This thematic paper presented an overview of the livelihood of the Karen ethnic group at Khamwan Village. Their culture, traditions and customs have been passed down from generation to generation, which have united the community until today. The village is located in a national forest reserve with inconvenient transportation and communication. At the time of the study, there were 267 residents in 51 households in the village. Their main occupation was rice farming and most of the yields were used for domestic consumption. Their supplementary survival activities included collecting forest products, earning wages by day, and hawking. The villagers had language problems when communicating with the outside world because their Standard Thai was often very limited or even non-existent. Furthermore, Karen is a difficult language for non-native speakers to understand, aggravating the communication problems. Their livelihoods were rudimentary, lacking all kinds of basic infrastructures and facilities, which indicated uneven development endeavors of the state. Nonetheless, the community has existed for over a century.