May 01, 2007	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 13, 1428

HUAY PU KENG (Thailand): Muko feels sweat trickling down her neck even as she sits under the shade of a wooden hut on a sweltering afternoon.

“This is so uncomfortable. I cannot wipe off the sweat because of this,” the 15-year-old girl sulks, pointing at the 15 brass rings, weighing three kilograms, that adorn her neck.

Muko, who has no family name, belongs to the Padaung tribe of Myanmar’s ethnic minority Karen who are known as “the long necks” because of their tradition of decorating female necks with brass rings.

“I started wearing them when I was five. Since then, I’ve worn them 24 hours a day,” says the round-faced girl with big black eyes.

An adult woman can wear as many as 25 rings weighing a total of five kilograms. But Muko does not want to be a 25-ring woman.

Instead, she is one of a growing number of Padaung girls who see the custom as a stifling and outdated tradition in the modern age, and who are sick of being viewed as exotic — or, worse, as freaks — by outsiders.

“I want to remove my rings because they are heavy and give me neck pain,” she complains.

Muko’s family came to this small, mountainous Thai village near the border with Myanmar two decades ago as refugees fleeing a long-running war between Myanmar’s military and Karen rebels fighting for autonomy.

While Thailand calls Huay Pu Keng “a village,” its only residents are some 200 Karen refugees like Muko’s family, technically making this isolated place, about 920 kilometres north of Bangkok, a refugee camp.

Coming to stare at the long-necked girls has become a popular tourist attraction in northern Thailand, earning much needed income for Karen refugees who sell cheap keyrings, textiles and long-necked wooden dolls.

Torn between earning tourist dollars or becoming “a normal girl” has left Muko and other long-necked girls in a dilemma.—AFP