Swinging in the rain with Ford's new Everest - Stuff.co.nz
That's said to be the translation of the lyrics of a song sung each year by members of the Akha hill tribe who eke out their subsistence living high in the mountains of northern Thailand. They sing it during what is known as the swing festival, traditionally held in late August or early September to not only celebrate the planting of the year's rice crop, but also to encourage arrival of the monsoon season to help water the new crop. This unique event is called the swing festival because in each little village the hill tribe members erect a swing - a very rickety-looking contraption made out of long bamboo poles - attached a rope in its centre, and then take turns wildly... The Akha tribe had its beginnings in China, but over hundreds of years were forced to migrate out of that country and into what is now Myanmar, and then across the border into Thailand where from about 1900 they settled in the isolated mountains... These days members of the hill tribe remain homeless, living simple lives in tiny villages in the mountains of Chiang Rai, where they scrape out an existence growing rice, vegetables and other crops. But they do have pride, which explains why once a year they dress up in distinctive traditional dress and bizarre head-dress made out of everything from silver coins to painted chicken feathers, and enthusiastically get stuck into an event as... Source: www.stuff.co.nz
