Do we fetishize indigenous people?
Looking perplexed, the executive producer turned to a translator as the Moken man leaned on the tiller of his petrol engine. ‘Why don't you use sail boats?’ he asked. Somewhat puzzled, the Moken man provided the obvious answer: ‘Because petrol is easy.’
The exchange took place on a longtail boat, a , off the island of Surin, Thailand, in waters not far from Myanmar. Nearby was a beachhead framed by stilt huts, papaya trees, white sands and turquoise sea. It was one of the first days of a film shoot for which I had been recruited as a writer and observer, and that moment – the producer’s disappointment – captured perhaps better than any other the fate of
