Catching the Thai Smile

Every Tuesday Chiang Dao in Northern Thailand has a bustling and colourful authentic Thai market where people from the surrounding area come to sell and buy local produce and cheap clothing. Its filled with good vibe and energy from the enthusiastic sellers and buyers, mostly smiling local ladies. The market is a perfect place for catching the famous Thai smile and to find out what's behind it...

According to Henry Holmes' and Suchada Tangtongtavy's precise observations (Working with the Thais), there are at least one dozen of different Thai smiles. They can be found at Chiang Dao's vibrant Tuesday market where both sellers and buyers perform each of the Thai smiles smiles with flawless accuracy:

• the hearty “I’m so happy that I’m crying” smile (yim thang nam taa),
• the polite smile from someone you barely know (yim thak thaai),
• the very controlled yet beautiful “I admire you” smile (yim cheun chom),
• the stiff smile, also known as the “I should laugh at the joke though it’s not funny” smile (fuen yim),
• the devious smile which masks something wicked in your partner/opponent's mind (yim mee lessanai),
• the teasing or the “I told you so” smile of your partner/opponent (yim yaw),
• the “I know things look pretty bad but there’s no point in crying over spilled milk” smile (yim yae-yae),
• the "I am not happy" smile of real sadness (yim sao),
• the dry smile, also known as the “I know I owe you the favour but I don’t want to do it” smile (yim haeng),
• the “I disagree with you” smile, also known as the “You can take the photo but this is not a good idea” smile (yim thak thaan),
• the “I am the winner” smile, the smile given to a loser (yim cheua-cheua),
• the encouraging “you can take the photo” smile (yim soo-soo),
• the concealing and polite “I’m trying to smile but can’t” smile (yim mai awk).

Well, save face now and find out which photo below represents which smile…

The expression "to save face" describes the lengths that a person may go to in order to preserve her or his established position in the society, taking action to ensure that one is not thought badly of by their peers. The (in-)famous Thai smile in all its versions and nuances belongs to this interesting psychological category.
A piece of advice for farangs at beginner level: smiling and nodding (and wrinkling the nose) is very often Thai body language for "go away and leave me alone"...

High-res portrait photographs with full exif data, precise geotags and technical details in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2015-11b Cheering Northern Thai Dancers

Flickr Album 2015-11h Dancing with the Thai Chinese

Flickr Album 2015-11g Joining the Lisu Tribe

Flickr Album 2015-10a Plucking Bangkok's Flowers

Dancing with the Thai Chinese

The Thai Chinese are Thais descended from various Chinese ethnic groups, particularly Han Chinese. Thailand is home to the largest overseas Chinese community in the world with a population of approximately ten million people, accounting for c. 15 percent of the Thai population. It is also the oldest, most prominent, and best integrated overseas Chinese community. They have been deeply ingrained into all elements of the Thai society over the past 200 years.

Besides the distinctive Thai hill tribes (e.g. Akha, Lahu, Karen, H'mong/Miao, Mien/Yao, Lisu), the Thai Chinese are one of the culturally, historically and linguistically most interesting ethnic groups in the Thai Highlands.

Cross-border tourism and visitors from other Chinese ethnic groups and ethnic minorities are a significant factor for the ongoing development of Northern Thailand.

“I love the people I photograph.

I mean, they’re my friends.

I’ve never met most of them or I don’t know them at all,

yet through my images I live with them.”

(Bruce Gilden)

High-res portrait photographs with full exif data, geotags and technical details in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2015-11g Joining the Lisu Tribe

Flickr Album 2015-11f Meeting the Akha Tribe

Flickr Album 2015-11e Facing the Kayor and Lahu Tribes

Flickr Album 2015-11d Tracking Lu-mien Yao Women

Flickr Album 2015-11c Reaching Out to Longneck Women

Flickr Album 2012-11c Mapping Chinese Minorities

Flickr Album 2012-11b Meeting the Vietnamese H'mong

High-res portrait photographs with full exif data, geotags and technical details in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2015-11h Dancing with the Thai Chinese

Joining the Flower-Lisu Tribe

Ethnic minorities living in the mountainous regions of Northern Thailand are often called hilltribes, or in the common Thai vernacular, chao khao (mountain people). Each hilltribe has its own language, customs, mode of dress and spiritual beliefs.

The Lisu aka Lisaw people are a Tibeto-Burman ethnic group of semi-nomadic origin who are believed to have originated in eastern Tibet during the past 300 years. Their subsistence was based on paddy fields, mountain rice, fruit and vegetables. With the introduction of the opium poppy as a cash crop in the early 19th century CE, many Lisu communities were able to achieve economic stability. This lasted for over 100 years, but the opium production has all but disappeared in Thailand and China due to the interdiction of the production.

Perhaps the best-known subgroup of the Lisu minority is the Flowery Lisu hilltribe in Thailand. The women are notable for their brightly coloured dress. They wear a multi-coloured knee-length tunic of red, blue, or green with a wide black belt and blue or black pants. Sleeve shoulders and cuffs are decorated with a dense applique of narrow horizontal bands of blue, red and yellow. For headdresses, Lisu girls and women wear black, flat circular hats with coral tassels, strings of beads, tiny pompoms and other elaborate accessories (e.g. metal flowers, small stars, pins).

The historic Lisu religion is animism, a belief that all things are embodied with spirit, ancestor worship, and living in harmony with nature and all beings. Over the years many of them have converted to Buddhism and more recently Christianity. Yet even the converts express their spirituality with a unique mixture of the old and the new.

With their elaborate tribal dress, ceremonies, belief systems and customs the Lisu are among the most fascinating of the ethnic minority tribes in Southeast Asia. Along with the H'mong, they have retained their culture and autonomy from outside influences remarkably well as they have been exposed to forces like missionary conversion and globalisation.

