Read Lisu Folk Tales 

Mimi Saeju was my mentor and a huge source of inspiration and knowledge for me throughout my research. An indigenous Lisu woman of Doi Laan, Mimi initially moved to Chiang Mai at age 17 for school where she lived with Otome Klein Hutheesing and Micheal Vickery. She then got her degree in business, was a participant of the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI), and developed the Lisu Cultural Heritage Center where she now educates students and incoming visitors about the Lisu people. She can be most accurately described as a woman in motion. In interning with her, there was never a dull moment. I was invited into her world and wealth of connections with open arms. Our only slow times were in the mornings when we ate breakfast together and I would, with tea in hand, ask her questions about her life and village. Miss Mimi is an incredible teacher; she speaks with so much passion and commitment. I have endlessly enjoyed learning from her and understanding how she uses anthropology to preserve her cultural heritage and provide a message of hope to those around her. It was through her that I was inspired to start this research project and through her devoted caregiving, I got to know Otome.I first met Otome Klein Hutheesing on September 22nd, 2021 when I and a group of ISDSI international students went to the Lisu Cultural Heritage Center for a presentation on Ethnic Minorities and Human Rights in Thailand. We all sat around her porch packed together and listened, diligently taking notes in between petting her dog, Miss White. After Miss Mimi’s presentation, she suggested we get up and dance with her mom, Otome. It was good for her body and spirit, she said. I was standing next to Otome and she grabbed my hand while we danced. I teared up thinking about the elders in my life back home in Michigan- my grandparents and mentors who I’ve learned so much from. As the rest of the students followed Miss Mimi inside the center, I walked Otome to a sunny spot outside the building. She remarked on how tall I was. She said that she knew I was Dutch because of my height. She held her hand in mine. I asked her about her childhood in Sumatra. She told me about the times she used to play in the lake with her friends.

I chose to do an internship with the Lisu Cultural Heritage Center partially because of Miss Mimi, her energy, knowledge, and passion was infectious and exhilarating. And partially because of Otome, I could sense her wisdom and welcome and I couldn’t wait to be in a space with her. My job at the center quickly became focused on three major tasks: transcribing Otome’s field notes from her time in Doi Laan, editing her book “Emerging Sexual Inequality Among the Lisu of Northern Thailand”, and sorting and reading through more than 50 years worth of her and her partner, Micheal Vickerys’ lifework. I dove headfirst into this work. Surrounded by an archipelago of personal letters, old newspaper clippings, materials for classes on qualitative research methods, and “gender sensitivity” training in Malaysia, I found that I would be smiling madly to myself as I reached for the next box of journals or flipped through another stack of water-worn and yellowed papers. My mind could barely catch up with the questions I wanted to ask Otome. First, it was questions about her life. What was it like living in the Netherlands in WWII? Did the outcomes of the gender sensitivity training you conducted end up as you expected? How did doing sociological work change as you moved from country to country? Then, there were more questions about her book. How have your thoughts on the concept of “international development” changed since being in Thailand? What are some of the most important lessons you learned as an anthropologist doing fieldwork in Northern Thailand? What advice do you have for me- someone who wants to be an anthropology professor- about this field? Expectantly, I turned to Miss Mimi for many of the answers to these questions.

Initially, I was going to see Otome during my internship. Fifth week, Miss Mimi and I had planned to visit Doi Laan, the village Mimi is from and Otome is currently living, together for the Lisu New Year. It was my chance to be fully immersed in Lisu culture. I had plans to ask some of the questions I had been curious about, write extensive field notes, and talk with local kids. However, as the time came closer, I realized with covid and other complexities that would not be able to happen. “Cultural immersion” was not what was needed. Being in a good relationship with people meant respecting one another and not creating a situation where either of our safety or comfort could be put at risk. Lessons like these I had learned from Otome and I needed to fully apply the anthropological principle of praxis, theory into action, in my life as well. I had to learn to think critically about my engagement and positionality before I entered a community space.

