Goodbye Bangkok, Hello Berkeley!

My time here went too fast... I loved having Bangkok as my travel base, but feel that I did not even have time to settle in to the city with all of my travels!  My host family and I crossed paths last night, as they arrived home at 1am from 6 weeks in American and I left at 4am for America.  Nice to see them at the beginning and the end.  

I also said good bye to all of my Thai friends at the DSI - they took me out to a great "farewell lunch" at Sizzler --- it was nice to get an American burger even before my return.  

I said goodbye to Michelle and Rachel, the Christian women who I had lunch with my very first Sunday in Bangkok - neat to have them be my first vivid memory of Thailand and also one of my last.  

I said goodbye to my sports partner, Sacha, and my one building friend - we went running most mornings in Bangkok (when I didn't have to sleep through our running dates) and played squash or had conversations about politics and religion most evenings, along with his wife and baby, Keita! (here we are at a floating market)

Also feel so blessed I got to see this guy so much - God blessed us with so many awesome trips together, more than we ever expected!

Now there seems to be too much to write and not enough ways to say it... but I hope to be back to SouthEast Asia.  And now straight into law school interview stress, thank you God for this restorative summer!Thailand I will miss your buddhas, your monks, but mostly the Thai people!  The hospitality followed me to the end. 

From the jungle mountains of Mae Sai (as far north as you get in Thailand)

Last night, I arrived at my room and felt wary of the bugs and the dark and thought about how soon I could leave.  Tonight, though, I am already thinking about how long I can stay.

This morning I woke up late to a dark-skinned woman knocking on my door and making motions of eating with her hands.  I followed her outside to a breathtaking view of clouds rising over the mountains and turned to find a tray with coffee and two fried eggs waiting for me!  What a blessing.  I sat up on the roof top (sort of like an open construction site), and again appreciated how what was beneath me (this open construction site) might not be so nice but if I only looked out to God's creation, it was so beautiful.  All day the beauty of this place has been slowly seeping into me - even the ants that crawl in lines by the thousands are becoming fascinating.  This afternoon, what I thought was an overgrown garden came to life when the children came back from school and started hoeing, weeding, and watering it - I realized that the overgrown garden is actually full of lemongrass bushes, papaya trees, cabbage plants, and many fruit trees.  It is so amazing what you can see if you give things a chance.

The 50 meter swimming pool at "the Swimming Home" of Khun Sompop and Khun Dusadee

The girls and boys doing agriculture in the farm.  The Swimming Home is a home to sexually and physically abused children, orphans, and currently a deaf woman and her son - really, anyone in need of a safe home.  Right now, they have 8 adults and children, 4 boys and 4 girls.  The Swimming Home is just one part of a larger organization called Development and Education Programme for Daughters and Communities.  They work mostly for prevention of at-risk youth who are vulnerable to being trafficked.  Most of their children come from the surrounding villages and hill tribes, both Myanmar children (of which there are many ethnic groups - Shan, Akha, Burmese just to name a few) and Thai children.  In addition to the Swimming Home, they also run a school called the "Half Day school" which picks up children by bus at the Myanmar border and from the surrounding villages in Thailand and gives them an education every day.  These children return to their family by night. 

Actually, the DEPDC organization is badly in need of funding right now as all of their big-name donors recently pulled out when Thailand was considered to no longer be a developing country.   Thailand might not be a developing country, but this part of the country - the Mae Sai province - still has thousands of poor families who sell their children into trafficking to bring back more money.  It is also home to thousands of Burmese refugees and "internally displaced persons" who are not officially welcome in either Myanmar or Thailand.  Learn more about the DEPDC organization here.

They also have this 3 year-old boy, Pi Tup, who was abandonned by his mother and has an alcoholic father.  A neighbor called the DEPDC's hotline to see if they could take him in.  He has been here for a few months and will probably grow up here.  I hope to come back and see him again one day!

                                   

Me and my host sister, Kaesai, who is also 25 and a law student just like me.  Here we are at her university, Mae Fah Luang University, the best one in the Chiang Rai province.  A breathtaking view, certainly rivals Berkeley's!

Border Crossing to Myanmar!

