As part of our ‘Stories That Shaped Us’ series, we revisit this 2011 feature about the Thai border town Mae Sot, where most of the inhabitants are from Myanmar and the Burmese language, cuisine and culture predominate. But for those longing to return to Myanmar, why does it still seem a long way from home?
Hla Phu sits in the middle of his five-by-five-foot shop in Mae Sot, Thailand, among discarded old clocks, battery-less flashlights and rusty pots and pans. Everything is for sale, he tells me with a smile that reveals a missing tooth, even a pair of bamboo chopsticks—the kind they give away for free in noodle shops. With his wispy white hair that reaches below his shoulders and “vermicelli” beard that dangles from his narrow chin, the short and thin 84-year-old resembles the stock hermit character in an epic Asian film. But in real life, Hla Phu has been a pioneer, patriot and physician. He is one of the Burmese migrants who made the border town of Mae Sot what it is today—the closest thing to Burma one can find in Thailand, complete with shady characters, danger and intrigue.
Mae Sot sits on the banks of the Moei River in western Thailand, opposite the town of Myawaddy in south-eastern Burma. To reach Mae Sot from the Thai side, it is necessary to navigate a snaky road through the mountains where sharp turns are frequent, errant drivers don’t keep to their side and heavily-loaded trucks often roll over on the steep slopes. Caution must be exercised. You should expect the unexpected when approaching Mae Sot, beginning with the three checkpoints manned by the military, police and border patrol along the road leading into town.
If the checkpoint personnel think you look suspicious, you will be stopped. Whether that means you’ll be asked a few brief questions and sent on your way, or be told to pull over and have your car and belongings searched, depends on the instincts and mood of the officer on duty. Normally, there is a higher risk of getting pulled over, and the searches and interrogations are more severe, when traveling away from the border because the authorities are looking for drugs and illegal immigrants coming into Thailand from Burma. But smuggling goes both directions, and shakedowns take place on both sides of the highway.
Upon arrival in Mae Sot, you’ll know you’re in the right place when you start seeing males and females of all ages wearing longyi (Burmese sarongs) walking by the roadside. On the cheeks of many women and girls will be a beige paste called thanaka (traditional Burmese makeup), and the signboards of many vendors, shops, restaurants and guest houses will be written in Burmese. When you stop and get out to stretch your legs after the long drive through the mountains, chances are you will hear people conversing in Burmese rather than Thai, because over 200,000 Burmese live here, and only 80,000 Thai.
If the Burmese community were not here, it wouldn’t be Mae Sot. In a sense, Mae Sot seems to have assimilated into the Burmese community, rather than the other way around, and depending on which Burmese resident you ask, Mae Sot will be dubbed the town of exiles, the town of dissidents, the town of rebels disguised as civilians, the town of migrant workers or the town of refugees.
Hla Phu, who was one of the first Burmese to arrive here forty years ago, could be considered a member of most of these categories. He was born in Rangoon in 1927, when Burma was a British colony, and grew up a patriot like many of his era. He was schooled in a Rangoon monastery and never went to college, and when Burma was occupied by Japan during World War II, he participated in anti-fascist political activities. When Burma gained independence from Great Britain, Hla Phu was a fire department officer in Kamaryut Township, and at 4:20 a.m. on January 4, 1948, he and his colleagues hoisted Burma’s flag to mark the historic event.
“You know, when I was pulling the rope to raise the flag, I had conflicting feelings—joy and sorrow,” he says. “Seeing our new flag being raised, I felt joyful. But I felt sad seeing the Union Jack flag being lowered, because I grew up with that flag. But my happiness was so strong that I felt as if I was walking on air above the ground.”
