Will Brehm  0:00
Beaw, welcome to FreshEd.

Beaw  0:54
Hello, Will.

Will Brehm  0:55
So, I guess sort of to start our conversation on your episode, can you give listeners a brief history of the Karen in Thailand -the Karen ethnic minority. Like, you know, who are they? Where do they live? What’s the geography? How did they end up there? Are they in other countries? Like, give us a little brief overview of who they are.

Beaw  1:12
I have to say that I’m not a historian, and my Karen history, it’s kind of like limited to what I’ve read and what I’ve been told by my grandparents and, like, the community I’ve visited. And I guess it’s like, it’s one of the histories where it’s very contested, because there’s no one history that says this is where we’re from. It’s not like, Yeah, this is where we’re from. This is what we do. But it’s like, always like, different depending on who you ask. So, if you ask Karen in Thailand, like, for example, my grandmother, and people who live around the village of where we’re from, and then they would say, I actually don’t remember that I came from Myanmar, as other people would say, because my great grandmother was born here. I was born here, and that’s what she remembered. So, then the other side of the story, or the story that often you see on the internet, or many people, claims that this is where the Karen are from, and also it could be because of the link with the language that is in the same family as like Tibetan language. So, people believe that Karen actually migrated from, like China, from Tibet, then China, and then then they came all the way down to Thailand and Myanmar. And often there’s like a land where people believe that this was a Karen land -they call it “Kawthhoolei”, which is like referring to a Karen state in Myanmar, and it’s kind of like a promised land. This is like where we were, like originally located. This is our land. And then after that, it’s because of the war, or we had to flee, we have to leave. But now we want to reclaim that lad back as well.

Will Brehm  2:01
That’s an interesting insight. It’s sort of like Atlantis, you know, it’s this mythical notion that sort of is essential to creating some sort of imagined community around who the Karen are. I guess, in present-day Thailand, is the Karen population located in certain areas?

Beaw  3:22
Yeah. So, the Karen population, I would say is located like upland. So, you have, like, the lowlander and the uplander. So, Karen is one of the ethnic minorities, uplander, or people would say, “hill tribes”. So, they’re located along the west -like north and western part of Thailand. So, if you look at the map of Thailand along the Myanmar border, so that’s where the majority of the Karen are along the border on the west part of Thailand.

Will Brehm  3:52
And in your episode, you have this Australian sounding man that I guess you call the expat expert, who used the refrain “dirt poor hill tribe”. So, it sounds like the Karen population is sort of mostly living in the mountainous regions -the uplands, the hill tribes, then dirt poor hill tribes is sort of a pejorative term towards people living in those areas -the Karen. Where did that term come from? How did you come up with the term dirt poor hill tribe, because we hear it quite a bit in your episode?

Beaw  4:24
So, I think that when I read that on a Facebook post, it kind of like, made me feel very angry, because this person -I’m talking about one person here. But the term expert expat is not just like one person. Generally, I’m referring to, like, an older white man who likes to position themselves as experts on Thailand and kind of often ended up like parroting state discourse. So, they act as a representative of a state discourse that is like these people are like this. And when I first saw that person post and said these dirt poor hill tribes are the cause of the seasonal haze because of their practice of agriculture that they called, like many Karen or like uplander civilization community would call it like rotational farming, but it’s used by the lowlander, or the expert as slash and burn, and which it sounds really like, yeah, that’s the slash and burn is the one that is causing like, haze, pollution and including flooding as well. And I kind of feel like because of that term that he used, it educated so many foreigners that following him and gives that idea of what is ethnic minorities in Thailand; They are the dirt-poor hill tribe, and it’s exactly how the Thai state wants people to think about ethnic minorities as people who are undeveloped, who are like poor, living up on the hill. And I think for me, it’s a form of education that is not in school, but they feel like spreading it out. And it’s a form of power, of knowledge that that guy holds, and people would believe him, because he is the expert.

