"...Shans around the world (Tai peoples) The Tai or Tai-Kadai ethnicity The Tai or Tai-Kadai 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-Kadai family and share similar traditions and festivals, including Songkran or Thingyan water festival. * Despite never having a unified nation-state of their own, * the peoples also have historically shared a vague idea of a Shan or Tai or ?Siam” nation, corrupted to Shan in Burma or Assam in India, and most of them self-identified themselves as ?Tai”. ..."