Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
to 90% of Chin are believed to be Christian, mainly following the efforts of American
missionaries during the British colonial period. However, with the present-day activities
of government-sponsored Buddhist missions in the region, the traditional Zo or Chin
groups are fading fast. Many Chin have also fled west to Bangladesh and India.
The Chin National Front (
www.chinland.org
)
would like to create a sovereign 'Chinland'
out of parts of Myanmar, India and Bangladesh.
Intha
Although they follow Buddhism and wear modern Burmese costume, the Intha people of
Inle Lake are culturally quite distinct from their Shan neighbours.
The ancestors of the Intha are thought to have migrated to Inle from Dawei in southern
Myanmar. According to the most popular legend, two brothers from Dawei came to
Yaunghwe (the original name for Nyaungshwe) in 1359 to serve the local Shan
sao pha
(sky lord). The chieftain was so pleased with the hard-working Dawei brothers that he in-
vited 36 more families from Dawei; purportedly, all the Intha around Inle Lake, who
number around 70,000, are descended from these migrant families.
A more likely theory is that the Intha fled southern Myanmar in the 18th century to es-
cape wars between the Thais and Bamar.
TRADITIONAL LIFE & DEATH IN MYANMAR
About three-quarters of Myanmar's population are rural dwellers, so much of local
life revolves around villages and farming the countryside. Here, national politics or
dreams of wealth can pale in comparison to the season, the crop or the level of the
river (used for bathing, washing and drinking water). Everywhere, people are
known for helping each other when in need, and call each other 'brother' and 'sis-
ter' affectionately.
Families tend to be large; you might find three or four generations of one family
living in a two- or three-room house. The birth of a child is a big occasion. Girls are
as equally welcomed as boys, if not more so, as they're expected to look after par-
ents later in life. Some thatched huts in the countryside have generators, powering
electric bulbs and pumping life into the TV a couple of hours a night; many don't.
Running water outside the cities and bigger towns is rare.
In Finding George Orwell in Burma,Emma Larkin recounts how a Mandalay
cemetery worker saved dirt from a moved gravesite so that just in case the family
ever returned they could have 'some soil from around the grave'. Death, of course,