Will Brehm  6:17
And it’s really discriminatory, besides sort of the expat who’s making some of these discriminatory claims about, you know, particular groups of people in Thailand, do you hear it from other Thais as well, like in your everyday life? Do you sort of experience that level of discrimination where, like Thai people might sort of call Karen people dirt poor hill tribes but maybe, you know, in other terms?

Beaw  6:43
Yeah. It’s very common, which is in a sad way, that people often refer to, like ethnic minorities as somewhat like they’re uneducated, they don’t know what to do, they’re so dirty. Often for example, they’re in like, different settings; sometimes in movies or music. In some movies and music, they kind of like say that they’re mimicking, like, the way Karen people, or ethnic minorities speak Thai with like a not proper Thai accent. They kind of like dress up as, just like mix in so many ethnic minorities, and put it in costumes. And there was one movie when I was younger, it represents one ethnic minority, and it represented that she came from a mountain and she jumped in the pond to clean herself, but all the fish in the pond died because she was so dirty. And that kind of like -it’s actually quite bad. But then people kind of like, ah, that’s normal. Let’s just laugh at it. We’re normal. For me directly, if I didn’t tell people that I was actually, I am Karen, then people wouldn’t notice it. But when I say, I am Karen, they say, oh, which mountain are you from? Did you go to study? Did you go to university? Then I say, Yeah, I did. And it’s partly because I don’t dress up as well, so I kind of like, look working class. And then people often are like, oh, you work as like a labor at the market when people meet me sometimes. So, there’s a certain way that people expect you to be. Sometimes people would say that, Oh, you’re like a mountain person, but why do you speak Thai with this accent? And then sometimes, in the opposite, if you tell people that, hey, I’m from Chiang Mai, and people would say, What’s your last name? And then people would say, No, this is not a last name of a Thai person who from Chiang Mai. You must be from somewhere else, and then you have to go on and on and say, Oh, actually, my family is Karen and from this area and stuff like that.

Will Brehm  8:51
It’s always sort of you who has to defend and explain why you are there.

Beaw  8:56
Yeah, yeah. But my experience is nothing as bad as the experience of other friends that I study with or grew up with.

Will Brehm  9:07
I didn’t realize that your name can sort of signify where you might be geographically from in Thailand.

Beaw  9:13
Yeah. Actually, like it’s not only geographically where you’re from in Thailand, but it also could identify your social status. So, it’s more like a subtle caste system, if you want to compare it. But then if you see someone’s last name, you said that, ah, that’s a wealthy person from Bangkok, even among ethnic minorities, if you have a last name that often end with forest, which is like, my last name is like “prai”, which could generally identify that you’re Karen. But if you have a Chinese-ish last name, then that could identify that you’re from Hmong ethnicity. And like Karen, we don’t have a last name. So, the way we have a last name is when we have to be registered as a Thai person, when we register our birth, we need to have a last name. So, that’s where the last name is coming from. It’s not by choice, and it’s often not chosen by a Karen person, but it’s chosen by an official who works for the state.

Will Brehm  10:21
Wow. Okay, so there’s all these sorts of ways of distinguishing who belongs where and in what caste or what class. I was, you know, listening to your episode there, when you interviewed all sorts of, I guess, friends and people that you knew about their experiences growing up. One of the people you interviewed talked about when he was a young student, and he went to school, and the teacher, like, scrubbed them down with cold water because they must be, quote, unquote dirty. And you could hear the story, even in translation, it seemed really traumatic, right? It still was something that was in the front of that person’s mind as being formative in their schooling experience.

Beaw  11:04
Yeah, I didn’t experience that because obviously the teacher in a school in a lowlander would assume that you had a shower before you come to the school in the morning, so therefore you’re clean. But with this uplander in the hills, a teacher would say that, Oh, you didn’t have a shower last night. And also, sometimes they even mark your arms with like a marker and say that if tomorrow the marker is still there, it means you didn’t have shower, therefore you need to have a shower.

Will Brehm  11:34
And then they would give you a shower at school?

