I’m sitting in Pattaya, in Thailand, adjusting to jet lag and awake at 5 am here and 6 pm back at home. I’ve been here only for a little over 30 hours and I think I’m in some type of culture shock. I’m in Thailand for a bit over a week for leave, first in Pattaya then Bangkok before departing home.
For most of my life, I’ve never really thought too much about Thailand apart from it being a former home to some of my father’s side of the family, its delicious and very spicy food (which is to die for), and more recently the slick and sometimes sleazy gangster types featured in their films by the Pang Brothers and other Thai directors. In addition to the more typical “wow, that’s awesome” responses I received after telling people that I was going to visit Thailand, I received some joking response that questioned if I was really going there for the sex trade. Of course, I laughed about it, but it’s not something that I really though about too much of before, but I should have been more conscious of it from my experiences. From both work and school, I’ve understood the associations of high indexes of poverty, the sex industry, and the trafficking in persons. While doing some online reading on Pattaya just prior to leaving for Thailand, I realized that the trade was actually one of the main attractions for the city. On the leg over from ORD to NRT, an expat businessman who spends a lot of his time in Thailand related to me that “things can get a little crazy in Pattaya” with a tone of experience. Even with this in my mind, I don’t think I really quite knew what to expect, but it doesn’t really touch you until you actually see it.
Soon after the curiosity of what goes on here wore off, I think what shocked me the most was the extent of the trade.Block after block, alleyway after alleyway, and street after street, there were countless bars lit with pink neon lights featuring dancing girls and others courting throngs of foreign tourists. Seeing the numbers of tourists who appeared to be in their 60s with girls in their late teens was also quite eye opening.Tourism, indeed.
From the loose analyses on the wealth gap found in news coverage on the recent demonstrations between the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship and PM Abhisit, such disparity in Thailand exceeds that of many countries in the world.Given the consistent demand from highly mobile sources and an available supply in a state where there is seemingly little regulation or control, it is sad to see so many people involved in the trade. The high level of poverty and lack of viable work opportunities prompt both the voluntary and involuntary entry into the trade.The reality is that many of these workers wouldn’t choose this work if they had other opportunities.When your use-value is based on your youth and sexuality, it’s a dehumanizing field.
It’s perverse for some to believe that paying for such services is a form of relief from poverty.
As I sit here, several weeks after seeing dozens upon dozens of orphans coming in from Haiti to join prospective adoptive parents in the US, I’m also reminded that these workers are human beings who deserve dignity and are worth love too.
I was already in El Paso on Martin Luther King Jr Day for a monitoring trip when I heard about the first plane of orphans landing in Pittsburgh. After I saw text reflecting an initial figure of 300 Haitian orphans planned to arrive in the US scroll across the screen while watching CNN the next morning, my first thought was, "oh man, my office is about to get rammed." As the Federal program where I work runs a network of child care facilities, I knew there was a great likelihood that we'd be pulled into this. While it has over a thousand bed spaces available for children across the country, it was going to be a real challenge to be able to handle a mass influx of children. as i remained focused on the trip and monitoring activities, i heard through emails and brief conversations with my headquarters that our people were being mobilized and being dispatched to Pittsburgh to coordinate the care and release of the children that arrived there.
Within a few days of returning from El Paso, I was routed down to Miami to be involved in the operations down here. Policy and procedures for these children were drafted during late night conference calls amid planes landing around Southern and Central Florida. Our job was to ensure the safe release of these orphans to their prospective adoptive parents if they were not determined by the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) to have final adoption decrees. For us, the basic concerns was finding a dynamic for safe and prompt releases (look at those guys busted in the DR allegedly smuggling children?). Then you have these prospective parents putting you, your colleagues, and your whole office on blast in person, through blogs, texts to the media, and calls to their congressmen. Thankfully, our process has now been streamlined so that we are able to release most of these orphans within a day, sometimes within hours after they arrive at the nearby reception center has been set up. We've put in long hours, with me and colleagues running on fumes from waiting for planes arriving in the early morning hours and working all day to keep the process going.
Orphans, especially the youngest ones, are among the most vulnerable of all populations. We are used to seeing children who are in their mid teens, mostly streetwise and hardened from years of living on their own. The orphans we are seeing are very young, mostly under five, physically tiny, and very fragile.... some very desperate for attention, others seemingly institutionalized from spending most of their early years in an orphanage. My colleague wrote in an status update to management that he observed a two year old orphan who suffered some sort of disability that rendered him unable to walk, and arrived in a baby sized wheelchair. While I take what I do already at my program very seriously, there's more gravity in making sure these kids are cared for and they are released to those seeking to adopt them..... Someone told me to smile at these kids when the arrive, and I make sure that I do that.
