RANONG, Thailand and Ruili, China — It is 3 a.m. and 32-year-old Nilar is already awake, preparing to go to the market to buy ingredients for her soup business. Her movements are alert, but her neighbours in this town near the border with Burma are still fast asleep.

Far away, Htun Shwe, 58, prays at home before he goes to the morning market in Ruili, a Chinese town on the border with Burma, to buy ingredients for his Burmese-style curry restaurant.

While the morning routines of Nilar and Htun Shwe, both Burmese, sound similar in Thailand and China, their situations are quite different.

Both head for the market in the mornings; both sell Burmese-style curry. Both left their hometowns in Burma to make more money. Yet both lead quite different lives in societies that are host to a sizable number of Burmese migrants.

Nilar left her small village in Tenasserim Division, Burma six years ago. These days, she carries the fresh curry she cooks everyday in a big basket on her head, peddling them at lunch time to Burmese migrant workers. Some 100,000 many of them work in the fishing industry here.

She earns about 100 baht a day (2.5 U.S. dollars), to support her and her four children. The job does not seem particularly dangerous, but for Nilar the daily trip to the market became risky after five run-ins with a Thai gang on her way there.

Four years ago, five gang members on two motorbikes harassed her, stripped her and stole the 507 baht (13 dollars) she was to use to buy that day's curry ingredients.

She now dreads going to the market, but must do so because she is the main breadwinner in her family.

So, she has devised a way to keep her money safe. "When they (the gang members) see me, they search my body," says Nilar. Now, to fool the gang, "I tie the money with a rubber band at the edge of my sarong to hide it."

Nilar says she knows that Thai authorities advise migrant workers in the border town not to go out between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. But how can she make money if she cannot go out in the early mornings?

In Ruili in south-western China, meantime, it is quite a different picture for Htun Shwe, a former teacher in Burma who runs his own restaurant along a narrow street near the famous Ruili gems market, an area busy with Burmese migrants.

After returning from the market each morning, he and his four children begin cooking curry so that they are ready for the lunch-hour rush of customers and before the dinner clientele.

At midday, Htun Shwe's shop can have some 100 customers daily. He makes a profit of about 70 yuan (350 baht or 9 dollars) everyday.

Rushing to and from tables of customers at lunchtime, his face bathed in sweat, Htun Shwe says, "Here, things are well." In China, he says he can earn as much as he is willing to work, and the currency is stable.

There is no question that working across the border from Burma is good for him and other Burmese, says Htun Shwe, who arrived here from Mandalay, Burma's second largest city


He says he has no worries about staying in Ruili after getting a medical check-up and a work permit from Chinese authorities, especially if ties between Burma and China continue to go well.
Htun Shwe says there is no discrimination against Burmese workers from the local Chinese or the Chinese authorities.
Over in Thailand, Nilar fears the Thai gangs in the early morning, and Thai police the rest of the day. She holds an Thai work permit, but it is for working in fisheries only — and that is not her current job.
A year ago, Nilar recalls that she was selling curry in the street when two Thai motorcycle policemen arrested her.
Her fisheries work permit did her no good, so she borrowed money to pay a 2,000 baht (50 dollar) bribe to be released. "I really wanted to cry at the time," said Nilar. It took her a month to earn the money to repay her friends. "I did not feel well."
Since then, Nilar keeps a close watch out for police too when she sells curry on Ranong's streets. Though she has been in Thailand a long time, she has never made much money, usually just enough for her family's daily needs.
For Htun Shwe, life in China has been kinder. With a bicycle pump and a screwdriver, he began life here by repairing flat tyres on the streets of Ruili. Now he has saved more than 5,000 dollars. "Although it (China) is another country, it is good to stay here," he said. "If you harmoniously stay under their law, it is not bad here."
Both Nilar and Htun Shwe left their homeland in search for a better life. Estimates are that there are more than one million Burmese workers in Thailand, and more than 20,000 in Yunnan province, where Ruili is. More than 4,000 live around Ruili.
There are other differences in the Nilar's and Htun Shwe's lives. For Burmese, a one-year work permit in China costs 60 yuan (22.5 dollars) and a one-year work permit for Thailand costs 3,800 baht (95 dollars). In both cases the registration process takes a year.
But in China, a Burmese can also apply for a three-month temporary stay permit for 27 yuan (3.38 dollars).
But even then, most Burmese in Ruili do not have proper papers and police often arrest undocumented workers and deport them, or fine them, says local Burmese resident Hein Naing.
Nonetheless, Burmese migrants in China say they feel safe and secure.
But though they are often mistreated and discriminated against in Thailand, Burmese nationals continue to migrate there for work.
Hein Naing, who has lived for more than 10 years in Ruili and recently spent a month in the Thai border town of Mae Sot, say this is because travel remains easy between the two countries and there are plenty o f jobs available in Thailand.
Hein Naing adds that for years, the biggest obstacle to Burmese working in China was its huge population, which meant that the Chinese government had to find work for its own people first.But over the years, rising incomes have allowed Chinese citizens to leave low-paying jobs and take on better-paying manufacturing jobs in cities and special economic zones. This has left room for cheaper Burmese labour in rural areas, in jobs like cleaning cars and tending to teashops, working as goldsmiths and blacksmiths. Many Burmese work in Ruili's gem industry.