Beaw  11:36
And if they see that you didn’t have a shower, so they asked you to take your clothes off, and then they give you a shower at the school. It’s basically, if it’s a shower that is, like nice and hot water, then it’s okay. But imagine, like, it’s a cold weather and you’ve got like, a big bucket water that had been sitting there all night in a cold temperature, and you get up in the morning, and then they just like, splash you with, like, a bucket shower. So, the experience that many people were facing, and then they weren’t happy with it, because they felt that it was so cold, and I don’t need to have a shower every day. My parents didn’t tell me that I need to have a shower every day because it’s cold, otherwise, I’ll get sick. When I go to school, the idea of, like, what is clean, we have to clean these people. What is clean; meaning you have to have a shower every day. The same practice that people do in the city, then, therefore, it’s forced for the students to have showers in a cold morning.

Will Brehm  12:40
I mean, it’s such a good example of sort of the way school tries to sort of socialize and force particular ideas on people. But you can also see how traumatic it would be for a young student to go through that experience, like having to strip down and be splashed with water in the school grounds during school time, like it would just -gosh, it would be so terrible. Hearing the person you interview reflect on that it sort of clearly was traumatic, and clearly was a defining moment in that person’s life. You know, your episode ends with you going to visit your grandmother, and you ask a question, who are you? And she laughs, and it’s this, really, you know, sort of touching moment, but it also seemed like you learned a lot about your grandmother in the process. So, I guess, can you tell us a little bit about who your grandmother is? Who is she now that you’ve sort of explored her, and her identity, and Karen people and their identity more broadly through this episode, but also your master’s thesis.

Beaw  13:38
It’s hard to describe my grandmother, because I think if someone saw her, or sees her, she would fall into that stereotype of a weak old Karen woman who doesn’t have any knowledge, or like, uneducated because obviously, she doesn’t speak Thai at all. She cannot read, she cannot write and like, in a sad way, and I’m not proud of it, that’s kind of like I didn’t plan to interview her either. I didn’t plan to talk to her. Not because I felt like she’s uneducated, but I felt like she actually never said anything that I could have a conversation with, rather than like stories that she often -like a bedtime story about tales and about everything. And then in that moment, I was just like, why don’t I ask her maybe she has something more than what I imagine she has, or I feel like that’s all about her, that’s who she is, just a homemaker. And then I sat down with her, and then I just asked her, like, who are you? And I think she thinks it’s so, so stupid. Same as everyone around, because how could you ask me like who I am when you knew who I am? But that question, when reflecting back on it, that question actually was not to my grandmother only. It’s to me to learn who she actually is deeper than she is a Karen woman, she is my grandmother, but to learn deeper to her thoughts, the way she thinks, and like about everything, and especially like about being Karen, and about education, and about the feeling that she feels towards Thais and stuff like that.

Will Brehm  15:35
And so, what does your grandmother -what has she taught you since you’ve started talking to her about this? Your episode is done. I don’t know if you’ve shared it with her, but you’ve probably talked about it with her. So, what have you learned from her in the process?

Beaw  15:52
I’ve learned so many stories like, for example, she told me she grew up in a village called Huaihomwhich is like, probably about an hour drive from where she is now, and she said that she had to leave that village because the village said, now the village is going to be converted, and if you’re still want to practice animism you have to leave the village. Her family said, No, I want to practice animism. So, they have to move to another village that is still allowed to practice animism and that’s a new idea that how could this power of like, changing people come in and then, just like, tell everyone that if you don’t do this, you don’t belong here, therefore you need to leave. And that’s kind of another thing that I still don’t have the answer to it, but my mother kind of like, sparked another question to me as well. And the other thing would be, how this older generation feels about being Karen and being Thai because she has Thai ID, she is obviously a Thai citizen, but she doesn’t feel that she’s Thai at all. And when she doesn’t feel that she’s Thai, she expressed the opportunities, the frustration through her message on like, Karen people could not do anything by ourselves. We could not get anything done by us. And when I went back to the village a couple days ago, I actually showed her, but she couldn’t understand the whole thing. And she just like, what language is people speaking in there? And then she noticed the Karen language. So, when it’s the Karen part, she remembered her laugh, and she said, Ah, that’s me laughing. But then she didn’t remember the conversation she had with me. And then, after she listened to that old person, or old Karen, she said, Yeah, that person is right. She was agreeing with herself. And she was like, who’s that? And then I say, “You! Do you not remember?” And she said, “No”. And then I said, “Last time when I take this out, and I talked to you, do you remember?” And she said, “Ah, did I say this”. And then I said, “Yeah, grandma, you said this to me”. And she kept repeating that, yeah, I think that person is right.

