N 100   Our Brethren, the Palaungs of Shan State

During the past 2 days there was a sensation on facebook, caused by a live video posted by an account holder with the name Yuri Miko. She videoed a group of Palaung people of Makmoung Lao, which is between Namsang and Kholam in Southern Shan State, in night time. And she said these Palaung people are maneaters and they are a kind of spirits called kyats.Many people who know the Palaung people including me became outraged by her remarks and so sharing, commenting, counter

attacking, defending the victims, unmasking and scolding the poster overflow into FB pages.

Why…. what had caused these commotions on FB ? Because it is untrue. The Palaungs are one among the 135 ethnic people of Myanmar. They are from the Mon- Khmar race, not like the Shans who are from Tai Shan Tayoke race. But they live in the Shan State only, mainly in the northern parts of Shan State, which centered around the town Namsang.This place is a hilly region and the Palaung there cultivated tea for their livelihood. They are called Shwe Palaung which means golden Palaung and they are more developed than Palaungs residing in Southern Shan State,in townships of Namsang,Kunhing, and Merng Peing.

Palaungs are devout Buddhist and they build big monasteries in their villages. They also like to go for pilgrimage to famous religious places and pagodas. Because they live in remote hilly regions most of them cannot acquire much education. But now schools have reached them and they are starting to send their children to school. Some well to do Palaungs even send their children to boarding schools in towns.

Their main livelihood is cultivation of crops. In the past they grew opium for their living. But now as opium does not fetch good price and maybe because of some other reasons they switched to other crops like maize and corn. Even then some people’s lives are not good enough due to lack of education, their backwardness, and exploitation by more advanced people.

 Some of them had to move to other places because the land they had been living for decades were confiscated from them. While driving from Hsai Moan to Wan Sing near Kholam last March I saw them building new bamboo huts at a place. It was a sign that they had moved from other place. Even now some don’t have a permanent place to settle down, a place to call home.

People living in and around Kunhing township are pitiable. Some maybe well off and own cars, brick houses, motor cycles, and luxurious items, but most of them are poor and underpriviledged.Worse than that some have become addicted to drugs like amphetamine and stimulant pills and have to work as labourers in road making.

The Palaungs have their own language and many can understand the Shan language, though their culture are different from the Shans. They live in long, dark,bamboo and thatched houses.. A family has its own fireplace on one side of the middle pathway. One can count how many families are living in the house by counting the fireplaces.

As for their dresses men wear cotton shirts of vivid colours like green, red and blue, and extremely loose black trousers. Women wear long striped skirts tightened at the chest, which they weave themselves, and wear multicoloured short double breasted jacket for the upper part.The colour of the women’s skirt vary according to the tribes. Some wear black with red stripes and some wear bright purple colour with stripes. Women wear big silver ear studs and wide silver belts around their waist. Both men and women like to chew betel nut wrap and make their teeth black As for the hair men wear their hair long but women shave their head after they get married.

I have been writing about the Palaungs I know to clear the misunderstandings about them caused by the FB post. I have never lived closely to these people, so I don’t know  them intimately. But I believed what I had written is not wrong. Anyway we Shans and the Palaungs had lived side by side peacefully for decades and we know that they are nice, ignorant, simple people.

So I cannot stay silent when I see they were insulted by words. In this case the mistake was done by only one, but the message had done great damage to the Palaung's image, lest people believe what she had said. In the future people using facebook should be careful about what they say or write in their postings. Should refrain from posting about what we don't know well.