I have been reading the news on Irrawady ever since I came back from my Thailand trip, after flipping through the magazine while I was in Mae Salit. The news is forever -- almost, gloomy.
Sometime back, when I was at Kai Lun's(?) Karen Photo Exhibition, she told us about a Burmese lady who spoke to her. According to that lady, the Karens are not as pathetic as they have been portrayed and everything has just been blown out of proportion by outsiders. It brings to my mind how I've met people who think that Singapore is a very oppressed nation and how I'd often say that that's not true.
Perhaps it is just that I have never been persecuted, so I assume nobody else has.
But the story is not about Singapore. It's about the Karens.
This was the sunrise I woke up early to see one morning. It was about 4am that we woke up, and about 6am that we reached the mountain top. It didn't actually look so pretty. The photo has been edited. It was rather hazy/cloudly and I was freezing cold. But only the colours of the photo has been edited. The view was nonetheless spectacular.
Who else could have created something like that but the grand master artist of all?
My Papa, the great designer. :)
For such a beautiful sight, it's almost ironic to think that there is a war going on hidden behind that beauty. It is in that forested area that the Karens have their HQ, with the mountain range as their natural fortress against the Junta.
And just little steps away, are the many Karen villages littered all across the borderline of Thailand -- one of which I was staying in.
Collin, Yahui and I took a walk one day after brunch, to the border river. We thought we couldn't go further past the guard post but one local told us to go ahead. He showed us which way to go to get the best shots and there we were again, standing the middle of Karen state, and on the borderline of Thailand and Burma.
I wonder what would my life be like if I were Karen. Or even if my name was Karen, instead of what it is.
Life may just be very different.
I could have grown up stripping myself naked and jumping into the waterfall everyday.
Labels: random, reflections, travel
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