Will Brehm  18:29
I mean, how would you compare your understanding of like, your identity as both Thai and Karen, compared to how your grandmother sort of views her identity as Thai and Karen.

Beaw  18:44
It’s very complex, actually. It’s so hard to explain because it’s kind of like, do I identify myself as like, 100% Karen? Genetically, I couldn’t because I’m only half Karen from my mother’s side. From my biological father’s side, they migrated from Yunnan -southern China. So, I don’t look that Karen to many Karen. I don’t have like a lighter skin either. But I often say I am Karen because I don’t have that connection to my father’s side, and I think it’s not as easy as my mother would say. I’m Karen, of course, but when I say I am Karen, in my mind, there’s still a question mark in there, am I? And also, when I did field work in the past, I often been called that a dead Karen, by some Karen community.

Will Brehm  19:48
What does that mean?

Beaw  19:48
They say a dead Karen is a Karen who could not read, who could not write, and who uses a lot of terms that should have been said in Karen, but replace it with Thai because I don’t know the term. And it’s hard to describe that feeling, but it just feel like you feel like you want to belong here, or you partially belong here, but you are also Thai And because of the identity of Karen, it’s tied in with so many negative like stereotypes that down in the lowland area, I often don’t actually tell people that I am Karen, if they don’t ask. If a foreigner asks me, like, where I’m from, it’s just like, Oh, I’m actually Thai, because everyone knows Thailand. And then you say, I am Karen. And then they say Korean. I say, No, not Korean. Karen not Korean. I kind of have to go on and on and on in explaining, like, what is Karen? Who is Karen? Why are you Karen? Why do you speak Thai like this when you’re Karen? Why do you live in the city? Why don’t you live up the hills? So, for me, it’s like, to say that you’re Thai, it’s just easier. You don’t need to answer any more questions. I am Thai from Thailand.

Will Brehm  21:10
Right. Yeah, I can understand, you know, this notion. You’re always having to justify and explain, and it’s being done from this sort of deficit model, where somehow being Karen is less than being Thai, and so just sidestepping that whole conversation makes a lot of sense. Can you tell me a little bit about -you visited a school where you did some observations and did some recording, and we hear a lot of it in the episode, and it’s quite an amazing sort of scene in your episode, hearing Karen students in a Thai school basically questioning your identity, right? Like, you can’t be Karen. No way can you be Karen. And then they were sort of quizzing you along the way with these certain words. Can you tell me a little bit about that school? Like, how did you end up there? And why was it important for you to sort of look at these issues of language and identity and sort of state-making and schooling in that particular village, in that particular school?