While drafting what I wanted to work on for my research project, I was struck by how much I related and found valuable lessons in even just the introduction of her book, “Emerging Sexual Inequality Among the Lisu of Northern Thailand”. After reading so much of her work, I felt like I knew her intimately (even though I hadn’t spent more than an afternoon in her presence). I found myself writing down questions and quotes in my notebook; trying to piece together the author’s life with what I know about her current situation. At age 51, Otome Hutheesing first published this book in 1991. She had been studying in Northern Thailand throughout her forties and this report was a culmination of what she had learned in the past ten years of research. However, over the past few years, in her old age, Otome has developed advanced dementia. Though she still speaks Lisu when she gets excited, she cannot remember many details of her life, no longer remembers who her foster daughter, Miss Mimi is, and evidently will not be able to answer any of my questions.

As Miss Mimi approaches her 40th birthday in March, I wanted to create a project that mimics what a conversation might look like between her and her mom in 2022. I hope that my project will read like a discussion between these two incredibly wise anthropologists around themes of anthropology, development, and what their advice is for young future anthropologists and revolutionaries. All three of us are decades apart in age and at very different points in our lives. Even so, we look and have looked to anthropology as a way of making sense of the world. So often our conversations around anthropology are conceptualized in the world of academia- they are confusing, filled with jargon, and ultimately inaccessible to those not familiar with the field. However, anthropology only matters if it can be understood in our relationships with one another. Anthropology is the study of what makes us human. As we get older and understand with a new sort of intimacy what it means to only have so much time on this Earth, I want to, in Mimi’s words, “do a small thing…a peaceful thing you do for someone else”. I hope that this project will be a small snapshot of these relationships and something to hold on to for the future.

 

Otome Klein Hutheesing: Anthropological Ethics

“Whatever happens, I am determined not to leave them alone”(Klein Hutheesing 33)

Otome Klein Hutheesing was born on August 19th, 1930 in the Netherlands but spent most of her childhood in Sumatra, Indonesia. From a young age, she had an interest in other cultures and the sociological problems of the “emergence of classes, of social consciousness, of culture and cognition”. She sought to understand those in marginalized settings like border situations as she was born to a Dutch father and German-Japanese mother she felt similarly “not placeable in any context of statehood or statushood”(Klein Hutheesing, 19). She graduated with a B.A (1953), M.A. (1956), and a Ph.D. (1963) in Sociology at Leiden University. She, then, worked in various teaching positions in Europe, America, India, and Malaysia before 1981 when she started her research trips in Northern Thailand (Molanzu People’s Story). In her work, she speaks out about the fatigue she had with academia and anthropology work that was removed from the people living it stating, “two decades at university-factories had alienated me from the social realities I was lecturing about. Instead of non-lived-through-knowledge or bookish knowledge, I hoped for an intimate knowing of a small society.” With her friend, Asue Hobday, she was then introduced to a Lisu family and since the 80s has conducted research about the Lisu people of this village, Doi Laan in Chiang Rai Province of Northern Thailand. When discussing why she chose this village, in particular, she reminisces that it was “because there was one lovely, grayish limping dog and because that was the first time I became entranced with the singing of a Lisu man and woman”(The Star, April 23, 1994). In 1990, she published her book, “Emerging Sexual Inequality among the Lisu of Northern Thailand: The Waning of Dog and Elephant Repute”. At 92 years old, she is still alive today, now living in the same Lisu village, Doi Laan.

In her study, Otome discusses extensively the major lessons she had to learn as an anthropologist in Doi Laan. Though she’d been studying sociology her whole life, this experience felt different. She was challenged and pushed in ways that led her to conclusions I will hold with me in the anthropological work I do in the future. The framework of acknowledging your positionality and privilege, dismantling internal prejudices and Western frames of thought, and investing yourself fully into the communities you work with are guiding principles when thinking about how to do Anthropology ethically.

