Humans who have shaped themselves resembling animals and people who go there to watch them. Yes! That’s the world am talking about. A tribal minority where women wearing brass rings around their necks are being displayed as a part of tourist attractions in the primitive villages of Thailand. Called the Kayan or Padaung community, they are basically from Myanmar and a few hundred out of the total 130000 populations have migrated during the political conflict in 1980s, housed in northern Thailand border as refugees. Beautiful women of this group from old to young, wear brass rings of various numbers around their neck and knee all their life. Girls at a young age of 5 start wearing these rings which increases in number every year as they grow.

This gives an appearance that their necks have elongated up to 40 cm long and are hence called ‘long neck karen’ or ‘giraffe women’. But why carry a weight of up to 16 kg on your neck all your life? Kayan women graciously answer to this as ‘tradition’. As weird as it sounds, it is a living reality in this land. Many, also account to other reasons like protection from animal attack as they target the neck region of their prey or from other tribal community as the unusual rings make them look less attractive. Today, some women believe that long neck makes a woman look more beautiful and enjoy this custom, however a few finds it as a painful tradition.

When you visit this unique group of people, women greet you with their beautiful smiles and introduce you to their handicrafts. However, their plight in reality is slightly different from what it appears. As per the studies of X-ray results from a reporter of the National Geographic, the heavy rings collapse the rib bones causing a compression of the chest downwards which creates an illusion of the long neck in contrary to the notion of the neck itself getting elongated. The discomfort it causes leaving bruises on their skin throughout their daily chores is unimaginable. Still being refugees after decades of their migration, they have limited access to food, shelter, education and hygiene. Their only source of income is earned by selling their handicrafts to the tourists or posing for pictures.

Apparently only a small percentage of money collected at the entrance of this village for viewing these long necked women reaches them in real. They are neither approved of relocating from the village claiming that they are only migrants. More than being amazed at such a peculiar habitat, I felt deeply sad. We have known and heard of places showcasing reared animals serving a man’s source of income. But here I came across this bizarre place holding humans’ hostile for the sake of tourist attraction. Although the community migrated here to make their living with the tourist money, today that is no more the state. The helpless state of women, not being able to choose between tradition and freedom in this era is tragic. The villages are kept under developed on purpose to maintain the antiquity of the community. Visitors have often mistaken this to the true deprivation and have been encouraging this awful concept.

On the other hand, it’s a whole different world wherein a few Kayan women are proud of this tradition and continues to embrace this source of living as their gift. In interest of this fact, the Thailand Government believes that they are helping protect this vanishing tradition by promoting it to tourism which gains more importance and attention and hence the growth of this culture.Referred to as ‘human zoo’, Kayan community has definitely created a controversy between the positive side of tourism catering their living and the negative side of tourism holding them as show puppets. Educating them about these issues and letting them choose their lives is certainly seen as the best solution to this. After all, ‘Freedom is the power to choose our own chains’ and i wish that the Kayans are given this power!