After independence, Burma appeared to be on the road to democracy when U Nu became the country’s first democratically elected prime minister. But in 1962, Gen Ne Win and his socialist comrades overthrew U Nu in a military coup. After being released from prison, U Nu fled to Thailand and in 1969 formed the Parliamentary Democracy Party to stand against Ne Win’s military regime. Several hundred people, including prominent politicians, became members of the PDP, and in 1972 Hla Phu left Burma and came to Mae Sot—which at the time had only around 50 Burmese residents and no newspaper—to join the PDP in its fight against dictatorship in his home country.
At Hla Phu’s invitation, we leave his tiny shop and drive to Ho Paing Village, the place where he lived while serving the PDP. The trip takes about 10 minutes by car—but Hla Phu says it took much longer four decades ago, when there were no paved roads to the village. When we arrive at Ho Paing, he appears overcome by nostalgia and mutters under his breath, “Oh what has brought me here again after ages?”
The village sits in the middle of emerald green paddy fields and is camouflaged by large shade trees. Wrapping a red scarf around his head, Hla Phu explains that it was here that he and the other PDP troops made camp in the early 1970s. “One of the barracks used to be there,” he says, pointing to a patch of empty land under a tree. “I lived in that barrack. It had 14 beds.”
He shows me a well, now covered by bushes, which they had used for drinking water, and while we walked along a small path between paddy fields, he continues to point at different places and recall life as a PDP foot soldier. “Our troops were several hundred in strength, so for lunch we had to start cooking at 2 a.m.,” he says. “We used four or five very large woks.”
Life was simple then, Hla Phu says, explaining that their houses were built with bamboo and thatch and they bathed in a creek. But this was apparently too simple for some of his comrades, as Hla Phu tells me that 50 to 60 percent of the troops he served with had not joined to sacrifice for their country with genuine revolutionary spirit or conviction, but rather because they heard that U Nu’s army was rich and paid in gold coins. Eventually, these sunshine patriots ran away when faced with having to live in the jungle and wake up at 5 a.m. to go through military training.
Seeing this, Hla Phu realized that the revolution would either take a long time to succeed, or would be short lived for lack of properly motivated troops. So he prepared for both—soon after arriving in Mae Sot, Hla Phu began studying under a senior medical student, both with the aim of serving the troops as a medic and earning a livelihood if the army disbanded.
“I saved several lives here,” he says when we arrive at the creek. “One incident involved a former monk in our troop named Than Myint, who we called Phone Gyi (monk) Than Myint. He took poison after feeling depressed about his relationship with his girlfriend. We had no medicine, so I told my colleagues to catch a duck swimming in the creek. They had no idea how a duck could help with the poison, but I knew that a duck’s blood can make a person vomit—it’s a traditional method. I cut the bird’s throat and threw the blood into Than Myint’s mouth, and he immediately emptied his stomach. We sacrificed one duck to save one person’s life.”
Prior to 1979, when he moved into Mae Sot, Hla Phu was the only “doctor” for many villagers in Ho Paing, and he personally won over the hearts of Thai villagers by treating their medical ailments. “Having compassion and sympathy, I think I became a good medic,” he said. “Those qualities are the foundation to become a good professional in every field.”
When he moved to downtown Mae Sot, Hla Phu made a living providing medical care to Burmese, including many ethnic Karen, and some Thai people. “My patients used to wake me up in the middle of the night. I lived on that profession until 1992, but it was illegal as I held no certificate. There was only a clinic run by a Thai doctor and he charged 100 baht at that time. I just charged about 20 to 40 baht, and earned roughly 12 baht per head,” he says as we drive back into town.
In one incident, Hla Phu was almost arrested after police officers found him treating a Thai patient. Fortunately, a Thai businessman intervened with the police and convinced them not to arrest him. After that, Hla Phu gave up his secret profession and opened a teashop, which he ran for many years with the help of a friend. But the teashop business eventually failed and he became a vendor of used items.