Doing Anthropological work in Doi Laan, required Otome to constantly reevaluate and adapt her research to the people she was interacting with. As she writes in her book, she often found herself questioning, “what does the west have to offer?”(31) and “Was I not trying to invent Lisu culture for them similar to the way culture had been conceptualized in a Western context: i.e. dissectable, documentable, stylized, eventually mummified in musea?”(26). In researching gendered dynamics in Lisu culture, Otome writes about how she had to relearn the paradigms she’d come to understand about “maleness” about “femaleness”. When trying to dissect the metaphor, “women are like elephants and men are like dogs”, Otome had to reimagine how emblems and metaphors to understand gender relations in this context are not used to categorize how “big” or “small” their presence or power is. She, in different ways, was imagining Lisu culture through a static Western lens. To truly understand the changing of sexual inequality in Doi Laan, she had to evaluate how her learning was affecting her ability to truly understand a situation.

At the beginning of Otome’s trip to Doi Laan, she was asked a lot about why she wasn’t married, why she had come, and why she didn’t want children (especially at her age). She states “how baffling I must have seemed to them in my incompleteness as a woman and in my attitude of not wanting any children”(23). She felt out of place at times. She asked uncomfortable questions and acted outside of custom. But she says, “whatever discomfort or embarrassment was felt by the Lisu, I was always given face”(120). Otome, through it all, was treated like family. When the Lisu family she was staying with lost their youngest son, the mother would still check in on her every night to see if the blankets were covering Otome’s body. She shared meals, discussions, quarrels, song, and dance, sowed rice and maize, and became involved intimately in the lives of the Lisu people of Doi Laan. In Simpon’s “Land as Pedagogy” she asks of her readers, “if you want to learn about something, you need to take your body onto the land and do it”. Calling on Octavia Butler’s work she states, “get a practice…get out, get involved, and get invested”(Simpson, 17-18). In between Otome’s research periods when she would go back to Chiang Mai for weeks at a time, the Lisu people would say, “why don’t you stay longer? Have some food, you can’t go away like that. There is no custom”(32). “You foreign people you can be alone. Sleep alone in the house, walk alone in darkness. Are you never lonely for your blood relatives?”(18). After all of the learning she’d done about Anthropology of academia: the theory, the rigor, the pedagogical frameworks; she had now learned with such depth and love the anthropology of relationships. Her practice had become a lifelong investment. Something she could not walk away from. She could not leave the people of Doi Laan alone. And frankly, she did not want to be alone either. At the end of chapter one, Otome writes “whatever happens, I am determined not to leave them alone. I will come back every year and give them repute”( 3).

 

Mimi Saeju: Anthropological Ethics

“Culture is not frozen”

During one of our morning breakfasts, I asked Mimi Saeju how she understands Anthropology. What are the things she has learned and what are the obstacles she sees other Anthropologists facing? Two major themes emerged from our discussion, one, you must remember culture is not frozen and that there are no simple answers, and two, you need to recognize and utilize your identity when doing sociology work.

After the opium eradication policies of the 1950s, one of the things that the Thai government came up with to economically support the Lisu people were hill tribe development projects that encouraged the sale of ethnic handicrafts. To capitalize on a gradual new influx of tourists and Thailand’s relatively stable political atmosphere of the 1960s, the marketing and sale of indigenous handicrafts became increasingly commercialized and supported by various international and domestic development projects. For the Lisu people, this meant an increase in the production of Lisu dress forgoing some of the traditional quality for an increase in quantity. As put by researchers Meekaew and Srisontisuk, who have done extensive research on the effect of tourism in Chinagkan, “Although the manufacturing industry can create socioeconomic progression, the change in cultural procession has become more quantitative and less qualitative, reduced to a commodity”(Meekaew and Srisontisuk). When I asked Mimi what she thought of the cultural commodification of Lisu dress, whether it was a good or bad thing, she talked extensively about the dangers of value judgments and the adaptation of culture.

