Along this trek you go from one ethnic village to another, and with June as our guide, learned to say hello in various languages. All was very friendly, with farmers of various clans and tribal groups setting up their homes as pit stops serving oranges, energizer tea leaf salad snacks, drinks, etc. But through June’s explanations we became acutely aware, for the first time, of how saturated Myanmar life is with these ethnic differences, and how they are tied to the wars in so many regions of the country where the US State Department advisories warn you not to go. You see that each ethnic hamlet has its own flag, for example. Yet, though June is firmly Palaung in his identity, he sports a Shan flag on his travel pack, likely because that is what he could find and afford in the village markets. Later in the day, when we stopped for a traditional meal in his village, he talked at great length about Myanmar politics, something out-of-date guidebooks had cautioned would rarely happen. He, like everyone we spoke to in Myanmar, apparently thought the world of Aung San Suu Kyi, but at the same time—IF we understood him correctly—seemed dubious that his tribe would be treated fairly. More puzzling still, given our inability to define “mercenary”, was June’s report that fellow Palaung had joined the Shan armies in the mountains to kill their own tribe. One political message was clear—he believed in peace first and foremost.
