Diversions

Most of this week was spent trying to keep track of which students haven’t turned in their homework, had to skip class because of a runny nose, and which ones can’t figure out where my office is despite both the sign on the door and me saying, “It is room 2. 3. 0. 9” in mounting tones of frustration.

But in between the joys of teaching Koreans—who are old enough to be adults, but act like American twelve-year-olds because, too busy studying, they were never allowed to be twelve years old—I’ve indulged in quite a few books, movies, and t.v. shows and, rather surprisingly, I have not been disappointed. Here’s the line-up:

     1.      Avatar:the Last Airbender (2005-2008)

This has nothing to do with James Cameron and everything to do with sweet writing, excellent plot, and all things geeky. The opening 30-second-narrated montage says it all:

“Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the fire nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them. But when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years past and my brother and I found the new Avatar—an Airbender named Ang. And although his airbending skills are great, Ang has a lot to learn before he’s ready to save anybody. But I believe that Ang can save the world!”

     2.      Avatar:Legend of Korra (2012)

Okay, okay, okay. It’s the same thing, but the new avatar's a girl with tattoos who has a giant polar bear. Shoot me.

     3.      Redeeming Eve by Heather P. Webb

This is a book about counseling that I mentioned a couple posts ago, but I consider it a must-read for Christians. Saturated with equal parts empathy and practicality Webb’s stories and advice after years of counseling are full of wisdom on how to live and love fully within God’s redeeming love.

     4.      Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

“Women hold up half the sky” is a Chinese proverb proven true by the tales of women’s strength and rebirth told in this book. Kristof and WuDunn (a married couple) have traveled extensively and interviewed many women from different cultures so as best to depict the status of women everywhere and what can be done to give women a fighting chance.

     5.      ToKill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

If you only read this book as a kid, seriously. Read it again. It’s a riot.

     6.      BattleRoyale (2000)

I’m sorry—you thought Hunger Games was a bloodthirsty idea? The Japanese had it way earlier and way diabolical-er. In this alternate future, the government passed a law that said because high school students were getting too rowdy, one 9^th grade class every year would be sent to a secure location where, given various weapons and survival supplies, they battle each other to the death. If they refuse to play or disobey the rules in any way, the metal collar secured around their neck blows their head off. I liked Hunger Games, too, but it is small potatoes folks.

     7.      HardCandy (2005, Ellen Page)

Brutal, in every way. A tiny fourteen-year-old lures a man back to his own home, drugs him, and ties him up in an attempt to prove he’s a pedophile guilty for the recent disappearance and subsequent death of a young girl. The dialogue and the dynamics between the two actors is breathtaking.

     8.      BattlestarGallactica (2004-2009)

Frack, yes. It’s like Firefly but more episodes, and if you haven’t watched Firefly, stop what you’re doing and watch Firefly. Don’t be stubborn; you’re only hurting yourself. And once you’re in love with that show, try Battlestar Gallactica to ease the pain of it getting taken off the air. An 8.8 on imdb, if you recognize that rarity of that.

A Night in the Red Light (Part 2)

We arrived at the Red Light District at about 9 p.m. The main bar street leads to a cul-de-sac with a Muay Thai boxing ring. Bars line both sides of the street, their music, mood-lighting, and miniskirts competing with those of the bars next door. The bar I visited was tucked into the back corner with a couple of pool tables and a good view of the ring. They were all open-air, like most restaurants in Thailand, and outside of the red lighting and the inverted ratio of women to men, it felt much the same as any other bar.

We were greeted first by Lily, a younger girl with braces and a lot of bounce. She welcomed us with hugs before returning to the other side of the pool table where an old man curled an arm around her waist. We ordered drinks (Sprite) and played a round of pool, in which Lily smoked all three of us.

Another Sprite got me into a conversation with the bar-mom who makes kimchi and was recently in the hospital for some kind of skin ailment. English is ubiquitous but sketchy in the red light district; you take what you get. And besides good conversations, I got a slice of mango and a bland but succulent corn on the cob. It was delicious, but baffling,

The dynamic of the entire bar was odd. Besides Lily allowing the crusty old guy to kiss her arms and cleavage, the rest of the girls weren’t really...working the room. They were talking amongst themselves, texting, and trying to ignore the two men at the bar with me. One of them leaned over and rolled his eyes. His Aussie accent was pretty thick, but the gist of it was, “I’ve bought all these girls drinks; what does a guy have to do to get a little action around here?”

As you can imagine, I’ve never had this particular conversation before, so I steered the topic to safer waters: our respective nationalities and reasons for being in Thailand. I kept him chatting for a good half an hour—the girls looked like they needed a break. We talked about the Muy Thai sparring that was taking place, and he said, “That’s why I came here, actually. To see the fights. I just got distracted!” I snorted at him before he walked off to play pool and we shared a short laugh.

Really.

The men I talked to that night are one of the reasons I took so long to post this. I’ve read that you can only communicate within your audience’s experience, but I’m not sure that’s viable. How can all of this be part of your experience when I—I who am sitting laughing with men who buy women—haven’t yet wrapped my mind around it myself?

