The Long Neck

I've seen pictures of the long neck women. I always thought with that many rings around your neck, you are bound to have a really LOOOOOOOOOOG neck. I was surprised to hear Poi say that the neck was not long, it was the shoulder that was pressed down to create the impression of the long neck. When a girl is born, three to five brass rings are put on her. After each year, she gains another ring. From the number of rings around a woman's neck, you could figure out how old she is. For the long neck tribe, the longer the neck is, the more beautiful you are.
The end of the first day in Chiang Mai, we went to visit a village of five tribes. A lot of these tribe people lived in the border of Thailand and Burma and their livelihood was threatened by the Burmese war. The Thai government settled the families here and subsidized them. In the entire village, I counted no more than 50 families. The tribes live peacefully together, grow rice, vegetables and fruits, raise pigs, and sell handicrafts to tourists. The men hunt during the day while the women weave, cook, and take care of the children. Life is primitive here but sufficient.

We passed patches of rice field. Women were working in the field harvesting under the less vicious sun since it was almost dusk. Poi said every family gets a fair share since everyone worked together.

All the houses are bungalows, with dry leaves on top. The leaves were dried first before stacked together as the roof top. The "roof" is changed twice a year. I can only imagine during the rain season what happens inside the bungalow.
Poi took us to one of the long neck women's house. She was weaving at the "patio" when her daughter was learning. Here I found out that the brass neck piece weighed five kilos. I tried on with the fake which only covered the front of the neck. It was indeed heavy and so long that I had to raise my chin high enough to feel uncomfortable. She was weaving a colorful scarf. It would take her three days to finish and she sells each one for 200 bahts. A hand made piece outside would cost so many times more. I immediately bought two scarves. Looking at the shy little girl trying to help out mom, I had such mixed feelings. There was sympathy because it was unavoidable of the judgement of the modern material world I came from. It was hard to imagine living with such bare minimum. There was admiration. Here was the simple life style that I could never live and be content with. However they looked so sincerely happy, reaping what they sow and not coveting anything else. At that point, I was reminded again why I loved traveling so much - it opens my eyes through different perspectives.