"Whatever you say, there is more liberty staying along the China border than the Thai border," says Hein Naing. "There is no abuse in China for workers who come and live legally in Ruili."
Win Myint, a Burmese who lives in Mae Sot, Thailand, says that Burmese migrants do not find it easy to speak up when they have problems or their rights are violated.
"Burmese people don't want to have problems, so they remain quiet and end up being more oppressed," says Win Myint, who has lived for about 20 years in Thailand and has published two Thai-Burmese phrase books for migrants working along the border.
"It is their tradition that Burmese are afraid to go to the police. If they go to a police station (in Thailand), the language (barrier) will be difficult," Win Myint says, adding that they fear being deported or becoming victims of extortion.
Pranom Somwong of the Chiang Mai-based Migrants Assistants Programme says that the plight and perceptions of Burmese migrants in Thailand are not helped by a lot of bad history between the two countries and insensitive media reports that fan the flames of misunderstanding and prejudice.
"I think English newspapers have more information about the problems of migrant workers," said Pranom. "But the problem is in the Thai-language media," which lacks information and understanding of Burmese migrant labour in Thailand.
Still, she acknowledges that Thai reporting is now "more positive and better than before" because also of non-government groups' efforts to dialogue with the media.
Win Myint also notes that Thai textbooks still focus on Burmese invasions of more than 100 years ago. He says that many younger Thais would like to have good relations with neighbouring countries, but century-old nationalistic attitudes remain popular in some circles.
"When we talk about patriotism in Burma, we talk only of the invading British and the Japanese," he says. "But in Thai textbooks, they only talk of Burma invading Thailand in the past."
But undocumented migration relates in the end to what the Burmese government does. Win Myint says that if the the government were to take a stand with the Thai government over the exploitation of Burmese migrants, the situation could quickly improve.
But the Burmese government is the main reason for there being millions of Burmese migrants outside the country in the first place. Social, economic and political turmoil forces more and more Burmese across the Thai and Chinese borders.
Burmese workers in both China and Thailand say they left for economic reasons, but all say they would return home if and when the economic situation improved in Burma.
"Working here is risky and frightening. If things were going well in Burma, I would work there," says Nilar. "(But) What can I do? I have to work in danger," she says.
Htun Shwe is feeling older. Life in Ruili is stable, but thinking of himself as a foreign worker makes him uncomfortable. "Actually, our native town is the best," he says. "I don't want to be here, but it is the only option," he says.
Like many others, they cannot yet imagine their future lives, but "one day" hope that they can return to their Burmese homes. (END/Copyright IPS)