Laying the Foundation with Tepid Tools

I feel a little ill when I think about how long it has been since I wrote last.  But to all those who think I cut ties, my mind has been busy trying to cope with, well, itself.  And only recently did I finally feel compelled to sit down and share.  It came to my attention sometime a couple weeks ago that there was confusion by some folks back home concerning my reasons for being in Thailand.  And then it came to my attention sometime a couple days ago that I may be just as confused about this, myself.

On my YouTube video on the political struggles seen in Bangkok last year, my ever-insightful uncle commented that this topic had nothing to do with trafficked women's rights.   He had every reason to show concern, too, since he was one of the many generous individuals to contribute to the cost of my trip over here, under the pretense that I would be studying the trends of prostitution.  And not just him: my friends, my family, the family of my friends, my professors...myself.  But not one thing I have posted since arriving has been on the topic of sex trafficking; rather, everything is on agricultural trends, land rights, water management, mining, and their encompassing themes of globalization, development, and human rights.  However, to his comment, I saved face by saying that I was merely laying the foundation for my senior thesis by understanding first the major themes of human rights and globalization in a Thai context before physically researching the topic of human rights and Thai women's agency.  Honestly, that really was what I believed I was doing.

It wasn't until the night before we left for our 5-night-long Unit 4 trip (April 2 - 7) that I realized that I no longer had a grasp on what my future plans were, or what the importance of a formal education in Digital Media had in my life anymroe. Nor did I see the merit of leading individuals through group process so that they could eventually make a positive impact on the world.  For weeks there was an unsettled feeling deeply set in me, but it took a verbal vomit on my friend to identify where, exactly, these feelings were stemming from.  What began with utter resentment of the fact that I will most likely be in school for another hair-graying year and a half turned quickly into questioning the legitimacy of nearly all my goals.  Before I knew it, I was stressing how naive I was to come to Thailand, thinking I could seek to ignite change in a FOREIGN country, with a language and culture I wouldn't dare come close to understanding in a mere four months, when there are ample chances to make realistic change in my backyard - literally.

In the course of these last (not quite) three months my dream of wanting to be a Social Worker/documentary-filmmaker working to better the conditions of sex workers, transformed into wanting to get into journalism, to flirting with the idea of being a policymaker, to seriously considering the steps to becoming a Human Rights lawyer (an idea I'm still tweaking).  But recently, my spirits seemed to have reached their maximum capacity for learning about institutionalized corruption against the marginalized and "impoverished." I found myself asking helpless questions like, "Why should and how do I sincerely care about the progression of someone else's movement when the issue has no direct impact on my life?" and "What can I do as an individual to initiate change at the bottom level when it is macro-level policies which direct the course of status quo?"  This isn't to say I'm already desensitized at such a ripe age of 21, or that I'm so burnt out I can't continue any of my altruistic goals.  These questions are predominantly founded on completely selfish terms.  The seed which planted these aforementioned toxic thoughts is, Can and when will I have time to get mine?

Someone once said, "You can't understand the world until you understand yourself."  I feel I understand Thailand's interconnected economical and environmental movements more than the complexities of my own country's waves of social change.  And I could probably write a novel at this point describing the depth of the 20 characters I've grown to understand since the end of January when this program started.  But it feels like I am further away from knowing myself, and therefore further estranged from this world, than when I started this journey.

I feel I should take this time to brief those who had a part to play in helping me get to Thailand: In no way am I ungrateful or unsatisfied with my decision to study here. This experience is bar non the most necessary venture I've ever had, and there is no doubt in my mind that the experiences I will take from this semester will forever shift the course of my life hereon after. If it weren't for this program, these life-enriching, life-altering mental conversations would never have taken flight.  Or at least, they may have come up in the far future when it is too late. There's a saying that your ultimate goal in life should be to find the place where the world's greatest need and your greatest passion intersect.  I know my passions.  I am just still finding where in the world there is need for them.

~J.

Reflections

     A few days ago we returned from a 5-day homestay in the village of Yassothahn, getting a chance to meet organic farmers- some who under contract by a sugarcane factory, and some acknowledging the last generation of farmers on their land -and hearing their stories as they pertain to the issue of sustainable agriculture in a globalized market.  We had the chance to meet with the aforementioned sugarcane factory, and, alongside the farmers who grew the crop, we observed the model of manipulation from the top down, the government-subsidized factory taking a considerable profit from the hard work of hundreds of Isaan farmers. But aside from these intense experiences had with the group, there were moments unique to my interactions with the land and the beautiful people who worked on it that I feel compelled to record.  