Oftentimes when international NGOs or researchers come into indigenous communities there is a lot of blame put on villagers for “forgoing” their identity. Questions like, “why don’t you wear your ethnic costume?” often dismiss the lived reality of indigenous peoples and fail to contextualize these issues in a postcolonial lens. In our conversation, Mimi stated, “who is an outsider to impose their views?”. Indigenous peoples with a cultural connection to this form of handicraft should ultimately be able to decide the methods of its preservation and production. “Culture is not frozen”. The adaptation and changing of cultural traditions is an ongoing process and requires a balance between preserving ancient knowledge and shifting to fit in a changing market and social atmosphere. In the case of the commercialization of Lisu dress, there were both advantages and disadvantages to this modern form of production. The more commercialized Lisu dress is still sold by Lisu vendors but is often more uniformized. Mimi has also noticed more people now wearing the traditional Lisu dress, creating a sense of solidarity and a demonstration of pride in their ethnic identity. Mimi likes to be more of herself by wearing something unique like her ethnic dress. When her nieces see her wear her costume with pride, she hopes they will be proud to be Lisu. Ultimately, indigenous peoples should be allowed to decide for themselves how and on what terms they want to express their cultural heritage. Value judgments imposed by cultural outsiders, often miss how nuanced and intimate these questions can be.

“Daughters of Development” by Thai feminist and environmentalist, Sinith Sittirak discusses the politics of identity and difference by framing development through many different lenses including that of the author’s own positionality and how “development” affects her relationship with her mother who lives in rural Northern Thailand. One of the quotes she includes in her writing is “there is no better point of entry into a critique or a reflection than one’s own experience. It is not the endpoint, but the beginning of an exploration of the relationship between the personal and the social and therefore the political. And this connecting process, which is also a discovery, is the real pedagogic process, the “science” of social science”(Sittirak, 67). Often when we think of science or the social science process it neglects the “I”, the individual, the author. There is this omnipresent but unidentifiable observer presenting us with an objective fact. However, rather than strengthening one’s argument this way of relating to information tampers with our ability to think critically and deeply about a subject. As a researcher, identifying your positionality can allow you to gain a more nuanced and sustainable experience. As an indigenous Anthropologist studying her own village and culture in Doi Laan, Mimi says she must act like a chameleon, changing colors to get to the key informant, playing with her identity to deal with interpersonal dynamics. There are challenges faced by both cultural insiders and outsiders when doing Anthropology work. The key in either position you are in is to create a sense of balance and boundaries to maintain “respectful and ethical professional relationships”. Navigating relationships is difficult but by acknowledging your own identity and the boundaries you need to continue your work in a sustainable way your research will be able to have more depth and complexity.

 

Otome Klein Hutheesing: Development

“It is created by every Lisu for all Lisu who live in the mountain”(Klein Hutheesing 96)

In Lisu, there is no word for “development”. In Doi Laan, the village where Miss Mimi is from, the Thai word “Patana” (พัฒนา) is used as the closest equivalent. For the people of Doi Laan, “patana” represents a small positive change. A community-involved cleaning day at the school is “development”. It is participatory. It is slow. It is something that “ is created by every Lisu for all Lisu who live in the mountain”(Klein Hutheesing 96).