Today, I crossed the border into Myanmar.  I first met with the Thai Customs official who is in charge of the trafficking division.  We couldn't speak much one on one without a translator, but he seemed a bit disenchanted with the whole trafficking fight.  I will say, though, that being at the border and seeing the hundreds of people and vehicles crossing made me appreciate how difficult it is to weed out those who are trafficked, those who want to come, those who wanted to come but once they get into Thailand now want to go back home . . . I see how overwhelming and challenging it is.  He told me that they are doing all they can but it is very tough.

One thing that he was very excited about was Thailand's plan to start fingerprinting everyone who crosses the border.  He thinks this will take place before the end of the year.  He thinks that this will really help track them, because as of now, they only have names and documents and "everyone has the same name so it is hard to track."  When I asked him what he meant, Khun Julie, who is Myanmar and works for the Thai customs department as a translator, explained that Myanmar people have no last name.  They ONLY have first names!  So in school, for example, they go by "Arwin 1" "Arwin 2" "Arwin 3".  So no wonder the Border police have trouble tracking them!  He also told me that what often happens is people come through on temporary 7 day border passes, which allow them to stay in the Mae Sai province only, and not go deeper into Thailand, but instead people disappear, and they might not see them again for years.

Once I finished my interview with the customers official, he arranged for me to be given a VIP stamp on my passport,

which also meant I had to pay 500 baht (charged by Myanmar government - the Thai side has no charge) and I crossed the border, just like thousands of migrants do everyday, some legally and others, illegally.  I also realized how easy it is to cross the border illegally - all it takes is wading across a river that is almost small enough to be considered a stream.

My guide was Khun Julie, a Myanmar person of the Shan people who works for the Thai customs department.  She speaks excellent English, Burmese, Thai, and Shan.  She is also the first Christian I have met from outside of Asean, so it was nice to share that identity and also hears her views on Buddhism.  She likes the meditation and concentration aspects of the Buddhist religion and thinks that Christians could stand to benefit from that.  We went to check out this Buddhist pagoda:

Julie taught me two fascinating things about Myanmar culture - first that Myanmar people only have first names (still cannot get over that! no family name whatsoever!) and secondly - GET THIS - Myanmar is 30 MINUTES behind Thailand.  Not an hour, 30 minutes.  So the border closes at 6:30pm Thai time, and 6pm Myanmar time.  Whenever they have meetings, they have to ask, "Thai time? Or Myanmar time?" And at New Years, Mae Sai celebrates at midnight, and then half an hour later, Thachileik (the border city in Myanmar) celebrates!

Julie also took me to see a "Hill Tribe village" which is actually just a mini village built by a tourist resort so tourists can come see the "Hill tribe way of life."  Oh, the realities of tourism.

But instead of being dismissive, I was happy to see that at least these hill tribe people (who are employed by the resort company) are given a steady job, so that their children will likely not be victims of trafficking.

Finally, on border crossing back from Myanmar to Thailand, my tour guide pointed out the advertisement below, which was written (in both Burmese and Thai), "Do not be too trusting of strangers - or you could end up as a victim of labor trafficking, sex trafficking, or begging" with pictures for each type of trafficking.  The posters were huge, so I was very pleased to see at least this one.  They need more, but this is a promising start, praise God!

Ho Chi Minh: City of the Motorbike

Hello dear blog readers from . . . Chiang Rai province, the northernmost province in Thailand and right on the Myanmar border!  Before I start this new adventure, I have to wrap up my old one, so this post is about Ho Chi Minh City, aka the city of the motorbike.

                                            

I thought traffic couldn't phase me after Bangkok, but boy was I wrong.  Ho Chi Minh has around 5 million motorbikes, and people carry EVERYTHING from trees to beds to 3 other grown adults on their motorbikes.

Rather than join the motorbike frenzy, we opted to be peddled around by "cyclo" drivers - the cyclo used to be a Viet Nam staple, but thanks to the motorbike, it is now a dying breed.  Our peddlers were mostly old, war scarred characters.
                                     