What confuses me is the other front, we've already heard of xenophobic parents calling in from Broward county declaring that they will pull their children out of the public school system if arriving Haitian children that are unscreened for tuberculosis, were allowed to enroll. It's weird, and I thought about that a lot while driving down from Orlando to Miami last night, thinking of the comfort we have in this land of plenty, with our well groomed children, designer communities, manicured lives, and everything else our hearts desire. It saddens me that there are those who care more for their own safety and comfort, especially amid a tragedy of such scale.
Well, I'm still down here for most of next week and will probably come back again. This isn't going to be over in the immediate future, are there are still a lot of orphans already in the adoption process already still down in Haiti.
Our family has never been too big on regular cultural traditions, such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, the 4th of July, etc... As for this holiday, I can't even remember the last time we had did a turkey together, or traveled to a relatives place for a grand gathering. During Christmas time, songs like "Over the River and Through the Woods" never had meaning for me. Perhaps that's what happens when your closest "close" relatives reside in places no closer than 450+ miles away. Even when visiting our relatives around the world, we never arrived at a destination during cultural holidays, so no analogous experiences there either. For that matter, we aren't even really big on Chinese traditions either.
While we do spend a fair amount of time with one another, my immediate family doesn't put too much energy into such aforementioned traditional holidays. Furthermore, we generally don't plan big "to-dos" at all. Holidays, as well as birthdays plus other events ordinarily considered significant, are usually just another day. We travel spontaneously and frequently enough so family trips might not have the same kind of significance as they do with others. Perhaps it is these reasons, coupled with the immigrant experience that led us to not invest so much into "local customs," which result in a sense of normlessness. And again, perhaps there's more to it than that as well. Growing up, I never really noticed anything out of the ordinary. During my last relationship, however, I began getting used to the idea of these traditions accompanied with the big family gatherings. Perhaps that's why this Thanksgiving I feel something missing a bit more acutely, particularly with the smells of turkey emanating through my building and knowing that people are traveling around the country just spend a special day, or maybe even a special few hours, with one another.
Each day, I'm generally thankful already for my family and the blessings that are in our lives. I'm thankful for the days that I have on this earth and the opportunities that come upon us. I'm thankful for the friends that I have, who appreciate the richness and complexities of life. Right now, I'm particularly thankful for my new job that continues to excite me. (hhahahahahahah, what?!?) Each day has the potential to be an amazing day, and I think it's up to us whether or not we want try and make it so. (and of course, whether it turns out to be so is another matter!)
Regardless, maybe I should encourage our family to do something special this forthcoming Christmas season. It's been a long time since we have.
A few of you know that I've been spending time working with some filmmakers, the Tse Brothers, a/k/a Dragonfish Films. Well, here's a video capturing some audience feedback from a recent screening of their latest short, Yellow Light, at the DC APA Machines, Dreams, and Screams shorts program on October 9, 2009 at the Goethe Institut in Washington, DC. These guys got some chops, but be advised that if you hearing from me at this point, I may be biased already.... =)
A trailer for the actual short can be found here. These guys actually filmed it in HK, so they actually can be called HK filmmakers!
Yellow Light thus far has screened at the Atlanta Underground Film Festival and more recently at the Tenth Annual DCAPA Film Festival hosted by DC APA Film. It may be screening at some additional film festivals in the coming months. If you are on F@CEBOOK, please feel free to join the Dragonfish Films Fanpage for upcoming activities and events. Thanks to all who have been supporting us thus far!
A year passes quickly.Who knew that I would be taken down a pathway that I never imagined traveling.Even while many have said it's been a hard year for my family, oddly enough it's still one of which we can be thankful.I've become closer with my family and learned to value people even more than I already did before. Most importantly, I've been earnestly developing a relationship with God.
This time when I was lost, I trusted. Even if I might never find my way out of the woods, I know I can trust the one who has been guiding me. I've learned that I can't control everything. I've learned to not be so afraid of the unknown and not to worry so much. I've learned to act on opportunities as they avail themselves upon me.I'm learning to take risks.I'm learning how to down-tune and to focus.I'm learning to live intentionally and with a purpose. I'm learning to forgive.
It's strange process to say the least, one that drips by, day by day.However, I've come back to life.I think I realized it when I started to share music with people again, which had been something that I used to love doing so much before. Additionally, I've taken on new projects that I might not have had everything gone as expected.
I hope I can share the things that I've learned.I've been blessed with a lot; the companion question to this understanding is what do I do with what I've been blessed with.Hard experiences can yield valuable insight, and I'm learning how to use this what I formerly believed were ugly scars to be hidden. What I thought was a piece of crap life that I've led in actuality is something of value.
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To the those whom I've been engaging with over the past year, I'm moved to tears when I think of you.To those who have been and continue to minister to me, thank you. The journey is not over though, and I know that more is to come.For each of us.
I am alive and not dead.
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May I be able to offer myself as a living sacrifice; may I continue to be transformed; may I be able to test and approve His good, pleasing and perfect will.