Not surprisingly, he doesn’t get many customers these days— in fact, during my several visits I see only one, an Indian-Burmese who buys an old electric water boiler that still manages to work if the cover is forced shut. The asking price is 150 baht, but the customer says, “Here’s 120, big brother. I had to pay some money to the police this morning, I’ll pay you 30 baht later. I promise.” Hla Phu nods okay, but when the customer leaves he smiles at me and shakes his head, knowing he may never see the extra baht. He’s used to this, he says, customers often owe him money. But when they delay payment, he must do so as well, postponing the 600 baht due to the shop’s owner for rent.
When he first came to Mae Sot in hopes of helping to reclaim freedom and democracy in his home country, Hla Phu never imagined he would end up selling used items to survive, and neither did he imagine sleeping, as he does now, in a two-foot-wide space in the rented home of a Burmese couple. He was one of the first to arrive in what has become a minor boom town on the border, and could have set up a successful business. But he kept anticipating a return to Burma.
“I always thought that ‘Maybe this coming Thingyan (the Burmese water festival), or that coming Buddhist holy day, I’ll go back,’” he says. “However, now, it seems I’ll be buried here with that dream.”
“But who knows,” he adds with a smile. “I might get that chance to go back home one day, because my life will be long. I’m pretty sure I will live to be 120 years old.”
***
Mae Sot wakes up early, especially in the markets. One of the liveliest is known as Zay Gyi (big market) among the Burmese, and as markets usually do, it paints an accurate picture of the town’s character and inhabitants. This morning, many Burmese teashops in and around the market are crowded with Burmese customers, including me and Moe Kyo, who in 2004 founded the Joint Action Committee for Burmese affairs, which is mainly focused on protecting the rights of Burmese migrant workers.
Sitting on small stools around a low rectangular table in Pho Htoo Teashop, we sip our tea Burmese style—taking a long time to finish a small cup and savoring each sip of the delicious brew, which is made using dry tea leaves and sweetened with condensed milk. Some of the other customers place lit cigarettes or cheroots in their mouth, and between sips of tea they inhale, then exhale the smoke through their mouth and nose. Tea shops are the place where many Burmese have their breakfast, and a variety of snacks such as nan, samosas and mohinga, a traditional Burmese fish soup with rice noodles, are available. It is also where the local Burmese meet to converse, share information or just relax by singing Burmese songs. It’s difficult to find such traditional Burmese teashops elsewhere in Thailand, and this is why many Burmese feel that only Mae Sot can make them feel “almost at home.”
“You know, it looks perfect. You can have your Burmese tea and food here like in Burma, prices are reasonable, you can wear a Burmese sarong on the street and have a conversation with your own people,” Moe Kyo says, adding that he likens Mae Sot to his home township, Thingangyun, in Rangoon.
Sometimes when Burmese people bump into each other, Moe Kyo says, they shout greetings and stop to speak and jest, not even caring if they block traffic. “This is the same style as in Burma. It’s one of the Burmese traits they can get away with here. I don’t think they can behave in such manner in other places or countries,” he says with a laugh.
Mae Sot shares other traits with Burma as well, some not so hospitable. For instance, when attending ceremonies in Burma, there is a risk of sandals left at doorsteps being stolen or exchanged with a bad pair. Likewise in Mae Sot— if you go to a building populated by migrant workers, your sandals are likely to get stolen if you leave them unattended.
Moe Kyo goes to Pho Htoo Teashop as early as 6:30 a.m. on some days, but he does so not only for leisure—keeping tabs on the Burmese community that populates the shop and the surrounding market is part of his job, and as construction workers and vegetable vendors come to the teashop for their breakfast, Moe Kyo keeps an eye out for any arrests or abuse committed against them. He tells me that early the previous morning, he saw seven construction workers get off their bicycles in preparation to enter the teashop, but a police van pulled over and arrested them. They had no work permits and had to pay 500 baht upon arrival at the police station, but the incident did not cause any commotion, because in Mae Sot, even if 50 people were arrested it would be considered life as usual.
