The Elephant Story

A New Dawn for the Karen People or More Repression and Refugees

Dec 30, 2015 | 0 comments

Last month, Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won a shocking four-fifths majority of contested seats in the lower house of Parliament in Myanmar's general election which would enable her to choose the next president. However, the NLD has been there before, as they won in 1990 and the military refused to cede control. Aung San Suu Kyi was subsequently subjected to house arrest for many years. The author and Joey happened to be present when Aung San Suu Kyi was first released from house arrest in 1995 - an auspicious day. In any event, as the...

The Karen People

Dec 16, 2015 | 0 comments

For over 45 years, the author has had various connections to the Karen people. Therefore, it was great to make the acquaintance of Khun Chen who is one of the few Karen mahouts in the Golden Triangle as the mahouts are usually of Khymern (Cambodian) origin. As you can see below, Khun Chen is wearing the traditional shirt of his hill tribe. The Karen people are a group of individual Sino-Tibetan language speaking ethnic groups, many of whom do not share a common language or culture. Approximately 5 million reside in the Karen State of southern and southeastern Myanmar....