What is Karen?
Life Karen lives in a Thai and Burmese southeast. Population is conveyed with about 14000000.
There is a nation of Karen in Burmese southeast. A capital is Pa-an. Approximately most of Karen lives in this country.
Farming plays a key role of life so that most of Karen live at a mountain. I live as a farmer cultivating south Burma and east Thai rich land.
Therefore staple food of Karen is rice. They eat a lot of vegetables or meat elsewhere. It is the same as almost Asian appetite culture.
A thing called "Talapaw" which mixed a pea and a red pepper and spice with rice and fish soy sauce is famous cooking of Karen.
Culture Religion The religion that Karen believes in is Buddhism or original religion (animism). Christianity faith is around 30% of inhabitants.
Language To them who speak a language of Karen, there are two kinds of dialects of Sgaw and Pwo. It is a language with condition like Burmese language and Chinese peculiar both, but it is this language that two is completely different, and it is a very interesting point.
Letter There is a unique letter in Karen, and the form resembles a footprint of a cock. There are a few people who can understand this letter now. A letter used regularly is Burmese characters or a Thai letter now.
Symbol In culture of Karen, a frog and a horn of a water buffalo are often used as a symbol. These are seen in a musical instrument of the ceremony that they use well. A frog and an elephant and the sun are decorated by a musical instrument made with an alloy. A price is high, and there is much decoration of a frog a valuable musical instrument. Klo is the drum which did form of a frog. Kwe is a bugle horn of a water buffalo. It is often that they are played to bring a blessing in ceremonial occasion and a festival of the New Year.
Clothes Folk costume of Karen is a simple style to bind a waist with long waist cord in a piece of cloth for wearing with an opening for the head. Colorful colors such as white and red or blue are used for clothes, and there are various designs and is very pretty. There is a meaning in those colors and a design. White means "single-mindedness", and a single woman wears it. Red "is brave", and blue means "faithfulness", and a man and a married person can generally touch the body. Embroidery and a design are made on the clothes which a woman puts on in the body. There seems to be a meaning not to allow a bad thing like a large snake / the devil to come near in this design.
Folk costume of this Karen is various by villages. But a specific design or color are common to. This folk costume is easily distinguished from other folk costume to be clearly different from other racial clothes living in Burma and Thailand.
They open public holidays and festival days and a dance of a welcome to a visitor with these colorful traditional clothes. Karen is known to people coming from the outside of a village as a very friendly race.
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