Despite the risks of arrest and abuse by the powers-that-be, Mae Sot is much safer for migrants today than it was in the early 2000s, when dozens of Burmese migrant workers were killed. At that time, there was a saying that, “Burmese workers in Mae Sot are not worth more than three baht, the price of an AK-47 bullet.”
One of the worst incidents occurred in February 2002, when 20 Karen were slain and dumped in the Moei River, blindfolded with their throats slit and bodies stabbed. There was speculation that they were victims of a human trafficking ring, but although local police reluctantly investigated under an order from the Thai interior minister, no one was ever caught. In those years, residents say, it was not unusual to find three or four dead bodies floating in the rivers and streams around Mae Sot every month.
In May 2003, six Burmese workers were shot and their bodies burned on a pile of tires in a bamboo forest at Huay Kalok Village, near Mae Sot. The reason for their murder: they couldn’t pay off the local Thai authorities. Following the killings, I interviewed Moe Swe—a leading activist with the Yaung Chi Oo Workers Association based in Mae Sot. He said at least one Burmese worker was killed every week, but no one was ever found guilty.
When I returned to Mae Sot in 2004, I met Moe Swe once again. It seemed like a normal quiet evening in Mae Sot, and we chatted about migrant workers and his association. Soon after we parted, however, I received a phone call and was told that Moe Swe and his Danish colleague, Bent Gehrt, were attacked in a night market restaurant at the center of town. The two attackers, who managed to escape, attempted to stab them and injured Gehrt in the abdomen.
The next day, Moe Swe told me they were attacked because his association had helped underpaid and exploited Burmese workers, educating them on how to demand their rights from Thai employers and sue if those rights were not honored. The previous year, hundreds of Burmese workers staged half a dozen demonstrations against their employers, demanding an increase in salary and better working conditions. Such protests and lawsuits against Thai employers had previously been unheard of in Mae Sot, and as a result of the protests, several factories had to close temporarily and suffered losses.
Moe Swe and his colleagues were targeted by furious factory owners, who secretly put a handsome cash bounty on his head. The rights activist went into hiding for months, and luckily the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand and the Thai Labor Campaign pushed the Thai authorities to protect him and his colleagues.
Fortunately, things have improved in Mae Sot over the last five years. Phil Thornton, a journalist based in the town, wrote a book that was published in 2006 called Restless Souls about rebels, refugees and life on the Thailand-Burma border. In his chapter on Mae Sot, he called it a “death town,” which at the time was clearly accurate. But today, he thinks that the town has changed: there aren’t as many horrible killings now as took place in the early 2000s, and migrant workers are able to do things such as walk up to an ATM machine and withdraw money while wearing uniforms, whereas in the past they couldn’t even possess an ATM card.
For that, Thornton gives credit to organizations like Yaung Chi Oo, which is still run by Moe Swe. But that does not mean that conditions for Burmese migrant workers at factories are perfect. Thornton says that Burmese workers are still being exploited by employers, and not only Thai employers—Chinese, Indian, Australian and American companies have subcontractors in Mae Sot who abuse workers as well.
As a result, the salary rate in Mae Sot is relatively low—around 100 baht per day, as compared to around 200 baht per day in Bangkok. But Mae Sot is still attractive to many Burmese migrants for its low cost of living: a pack of curry can be bought there for 5 baht, whereas in other parts of Thailand it will cost 25 to 30 baht. And despite the continuing exploitation of workers, Thornton believes there is more humanity in a place like Mae Sot than in the large cities of Western countries. He points to the Mae Tao Clinic, which has provided health care, maternity care and emergency operations since it was founded in 1989 by the acclaimed Karen doctor Cynthia Maung. The clinic offers free care to over 140,000 Burmese patients per year—some traveling from Burma and others living in Thailand.
In Thornton’s view, despite all the facilities and equipment in big hospitals in cosmopolitan cities, humanity seems to be missing. But in the Mae Tao Clinic, even when people have to sleep on rough wooden benches and line up to see a doctor, there are family members or friends looking after them.