                                    

In addition to feeling uncomfortable crossing the street, this was also the first place I have been where I have felt uncomfortable being an American.  (Yes, I am a proud to be an American and usually feel pride in my country when I travel).  Our first day, Alex and I went to the War Remnants museum where we saw graphic photos and sad stories about both the war's toll on Viet Nam and the lasting remnants of Agent Orange, the chemical that the U.S. Army sprayed over all of South Viet Nam in an effort to clear jungle.  In addition to devastating crops, wildlife, and villages then, even now children are born with gruesome birth defects a generation or two later.  Once we saw the museum, I felt like I could not get away from the "handicapped" as they call them - they seemed to be everywhere, on the streets, in coffee shops, painting art for tourists.  I know war has lasting mental effects, but I did not appreciate that it could have such lasting physical effects until I traveled to Ho Chi Minh City (still also called Saigon).  We did find some cool projects helping out the Vietnamese people, like this awesome cafe, Sozo, who carry out their work for the glory of God (click here to learn more),

                                      

And this handicapped art making facility, which houses at least 100 Vietnamese suffering from Agent Orange birth defects:

Alex insisted on buying this huge ceramic urn there (not sure where it will go...)

The handicapped art making facility was a stop on the way to the Cu Chi Tunnels, just north of Ho Chi Minh.  The U.S. soldiers built their base on top of this 250km long tunnel network and spent months trying to figure out why they were getting shot at in their tents at night - before they discovered that the Viet Cong soldiers were literally living beneath them.  In a nutshell, why this was not our war. . .

                                 

Me being a tourist . . .

 (where did I go?!)

And Alex being a tourist (shooting an M-60, one of the only guns which is illegal to own in the U.S.)

At the beginning of the tour, our entire tour group, along with several other groups, watched a dated propaganda film about the Cu Chi tunnel system, which started off with scenes of the idyllic peasant life in the Cu Chi tunnels before the Americans, "like a band of devils, swooped in to destroy this peaceful village way of life" (quoted from the film).  Needless to say, I could only nervously chuckle to the other non-American tourists after the film!

Fortunately, modern Viet Nam likes Americans well enough, partly due to the fact that their economy was depressed until the first Bush administration began lifting economic sanctions in the early 1990's (though the U.S. only extended normal trade relations to Viet Nam in 2001).  We spent the rest of our time exploring the Mekong Delta by boat, where much of the country's rice is grown and coconut candy is made:

We found cool things in the river, from locals picking the "water coconuts",

To the water buffalo itself!

I will miss the Viet Nam PHO (pronounced "fah") and its super strong iced coffee!

Vientiane is a treat

After Udon Thani.  Although I can't really say I'm getting the authentic Lao experience . . .  in fact, I am staying at the one five-star hotel in Vientiane, Don Chan Palace, along with the Dept of Special Investigations team!

In addition to a five-star hotel overlooking the Mekong River, I am also treated to 5-star restaurants every night and the Thai custom really works in my favor - I am part of the family, their "sis" as they call me (which would be "pi" in Thai) and am not expected to pay for anything.  In fact, when I tried to pay for desert tonight at a coffee shop after the Thai-Laotian feast pictured below, I only got a death glare from one of my supervisors when he found out that I had already paid for everyone.  Mai pen lai, I won't try that again!

In spite of the five-star Thai treatment, I have also been getting excellent field data for my research.  On Monday, I went to the government shelter in Udon Thani.  There are 12 staff members there and only 2 victims currently.  I learned that this shelter is the first stop when a victim is rescued, but then he or she is sent off to a much larger shelter with a school and job training.  This shelter also serves as the place where victims stay when they need to testify in front of an attorney, since the shelter is close to Udon Thani.  I met these two little girls, Mae and Song (names have been changed).

Mae, playing on the toy truck, is 11 years old and was brought to the shelter when a neighbor from her village called the 1300 hotline (Thailand's hotline to report all abuse, domestic violence, or trafficking suspicions) because an old man in the village was sexually abusing Mae.  Mae was living with her grandfather, who was not taking much care of her.  Her mother had also been sexually abused and was living in Bangkok.  Her mother returned to Udon Thani when she heard about Mae but is not able to look after her, so they are looking for a home for her.  Mae also has a very low IQ so she needs special school.