Three particular moments I want to share:

1.) The family I stayed with for four days had their lives rich with the freshness of babies: the family just witnessed their youngest daughter give birth to a boy 10 days before me and my friend, Lindsay arrived; one of their cows birthed a calf two days before our arrival; and while we were sleeping one night, their pig gave birth to 10 beautiful piglets.  So much new life all at once! Why does is it still so extraordinary to me? Our "meh" was a grandma - her mother, who was a 69-year-old lady who still helped out on the farm, was now a great-grandma.  And the cycle continues. 

Out of the litter of pigliets, only one had a definitive white spot on its body, and this precious thing also happened to be (coincidentally?) the runt that was left out by its brothers and sisters.  It was the only baby who couldn't get a hold of any of its mother's nipples.  Ahh! I died I died I died, it was too much to handle. Finally "paw" let me hold it. It took all of me to put it back in its pen. I hope it grows up to be president someday.

Mama ('n') Babe

2.)  Lindsay and I walked in on paw and a fellow rice farmer on the floor of the house, fully engaged with signing papers, calculating ledgers, with a bottle of whiskey and two glasses in between them.  We sat nearby watching in silence, trying to pick up any familiar Thai words that we might have learned in class previously.  After a few minutes, and most likely feeling awkward with us staring blankly at them, they offered us each a glass of soda and whiskey.  It wasn't that we got to drink with our Thai father and his comrade that made this moment a memorable one (though that was definitely a highlight of the homestay). It was seeing their business model in action, rather than speculating what it might be like to actually sustain oneself through managing a farm.  The scene also gave Thai farmers more context in my eyes - they were no longer individuals selling their produce at competitive local markets, but helping one another in the broader scheme to have financial capital to show for their hard work.

3.) I interviewed our family's youngest daughter (the 23-year-old, unwed mother of the two-week-old baby) and her father (my "paw") for a feature I am writing, concerning the trend of the younger generation moving out of the farm to start another life in the cities, and how the effects of this migration is compromising the future of the family farm.  What I learned from the daughter's account is that she plans on teaching science in one of the adjacent provinces, and, saying in a lowered voice since she was in earshot of her mother, that if her parents were okay with it, she would leave baby "Chine" with her parents to raise.  Her older sister is also a teacher in a nearby province, though she still lives with her parents to save money for med school.  However, as soon as she saves up, she will also move out of the parents' house as well.  When asked what his plans were for the farm after his two daughters move out, he responded, "Maybe this will be the last generation for the farm." 

"Paw" on his organic rice field.  The buffalo graze on the old land
and their poop fertilizes the soil. Oh, and the week-old baby calf.
All things mentioned are pretty incredible. 

   Organic farming is how roughly 5000 farmers grow their crops, and to them, it is more than a healthy decision.  Their produce being organic is mainly a byproduct of an integrated system of agriculture, one that requires a kind of devotion that defines someone's identity, a devotion that this sort of agriculture depends on to sustain itself.  But now with this new recent education migration, values are shifting away from upholding traditional communal farming techniques towards a more individualistic motivation.  And during a time when corporations are buying out farmers' lands to monocrop for a profit, small-scale, family-run organic farms are losing all fighting chance they have left.  

  A few times, our group discussion came to a stall when the idea of allowing corporations to roam free as long they were held accountable was brought up.  This idea of "capitalism with a heart," or institutionalized free trade unleashed the floodgate to a multitude of questions: Could it ever happen?  Do good-intentions even exist in these out-of-reach, untouchable institutions?  They're important questions, and ones that should be given considerable thought.  As a world, we are near full-capacity.  There's no more room for us, or our capitalistic ventures.  So which is more effective: working with the agencies in power so that they may give agency to the little people, or work in solidarity to reconstruct the discourse of what is important to the people, such as promoting the dignity behind the occupation of being a farmer?  Yet at the same time, do we have the right to discourage a child from wanting to explore the vast opportunities available through an educational degree all for the sake of preserving, what some consider, antiquated practices?  

