Mong Ngaw: A Year in the Land of Rice and Tea
Until he was 18,
the photographer and writer, Jai Jai Lao Mong, now 22, lived his entire
childhood in the village of Da Lone in northern Shan State’s Mong Ngaw
Township. Seeing no opportunity for work or education in his hometown, he, like
many Shan youth, migrated to Thailand, where he worked as a gardener and a
security guard. Later, he also attended a social justice education program on
the Thai-Burma border. While there, he participated in a video and photography
training led by the community-based Shan Youth Power (SYP) media team. He
returned to his home determined to use these skills to document both the need
for political change in Shan State and to create a historic visual record of
his ancestral home through the seasons; Jai Jai Lao Mong remains the only
resident of the village with a camera.
Located within
the “Black Zone,” Mong Ngaw Township is not accessible to outsiders. To date,
these are the only known published images of this quiet corner of Shan State
known for its hillside tea plantations surrounding a valley of rice paddies.
Mong Ngaw Township
is formed by 99 small villages, one of which is Da Lone. Most people make their
living by farming: paddy fields take up one third of the township’s total area.
In August, the height rainy season, the whole region becomes covered with green
paddy fields. Two-thirds of Mong Ngaw is paddy land, known as Nar Nam Fa,
meaning “the paddy waiting for rain water”; the land is irrigated by a
combination of water diverted from the Nam Sim stream and from the annual
rains, which last four months.
Karng Dong Pagoda—the
“pagoda in the middle of the fields”—is a sanctuary for residents throughout
the Mong Ngaw area, who are mostly Buddhist, with a small population of
Christian and Muslim families.
At over 100 feet
long and over 100 years old, Hang Hawm Bridge marks the edge of the township is
an essential link across the Nam Sim stream and the only connection between the
villages of Mong Ngaw and the larger town of Kyaukme in northern Shan State. Built
by the British, it is the only structure remaining in the area from Burma’s
colonial era. It is also one of the only existing bridges; there is little to
no government-initiated infrastructure in the township.
Nam Sim stream starts
in Nam Hsan Township, 45 miles from Mong Ngaw, before flowing into the Nam Du
River in Hsipaw Township. Decades ago, the stream was the habitat of many fish
species and was vital to the irrigation of half of Mong Ngaw’s farms. Now,
villagers lament the lack of fish in the stream’s waters. Locals speculate that
the disappearing life may be due to decreasing water levels and rising levels
of sediment, which are linked to increasingly erratic flooding patterns.
The presence of sediment can be attributed to deforestation along the
stream, as well as mining projects. The Nam Sim has attracted a number of gold
mining companies who use heavy machinery to dig up hundreds of grams of gold
each day, both upstream and downstream from Mong Ngaw.
This Buddha
statue in Mong Ngaw Township has been constructed from bamboo. In Shan language
it is called “Phra Inn Sarn,” meaning, “the bamboo Buddha made by an
Angel.” The art of making Buddha statues
from woven bamboo is a traditional Shan custom.
In Wan Lone, one
of Mong Ngaw’s bigger villages, locals walk to the temple on a cold season
mid-afternoon to make merit by donating household goods to monks during the
Khao Wa period. During these three months, the monks do not leave the monastery
in order to practice Dhamma, or the teachings of Buddha. The Khao Wa period
ends with Og Wa, which falls on a full moon day, in October or November, and
signifies the time when Buddha came down from heaven.
Starting work before sunrise, tea pickers end the day at sunset, and
walk over five kilometres through mountainous terrain to bring their harvest to
market, where it is weighed with traditional scales. They earn 1,000 kyats or
one U.S. dollar per kilogram. On an average day, they can collect up to 15
kilograms of tea leaves. Usually, they can only keep half of these earnings,
splitting the rest with the owner of the tea plantation.
The tea from northern Shan State is heavily consumed by people throughout
Myanmar and is exported to neighboring countries, especially to India.
People call March, or the tea season, “Shwe Byi,” meaning “the golden
season,” because it is a time of economic prosperity for the villagers. This
added income allows them to buy goods which they would normally be unable to
afford, such as motorbikes. Motorbikes have become extremely popular among the youth
in the region, as they provide convenient transportation across Shan State.
Many of the bikes were imported from the Chinese border, a 200-mile drive from Mong Ngaw.
In April, villagers pool funds so that their children can be educated in
Shan culture, language and literature while the government schools—which only
teach Burmese language—are on break. After two months of studying, the top
three students from each village are selected to participate in the township
level examination. As is the practice in other villages, this class in Mong
Ngaw Township is taught by one of the local villagers, who is a volunteer, and
it is held in one of the locals’ storage rooms. The schools are
community-sourced and funded, bringing students and villages together and
helping to keep ethnic traditions alive.
The Shan people
play traditional instruments at times of celebration and in this photograph the
villagers are celebrating the graduation of Shan students who studied lessons
in Shan language and literature over two months—March and April—across 30
different villages. These instruments are believed to have a 2,000-year history
and dating back to when the Shan people would play them to celebrate.
In Mong Ngaw,
the year is divided by planting and by harvest times. Many local people do not
follow a Western calendar, but a traditional Shan system, which is based on the
phases of the moon. In November or December, before the celebration of the Shan
New Year, the rice crop is cut, dried, and the grains of rice collected.
One obstacle farmers
in Mong Ngaw face following the harvest is the redistribution of land. There
are no clear boundaries in their land and some overlaps others. This is because
the boundaries were originally cut in the shape of spider’s web. In the cultivating
season, the boundaries are eliminated to maximize land use. Once the farmers
have finished cultivating they re-divide the boundaries, meaning the shape of
their land is always changing.
A stream runs
through the middle of the field and is used for irrigation. In the past, many
of the farmers took little notice of it, but in recent years, large dams have
been constructed as government projects upstream which have caused the land to
erode further downstream.
Huts like this
one are used during the harvest season and are made entirely of bamboo. It has
become a tradition for children to pass the night with their parents in the open-air
structure before the harvested crops are delivered to their home. It is also
the place where farmers’ families have their lunch together—sticky rice,
pickled vegetables, and tamarind juice or lao,
traditional Shan alcohol made from sticky rice and sugar cane.
In the hot and dry months of February through April, in the new year,
some families take advantage of ownerless land and set up houses and hillside
farms in the most isolated areas of Mong Ngaw and Kyaukme townships. This
practice is not without risk: at this time, the surrounding forest is burned,
either by people, or through natural phenomena, putting such homes in a
precarious position. It is thought that burning the land makes it more fertile,
and rice is then cultivated on the mountainsides. It is irrigated only through
rainwater. The farmers do not earn any profits from their crops because before
the harvest time they must take out debts from merchants in order to afford
basic supplies. After the crops have been harvested, they pay off these debts.
It is a cycle that does not end.
Despite the ongoing civil war in Shan State, the town of Mong Ngaw has
been free from disturbances for three decades. But due to general political
instability and fear of government authorities, villagers did not dare to display
signs of Shan identity or nationalism. Instead they have relied on local
monasteries to keep Shan culture and literature alive.
Today, in northern Shan State, symbols of Shan culture are becoming more
visible. The entrance to this village in Mong Ngaw Township is signposted with
a painted Shan flag with writing in Shan language.
By Jai Jai Lao
Mong / Special Contributor to Shan Herald Agency for News (S.H.A.N.)
Tags: Visual Points