Beaw  22:06
Yeah. So, the reason why I chose that school is because I have a friend that is teaching there. And also looking at the distance from Chiang Mai, I said I could go there easy. It’s not far, and it’s not as far as going back to the village. So, I had this idea in my mind when my friend said the road is bad, I said, like, yeah, it’s probably like a normal road. I obviously didn’t expect to push a motorbike along the way at all. And I didn’t put this in the podcast, but there was a bit where I reflected back. I was looking at the rain, and then looking at the road, and I just said, Yeah, I’m so looking forward to going back on this road. I actually had enough, and if I didn’t have to go back to work, I would probably stay until the rain stopped so I didn’t have to push the bike anymore. But it’s very like small schools, which is like, I think in the past, we’ve seen more of small schools up in the hills everywhere. I think it’s when the MDGs goal on education is going out, and then you just say, like, we are going to get primary schools and then we’re going to build schools everywhere. But now that part of like the school doesn’t exist in many communities anymore. But in this village, I guess it’s because of the distance from the closest school and how hard it is to get to, so they still keep the school in the village. And I wasn’t expecting the students to ask me, like, “Who are you?” And because they have this idea of if someone comes up, they either come to give donations. So, they asked me, like, “Are you here for donation?” And I said, “No, I’m here for just a visit. I’m friends with the teacher here”. And then that’s like, that’s a bit weird. And they could hear that I’m talking to my friend in Karen, but when they talked to me, they keep repeating, like, their conversation with me in Thai, rather than Karen. And even though they hear me speak in Karen, they still don’t believe that I could actually speak Karen. And then they sat down and say, like, “Hey, could you speak Karen?” And then they tested me with, like, all these words. And I think it’s exactly like, the same way that they’re testing someone’s capacity to speak Karen the same way that people are testing their capacity to speak Thai. And then the same way the teacher would ask like students to recite certain words, like on demand that’s like, “What is this?”, and then you say it, and then if you don’t say it right, then that’s incorrect, right? And I find that’s quite interesting, because I think it’s kind of like reflecting on how colonization teaches you that there is only one way of doing things properly. And like, even for young kids, that’s kind of like they have internalized this mode of learning and a sense of always being judged against this kind of standard when they grew up. So, now they might not know that, Oh, okay, this is what I would experience when I’m a bit older. But then this feeling of, there’s one way of doing things properly. If you hear later in the interview or when I shared that many of my friends dropped out because they felt like they couldn’t do it properly. They kind of lacked the sense of belonging, or they feel like they’re being judged all the time because they cannot do it properly, then it’s later on impacted.

Will Brehm  25:47
I think that’s what’s so interesting. When you sort of really get into these students, you really see how sort of state power is embodied. And some of like you brought up there, some of these affective dimensions where there’s shame and guilt and the inability to sort of do something, quote, unquote, properly, then has these sorts of effects. It’s a really, really fascinating scene in my mind, and I’m really happy that you put it in in the final episode, because it just kind of brings to life some theoretical issues that you are talking about. It’s sort of like a really great example to hold up. You know, what was the relationship between your episode and your master’s thesis? Like, how does it compare? And what was it like to try and make an audio production in an academic way?

Beaw  26:32
I think it’s kind of related to my master thesis because it is something that I actually thought that I’m interested in this kind of like power dynamic and like structural discourse, or like structural racism, or things that are created by the state through education. And I actually didn’t know where it was coming from -I just thought that I’m interested in it, that’s all, actually- until Joh asked me, like, why do you want to do this? Like, why does it matter to you? Then I was just being emotional, you know. I was just like, it matters to me, because I’ve seen this experience. I’ve witnessed it. My family experience it, my friends experience it, and I feel like that’s kind of like -what I want to do more in my academic journey, or is to explore how it’s actually impacted people by studying more about theories or things that have been written in the past in like, other areas, and kind of like telling a different part of the education, rather than like, education is beautiful, it’s great things. But also, like, I think the state is very clever in using education in a way that we actually didn’t realize it when we were younger, unless you talk about it, so I think that’s a connection between it; that it comes from my passion. But when I did my thesis, I didn’t realize that that’s a passion, that’s a struggle, that I want to tell, and obviously, in my thesis, it’s more of telling a story, not just focusing on Karen people, they’re focusing on like other ethnic minorities as well in Northern Thailand. For turning the writing into audio production; I think it’s a very clever way. It’s a very smart way I think. For me, it’s harder than writing a kind of a paper. I have to admit it. I was just thinking like -and also, I thought that when I sign up for it, I was imagining that I’m not going to have my voice in it. I’m going to get people to talk about it, I’m going to get someone else to tell the story. I’m not going to have my voice in it. I’m not going to tell a story of myself in it. That’s why I think I kind of feel like lost and feel like, No, I don’t want to put my voice in it, no, like, I’m not going to have it. But then it’s ended up like, being a story about myself. It’s been a story about the experience of people, which is, I think, for a lot of people, that’s kind of, like, easier to digest, easier to understand, rather than we explaining what, like this theorist is, you know, like a bit of my podcast, when I talk about Foucault, and I’ll say, like, it’s probably harder to understand when you’re trying to explain Foucault’s idea of power and knowledge or body and subject to the state and stuff like that. But when you put it in the story, when you check it out, and when you get other people to tell the story, that’s kind of like easier. It probably would be nice that people could read the same way they listened to podcasts. I think one big different thing between my paper and Flux is no one read my thesis, but I’m hoping that people would listen.

