Shan New Year in Chiang Mai
Participant observation: Shan New Year’s Festival 2107 (14th, Dec, 2012 from 7.30 p.m to midnight)
Reported by Thanh Thanh Phan
Topic 2
General Questions: Who they are? Where they come from? Why they came here and when? When they started their business? Do they have citizenship and how? What are they doing here? What are their monthly incomes?
Interviewing sellers of a consumption shop, cloth shop, CDs shop, food shop and their customers.
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As a part of the course trans-border studies, we went to Wat Kutao in Chiang Mai where Shan’s New Year festival was taken place and celebrated by Shan Literature and Cultural Committee to practice participant observation method. Shan, a sub-group of Tai ehnic group of Southeast Asia, primarily live in the Shan State of Burma (Myanmar). However, The Shan have been engaged in an intermittent civil war within Burma for decades. During conflicts, the Shan are often burned out of their villages and forced to flee into Thailand. There, they are not given refugee status, and often work as undocumented labourers (wiki). Some of Shan people I interviewed have transbordered to the border of Thai and Burma in Weing Heng (close to Golden Triangle) around 20 years ago and from there some have lived in Chiang Mai. Their culture has lots in common with Lanna culture of Chiang Mai city both in term of language and geography. According to estimate, today, in Chiang Mai province alone, Shan migrants make up one-sixth of total Chiang Mai population, of around 150,00 in the city, with the population of one million.
To know more about Shan people in Chiang Mai, We were assigned with different tasks. My friend Molika was assigned of observing the concert and stage performance to understand the expression of identity, including interview the audience about the aspect of Shan concert, Shan identity as it is performed on stage. Faey was taken charged of Exhibition -
Reported by Thanh Thanh Phan
Topic 2
General Questions: Who they are? Where they come from? Why they came here and when? When they started their business? Do they have citizenship and how? What are they doing here? What are their monthly incomes?
Interviewing sellers of a consumption shop, cloth shop, CDs shop, food shop and their customers.
____________________________________________________________
As a part of the course trans-border studies, we went to Wat Kutao in Chiang Mai where Shan’s New Year festival was taken place and celebrated by Shan Literature and Cultural Committee to practice participant observation method. Shan, a sub-group of Tai ehnic group of Southeast Asia, primarily live in the Shan State of Burma (Myanmar). However, The Shan have been engaged in an intermittent civil war within Burma for decades. During conflicts, the Shan are often burned out of their villages and forced to flee into Thailand. There, they are not given refugee status, and often work as undocumented labourers (wiki). Some of Shan people I interviewed have transbordered to the border of Thai and Burma in Weing Heng (close to Golden Triangle) around 20 years ago and from there some have lived in Chiang Mai. Their culture has lots in common with Lanna culture of Chiang Mai city both in term of language and geography. According to estimate, today, in Chiang Mai province alone, Shan migrants make up one-sixth of total Chiang Mai population, of around 150,00 in the city, with the population of one million.
To know more about Shan people in Chiang Mai, We were assigned with different tasks. My friend Molika was assigned of observing the concert and stage performance to understand the expression of identity, including interview the audience about the aspect of Shan concert, Shan identity as it is performed on stage. Faey was taken charged of Exhibition -