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Hmong village near the Burmese border in Thailand
Lisa and I have come to Thailand for New Year’s.
Tomorrow we are off to Angkor Wat in Cambodia before returning to the UK.
I shot this yesterday in a tiny Hmong village in the mountains near the Burmese border.
I was last in Chiang Mai 12 years ago when I ran a 3-week video bootcamp with the VOA’s Asian bureaus.
A lot has changed since then.
Every village, no matter how poor, is dotted with satellite dishes – and they get Internet as well a TV.
We live in a very very connected world, and it is increasingly being driven by screens.
Just up the path from this little house I ran into a local Hmong villager.
She was about 11 years old and she was on her cellphone.
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In one generation she has lept from subsistence rural villager to a member of the global digital community.
Her grandmother was standing in the doorway to their little house, pounding roots.
Do you think she is going to be satisfied doing that?
I don’t think so either.
The really weird thing is that for the week we have checked into the Four Seasons Resort in Chiang Mai.
It’s not really a hotel, per se.
Instead, it is designed to resemble a northern Thai village… well, that’s the idea anyway.
It’s a giant walled off compound of, I think, 70 acres, with everyone getting a little Thai-like wooden villa, complete with all the western amenities, or course.
Here’s the view from our sala, our traditional wood gazbo attached to the house
They’ve got rice paddys and water buffalo wandering out there
And Thai peasants dressed in traditional blue with straw hats.
It’s all a bit weird.
The funny thing is that inside the comound reminds me of what Chiang Mai looked like only a dozen years ago.
Outside, things have changed a lot.
Mostly, I think, due to satellites, TV and the web.
Everyone sees what they could have, and they want it.
The only place you can find the ‘old’ Thailand, apparently, is inside the hotel,
Weird.