Will Brehm  26:38
I hope so too. And you know, I think you balance sort of theory, personal experiences, with sort of the history of the Karen people and Thailand. You do it in a way that’s quite, let’s say, nice to the listener. You’re being very generous to the listener, and you never overdo any one of them, right? And so, in my mind, it ends up becoming easy to listen to, and you can take some of the theoretical ideas and use them to make sense of the stories that you’re sort of telling. And it’s done really well, I think. And of course, someone can go and study Foucault or go and study the Karen ethnic minority to a much greater extent, but the way you sort of bring them together in a 30-minute podcast is quite -I find it quite powerful. So, Beaw, what is next for you? You know, you finished the fellowship, you’re done with your master’s degree. Where to next?

Beaw  31:08
It’s a hard question, but this is what I think is the way I approach things that I want to do is like, this is what I want to do, this is what I love to do. And I think I love doing research, because I love hearing stories, and I love like, listening to people, and that’s always like a thing, and I feel like sometimes people have a lot to share, they just don’t have enough people to listen to them. And especially, like, when -I don’t know if it’s like a saying in English as well, but in Thai, we say, the winner is the one who writes history. And also, like, we have so many people who could not tell their stories, or their story is not being written. And I kind of like want to go deeper into looking at these like stories, especially those from like marginalized communities, and I want to be able to turn it into like a storytelling. It’s either like a form of writing or other form. As much as I think I’m bad at doing creative things like podcasts and audio like that, creativity part of me, I still think that if I can tell the same story, maybe I don’t use my voice this time, but if I can get other people to tell their stories, that could be a different way of just getting out there for people to have, like different sides of stories. They might not believe it, they might not take it, they might not change their mind, but at least you have something like as an alternative option. There is always more than one angle of the stories. And I want to provide more angles of the stories. In terms of, like, my journey in academia, I want to continue studying what I’ve started with my masters already, but I want to go deeper and kind of, like, do a more of a broader study with other ethnic minorities, not necessarily mean those living up in the hill, but also like those living in the lowland, Thailand, and also maybe perhaps like compared to even like in southern Thailand, with Muslim communities where the identity politics there is quite different than the Thai as well. And kind of like using it as a comparative study that between like different ethnic minorities, how their experiences through the education system, and how the state is playing this role in, like shaping their identities and feeling of belongings and I think one other thing that I like about me doing research, or doing this, is I often don’t have the answer to so many things. I often don’t even have a question to it, because I kind of like, let’s just go there and see what people are going to tell us. And I think that’s really important if you study like ethnography because sometimes, we come in with our own idea, our own perception already from what we’ve read, and we say, this is what people are going to say. This is a question that I’m going to ask them, rather than let the field work or let the people guide your question in shaping your writing and your stories, and that’s another part that I want to explore further in the future as well.

Will Brehm  34:47
Well, I look forward to all of these future projects of yours Beaw. But thank you so much for joining FreshEd. Congratulations on your Flux episode, and I look forward to what’s next.

Beaw  34:58
Thank you very much for the opportunities, and I think it’s great experience that I would encourage anyone who want to explore another form of creating stories, or telling stories, to join and to be part of it.

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