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Searching for a "Useable" Karen Culture in Burma: Notes from an Interview with Esther Danpongpee

From 27 December 2003 through 26 January 2004, Esther Danpongpee of the Office of History staff conducted a research visit to Burma with the purpose of collecting material on Karen culture and history to use in her work of conserving and using Karen culture for the life of Karen churches in northern Thailand. Thra' mu (an feminine honorific meaning "Teacher") Esther and I had a long discussion, something on the order of a "debriefing" session, on her visit on Thursday, 12 February 2004, and with Thra' mu Esther's permission I am sharing her observations and insights on her trip with the readers of HeRB. We would like to gratefully acknowledge that Esther's trip was made possible by the financial support given her work by the Baptist Union of Sweden.

Thra' mu Esther, since 1997, has carried out an important ministry with the churches of the 19th District of the C.C.T., which churches also comprise the bulk of the congregations that belong to the Karen Baptist Convention. She has studied the histories of some 20 churches in the Musikee, Pai, and Zion Associations, conducted two seminars on Karen theology, and initiated an innovative program for inculcating a deeper appreciation of their culture among Karen young people and children. One of the most serious problems Thra' mu Esther continues to face in her research work is the lack of readily available sources both on the histories of the Karen churches in Thailand and on the history of Karen tribal cultures. She went to Burma (Myanmar), as will be seen below, primarily to discover new sources of information.

It should also be added that while Thra'mu Esther was in Burma she learned of the death of her mother, who died early in 2003. Poor communications and inefficient postal services in Burma prevented her brothers from getting news of her mother's death to her. The staff of the Office of History shares in her grief.

Esther explained that there several reasons why she wanted to take this trip to Burma. First, she wanted to gain further data on Karen tribal history generally as well as to discover sources of information in Burma on the history of the Karen churches in Thailand. (Readers not familiar with the Karen should realize that five or more million Karen live in Burma while only a few hundred thousand reside in Thailand). Second, she also wanted to gain more information on traditional Karen cultures. Third, she particularly wanted to visit a Karen Christian movement, called Musiree, that has taken an innovative approach to interreligious relations and evangelism, one that reminds Esther of the PTCA (Programme for Theology and Culture in Asia) approach. She repeatedly expressed her frustration about having only a limited amount of time, observing that a month was not nearly enough time to do all that she had hoped to do. She also noted that the Burmese government restricts areas where foreigners can travel, which meant that she could not go to some places she wanted to or, in some cases, could take only brief day trips to visit places where she would have liked to stay for a longer period of time. A third limitation she faced was that the Burmese government also puts severe restriction on the photocopying of academic materials, and she was consequently not able to acquire some important works that she wanted to copy and bring back to Thailand.

Esther went to Burma with a group of delegates from the Thailand Karen Baptist Convention (TKBC) to attend meetings of the Burma Karen Baptist Convention (KBC), which met in the city of Pathein (Bassein). Before going on to Pathein, she took part in a planning meeting of the Christian Conference of Asia program "Reading the Bible with Karen Eyes," which met at the Anglican Compound in Rangoon. This meeting involved about 20 Pwo and Sgaw Karen church leaders from Burma and Thailand, and Esther ended up having to do some translation between the various languages and dialects being used. The meeting agreed that there will be no more international meetings of this program, which will now hold separate meetings in Thailand and in Burma.

On the evening of 29 December 2003, the Thailand group traveled to Pathein, and the next day they all went on a one-day "pilgrimage" to visit the city of Panathee,

the hometown of the Karen missionary evangelist, Maung Htwe, who played a leading role in the founding and early life of the first three Karen churches in northern Thailand. Those churches, founded in 1882, were located in Lampang Province. Although there had been some confusion about the date of the visit, the three Karen churches in Panathee joined together to give its visitors from Thailand an enthusiastic reception. They were surprised, however, at the Thai Karen's interest in Maung Htwe, a person they remembered only as having been a lukewarm Christian at best and a person of no importance to speak of. They had no idea where he was buried. Esther had hoped to do some oral history interviews, but the situation did not allow her to hold more than hold a quick conversation with descendents of Maung Htwe; there was too much going on, and when she did sit down to talk to an informant there were just too many people listening and interrupting for her to get any amount of coherent information. The Thailand delegation could stay only for a fairly short time, and Esther wasn't able to get back to Panathee.

On the 31st, Esther and the representations from Thailand began to take part in the 86th annual meeting of the KBC, which was celebrating the 175th anniversary of the first Karen convert in Burma as well as the 150th anniversary of the Sgaw Karen Bible. Esther noted that the KBC had had a great deal of trouble getting government permission to hold this meeting, which involves thousands of people, and finally did approval only a week before it was to be held. A great deal had to be done at the last minute and, in her words, had to depend on prayer. The meetings lasted until January 4th, and on the 5th the group from Thailand returned to Rangoon.

On the evening of 5 January 2004, the Thailand group visited a large KBC congregation, the Themai Church, located in Rangoon. They were treated to a meal, and then there were various performances given. Esther stated that the "stars of the evening" were two of the Karen from Thailand who played traditional Karen songs on the Karen guitar, a musical instrument not much used in Burma anymore. The Burma Karen in attendance were evidently quite taken with the Thailand Karens' grasp of these old songs and instruments. These songs are seldom sung in Burma, and Esther observed that the Burma Karen are in some ways much more Westernized than are those in Thailand.

