OFF THE BEATEN PATH
by Michael Schenker
A photographic culmination of 17 years of travel in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, China and Bhutan
Price: $150
Off The Beaten Path is a 232-page large format monograph that depicts and preserves, through environmental portraiture, the unique lifestyles and characteristics, the values and the culture of the fast-vanishing hill tribes and ethnic minorities in SE Asia and China. The book is also serving as a series of travel essays from the various locales that I have visited.
This project was conceived after a visit to Vietnam and China in 2001. Trekking with my wife Sue, around the lands of the Chil, the Hmong, the Dai, the Dong and the Miao, I became intrigued by lifestyles that seemed unchanged from centuries past. Even as war raged through Vietnam, even as the Cultural Revolution imploded China into decades of upheaval and regression, even as Pol Pot’s regime inflicted unimaginable horrors in Cambodia, the customs and traditions of these minority peoples have somehow survived, virtually untouched.
Exploring further in 2005 and 2006, we traveled through more regions of SE Asia, visiting with Uighers along Xinjiang’s Silk Road, the Jarais in Ratanakiri (Cambodia) and Tibetans in the mountains of Sichuan.
In January of 2009, we spent several weeks with the Akha in northern Laos. 2011 took us to the Bulang, Aka and Dai in the rubber and tea fields of Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, and in 2013 we trekked the dusty hills of northern Myanmar (Burma) for a few weeks among the Shan and Palaung.
October of 2014 introduced us to the Monpa in the Nabji area of eastern Bhutan and then 2017 led us to the Dai, Tay, Black Hmong, Flower Hmong and Black Lolo minorities in the Ha Giang region of northern Vietnam, several Lenten and Lahu villages in northern Laos, and Akha, Karen and Lisu villages in the Mae Hong Son region of northern Thailand. And finally, in 2018 we visited the minority regions in the coffee producing Bolaven Plateau in southern Laos and Bunong villages in Northern Cambodia.
What I learned is that the traditions of these dignified and gentle people are slowly but surely being enveloped, sometimes crushed, by the nationalism and visions of expansion in the host countries. Self-determination is dwindling, emigration is rising, local traditions are vanishing. Before too long, there will not be many remnants left of their heritage.