selling their crafts (mostly textile goods) is one of their few means of survival.  Like many indigenous people in other countries, their young often adopt modern ways and there’s a continuing struggle between adapting to modern life and preserving their traditional customs and language.

Akha women traditionally start wearng these elaborate headresses when they’re very young, although girls will likely have headgear made of beads, shells and feathers.  In adulthood, they turn to silver — the more, the better.  There are some regional variations on the form of the headdress.  

The two Akha ladies we met were very sweet and kind.  They graciously allowed us to try on one of their headdresses and pose for a picture with us.