“Giraffe women” is a term born in the West to name the women belonging to the ethnic minority Padaung, which literally means “long neck” in Shan language. These women wear from childhood brass coils around their necks, adding new ones progressively as one of the most imposing traditions as in regards of impact in the human body. A cultural demand they have been forced to live with during centuries which has become a major tourist attraction in present times. Nonetheless, recently some Padaung have started to give up their neck rings in a brave gesture that should be remembered in history as a tremendous heroic deed in the name of the fight towards dignity and equal rights for women. It is The Uprising of the Giraffe Women.
The Padaung women are a group belonging to the Kayan cast. From the age of 5-6 they begin to wear brass coils gaining a peculiar look that resembles as if their necks were stretching up. Nonetheless the truth is that adding gradually rings pushes and compresses the collarbone and the rib cage provoking the visual effect of having lengthened necks.
Due to the Kayan ethnicity not having a written language, so far it has been unfeasible to confirm the inception of this tradition. While some beliefs affirm that this distinctive custom had aesthetic means, some others claim the goal was making the Padaung women less attractive for other tribes. Nevertheless, when asking the women their answer was “We wear the rings because it is our tradition”. Originally the Padaung lived in the jungle as a tribe worshipping and protecting the animals, something which did not set them apart from the dangers of nature. The legend says that this cast was constantly suffering by the attack of wild tigers that killed their pray by biting them in the neck and this is how they started the habit of protecting their women by making them wear ring around their necks.
The sets of brass coils can reach a total weight of 7 kg apart of the ones they wear as well to embellish their ankles. They are highly annoying to wear due to not only restrict the body agility and mobility, but also to be tremendously disturbing for eating and sleeping and what’s even a more overwhelming fact: they cannot see their own body.
The Giraffe Women were originally found in the East of Myanmar. However after the Civil War that devastated the country during decades, many of them moved with their families to the West of Thailand where they established refugee camps. Currently they continue to move from Burma to Thai villages that have become complete human zoos. These thematic towns are visited by hundreds of tourists eager to pay disproportionate amounts of money for their visit, funding like this a system of human exhibition. There, the Padaung families are forbidden to work and they receive a stipend in proportion to the amount of neck rings their women wear. The nonsense goes as far as there have been reported cases where Thai young girls who do not even belong to this cast move in these villages and begin to wear their neck rings and traditional clothes. They are glad to become a living attraction and to be able to receive a monthly wage which added to the tips from tourists become a fair income.
The women from the Padaung villages are forced by the men managing the visits and tickets to have a good attitude towards tourists and visitors, smiling to their cameras, wearing their traditional dresses at every moment and even showing themselves weaving, something which is not part of their genuine custom and which provokes a big discomfort by causing them pain in the neck and back. In Thailand it is even offered the option of having an excursion with them riding on the back of elephants, a physical effort they are not ready for and which leads to severe body injuries.
The Padaung displaced by the Internal Conflict of Myanmar are settled now in refugee camps where they are forced to live without neither electricity nor running water with the purpose of selling to tourists the ideal that they rather live isolated of society. Despite the fact of being already several generations of Padaung in Thailand, they are still denied of the Thai citizenship and therefore neither they can travel within the country nor have access to proper education or health care. What’s more, some of them are even forbidden to leave their villages. A big majority is illiterate, especially because the little girls must abandon soon the school to be in the village for the delight of tourists. They barely have books or resources and furthermore foreigner scholars are not allowed, having as only teachers Padaung whom academic training is very limited.
Till fairly short ago, it was commonly accepted the urban myth which said that if a woman removed her rings she could break her neck and even die of asphyxiation. Nevertheless, in 2006 Mu Lo, a 20-year old Padaung refugee got rid of the heavy pieces of jewelry that had come with her for three quarter parts of her life. She did it as protest for being denied by the Thai Government the permit for leaving the country and move to New Zealand. It was the beginning of The Uprising of the Giraffe Women.
Mu Lo was not just an agitator and pioneer, but her act showed to the women of her cast that now they had the chance of deciding by themselves. With the rise of Padaung villages as tourist destinations many women saw it as an easy way of earning an income. However some others stood firm against the humiliation of exposing their culture as a human circus and of being used as exotic adornment for tourists eager of taking exceptional photographs. Frequently, their insurrection brings the rejection of their neighbors and even threats by the men managing the entrance of visitors to the village. Nonetheless, they still decide not to mortgage their ethnic idiosyncrasy and to keep their humble way of living by getting rid of some brass coils that had transformed them into object women. Aside from that, they do not see a reason for wearing the rings any longer, no point on sacrificing health and living standards for a tradition that they consider archaic and obsolete. Furthermore these tribes have always been underprivileged and those women refusing the modern influence of tourism in order to continue their truly traditional and modest way of living see those rings as expensive jewelry pieces. They rather spend their funds in basic needs such as obtaining food and supplies.
When visiting a country from abroad, it is common to think and to plan in the way of ensuring to have the most fascinating experience and, if possible, to live an exotic and singular adventure. However we often miss the fact that our influence and the way we decide to spend our money in those places have a great impact in the local communities and may cause instabilities and injustices. It is inarguable the attraction of the Padaung women and obviously it is a tradition which have trespassed dozens of generations, yet fortunately the society has evolved towards equality, respect and tolerance. If the values of certain custom have become antiquated there cannot even be considered the choice of keeping a tradition which depreciates human beings and insults the dignity of a whole gender. Countless heroines have fought and have managed to be victorious in battles that allowed the progress of their gender. Now some Padaung women are carrying out a true revolution against their own history, culture and people and they have earned this way a place on that list of women fighting for transforming the World into a fairer place to live. Moreover, these true warriors deserve the rest of women to be acquainted of their feat in the case they happen to forget at some point that the fight for equality keeps on always.