In 1958, after international pressure, the Thai government declared the sale and smoking of opium illegal. In the following decades, villages including Doi Laan were raided by the government. Their opium fields were burned, and their economic livelihoods were destroyed. Opium was a crop that the villagers were familiar with. It requires little water inputs, could be intergrown with rice and vegetables, and didn’t require the same amount of space as other crops. Rates of opium addiction in Doi Laan were very low and the crop was only produced at a rate needed for the sustenance of family’s livelihoods. Tomatoes were introduced by Thai, U.S., and U.N developers as a substitute crop for opium. They required larger amounts of water, more forest had to be burned for the space they took up, and high fertilizer and chemical inputs were encouraged. The Lisu had been growing opium for generations and now had to rapidly adapt to a crop that did not have the same market stability as opium. “They are made to feel inferior by the majority Thai population who…force them to grow crops they are not familiar with”(100). As Miss Mimi has talked about in the past, “we all have an ego as humans. Culture is also ego”. When tomatoes were introduced as a substitute crop, it failed to fit into the context of Lisu culture and ways of knowing. This crop had to be “tamed” in a way they were not familiar with opium. The decades of relationship they had cultivated with the opium plant had been lost for a jarring alternative. Rather than feeling like they were participating in their development, there was a sense of removal. The Lisu people were unable to determine for themselves what their development should look like. The side effects from these changes rippled out into every area of life. As Otome discusses in the last line of her book, “it is likely that a woman may be assessed as less worthy, especially if she as upholder of a now crumbling custom is not only losing her repute, but as traditional keeper of cash will lose her wealth to the male as well”( Klein Hutheesing, 208). Otome’s work was initially focused on explaining and describing what gender relations looked like in Doi Laan. However, it quickly became apparent that traditional Lisu conceptions of male and femaleness did not play with power and patriarchy in the same way Western cultures did. The problems that arose, “the emerging sexual inequality”, came with a new reliance on lowland markets, an abrupt adaptation of social and household dynamics with the transition of a new key crop, and the consequences of poverty and lack of economic determination. In her book and partially due to her position as a cultural outsider, Otome does not offer policy recommendations or a call to action in the conclusion. We, as the readers, are forced to sit with an uncomfortable and upsetting reality. Those from Western countries reading this book, myself included, must reckon with our preconceived notions of the use of “international development” and challenge ourselves to think about international drug policies in a new light. Parallel stories to one of the Lisu of Doi Laan exist across the world. Otome’s book brings awareness to the future that exists revealing the potentially unforeseen consequences of international development and the dangers of impeding indigenous sovereignty.

Mimi Saeju: Development

“Ideas are also development, not just infrastructure”

A lot of the international development that Mimi saw happening in her village and communities across Northern Thailand failed to truly recognize the dignity of the people they were working with. “International Development ” groups, NGOs, and missionaries often work to construct infrastructure- help with roads, build schools, and organize community buildings but this “external” development has little impact. The type of development Miss Mimi and many indigenous activists around the world are interested in is “internal development” created for and by the communities impacted. In Sinith Sittrack’s book she cites that, “development should be a struggle to create criteria, goals, and means for self-liberation from misery, inequality, and dependency in all forms. Crucially, it should be a process the people choose, which heals them from historical trauma, and enables them to achieve a newness on their own terms”(Sittrak 20). These ideas are in direct contrast to Western conceptions of development that emphasize economic growth and accumulation of capital. This is not to discount the ways that “business solutions” can impact communities but without relationship-building economic growth is just exploitation. Mississauga Nishnaabeg author and activist, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, discusses this concept in her paper “Land as Pedagogy” where she states, “My Ancestors didn’t accumulate capital, they accumulated networks of meaningful, deep, fluid, intimate, collective and individual relationships of trust. In times of hardship we did not rely to any great degree on accumulated capital or individualism but on the strength of our relationships with others” (Simpson, 77). International development projects that do not acknowledge indigenous social constructs and value systems are not of use to the communities being helped. That also applies to both international and Thai development projects that emphasize hierarchy or individual leadership when “development” to these villagers means communal effort. In the past thirty years since the boom of NGOs in Northern Thailand, there has been a lot of emphasis on what international development organizations can do to help. While that is a deeply nuanced question, the most important consideration is that “development or growth is desirable only if it is consistent with people’s deepest values” (Sittirak 17). Ethnic communities in Northern Thailand deserve self-determination in creating their future. During my internship, I have learned a lot from Mimi Saeju on how she practices development using ideas to empower future community leaders. By recognizing the talent, strength, and hope of future generations she is creating development that is far more likely to last.

 

From Mother and Daughter: Advice and Notes for the Future

“I am a woman who knows what she wants…You want to be good for yourself and others.

