China: An ethnic Tai Lu man photographed in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, in 1920.

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.

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