A Wa village where happiness depends on how well you get along with the neighbors I was invited into one such house in Wun San village, a four-hour drive from Kengtung in the far northeast of Shan State. The bamboo and timber structure, one of about a dozen similar dwellings, was home to no less than 20 families, sharing one windowless common room, ventilated only by doors at each end. Two or three men were cooking a simple rice dish over a wood-fired stove, the smoke adding to the gloom. A roughly made bamboo bed sat nearby. In one corner of the room sat an old, dirt-stained refrigerator and an electric fan. Naked lamp bulbs hung over some of the beds, but they gave out a weak light, powered by electricity from a generator driven by river water. Candles are still a necessity in this remote village. The oldest member of this one-house community, an 83-year-old man, explained to me the remarkable lifestyle of Wun San and other Wa hill tribe villages, including customs probably found nowhere else in Burma. When local boys and girls reach the age of 17, for instance, they are encouraged to seek out partners and begin living together. They are prohibited from marrying until the girl is pregnant. If they remain childless after 10 years they must separate and look for other partners. Wun San has a small primary school, but not much importance is attached to education and many children never see inside a classroom. Children are everywhere and mob every visitor, clamoring for attention and sweets. In stark contrast to the poverty are the gilded and richly decorated “golden temples” of the Wa villages. The village of Wun Nyat has one of the area’s finest. It was built in 1650 and contains beautiful frescoes of flowers and mythical beasts. Regular ceremonies are held to add gold leaf to the frescoes and Buddha images. Many texts are written in the language of the sub-Shan Khun tribe. Shan traditional music is played on the monastery’s two ouzi, a long open-ended drum. A monk of the Khun tribe sat at an open stove, making tea and surrounded by cats, as I toured the temple compound. A vacant throne stood nearby, reserved for the senior abbot. It was a peaceful, restful scene, but perhaps not for much longer. The far-off Burmese government is opening up the area to outsiders, an access road was built two years ago and already the Wa temples are on Shan State’s tourist route. |
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