Thailand Guide
The north
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"Long-neck" villages
The most famous – and notorious – of the Mae Hong Son area's spectacles is its contingent of "long-neck" women, members of the tiny Padaung tribe of Burma who have come across to Thailand to escape Burmese repression. Though the women's necks appear to be stretched to 30cm and more by a column of brass rings, the "long-neck" tag is a technical misnomer: a National Geographic team once X-rayed one of the women and found that instead of stretching out her neck, the pressure of eleven pounds of brass had simply squashed her collarbones and ribs. Girls of the tribe start wearing the rings from about the age of six, adding one or two each year up to the age of sixteen or so. Once fastened, the rings are for life, for to remove a full stack would eventually cause the collapse of the neck and suffocation – in the past, removal was a punishment for adultery.
In spite of their handicap (they have to use straws to drink, for example), the women are able to carry out some kind of an ordinary life: they can marry and have children, and they're able to weave and sew, although these days they spend most of their time posing like circus freaks for photographs. Only half of the Padaung women now lengthen their necks; left to its own course, the custom would probably die out, but the influence of tourism may well keep it alive for some time yet. The villages in Mae Hong Son where they live are set up by Thai entrepreneurs as a money-making venture (visitors are charged B250). At least, contrary to many reports, the "long necks" are not held as slaves – they are each paid a living wage of about B1500 per month – though their plight as refugees is certainly precarious. Since 2005, the UNHCR has been offering permanent resettlement in third countries for about twenty Padaung. However, the authorities in Thailand, where the "long necks" bring in a huge amount of tourist dollars, have refused to sign the necessary paperwork on a technicality.