Moken "Sea Gypsies" vs. Tourism and Modernity

"Sea Change", a Mother Jones photo essay by Andrew Testa and text by Monika Bauerlein, captures the fragile status of the Moken, Thailand’s "sea gypsies" who we heard so much about in the days after the tsunami. They were heralded as one of a very few upbeat counterpoints to the devastating drama wrought by the angry sea. But now there's a worry that they "could be swept away by an even greater force." In the November/December 2005 Issue of Mother Jones Testa and Bauerlein quite beautifully convey the story of this unique tribe which strattles the Thailand and Myanmar border. A fairytale people who live in and near the sea, children swimming from infancy and adults plunging some 200 feet into the ocean's depths.

"Like the Moken, Testa found himself spending much of his time in the water, following bands of kids as they swam, dove, and leaped off stilt-built houses into the ocean (no fears here of sharks, octopi, and the other creepy-crawlies that keep Western kids marooned on the beach). There’s a joy in these photos that you don’t often see in the land of the PlayStation 2, a balance and sheer grace that seem both effortless and unshakable. Maybe for a people who can outrun tsunamis, industrial civilization is no match either."

I hope he's right. The afterward to the romanticized story told during the tsunami coverage recounts the struggle of a culture replacing their traditional self-reliance with modern challenges. Challenges like environmental measures that inhibit their traditional lifestyle, like international borders which divide and isolate their people, tourism which celebrates them as a cultural artifact, and the vices and plagues of modernity.