Long Overdue---

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Well here it is Ladies & Gents, sorry it took me so long! It’s been quite busy this past week.

While I still have not seen any of the Bangkok sites, I did travel a few hours out to visit the bridge over the river Kwai, yes like the movie title. The bridge was built by POW during WWII, as part of a long railroad from Burma, now called Myanmar, and Siam, today’s Thailand. While the bridge is mostly known for its strategic importance during the war, in Thailand it is mostly remembered for the thousands of young men who died at the hands of the Japanese and of various diseases…not exactly a happy story, but I thought I might share it while I still have your attention =) Incidentally, the bridge is very small, not what you would expect …

Following on the cultural side of things, Thai people are unfortunately quite racist - of course not all of them, but a vast majority, especially in the city. As in many other Asian countries, the lighter you rare, the better, the darker your skin, the worse. The difference is so drastic here though that the Thai language has a different word for “person” depending on the shade of your skin, to the extent that hill tribal people in the north, much darker on average, are referred to by the same pronoun used for animals, sort of “it”…. Many say it is social racism which originated in the belief that exposure to sun means your work the fields and therefore are of a lower social class - while not excusable, this might have been true in the past…today others justify the racial discrimination to association with certain nationalities. For example, if you are black Thai people might think you are from Nigeria, and many Nigerian here run the drug cartels….still no excuse… Three days ago the American University students I have traveled with went to see a traditional puppet shop, a thousand year old form of entertainment - while the quality of the puppeteers and the wooden puppets was very impressive the subject matter was not. In fact the ‘play’ was about an evil witch, represented by a black woman, who brought misery upon the people around her, and who needed to be kept away at all costs….The final message to the children was that Thai people should not allow ‘outsiders’ to stain them…

On a personal note, for those of you who have asked - my roommate is great, she is a bit loopy but has managed to stay out of trouble for the most part. Our apt is in the center of BKK and has A/C, all that really matters here considering it is actually hotter than DC, oh yes, way hotter and more humid - not to mention ridiculously more polluted. People walk around with masks over their faces, in case I have not mentioned this before…

REturning to the cultural stuff =) For the past few days I have been meeting with a variety of NGOs who deal with the human trafficking issue, including FACE, UNESCO, Amnesty Int’l, USAID, PHI and many others. The experience has been tremendously enriching. It is especially eye-opening to hear how they each have a different take on the problem... One of the most valuable events has however been yesterday’s visit to a shelter for abused women and children - including human trafficking (HT) victims, forced sex workers (they are not referred to as prostitutes here and prostitution is not criminalized), and abused children. Most of the HT victims were under 18, from Laos and Cambodia. They had been smuggled into Thailand, forced into the sex industry, and managed to escape. They were all incredibly brave littel girls who had survived the unthinkable. I don’t know what one is supposed to expect, maybe nothing at all, but meeting them was one of the most real-life experiences I have ever had. They all looked so young and innocent, all dressed in uniform and sitting in a classroom learning various vocational skills such as sowing or cooking. At first glance you would never guess the tragedy in their lives. Interacting with them does allow you to see some of the scars however, and that was the most painful part. They hide it very well and mostly out of shame despite the fact that they are all victims. Even more tragic is the fact that most of the non-Thai girls will be forced to return to their villages as soon as their immigration cases are processed…they cannot stay…Thailand does not offer asylum…and the ‘shame’ , or stigma, with which they will be returned will prevent them from going back to their families thus probably forcing them to work the streets in their own country….I will not go into more details b/c I don’t mean to lecture, but I just wanted to illustrate a little piece of what is happening here and in many other nations, and to comment on how different it is to read about it versus seeing it with your own eyes…it is too real for words.

Alright, I figured I must have depressed you quite a bit by now, why don’t I end with a happier story. Tomorrow I am traveling to Pattaya, North of BKK, where I will visit other shelters but where I will also be spending time at a beach resort called “Cabbage & Condoms” - funny name right? Well, here is the story - HT has been a problem in Thailand since the 1960s but it really began to receive serious attention in the 70’s and 80’s due to the spread of HIV/AIDS. In order to promote safe sex and eliminate the shame and embarrassment associated with the use of condoms, Khun Mechai Viravaidya, now a senator and the chairman of the ‘Population and Development Association’ which he founded, began distributing free condoms throughout Thailand and organizing public, and often televised events, with condoms as the principal theme. For example, he would give out inflated condoms as balloons to children at fairs, he would give out flowers made out of condoms to women in villages, he developed nursery rimes speaking of condoms and their use for safe sex as well as games to show what happens when one does not use one…ie pregnancy, less money, kid cannot go to school, dad and mom need to work more etc…in short, Mechai ran an intense national campaign so that condoms could be as easily accessible and openly used and talked about as cabbage…The use of condoms is now widely spread in Thailand to the point where the govt. has been able to track a nearly 100% usage rate in brothels and amongst sex-workers. Furthermore, Mechai has become the slang name for condoms and is generally used in stores when buying them - talk about having left an imprint =)

Ok, that is all for today, in case you actually made it this far =) I will write more when I return from Pattaya, and from Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai which I will be visiting later this week and during the following one.

Hope you are enjoying the summer, all of you in DC, sorry to hear about the heat but you are getting no sympathy from me! And for all of you in Europe, tell me what you think about the whole “NO Vote” ordeal!!!

Talk to you soon!

PS. I ate jellyfish! It tastes HORRIBLE! =)

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Beware...
Stay away from the "happy ending" massages. - AE