Here is a fantastic image from Panpilai Kitsudsaeng, a PhD scholar here at the ANU. Panpilai writes:
Khamu women and girls selling bamboo shoots along the newly improved road from Houayxai to Luangnamtha in north-western Laos. They cleverly select a steep hill or sharp curve where cars have to slow down as their seasonal road side market place.
What will be the longer term impact of the road on these women and girls? Is this a snapshot of early steps towards engagement with new economic opportuntity? Or are the signs more ominous – as the road promotes new forms of economic integration will the forest products on which these women depend for supplementary income be depleted well before substantial new economic opportunities come to take their place?
3 responses so far ↓
1 Ross Pengilley // Sep 19, 2006 at 2:10 am
A few years ago I heard male students in Chiang Rai denigrating one or two of their fellow students by calling them”Khamu”.To them a Khamu was “lower” than a Burmese or a Lao.
Any explanation?
2 Andrew Walker // Sep 19, 2006 at 8:49 am
Perhaps they were Khamu. There are plenty of Khamu in Chiang Rai province (about 10 years ago I visited a couple of villages near Chiang Khong). Where I am working now in Chiang Mai province there are quite a few locals who have Khamu grandfathers or great grandfathers. These Khamu men travelled to work in the timber trade in northern Thailand and a good number married locally and stayed. One monk told me that when he was young he was teasingly called “Khamu noi” (little Khamu) as a result of his dark skin (which resembled that of his Khamu grandfather). I would not be surprised at all if “Khamu” was used in a derogatory way – much like Yang (Karen) or Meo (Hmong). In the world view of many Thai uplanders are, quite simply, socially and culturally inferior.
3 New Mandala » A bridge for Chiang Khong // Feb 24, 2007 at 4:27 pm
[...] bridge will link the northern Thai road network with a road that cuts across north-western Laos: from Huayxai to Luang Namtha and then across the border (at [...]
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