That’s about the time I told one of the girls it was my birthday and she told the bar mom who smiled and said something about a shot about which I tried to protest to no avail. Thus I ended up with all the bar girls—as well as said Aussie and the Swedish grandpa to my left who was giving me a mini-history lesson—singing Happy Birthday and cheering me on as the bar mom blew out the flames so I could drink my free birthday shot.

Other girls from our team who went to different bars had a completely different experience. Some met the famous ladyboys, others were pulled into deep conversations with some of the girls working. One confessed how much she hated what she was doing, but she had doctor’s bills to pay (occupational hazard) and another, only two months into the job, said she was only working for a little while to pay her way through college.

The girls waved and smiled at me when we left. We drove a half hour to the team house where warm showers, clean sheets, and our own beds waited for us.

Other Side

“Why did the chicken cross the road?”

“To get to the other side.”

I used to think this was why I did all my traveling. Why go to Korea? Just to be going somewhere. But now I wonder if maybe the chicken went across that road and I went across the ocean to figure out why it was the other side.

There have been a lot of “other side” moments these past few days and if they hadn’t been quite so crazy, I would have blogged about them more. I’ll do my best to catch up, but today’s “other side of the road” moment is actually from Wednesday’s trip to the one of the local hill tribes.

Not many people are invited into the hill tribes, but HELP has a special connection with this particular village’s chief. Because hill tribe people do not live in cities, they often did not know where their daughters went when they sent them to work in the city. HELP has gotten the word out more and more and this chief is one of their informants; he contacts HELP if he knows about an at-risk girl.

We walked around meeting the oldest and youngest members of his village (there weren’t many teenagers) and seeing their homes. Hill tribe people live in traditional Thai houses—basically huts on stilts. Some huts are nicer than others, of course—some are made only of wood, some are wooden frames supporting woven gradan as the floors and walls. One house was nicer than the rest, with intricate carvings on the doors and mad entirely of heavy, lustered wood. It was by far the most beautiful thing in the village and by the smiles and jollity of the people there we gathered they were very wealthy.

Around there, the only way to become that wealthy is to send your daughter to work in the city.

People look for other options, though. Right now HELP has about forty applications to review to find out if the girls really are at risk or if their parents are angling for a better life (one less mouth to feed and a good education for at least one child). Due to financial and spatial reasons, they can only accept eight, so discernment is of utmost importance.

And to think that back home the pinnacle of discernment for me is whether or not I should buy that second jar of peanut butter. That’s why this is the other side of the road.

Asia: Do You Know What Your Shirt Means?

“Christianity is beyond the experience of a Christian-professing-but-not-practicing population.”[1]

Carl, the founder of HELP Thailand, met Mam the first time he came to Thailand. She had on a white shirt that said, “I hate life.” She had very little English, so he asked her:

“Do you know what your shirt says?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because people are very mean.”

Over the next two years he and Laurie (his wife) became close friends with Mam. They prayed for her and eventually helped her go to English school so that she could work with mission teams that came over to Thailand.

HELP Thailand was looking for houseparents at the time, but they require that all their houseparents be committed first to God and then to the children under their charge. So one day Carl sat down with Mam and an interpreter to be sure she understood. He shared the gospel with her, spoke to her about the love of Christ, and asked her if it was something she was interested in.

“Oh, I already am a Christian,” she said. She didn’t need to be preached to; she didn’t need the gospel laid out on the Romans Road in front of her. She’d already seen Christ’s love—knew it and wanted it. P’Mam and her husband P’Ton are now the houseparents of one of Thailand’s girls’ homes. They love God and they love the girls and they are now the people showing Christ’s love to their new charges.

That is Carl’s goal for all the girls that come under HELP Thailand’s care. Many of the children come from a Buddhist or Animist background. Many girls the group comes into contact with have been through hell and back already. Even though the organization is committed to Christian values, their goal is not to. It’s to love.

“Christianity is beyond the experience of a Christian-professing-but-not-practicing population.”

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[1] Quote by Saul Alisnky, an author with whom I disagree with about nearly everything moral, but who is occasionally, as seen here, very right.

HELP Thailand

This January I’m working with Help Thailand, an organization which focuses on rescuing girls who are at risk of becoming prostitutes. Their goal is to save these girls from being broken—the Cambodian word for prostitute srey kouc literally means “broken women,” broken in a way that cannot be repaired—by providing shelter, food, and education.

Everyone helps with macheteing the meet
for dinner.

Tati, our newest addition, is sixteen months old and was found about four months ago. Two of Help Thailand’s house parents were walking on the street when they saw her mother literally trying to sell her daughter. Usually girls are identified as “at risk” due to their family’s extreme poverty level. Families who can’t afford food (or alcohol) often use their daughter’s virginity as the price for securing a better life.

Every rescue story is different for each girl, but the general procedure after she (or he; Help Thailand has a small boy’s home as well) involves securing legal rights to raise the girl, including, of course, parental consent. In some cases this is extremely difficult because the parents are passed out drunk or the girl might (often) be from a hill tribe. More on that later, but sometimes hill tribe people (with their own language and culture distinct from other Thais and other ethnic tribes) don’t have Thai citizenship.

