Given that the two countries were bitter enemies from the mid-1500s until the British Empire swallowed Burma 300 years later, this is hardly surprising.
Most Thai provinces have shrines to heroes and heroines who defeated the Burmese – Phuket is no exception – and even today many Thais are distrustful of Burmese.
Yet the real world is now hugely different, and Thailand is now host to 1.5 million Burmese immigrant workers, and possibly millions of illegal ones. People from the old enemy have been quietly occupying Thailand – and Thailand needs them.
Recent history has allowed Thailand to accelerate away from Burma on almost every front, in terms of political sophistication, infrastructure, economics and wealth, and the gap shows no signs of closing any time soon.
Andy Hall, a migration expert at Mahidol University’s Institute for Population and Social Research, explains
that it’s a simple matter of supply and demand.
“Thailand now need Burmese workers. Both men and women come from Burma to Thailand to work at any jobs that Thai workers disdain, including labourers, servants, boatmen, nannies, waiters or waitresses.
“Though there are many workers in Thailand, there are still not enough to support Thailand’s economic needs so the migrant worker is another option for Thailand’s development.
“There are about 1.5 million Burmese working legally in Thailand at the moment. The Mahachai sub-district of Samut Sakhon province is very popular among them because there are a lot of fishing boats and industries, which need a lot of workers,” Mr Hall explains.
The migrant workers, too, need Thailand, fleeing across the border for several decades because anything is better than staying at home under an oppressive regime which gave them no rights and never allowed them a voice.
“Burmese, Laos, Cambodians and Vietnamese are the main migrant worker groups in Thailand,” Mr Hall says. “They come here for a number of reasons but mostly it’s because they are hoping for a better life.
“For the Burmese, their country was locked for decades in old military-style dictatorial rule. The Burmese were suppressed by the military while economic and social pressures made it difficult to live, so they decide to flee their homes.”
This is why many construction sites, restaurants, docks and even tourism businesses are now filled with Burmese workers.
Phuket restaurant Sunanta Boonkamonsawat says the main reason she has hired Burmese workers is because their wages are lower and they can accept hard work, which Thais will not.
“I do not specifically hire only Burmese workers, but it is really hard to find Thai workers to work in these jobs – cleaning, washing, helping to cook or serving. I provide Burmese workers with accommodation and four meals a day.
“Right now I have only Thai students working for me,” she says. She does not rule out hiring more Burmese in the future, “but I prefer to work with people from my own country because it can be quite hard trying to communicate with someone whose first language is completely different.
On the other hand, she says, “The Burmese are much cheaper than Thais. I can hire two Burmese for the same amount of money that I would have to pay one Thai worker.
“I think there are now too many Burmese workers in Phuket, especially when you consider the number of unemployed Thais there are. The provincial government or Thailand’s government should manage this economic balance better.
“I don’t think Burmese workers are a mainstay of Phuket’s development, but they are advantageous for some business groups, which can reduce their cost by hiring cheaper workers,” she adds.
One of these is Teerapat Pattanasoponpong, an architect who has more than 400 Burmese working on
his construction site. He says the Burmese work harder than Thais do.
“I don’t know whether they are essential for Phuket or not, but my site needs them. There are only six Thai workers at the site, all of them from Isarn. With all the construction going on in Phuket, I am sure that every site hires Burmese workers.”
Unusually, he advocates equal wages for Burmese and Thais. “Thai workers don’t want dangerous, difficult jobs and Burmese can work harder than the Thais, so they should be payed the same wages,” Mr Teerapat argues.
Yin Yana, 32, a woman from Mon state in Burma, has been living in Phuket for almost five years as a construction worker at various sites in Patong. She believes Burmese workers are an important part of the island’s economy.
“I think Burmese workers are one of a main factors in Phuket’s development. We are not the brains of this town but we are the arms and legs that build it. I have built several buildings, including hotels, resorts or houses. If it were not for Burmese labourers, those buildings might not be completed yet, because there are not enough Thai workers to do the work,” Ms Yana said.
Asked why she came to Phuket she says that any bad aspects of life on the island are still better than the bad aspects of life in her home town.
“My family members and I were farmer labourers; we didn’t have our own farm so we were very poor. We used to start work in the early morning and finish in the evening. No lunch was provided so we have to prepare something for ourselves to eat it quickly during a short lunchbreak.
“We spend almost all of our time getting a little bit of money each day. Sometime, I used to think I was a slave, not a farm worker.
“But here, I can get more money and lunch is provided for us, and we get an hour to eat it. She is one of the lucky ones, she adds. “I have had a better opportunity than many of my friends because my first boss is very kind.
“I did not have to pay big money to a broker or to the police to get into Thailand. My boss came to pick me up from Ranong and brought me to a safe workplace,” she says.
Sor (his nickname), 25, an illegal worker, also from Mon state, had a rougher ride in Thailand.
“In my country, there are not many jobs and the wages are very low. Politics, too, were another reason for me to flee.
“I came to Thailand when I was 20 to work as crew on a fishing boat out of Ranong. Those two years were very bad. I had to stay on the boat for months on end and when the boat returned to shore, I was arrested by the police many times. I had to get my employer to get me out of jail, and that meant I had work for him free to repay him.
“One day, by chance, I met my uncle and he asked me to follow him to Phuket with other Burmese to work on a construction sites. I had to pay a broker B20,000 to clear it with the immigration and the police.
“The life of an illegal labourer is not good. I always have to hide when the police come to check the construction site and I cannot hang around in public because of the police.
But life, hard as it is is still better than it was in Burma, Sor says. “Sometimes I miss my hometown but life here is still better than there, even though I cannot go out in public. There are many construction sites waiting for us to build. I don’t care that the work is hard or low-grade. Building is my job.”
Phuket Employment Office head Nopphadol Ploiyoodee says migrant labour is very important for Phuket’s economy.
“There are about 62,000 legal migrant labourers on the island, including Burmese, Cambodians and Laos. Most of them do jobs that Thai workers don’t want to do such as construction, servants, dish-washing or any low-level jobs.
“There are a lot of construction sites in Phuket at the moment but there are few Thai workers on them – most of those are from the northeast of Thailand.
The majority of the labourers are Burmese and other migrants labourers, so you can say Burmese labourers are very necessary for Phuket.
“These workers may seem invisible, but if they were not here, work on so many of the island’s facilities would simply stop,” Mr Nopphadol said.
For many Thais the old antipathy still exists, and many people may not want Burmese workers here. But the plain fact is that modern Thailand can’t do without them.
– Sukunya Phoonpong