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Akha Chronicles Tourism Eco Tourism and Trekking Hard Apple and Long Weeds here. How the Akha played in the tourism picture and how it effected them. Eco Tourism Tourism to poor people is exploitive, as they are the
monkeys. No matter how people like
Lonely Planet would jusify it, much of tourism is
degrading and gawking. In the current
situation the hilltribe are often the destination
and they are already oppressed, so under these terms they are at a distinct
disadvantage to the tourist. Tourists want to go and look at what has become of people
even if it isn't nice. They like to
think that they go to find out about new and interesting people who are on
tough times, but that is not the reality of the exchange. The destination Akha, is often made up of people who are incredibly poor, far
below the poverty line and have had their food security, such as it was,
stripped by high government decisions. The white people who come to visit them won't soon go
without a rich meal in their diet, and will know little of the disadvantage
of the people they visit, and find interesting enough to photograph. They generally have no feeling of
compassion to these people. Those who
do feel ashamed by the prearranged visit and often will not even get out of
the van. But these people are rare,
and if they go home and keep their silence it does little good. The thai
exploitation of Akha for tourism The thais get lots of money for
tourism but deny these people many rights, on the otherhand
they also tolerate them a lot but they have been in the mountains a long time
and Thais have always made money off people crossing their borders Collection of akha
gate people of wood Thais and others collect them and get around 5,000 baht for
them. The guy from chiang
mai says he knows a fellow that has over a 100 sets
in bangkok.
They are a kind of art but should be left where they belong, at the
village. The Akha Zoo
the tours to
akha villages Tourism To answer your questions, the Akha
get little out of tourism to the villages. There are a
few locations where they have set up tables to sell but this is nothing
compared to the hefty fees that people pay the Thais and others to be
transported there where they are then told basically that they must be
patient with these pushy animals. I
have watched the event repeatedly, an Akha woman
with baby, a posh air condition van in the village with a load of soft
overfed tourists pointing cameras. The
Akha see the blatant disperity
in wealth, some cameras in the $4,000 US range, and they know they will get
nothing other than maybe the token bottle of Mekhong
whiskey for the headman and they push to sell a bracelet made of cloth and
beads for 10 baht which now is about 20 cents american. Then the zoo tourists, all from supposedly
highly educated countries where someone should have sufficient intellect to
recognize grinding poverty, become gruff and rude at the insistance
of these woman that they should buy something, maybe even trying to tie a
bracelet on their wrist. So they go
into the authoritive mode on “how to fend off
hawkers in a foreign country” since after all it is the principle of
the thing! They themselves are taking part in a cultural
genocide. We could point to some of
the local reasons why this is allowed but it is still unexcusable
that the foreigners without shame take part.
And for some reason the tourists treat these poor people like they
were just staying at the Hilton that morning but are of such low character
and breading that they chose to dress up in dirty clothes and come down to
the village to entertain tourists on the gag.
Now try to figure where the onus belongs on this one. Economics? A tourist says: I was deeply impressed with your letter on the ELL
concerning the so called studies about the Akha. I
can completely understand your feelings. I am just to begin a study with a
community of Amazonian indigenous people in order to help them to build up a
bilingual program for their children. Most of the “a cademic” in this field has been done by the Summer
Institute of Linguistics, always going together with missionary activity. I
feel that I can not ignore their work, but I want to work independently. In
my case the community itsel f asked me to work with
them and they will be the leader of the project all the time. It is
interesting to notice that the SIL is only interested in bil
ingual education, if the communities try to teach
their children Spanish, bu t they loose interest,
when the community starts to rescue their own languag
e and culture. I wrote e-mails to some of the SIL people who worked in that
area to ask them a couple of questions. There all kinds of reaction from ver y friendly to “I’m too busy to dicuss that with you” and to no response at all. I’m going this week to stay for 3 weeks with the Ashaninka community in the Amazonian jungle. It is only a
short time, but I will be going again in Summer. Interesting
was, that the community tried to get cooperation from Peruvian universities.
The professors agreed, but told them that the elders have to come to the
capital, then they would study them in their office.
Can you tell me what kind of “field work” is that? I was in These
are questions which my Ashanika friends are facing right now. Again, I admire your work and I’d be
very glad to hear from you. Sabine Koppe Dr. Sabine Koppe Sanyo Gakuen
University Dept. of International Studies 1-14-1 Hirai Tel:+81-86-272-6254, Ext.2262 Fax:
+81-86-273-3226 T.I.M. Team Information
from Anita at Tim Team here. Welcome to the Akha monkey show, you get pictures, been there and done
that, the Akha get nothing. PDA and PTT
Akha Eco Tour Village Swing
village Tourism Concern End Have a comment or question? Like to know
more? Send me an email at akha@akha.org |