Song, sitting with her back to us, is 7 years old and was taken to the hospital by a neighbor who discovered that her step-grandmother was physically beating her.  You can just make out the scar in the back of her head in the photo above.  She just arrived at the shelter so we are not sure where she will go next. 

What struck me the most was how happy and joy-filled these two girls were.  Mae was waiting for us when we pulled up in Khun Sawai's (the director) car, and threw her arms around him when he opened the door.  I immediately asked who she was, expecting him to say his granddaughter!  But then when he said, "Oh, she is one of our victims who has been abused," my stomach turned.  How could anyone want to hurt these precious girls? It is hard to imagine.  In any case, they really are full of laughter and smiles now.  They are very close with the psychologist, social worker, and the director and his assistant (who are both men).  They seem very attached and when I asked if they liked it here, they said they did very much.

Mae said that she wants to learn English when she goes back to the bigger shelter where her school is!  She also told me several times that I was very beautiful.  Finally, she said that she does miss her mom and she is happy to be at this shelter because her mom can come visit her or call her once a week.

In Vientiane, we interviewed two girls who were trafficked from Laos to the south of Thailand.  They signed up to work as waitresses in Bangkok to earn 2,000 baht/month (about $65), but when they arrived in Bangkok they were given false passports saying they were over 18 (they were only 16 at the time) and taken to the very south of Thailand, on the Malaysian border, to work as prostitutes at a "karaoke bar" that was in fact only a brothel.

One of the girls borrowed a client's cell phone after a few months of being forced to give men "unlimited" sex each night (the other girl was beaten when she said that she couldn't have sex an eighth time with one man one night) and called her mother.  The mother got in touch with an NGO in Lao, who got in touch with the Thailand DSI, and the DSI went down to investigate.  They arrested the bar owner and his daughter, who are now serving 50 years in prison.  The Laotian broker who sold the girls to the owner has now been detained in Bangkok and the DSI went to review the girls' witness statements with them for his prosecution.

Here is the team at work:

I have some better pictures of the girls but there case is not yet closed so I won't post any.  Despite how much I have read, it is a different experience meeting people who's stories actually are the stories that you've read about.  I cannot imagine being able to find a sense of self-worth and dignity again after being forced to sleep with man after man for months at age sixteen.  Actually, the DSI wanted to interview a third victim who testified against the bar owner and his daughter, but she has since married and does not want her husband to know her story.  The two girls who we met with are now in a rehabilitation program at the Lao Women Union.  One learns to sew and one learns how to style hair.  They are both sweet, and smiled a lot, but definitely timid and meek.  My DSI friend Pi-Duke told me how they trust this DSI team and feel comfortable around them because he and the rest of the team were the ones who rescued them, and so have been with them since the beginning.  The girls brought them a gift of fruit to express their gratitude.  Pi-Duke was very touched.

Here is a picture of me and Pi-Duke.  I am so grateful to him because he is so thoughtful, always reflecting on my deeper questions (like about buddhism & prostitutes - he and two others really disagreed with the idea that buddhists shun prostitutes/beggars and do not want to associate with them and said this was more of a Hindu belief - while there may be some Thais who feel this way, it is definitely not a Buddhist belief, though the fact that a beggar/prostitute has done something in their past life to be born into this one is a Buddhist belief).  He is also very caring, and took my research to heart, translating every document for me, every conversation for me, answering all of my questions and even asking others, like the public prosecutor, my questions when he didn't know the answer!  I am so grateful to him and to the rest of the Thai DSI team for all being so patient and responsive to me.  It is a big effort to translate their native tongue into English for me and yet they did so consistently, all the while calling me their "sis"!

Now it is goodbye to Vientiane (didn't do much sightseeing - will have to come back here!  But a statute of the King where people give offerings is pictured below... even stranger than giving offerings to Buddha in this communist country!) and on to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to meet Alex!

Welcome to Udon Thani, Thailand's next best sex industry capital

Udon Thani is the largest city in Northeastern Thailand, in the heart of the Isan region.  The Isan region is comprised of ethnic groups with Lao, Cambodian, and Thai ancestry, with the Lao-speaking population being the largest.  The main language is Isan, a dialect of Lao and also similar to the Thai language.

