Rings for a lifetime

My name is Moh Khara; I am 67 years old. My husband died a month ago. I have 5 children. Now I am living by the Inle Lake. In my hometown we were just farmers, and we had a hard life. When we came to the lake, we started to make knitwears and sell them to the tourists. My income differs according to the number of tourists visiting.

According to our culture, women who have long necks are more beautiful and attractive. I started to wear 13 rings at the age of nine. The number of the rings increases as our people get older. When I was seventeen, I was wearing 14 rings. At the age of twenty, I reached the maximum number of rings that could be worn - 25. There are two different, separate parts in a ring. The rings are made of solid bronze and are worn as one piece. When you reach the number of 25 rings, the total weight of them is 10 kg. There is one extra ring for sleeping, and when we sleep, we turn the rings to the front side, but normally we wear them backwards. No matter what, we never take off the rings for our entire life.

The color of my dress is our traditional color. I think that I look beautiful with my dress and the rings.

Moh Khara
Inle Lake, Myanmar, 20 January 2019