High-res portrait photographs with full exif data, precise geotags and technical details in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2015-11g Joining the Lisu Tribe

Flickr Album 2015-11e Facing the Kayor and Lahu Tribes

Flickr Album 2015-11d Tracking Lu-mien Yao Women

Flickr Album 2015-11c Reaching Out to Longneck Women

Flickr Album 2012-11c Mapping Southeast Chinese Minorities

Flickr Album 2012-11b Meeting the Vietnamese H'mong
Flickr Album 2018-03d Motorbiking in Northeast Vietnam

Meeting the Akha Hilltribe

The Akha are an indigenous hilltribe who live in small villages at higher elevations in the mountains of Thailand, Burma, Laos, and Yunnan Province in China. They made their way from China into Southeast Asia during the early 20th century CE. Civil war in Burma and Laos resulted in an increased flow of Akha immigrants and there are now some 80,000 living in Thailand's northern provinces of Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai where they constitute one of the largest of the six major Thai hilltribes (Akha, Karen, H'mong/Miao, Yao/Mien, Lisu, and Lahu/Musoe).

Due to rapid social and economic changes in the regions the Akha inhabit, attempts to continue many of the traditional aspects of Akha life are increasingly difficult. Despite these challenges, Akha people practice many elements of their traditional culture and religion (animism, with an emphasis on ancestor worship) with much success. The Akha society lacks a strict system of social class and is considered egalitarian. Respect is typically accorded with age and experience. Ties of patrilineal kinship and marriage alliance bind the Akha within and between communities. Village structures may vary widely from the strictly traditional to the more westernised, depending on their proximity to modern towns like Mae Salong. Like many of the hilltribes, the Akha build their villages at higher elevations in the mountains, mostly along mountain ridges or on steep slopes from 1,000 m to 1,500 m in altitude.

The traditional form of subsistence for the Akha people has been, and remains, agriculture. The Akha grow a variety of crops including corn, soybeans and vegetables. Rice is the most significant crop and is prominent in much of Akha culture and ritual. Most Akha plant dry-land rice, which depends solely on rainfall for moisture, but in some villages irrigation has been built to water paddy fields. Historically, some Akha villages cultivated opium, but production diminished after the Thai government banned its cultivation.

Although primarily subsistence farmers, the Akha have long been involved in cash cropping and trade. In the last century, cotton and opium poppies were the principal cash crops. One or more families in a village may operate a small shop in their home selling items such as cigarettes and sweets. Increasingly, the Akha find themselves in the business of tourism, specifically ethnotourism. Tourists pay a fee to Akha villages to be allowed to witness and participate in everyday Akha life. In addition to opening the village for visiting tourists, the Akha also sell their tribal handicrafts.

High-res portrait photographs with full exif data, precise geotags and technical details in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2015-11f Meeting the Akha Tribe

Flickr Album 2015-11e Facing the Kayor and Lahu Tribes

Flickr Album 2015-11d Tracking Lu-mien Yao Women

Flickr Album 2015-11c Reaching out to Longneck Women

Flickr Album 2012-11c Mapping Southeast Chinese Minorities

Flickr Album 2012-11b Meeting the Vietnamese H'mong

Facing the Kayor and Lahu Tribes

Hilltribe is a term used in Thailand for the various ethnic groups who mostly inhabit the mountainous regions of Northern and Western Thailand, including both sides of the border areas between Northern Thailand, Laos and Burma. These areas are known for their often mountainous terrain which is in some areas covered by thick forests, while in others it has been heavily affected by deforestation.

The Big Ear Kayor or Kayaw is a sub-group of the Red Karen aka Karenni people, a Tibeto-Burman ethnic minority of Burma aka Myanmar. Instead of the Padaung tribe's brass neck coils, the women of the Kayor aka Kayaw tribe wear colourful beaded necklaces with pendants and large ear gauges (amber stones, silver and other metal cylinders) in their elongated earlobes. The Big Ear Kayor aka Kayaw have their own language and traditions.

The Lahu people are a large ethnic group in China and Southeast Asia. In Thailand, the Lahu are one of the six main groups categorised as hilltribes (Akha, Karen, H'mong/Miao, Yao/Mien, Lisu, and Lahu/Musoe). The Thai often refer to them by the exonym Musoe ("the hunters").

The Lahu are a strong and independent ethnic group who number c. 60,000 in Thailand. They are located primarily in the Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai provinces and their settlements are usually remote from roads and towns, due to their strong commitment to the maintenance of the Lahu way of life. Although primarily subsistence farmers, growing rice and corn for their own consumption, the Lahu are also proud of their hunter-warrior heritage. They remain a strict and serious people governed by strong principles of right and wrong.

A few Lahu, along with H'mong/Miao, Lao, and Yao/Mien were recruited by the United States' CIA to help in the fight against the communist Pathet Lao, known as the secret war, during the Laotian Civil War. In fear of retribution when the Pathet Lao took over the Laotian government in 1975 CE, those who had helped the United States fled to neighbouring Thailand seeking political asylum.

In the past, the Lahu people weaved their own clothes. But nowadays, weaving is mostly only used for colourful accessories (e.g. the famous Lahu shoulder bag) and ornaments.

High-res portrait photographs with full exif data, precise geotags and technical details in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2015-11e Facing the Kayor and Lahu Tribes

Flickr Album 2015-11d Tracking Lu-mien Yao Women

Flickr Album 2015-11c Reaching out to Longneck Women

Flickr Album 2012-11c Mapping Southeast Chinese Minorities

Flickr Album 2012-11b Meeting the Vietnamese H'mong