The Limits of Language at the Golden Triangle

On the banks of the Mekong near the famous "Golden Triangle", people remember when opium grew in the nearby hills. 

“In the villages, men would be passed out on the floor. ”

A Thai friend, conjuring scenes from his childhood recalls that "in the villages, men would be passed out on the floor, high on opium.."  

For ethnic minorities in the region, the opium poppy traditionally provided medicine to soothe aches and illness. But when Chiang Kai Shek lost China and retreated to Taiwan in late 1949,  some of his Kuomintang army traversed into Myanmar, Laos and northern Thailand. Simply put, they aggressively pursued and controlled poppy cultivation and the opium and heroin trade. Opium was exchanged for gold bricks, thus "the Golden Triangle." 

This isn't a series about opium. But opium is relevant  to  A River Runs with Her, my new photo documentary series about the economic, social and cultural lives of women and girls living by the Mekong. 

These hills, just a few kilometres from the Golden Triangle where the Mekong River intersects Thailand, Laos and Myanmar, used to house opium poppy fields. People from the Akha village Ban Doi-SA Ngo  - its rooftops in the centre right of the photograph - had little choice but to take part in mass opium poppy production, controlled by exiled Chinese nationalist leaders. You can see the mountains of Laos in the distance, just beyond the Mekong, and Myanmar is in the far left-hand corner. 

In the early 1970s, Thailand's King, His Majesty Bhumibol Adulyadej, traveled to the Golden Triangle region and was alarmed by the dependence on opium poppy agriculture and by heavy deforestation. He vowed to fund a series of Royal Projects aimed at crop replacement and improving the wellbeing of communities.  

When I saw a sign to a village Royal Development Centre,  I followed the road away from the Mekong for six kilometres, and found Ban Doi-SA Ngo. It was midday, hot and quiet. There were well-tended greenhouses, a fish-pond and clearly marked buildings. 

One of several sets of tidy greenhouses at Ban Doi SA Ngo. 

I was looking for people to talk with and saw some women working at this building -  the pleasing colour of a robin's egg.   

Salika and Dokmai are packing boxes with chamomile flowers.  

We got to talking. Or actually, we got to smiling, pointing and nodding together because, alas, my interpreter was not with me.  The women invited me into the building, where they were busy cutting zucchini (which in Thai is also "zucchini".) 

They told me the zucchini and chamomile came from the area, and both were bound for the Chiang Mai markets. They told me their names and ages:   Au-chum, who spoke the most English,  is in pink, and she's 50 years old. Salika is in the checked shirt, she's 26. Dokmai (that means 'flower') is 22 and in green. And Ratree is 39, in blue.  They pointed to my nose and said it was beautiful ('suai'). I told them they were beautiful. We had a good time laughing together.   

So a very small glimpse into the working lives of some women living near the Mekong. A tiny window into a Royal Project.  But far too small, isn't it? I wanted to spend a lot more time with them asking questions and learning. It wasn't to be, and I headed back in the car towards the river. Along the way, I saw this group. 

I stopped the car and walked towards them. They were picking the heads off these flowers, one by one. I thought they were daisies. 

Wrong! It was chamomile. This was about all the information I could gather though as my Thai is terrible, and they had no English. So, we really couldn't communicate much. I gestured to ask if I could take photographs, and they readily, graciously agreed. 

On one hand, this was a beautiful pastoral scene. But the reality was, it was hot, hard work, and language barriers meant I couldn't find out anymore about these women. I waved goodbye to the group - who waved back and laughed a bit as I clumsily picked my way through the field to the car -  feeling slightly like a voyeur. 

After I met these groups of women, I vowed two things - never to travel without an interpreter during the course of A River Runs with Her, and to avoid taking photographs of people if I couldn't at least learn their name.  

Grateful to Dokmai, Ratree, Salika and Au-chum for their hospitality. I plan to go back to their community later this year, and hope to meet them and the women picking chamomile again.