Burma / Myanmar: Six Tai Lu women from Mong Lay in Shan state pose for a photograph in 1909. The two in the middle are in festive costume; the two in white pinafores wear city attire; and the two squatting on the outside are in peasant dress.

The Tai ethnicity refers collectively to the ethnic groups of southern China and Southeast Asia, stretching from Hainan to eastern India and from southern Sichuan to Laos, Thailand, and parts of Vietnam, which speak languages in the Tai family and share similar traditions and festivals, including the water festival. Despite never having a unified nation-state of their own, the peoples also have historically shared a vague idea of a "Siam" nation, corrupted to Shan or Assam in some places. The majority of Tai Lu live around Xishuangbanna in Yunnan Province in southern China. Other Tai Lu villages can be found in Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and Burma.

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