Parents are encouraged to stay in contact with their children, and on Christmas HELP Thailand hosted a party for all the girls and their families. Just today, Nana’s mother and younger sister visited—Nana was euphoric all day.

The current HELP Thailand compound has three houses: two girls’ houses and one boy’s house. Each of the girl’s homes has about 40 girls and the boy’s home has eight boys. Each home has house parents, but as you can imagine, the ratio of adults to children could be problematic when it comes to keeping things clean, getting to school on time, and mealtimes.

Well, almost everyone. The younger girls are on sweeping
or mopping detail, so they often get done faster.

However, the girls are remarkably self-sufficient. Each of the younger girls is paired with an older girl who helps her get ready in the morning. Breakfast is at 6 o’clock sharp; devotions are at 6:30.  When they get home from school around 3:30, each of the girls does her chore to keep things clean. Beds are always made, possessions are put away, and everyone helps with meals and clean-up.

The girls play music (there are several guitarists and pianists here and one budding violin player), run around the yard (today I saw the most ingenious slapdash baseball game), and study hard. The girls range from Tati’s one year up to nineteen years old and about to graduate, so there’s plenty going on at all times. When they graduate from high school, some of the girls stay on to help at the homes; others start work. Some go on to university, if they have the financial support.

The Road of Lost Innocence

As most of you know, I’m in Thailand living in a home with forty-five Thai girls who have been rescued from the sex slave trade. It’s an ongoing issue about which I feel very passionately and, turns out, America has to too because President Obama has declared January to be Human Trafficking Prevention Month.[1]

This is Nana. She's 12 and sings like
a dream.

I’m going to be writing about sex trafficking and posting links to documentaries and to articles by people who can write better than I can and who have more information. At least for this month, I beg you to join me in spreading the world. I’ll do my best to convince you of the necessity, but my words always fall short.

Misconceptions about the sex trade both in SE Asia and worldwide are appalling and systemic. I’m going to start with a rather lengthy quote I’ve found in a Thailand travel guide written by one Roger Jones:

“Moralists are sometimes shocked at the number of Thai girls working in massage parlors, bars, and similar institutions. A survey by Chulalongkorn University estimates that there are 200,000[2] commercial sex workers in Thailand. However...the job holds many attractions for the girls: it pays better than most other jobs; the working conditions are better; and it is far more enjoyable than working in a factory or planting rice. ..A fair proportion are country girls who hope to make their fortune and return to their villages one day with money jingling in their purses.”

He goes on to say that “visiting a massage parlor can be an intriguing experience,” offers helpful hints on how to find the bars that cater to “all tastes,” and warns that “visitors caught having sex with anyone under the age of eighteen could land in prison.”

I do wonder if he thinks the moralists are being fussy when they are shocked about people eager to buy sex with twelve-year-old girls.

I also wonder exactly how much research Roger did into this field. I offer, instead, the writings of Somaly Man. She writes about the sex trade in Cambodia—very similar to Thailand’s—as a former prostitute who was sold to a brothel to pay off her “caretaker’s” debts.

She writes here about her first days working as a slave and the punishment she received for fighting both of the first two men who had paid for her:

“Afterward, they took me down to the cellar. They kept animals there, snakes and scorpions. They weren’t meant to kill us—they kept them to frighten us. It was a small room, totally dark, and it stank of sewage. They tied me up and before they left, they dumped the snakes on me.”

Though she was left there for roughly a day, she continued to rebel. She tried to run away once and even risked punishment to set two new girls free.

“Li [the man in charge of her brothel] beat me with his cane and tied me naked to a bed. Anyone who came was given the pleasure of looking at me. Despite everything I’d been through I was fundamentally modest, and this experience was horrible. That night his brother and all their friends took their turn with me while I was still tied up. It went on like that for a week. I was sick, shaking with fever...one night Li dumped a bucket of live maggots on me. Hideous maggots, like the ones on meat. When he realized how much they frightened me, he began dumping them into my mouth and on my body...I have nightmares about [it], even now.”

Of course not all prostitutes suffer as Somaly did, but neither her young age nor the terrors she endured are exceptional. Somaly is quick to downplay her own horrors in light of the current tragedy:

“My punishment was harsh, but the way they punish prostitutes today is far worse than anything I ever had to suffer...Now I see girls in brothels with nails hammered into their skulls. That sounds unbelievable, but we have photos. Girls are chained, beaten with electric cables. They go mad.”

One-third of the prostitutes in Phnom Penh, Cambodia are young children.

Please keep reading this month and please help me spread this information. Give me any comments, ask any questions.

Somaly Man quotes were taken from her book “The Road of Lost Innocence.” As you can tell, it’s a graphic read, but extremely well-written and a fantastic introduction into the SE Asian version of the sex trade epidemic. (A book review I believe to be helpful is here: http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-review-the-road-of-lost/)

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[1] http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/12/obama-declares-human-trafficking-prevention-month/1

[2] This is a ridiculously low-balled number, perhaps because the book is old. But it had better be older than 1974, because the study in ’74 done by the same university reported between 500,000 and 700,000. The 2004 estimate is 2.8 million.