There are two sides to every coin, however, and one can still find heartless cruelty in Mae Sot as well as heartfelt humanity. I’m reminded of this as I pass by the house of the late Mahn Sha, the former general secretary of the Karen National Union, an ethnic armed group in Burma that has been fighting for autonomy since 1948.
I used to visit Mahn Sha whenever I was in Mae Sot, and from a distance I gaze at the house where he lived and died, and where we had many lively discussions about our home country’s political and ethnic issues. Burma’s pro-democracy forces considered Mahn Sha to be a visionary and principled leader, and he was highly respected among the country’s ethnic and political communities. But the Burmese regime and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, a group that broke away from the mostly Christian KNU and is now a junta ally, thought of him as a threat because of his strong leadership and influence in the KNU.
Two weeks before Valentine’s Day 2008, the 64-year-old Mahn Sha attended a Karen Resistance Day ceremony in an area on the Burmese side of the border that was under the control of the KNU. Before the ceremony, a bomb was found beneath the chair where he was supposed to sit, and afterwards he received a phone call from an unknown person who threatened to kill him.
Also present at the Karen Resistance Day ceremony was Mahn Sha’s daughter, Zoya Phan, who is a prominent human rights activist now working for Burma Campaign UK, based in London. In her book, “Little Daughter,” Zoya Phan recalled a conversation with her father after the death threat.
“They are closing in on me, little daughter,” Mahn Sha told her. “And if they cannot get to me, they will try to get to you.”
“Look, Pah, you have to recognize that Benazir Bhutto got killed because she didn’t take proper precautions,” Zoya Pahn told her father. “I’m worried the same might happen to you.”
“I know. I know,” Mahn Sha replied. “The regime is trying very hard to kill me, so maybe I won’t survive for long.”
“Pah–don’t talk like that!” Zoya Phan said. “Please.”
Zoya Phan flew back to London shortly after that conversation, and never again saw her father alive.
At 4:30 p.m. on February 14, 2008, Mahn Sha finished an early dinner and settled into a plastic chair on the veranda of his house near the center of Mae Sot. Shortly afterward, two uninvited visitors entered the compound. One of them climbed the few steps to the veranda, stood in front of Mahn Sha and said “Ha Ler Gay,” or good evening in the Karen language, while his companion waited at the bottom of the stairs. The visitor handed a bucket of fruit to Mahn Sha, and when the Karen leader reached out to accept the gift, the visitor pulled out a pistol and shot him twice in the chest. Mahn Sha died while the cold-blooded gunmen walked freely out of the compound.
No one has identified who killed Mahn Sha, but it has been speculated that the killers must have been sent by the military regime or the DKBA. Soon after the assassination, when there were rumors that the murder was plotted by San Pyote and other DKBA officers, Thai police began an investigation into the killing and closed all border checkpoints leading to DKBA-controlled areas on the other side of Moei River. The police pledged that they would apprehend the murderers, but many Burmese observers were not convinced that the vow was sincere.
“As neither the victim nor the gunmen were Thai citizens, I don’t think the Thai authorities will take this case seriously,” said then KNU spokesperson David Taw in an interview with The Irrawaddy soon after the incident. David Taw acknowledged that it would be difficult for Thai police to catch the cross-border killers even if they wanted to do so, and after three years and no arrests it appears that no one involved in the murder will ever be apprehended.
“I was really sad when I heard the news that afternoon,” the Karen abbot of Mae Sot’s Taw Ya Monastery told me. “Mahn Sha was a very honest person. He always visited my monastery and we talked about Buddhism and his religious matters. I suggested that he move out of that house where he had lived for several years, which was near a paddy field and was not safe anymore. We all heard in advance that enemies were planning to kill him, and he also knew it, but I think he might have thought he wouldn’t be killed.”