One of the most important insights Esther gained on this trip was that she went to Burma thinking that she would discover more "Karen-ness" there than she sees among the Karen peoples of northern Thailand. She was quite taken aback to realize that the Karen in Burma consider the Thailand Karen to be "more Karen" than they are. The Karen of Burma say that the Thailand Karen have retained more of the traditional Karen way of life and dress than they have, and in Pathein people even asked Esther for her Karen blouse and dress. They have nothing like it there, and they are only now beginning to reintroduce the traditional Karen way of weaving with a handloom. The Karen in Burma, however, are much more self-consciously aware of their Karen identity than are the Karen of northern Thailand, and they are making every effort to resurrect the use of their traditional culture in the Baptist churches in Burma. From what she observed, Esther feels that the Karen Baptists in Burma are far ahead of those in Thailand in using culture as a conscious part of church life even though they are "less Karen" in a traditional sense. One of the things that most bothered Esther on this trip was the amount of Burmese Karens in Burma use, even in their formal meetings. Some Karen churches even use Burmese in their worship services.

On Tuesday, January 6th, the TKBC group returned to Thailand, and Esther moved over to the Karen Baptist Theological Seminary (KBTS) at Insein, where she stayed with a friend. From that point on, Esther spent a great deal of her time during the next three weeks in the KBTS library where she discovered a large number of works useful to the study of Karen history, culture, and the history of the Karen churches in Thailand. This material is all in Karen and is virtually unknown to the churches in Thailand. As it turned out, one member of the staff at the KBTS has privately collected a large number of back issues of three old Karen-language publications, "Morning Star," "Go For Word," and "The Light." He very graciously allowed Esther to research this material, and she brought back a great deal of data on the history of the churches in Thailand from them. As it turns out, Karen evangelists from Burma working in northern Thailand as well as local churches themselves sent letters and articles back to Burma to be published. Esther feels that what she brought back to Thailand adds a great deal of important details to Karen church history here. These publications also contain many pictures of the Thailand churches, which Esther had never seen before. Most of the material she collected dates from the 1930s into

Esther observes that much of the data she brought back is related to the Karen churches in three areas, the original Ban Nok churches in Lampang, the churches in what is now the Musikee Association, and the churches located in the area of Maesariang. She spent all of two weeks in the KBTS library and using the private collection mentioned above, and while there were other libraries she wanted to visit she feels that these two weeks were well worth the time spent.

In addition to her documentary research, Esther took a four-day trip to the town of Paan, which is the capital of the Karen State, one of the several ethnic states into which Burma (Myanmar) is divided. She went to the Karen State hoping to find out more about traditional Karen culture, but the situation there was not at all what she had assumed it would be. In Paan itself, at least, most of the Karen churches use Burmese in worship, and most Karen children tend to speak Burmese rather than Karen. They cannot read Karen. She was saddened by this lack of respect for the Karen tongue and observes that even in Rangoon most of the Karen churches use Karen in worship and in family life. Evidently even rural families in the Karen State use mostly Burmese for daily communication. There is a Karen cultural center in Paan, which Esther hoped to visit; but she was told that it was in a terrible state, her hosts were very reluctant for her to see it, and Esther did not press the matter.

If Paan itself was a disappointment, Esther's visit to the Musiree Community was not. The Musiree Community is a group of some 80 Karen Christian families, living in a single community, who devote much of their time to worship and prayer. Community members are supported by gifts from other Karen villages and by the labor of certain family members who reside outside of the community for varying lengths of time to earn an income, which they return to their families in the community. The community is physically very orderly, pleasant, and well tended. The community members say that they want to make it as close to Eden on Earth as they can. There is daily worship in the community worship center (they do not call themselves a church), and a group of especially devote older women come together

Thra Sunday Tun, a Pwo Karen clergyman who at the time was the principal of a Bible school in the town of Dujha, founded the Musiree Community in 1974. The community is a result of his observation that the ways in which Protestant Christians usually related to people of other faiths did not work very well. The evangelistic demand for conversion only drove people away from Christ and caused unnecessary divisions between the religions. Thra Sunday thus started up an interfaith discussion group involving adherents of six different faiths, including two Pwo Karen sects as well as Karen who practiced the traditional Karen faith, called moluebala. This fellowship met once per month and evolved into the Musiree Community.

Thra Sunday's approach was highly controversial in the 1970s, and he was forced to leave the Burma KBC because of his "unacceptable" views on people of other faiths. Esther notes that Thra Sunday himself is a very devout Christian who spends up to six hours a day in prayer and devotions. As it turned out, all of the members of the Musiree Community have become Christians, something that Thra Sunday has hoped and prayed for but never pushed in any way whatsoever. In general, however, Esther feels that Thra Sunday's approach to people of other faiths is similar in many respects to that of the Programme for Theology and Cultures in Asia's (PTCA) accepting, open approach to interfaith relations. She is sorry that she could spend only one short day with the community because she feels that its perspective has a great deal to offer to the Karen churches of northern Thailand.

Esther returned to Thailand with mixed feelings about her trip. She felt that she had collected a great deal of data in a relatively short time. She also saw places and work of interest and possible value to the Karen churches here. Burma, however, is a sad place to visit. The Karen people, in particular, are poor, making do on very small salaries and with limited physical comforts. Government restrictions made it difficult to visit places she wanted to go to and restrictions on photocopying academic materials limited what she could bring back to Thailand.

One of the benefits of the trip, on the other hand, was that Esther was able to renew old contacts and make new ones that are important in her work of conserving Karen church history and culture in Thailand. She was gratified by the fact that two papers she has written (see HeRB 1 and HeRB 7) have gained a wide currency among Karen Christian academics and Baptist church leaders in Burma. On the whole, Esther came back with a renewed sense of the importance of her own ministry and a continued sense of its urgency. She was very glad to come home; she missed her family a great deal. Asked if she wanted to return, Esther was hesitant. On the one hand, she sees that there is a lot more to be gained from another trip; on the other hand, doing research in Burma is not all that easy and she has many reasons, she says, to want to stay close to home.