The Chin People

Moving upstream on the Irrawaddy broad tide, the ocean liner approaches the city of Rangoon, and the gold-leafed pinnacle of the celebrated Shwe Dagon pagoda welcomes it as it rises magnificently in the morning sunlight. The traveler is intrigued with the claim that this ancient shrine has been standing for three thousand years. This injects an anachronism, since Buddhism was founded not more than twenty-five centuries ago and something less than that for its lodgment in Burma. But no one seems to be embarrassed nor stultified by what, for them, is merely a slight chronological inaccuracy, which derives from the time-clocked occidental measurements, for theirs is that timeless eternity of the East.

The remote mountain town of Mindat is a district of the Chin state in the west of Myanmar, situated at 4,860 feet above the sea level and about 5 to 7 hours drive from Bagan. The remote tribal Mindat area, was restricted by the Burmese government until three years ago and now is open for tourist.Mindat is a town known for its untouched traditional culture, a place to meet the fascinating tatooed face women who made this area known to the world.The Chin people in Southern Chin Hills used to have the custom of tattooing on the face of the women.There are many stories about the origin of Chin tattoos, one of them, being that these tribes first began to ink their faces as a way of disfiguring their beauty, to make themselves unattractive in hopes that by doing so, they could avoid being kidnapped or chosen as concubines by the Burmese kings. A different legend states that they were tattooed distinctively to allow for identification with their tribe of origin in the event that they were kidnapped by another tribe. Another reason was that they believed the tatoos were beautiful, or a mark of beauty, they believed that with it, it made them more attractive and would receive attention from young men. Although nobody could authenticate the validity of this story.

"In this 93-page report, Human Rights Watch documents a wide range of human rights abuses carried out by the Burmese army and government officials. The abuses include forced labor, arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, religious repression and other restrictions on fundamental freedoms. In Mizoram state, India, Chin people remain at risk of discrimination and abuse by local Mizo groups and local authorities, and of being forced back across the border into Burma."--Human Rights Watch website.

Since the 1950s, China and India have been locked in a monumental battle for geopolitical supremacy. Chinese interest in the ethnic insurgencies in northeastern India, the still unresolved issue of the McMahon Line, the border established by the British imperial government, and competition for strategic access to the Indian Ocean have given rise to tense gamesmanship, political intrigue, and rivalry between the two Asian giants. FormerFar Eastern Economic Review correspondent Bertil Lintner has drawn from his extensive personal interviews with insurgency leaders and civilians in remote tribal areas in northeastern India, newly declassified intelligence reports, and his many years of firsthand experience in Asia to chronicle this ongoing struggle. His history of the “Great Game East” is the first significant account of a regional conflict which has led to open warfare on several occasions, most notably the Sino-India border war of 1962, and will have a major impact on global affairs in the decades ahead.