Learn to be stubborn”

One of the poignant lessons I’ve learned during this internship is the “aliveness” of Anthropology. Our history and humanity does not exist in the past but breathes into the present. Culture is adapting and changing and so are we. In the face of such changes and challenges, we must help people, especially future generations, feel heard and motivated to change the issues present in their communities. Development starts with ideas; the belief we can make things just a little bit better. By giving people the resources to advocate for themselves, you feel like you are doing something in return for your community. Both Otome and Mimi know critically the importance of empowering future generations by listening carefully and making people feel heard. There is something so powerful about being able to reimagine the future. Leanne Simpson describes it as “the freedom to imagine and create an elsewhere in the here; a present future beyond the imaginative and territorial bounds of colonialism. It is a performance of other worlds, an embodied practice of flight” (Betasamosake Simpson, 23). For a village like Doi Laan that has experienced some intense cultural shifts in the past thirty years due to the neocolonial influences of the Thai government and international NGOs, the future to imagine alternative realities without outsider intervention is a powerful force. When Miss Mimi interacts with the young people of Doi Laan: going on hikes with them, teaching English lessons, answering questions they have about their changing bodies, through education she is giving them more independence and confidence about how they fit in the world around them. There is power in her existence as a female Anthropologist, cultural historian, and community leader. As Mimi has told me in numerous contexts, “I am a woman who knows what she wants”. In living her truth, she is an example to future generations of the value of cultural pride and a living reminder of their right to self-determination.

Conclusion

“So I gently offer my hand and ask,

Let me find my talk

So I can teach you about me”

Rita Joe

I leave this internship and experience as a deeper and more intentional listener. I understand with new intimacy the power of slow development, relationships, and moments even in the face of all the time constricts I have experienced throughout my internship. Western systems of thought teach us to think about issues with urgency and speed, there are binaries and simple quick solutions offered to address our unstructured and complex world. This fast way of relationships is unrealistic and ineffective. The best relationships in our lives take time and investment. I experienced this constantly throughout my internship. I saw this in the way the Lisu earrings sold at the center were made. It was a slow process. First, the Lisu women in Doi Laan would choose the thread and fabric that best fit with the character of the earring they were making. Next, Miss Mimi would go to a local vendor to pick beads and select threads to make tassels to go along with the earrings. It was a Lahu woman who would stuff the earrings and put them together according to Mimi’s designs. When we went to visit her, we’d talk to her kids and bring them oranges and sour mango. Then, at her own pace, she would work on the earrings (Field Notes 9). When the earrings were made, Mimi would then market them on her social media and reach out to local friends to gauge interest in the new designs. The money gained from earrings sales was then reinvested into village projects, the Lisu Cultural Heritage Center, or care items for Otome. The process was slow but every step along the way relationships were strong; people felt cared about and listened to. Everywhere we would go during my internship Mimi would talk to people: the woman at the noodle shop, neighbors we passed on the street, old friends, new connections. There was such a beautiful way she constructed a web of relationships. As I prepare to leave the country, I am mourning that I am unable to invest in communities in the way that I want to at this point of transition in my life. But for now, I will take what I have learned from Otome and Mimi. I will be in this moment. I will write to the people who I care about and hear their stories. I will listen carefully as you teach me about you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Betasamosake Simpson , Leanne. Land as Pedagogy: Nishnaabeg Intelligence and Rebellious Transformation . vol. 3, University of Toronto , 2014, Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/22170/17985.

“Ethics and Methods.” American Anthropological Association , https://www.americananthro.org/ethics-and-methods.

Field Notes. Pages 1-29.

Hutheesing, Otome Klein. Emerging Sexual Inequality among the Lisu of Northern Thailand: The Waning of Dog and Elephant Repute. E.J. Brill, 1990.

Meekaew, Nattapon, and Somsak Srisontisuk . “Chiangkhan: Cultural Commodification for Tourism and Its Impact on Local Community.” Proceedings- Management, Agroindustry and Tourism Industry , 21 Apr. 2012.

Saeju, Mimi. “People’s Story.” Molazu, http://www.molazu.org/lisu-story/.

Sittirak, Sinith. Daughters of Development: The Stories of Women and The Changing Environment in Thailand . Women and Environmental Research Network in Thailand , 1996.