Mahn Sha was not the only rebel to be assassinated in Mae Sot. In the past decades, several extrajudicial killings of Burmese rebels and dissidents were carried out in the area. But the military regime and its allies were not responsible for all the assassinations; some were carried out by rebel groups themselves. The reasons varied, but most were due to suspicions that the victim was an informant or a member of the Burmese government’s military intelligence unit.
Today, with tensions heating up between the Burmese military and the country’s ethnic armed groups, all rebels and dissidents residing in Mae Sot are advised to keep in mind what happened to Mahn Sha, and take better precautions.
***
Mae Sot’s nights aren’t as busy as its mornings: as most residents wake up early for work, the town sleeps early. But there are still a few places to gather with friends in the evening, and on my last night in town I join some colleagues at the Aiya Restaurant, where at exactly ten minutes before 8 p.m., Win Cho arrives to sing and play guitar.
Win Cho was given the nickname “Mr. Punctual” by his friends because he places great importance on being on time, and after adjusting the strings of his guitar and placing his harmonica in its mount so he can play hands-free, he starts his first song at 8 p.m. sharp. With eyes closed and unkempt hair dangling on his back, he sings as usual to an audience that consists mainly of Western tourists and foreign volunteers working for Burmese rights groups and international NGOs. Playing at the restaurant for one hour per night, three times a week, earns him 4,000 baht per month.
But Win Cho didn’t come to Mae Sot to be a singer. He was among the second generation of Burmese dissidents who left their home country in 1988, when a bloody military coup took place and the new regime cracked down on the nationwide pro-democracy uprising. At that time, an estimated 10,000 students and protesters fled for the Thailand-Burma border to fight for democracy, and Win Cho, then a university student, joined the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front, a student activist army founded in 1988 on the border.
In the mid-1990s, many members of the ABSDF and other rebel groups had to withdraw from Manerplaw, the headquarters of the KNU, when they lost battles to Burmese regime troops. But Win Cho stayed in the “jungle” until 2000, when he decided to join the hundreds of other dissidents and rebels living in Mae Sot, some alone and some with families. For former political prisoners and activists in Burma who fear possible arrest and flee to Thailand, Mae Sot has become a haven for some and a stopover for others, where they can register and stay in refugee camps along the border for as long as they need.
Currently, Win Cho is a singer by night and a teacher by day. His school, which has about three dozen students and is named Sue Bote Chan, consists of a small bamboo classroom near the Friendship Bridge, which spans the river between Mae Sot and Myawaddy. It is one of approximately 70 schools in Mae Sot which serve the thousands of Burmese students residing in town.
Despite having many of the comforts—and less of the discomforts—of Burma available in Mae Sot, Win Cho still doesn’t feel at home and definitely does not want to remain here for four decades, as Hla Phu has done. He says his life here is temporary, and in no way comparable in spirit to his homeland of Burma. But he thinks Mae Sot is the best place in this world for him until the day he can go back to Burma.
“My goal is just to go back to Burma. I have many things to do over there. But I don’t know when. Singing and teaching here is my contribution to the Burmese community in Mae Sot, and to Thailand as well. I’m doing my best, and as much as I can. Mae Sot is a place where our Burmese people can at least survive.”
For the people from Burma like Win Cho who live in Mae Sot, the town is simultaneously haven and hell. Here, they can be with their fellow countrymen, speak their language and eat their comfort food— Burmese culture and traditions are everywhere. But all they have to do is look across the Moei River to realize that even though all the trappings are here, Mae Sot is not their homeland, not their soil, not their country. Burma is so close they can taste it in every sip of tea, but they are so far away from being able to go back, having it in plain sight every day can be torture on their exiled souls.
The story also appears in Kyaw Zwa Moe’s 2018 Myanmar National Literature Award winning “The Cell, Exile and the New Burma: A Political Education amid the Unfinished Journey toward Democracy.”
