Wearing her long, dark hair loose, and a lace-edged khaki tee with black cargo pants and no neck rings, Zember looks like any other modern Asian woman. "She complained of stomach pains, but we had no doctor and she died," says Zember, pointing out a postcard with Ma Da's smiling face hovering above her coiled neck. Zember is still traumatized by the death of a close friend two years ago - a 22-year-old beauty named Ma Da. "We have no freedom and life is very hard." The three long-neck villages in the area lack basic sanitation and medical care and are plagued by tropical diseases. "Some people of my mother's generation say they are too old now, but no one is happy," she says, shaking her head.
Zember is living proof that the Kayans aren't content. The Royal Thai Embassy in Washington, DC, hadn't returned calls on the matter as of press time. Governor Thongchai Warianthong, the official responsible for signing the exit permits, at first agreed to talk to Marie Claire, but when he learned what the interview was about, he suddenly became "unavailable." The following week, he issued a statement to the Thai press saying the Kayans are "happy and comfortable with their lives" in Thailand. But the local government in Mae Hong Son - Thailand's poorest province, which depends heavily on tourism - remains impassive. The UNHCR, as well as the New Zealand and Finnish governments, say they are lobbying the Thai authorities to this end. Few tourists are aware of the scandalous situation, Zember explains, because the women's wages are docked if they discuss their plight. In return, the long-neck women earn a paltry salary of 1500 baht ($45) a month selling souvenirs and postcards. An estimated 40,000 tourists per year, many of them Americans, pay about $8 each to gawk at the women's giraffe-like appearance. The 500 or so Kayans (also known as Padaung) who live in Thailand fled the brutal military regime in neighboring Burma (also known as Myanmar) two decades ago, and they have been confined in three guarded villages on the northern Thai border ever since.
"But I don't want to be put on display anymore." "They don't want us to leave because it will hurt tourism," says Zember. She and a number of other Kayan refugees have been offered resettlement in countries such as New Zealand and Finland, but Thai authorities won't hand over the exit visas. Sitting in a small cafe in the town of Mae Hong Son, not far from her village, Zember, 23, strokes her bare throat and says it feels strange that no one is staring at her.
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