Why Cross the Border 02: Why Travel a Thousand Miles to the Thai-Myanmar Border for Charity? Taiwanese Figures on Highway 105

(Continued from previous article) The Thai-Myanmar border town of Mae Sot sits on the banks of the Moei River, facing Myanmar across the water, which forms the border river. Highway 105, which starts from Mae Sot, runs roughly parallel to the Moei River along the national boundary. Heading north along Highway 105, the route passes winding rivers and a long national border; land around the plains and towns has been built up with housing and factories, while agricultural activity spreads from the plains into the mountains, where forests have been clear-cut to plant corn, leaving only tree trunks and bare black soil.

Given Taiwan's unique international situation, it has little space to participate in the international community. Yet a group of Taiwanese people have bravely broken through political borders, using the strength of civil society to invest in long-term overseas aid along the Thai-Myanmar border. From helping Myanmar migrant workers' children attend school to founding a charity travel initiative named after the Thai-Myanmar "Highway 105," they hope to bring more Taiwanese people to the Thai-Myanmar border and, from a perspective of public service rather than utilitarianism, narrow the distance between Taiwan and Southeast Asian societies.

Capital That Freely Crosses Borders and Refugees and Migrant Workers Who Cannot

The 2016 film "The Road to Mandalay," written and directed by Myanmar-born ethnic Chinese director Midi Z, gave Taiwanese society a slight understanding of the current situation of Myanmar migrant workers: long-term economic hardship has driven large numbers of people across the border to Thailand in search of opportunities.

Young men and women enter big cities and factories, while farmers at the bottom of society move with their families to work on farms. This group of seasonal agricultural migrant workers numbers at least several hundred thousand along the Thai-Myanmar border, struggling to survive without medical or educational services. The push and pull forces behind this flow of people include Myanmar's long-term civil war and stalled development, but an even newer trend is globalized agriculture: the food trade and the bioenergy industry.

Thailand was already a major food-producing country, and with the international development of bioenergy, food prices have soared, leading agricultural districts near Mae Sot to switch en masse to growing bioenergy crops. The buyers are large ethnic Chinese multinational grain companies, which mainly supply international bioenergy producers; the crops purchased are concentrated in sugarcane, corn and cassava. The higher the oil price, the higher the demand for bioenergy, and the higher the prices on the international agricultural grain market. Sparsely populated border villages have become emerging bases for cash-crop food farming.

The Karen People Divided by Political Borders

The mountainous area along the Thai-Myanmar border is the traditional territory of the Karen people (formerly called "Kariang"). The Karen span both sides of the Thai-Myanmar border and have since ancient times been a famous "mahout" people; in the historical wars between Thai and Burmese dynasties, Karen people could be found in the ranks of both sides.

Since British colonial rule applied the principle of "divide and rule," the Karen within Myanmar possessed an independent language and culture as well as substantial autonomy, taxation and an army. After the military government bloodily suppressed the democracy movement in the capital Yangon in 1988, in order to divert domestic discontent, it called for national unification and launched campaigns against ethnic minorities within the country, adopting forced assimilation policies.

The military government's oppression led the Karen to establish the Karen National Union (KNU), demanding armed independence and statehood. However, the two sides were vastly unequal in strength, and the Karen army, unable to defeat the government forces, retreated steadily. Large numbers of Karen people crossed the border into Thailand to escape the fighting and were confined to refugee camps, where the United Nations and international organizations provided humanitarian aid.

(Photo of the Karen army, from Karen News)

Besides the Karen army, Myanmar also has ethnic armed groups of the Rakhine, Shan and Kachin. The 30-year civil war is an eternal pain in the hearts of many exiles. Even far from the conflict zones, they learn from Facebook or relatives and friends which village has been attacked again.

A teacher at a migrant workers' school described the horror of real war to Taiwanese volunteer Po-Heng, who served as a summer teacher: "When war breaks out, all the villagers must leave home to take refuge, because the army attacks indiscriminately anything hiding or moving, regardless of whether it is elderly, weak, women or children. Several students at the school went through the process of fleeing for their lives..."

"Facing the suffering of others, what right do you have to take photographs?"