The Udon Thani province is also one of the poorest in the country, and many of these girls are sold off by their families, or choose, to enter the sex industry to earn money for their families.  For better or for worse (in my opinion, worse), sex pays, and so Udon Thani, a sleepy town not long ago, has developed rapidly over the last couple of decades as more and more women from the area have left, entered the sex industry in Bangkok, and sent money back to their families.  Now, Udon Thani has a large mall that looks like one you would pass in Bangkok:

However, with the money and development, Udon Thani has become a sex city in its own right.  I feel its seediness all around me.  Next to our hotel is a 5-star looking hotel that fronts Udon Thani's #1 Entertainment Plaza, "Udon Day & Night" (notice the welcoming American flag...):

And all of the other guests at our hotel who I have seen are old male falangs (white foreigners) with young Thai women.  YUCK!

Fortunately, Rachel had done her research and so we escaped the seediness of Udon yesterday with a trip to Ban Chiang, Thailand's most significant prehistoric site.  Until the discovery of Ban Chiang, historians thought that Thailand was way behind nearby countries, but Ban Chiang gives evidence that the oldest developments of bronze (4000 BC) in the world may have had its origins in Northeastern Thailand.

It was fun to travel with Rachel, who has traveled the world as a photojournalist.  

  

As such, she has a drive to capture the culture and way of life for her work, but does so with a grace that makes the people feel grateful and welcoming rather than intruded upon.  So we got to quietly experience awesome slices of village life, from this man painting pottery in the famous Ban Chiang style,

To Thai babies playing in a cool wooden play-pen (I couldn't help but think later, though, would that laughing baby girl one day be sold into the sex industry by her mother?  How did this mom, so slender and beautiful with a captivating smile, escape it? This village may be established enough to escape such a desperate life, but hundreds of nearby ones aren't)

And finally, the coolest find of all, some wealthy women in town who were watching their family members and friends plant rice in their rice paddies!

It was such a cool experience to be able to experience such a local activity like this.  I have eaten rice all of my life but have never known how it was grown, and now I have witnessed it first-hand.  We trekked out to the fields and just relaxed for an hour, watching them work.

                                       

                                   

The Thais are a happy people and they seemed to love having their picture taken.  Although, I am pretty sure the women offered more than once for me to come help them, since Rachel was taking pictures while I was chilling in the shade!  But I pointed to my shorts and politely declined - no way was I getting in that mud, especially after my visit from Tomas who is researching parasites in water!

Finally, today, Rachel and I got to experience some Thais worshipping at the local wats (temples) - this felt much more authentic than my previous wat experiences, which consisted of mobs of tourists with a few reverential buddhists in between.

I had a comment on my last post about how I see religion playing into the culture.  I respect parts of all religions, but I fundamentally disagree with Buddhism's premise, which is that the "better" you are in this life, the better chance you have of being reincarnated into a better next life until you escape to enlightenment.  I disagree with this because I believe that we are all sinners, saved only by the grace of God and the sacrifice of his son, Jesus Christ.  I know many reading this blog do not yet believe this, but I pray that all of you will know God's mercy someday!

Back to Buddhism, one cultural effect which I do not identify with is that beggars, prostitutes, and other lowly-lives are seen as having done something wrong in their past life, so they "deserve" the life they now lead.  Not only does this obviously lead to a negative self-image, but it also means that Buddhists may not want to associate with beggars/prostitutes for fear of their evil spirits contaminating their better ones.  Many Christians also do not associate with beggars or prostitutes out of fear, but Jesus consistently did, so I pray that any Christians reading this will be encouraged to do so!

Another thing which I do not identify with as an American Christian are the food offerings - some delicious looking ones are pictured here - dragon fruit, corn, pork buns, soda, water:

Although I do think that American Christians could gain something from the sacrificial, honoring nature of Buddhism.  Like all world religions, there are positive and negative effects of Buddhism.  This father teaching his son how to bow to the Buddha statue and make offerings was touching:

I am off to Vientiane, Laos tomorrow, after the Thai director shows me the government shelter here for trafficking victims!