On the winding mountain road of Highway 105, one can see the large refugee camps of village after village. To manage and guard against these refugee camps, various checkpoints are also scattered along the route. When getting out of the vehicle outside a refugee camp, Lai Shu-Sheng warned every visitor: "Please put your camera away."

"Why can't we take photos?" a travel companion asked, puzzled.
"Why should we be allowed to take photos?"

Lai Shu-Sheng, who once worked in humanitarian aid in refugee camps for a long time, rarely showed a defensive posture toward members of the charity travel group. For him, the refugee camps held too many heavy memories. Facing the suffering of others, if one is not in their situation, perhaps one cannot respond naturally in any other posture than silence or turning away.

The Karen Need More Humanitarian Assistance

Because Karen settlements are located in remote mountain areas, the Thai government has adopted an attitude of letting them fend for themselves, providing no water, electricity, or even basic educational services. Veteran overseas aid worker Lin Liang-Shu recalled a French priest's description: "When Karen people go down the mountain for medical treatment or to handle official business at the local government, because they do not understand Thai, they are humiliated like animals."

Lin Liang-Shu and Lai Shu-Sheng both once worked in humanitarian aid in refugee camps for long periods. They realized that due to international political factors, refugee camps receive assistance from the international community, but the plight of the Karen lacks attention. In addition, international aid must be able to take root in local society.

At the earnest request of Karen community partner Pi Watit, Lin Liang-Shu and Lai Shu-Sheng gradually shifted the focus of their educational work from the refugee camps to Karen mountain villages. For the Karen people, without traditional culture and self-identity, and with blind pursuit of economic development and modernization, they will ultimately have nowhere left to retreat.

Taiwanese Volunteers Work with Karen Partners to Promote Community Development

Lin Liang-Shu, Lai Shu-Sheng and Karen partners jointly founded the Tak Border Child Assistance Foundation (TBCAF) in 2005, promoting educational programs to train Karen village youth as teachers and advancing community development and cultural transmission.

Lai Shu-Sheng has deep reflections on "international aid" or so-called "development": "We cannot let local partners forever get used to accepting foreign aid and outside leadership." With this awareness, Taiwanese overseas aid organizations and local partners support each other, building a healthy community in which international aid workers and local grass-roots community-based organizations (CBO, Grass-Roots Community-Based Organization) support one another.

Chimmuwa Weaves Traditional Culture, and Also Weaves Community Partnerships

When Lin Liang-Shu was traveling around Karen villages on Highway 105 to run schools, she also noticed that the Karen farmers' shift toward market-oriented cash crops actually concealed risks.

The grain buyer and the supplier of pesticides and fertilizers are the same multinational company. Obtaining seeds, pesticides and fertilizers does not require cash transactions but instead uses a credit system. Farmers want high returns and use large amounts of inputs, but the more they invest, the greater the risk. Once market prices collapse or natural disasters cause crop failure, the only land the farmers have becomes collateral, and they lose everything.

To encourage farmers not to use pesticides and to preserve traditional natural farming methods, Lin Liang-Shu, after leaving her full-time overseas aid work, co-founded the social enterprise brand Chimmuwa in 2004 with Karen weaving artisan NorNor, and began purchasing these fabrics in various villages. This not only helps the Karen improve their livelihoods but also allows Karen women to preserve the traditional Chimmuwa weaving craft of "hand-spun thread" and natural plant dyeing.

In the original Karen meaning, Chimmuwa specifically refers to the traditional white woven one-piece dress that unmarried young women must wear before marriage. It symbolizes a "pure and flawless" identity, and it also fully expresses the Karen culture's ideal pursuit of sincere spirituality.

With improved transportation, the inflow of goods and the installation of network base stations, modernization is gradually impacting the Karen way of life. Young people likewise yearn for bustling cities, but according to the observations of aid workers, young people's experiences in the city are mostly hurtful.

The name Chimmuwa not only represents a traditional weaving craft and is not merely the brand of a social enterprise; for overseas aid workers, it also represents a search for reconciliation and coexistence between human development and traditional culture, and for using land in harmony with nature, during the process of adapting to modernization.