And more importantly, who is the "we" that should be having these discussions? I can only hope all of us, since these are problems that are not just isolated to developing nations, but to the States as well. 

 These debates all stem from the basic questions, such as where does your food come from?  Who is benefiting from your choice to eat one thing over another?  As a friend recently told me that every time you buy something, you're voting.  Once we each, as conscientious individuals, acknowledge the importance of acknowledging the people who produce what we eat, and the systems that play into they produce, the easier it is to imagine and to achieve "globalization with a heart." 

~J.

*Both photos were taken by Lindsay Friedman.  

Raising Money, Raising Hands for Justice

Last night I had the serendipitous opportunity to witness a Red Shirt rally being held to raise money for victims, detainees, and those hospitalized from last year's crackdown in Bangkok.  Our Proagram Director, Ajaan Dave, casually walked up to where me and my friend, Patty, were sitting outside our Student Activity Room, and were furiously reading a packet containing 36 articles of background information on our first unit coming up on Monday. Arbitrarily he said, "So I was told to inform you all when I was given word about any Red Shirt movements in the area. Well, I was given word. There's a fundraiser happening tonight if any of you are interested." "When are you planning on leaving?" I asked. "Three minutes," he said.

We closed our books and shot up to tell the others inside.  Five minutes later, six CIEE students, Ajaan Dave, and his 6-year-old son, "Pooh," were squished hipbone to hipbone in A. Dave's hatchback headed toward somewhere in Khon Kaen.  Forty minutes later we drove up to large erected stage looking out onto a red lawn - 500 tables were set up holding 5,000 ten red-shirt-wearing supporters.  Some of us vocalized getting chills.  We pulled into a parking lot where the air was palpably dusty (people's point-and-shoot cameras depicted only globs of dust particles picked up by the flash) and made our way past the fermented fish vendor stands towards the front of the stage.

Our program's intern, Josh, arrived shortly after and told us that he and his roommate, Glenn, were going to be going backstage to hold an interview with a few of the rally's organizers if two of us were interested in going with them.  Settling into the reality of where we were was too overwhelming a feat for me, so I adamantly asked to be one to go with them.  It was decided that me and my friend Jo would tag along with Josh, Glenn, and A. Dave.  After the emcee sang through four tunes, complete with feather-wearing, sequenced belly-shirt Thai dancers to get the crowd pumped, we traipsed backstage to hold our interview.  I was able to squeeze two or three questions in between Glenn's, but mostly I listened intently to A. Dave's translations.
We interviewed a retired teacher, a lawyer for the Red Shirts, and an elected provincial representative to find out why they were raising money, who received the funds raised tonight, and what their idea of "victory" looked like.  Victory, to them, would be, "supporters surrounding parliament to overthrow the current constitution and reenacting the 1997 one. Then we can go home because everything has been taken care of," the lawyer, Suwanna Pong, said.  It was also said that democratic elections were their penultimate goal, and that even "If we lost but it was democratic, that will be okay."
(Read the outcome of the interview in the New Mendela's online journal!  http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2011/02/20/strong-showing-at-red-shirt-fundraiser-in-khon-kaen/)

What was most remarkable to hear during our exchange was a firm recognition that Thailand was not a democracy as it claimed to be but "deep down, still a dictatorship."  Even after receiving a four-hour-long lecture on the history of Thai's political conflict, an enrapturing speech by a Red Shirt leader (now on the run from the government who is accusing him of being a terrorist, a claim he righteously denies), and an ex-Yellow Shirt enthusiast, the situation in Thailand was never as clear to me as it was last night.  We weren't hearing a third-party's rendition of how the people feel on all sides of the issue - we were listening to the people themselves. No one understands better what the people are dealing with than the people who are living it out in real time.  Jo and I looked back at each other with bug-eyes when we heard A. Dave translate the retired teacher's powerful words, "The more they kill, the more resentful we become; there's no stopping us."  This is a real conflict, and it is still just as prevalent today as it was in April, 2010.

There were three moments that occurred at last night's activities that sent me away in a state of urgency:  One was walking through the sweaty, red cloud of cheering Isan-dwellers (Isan is the region in the northeast where we are) and being gripped around the arm by encouraging older women, looking straight at me, with almost pleading beams strewn across their faces.  Thinking back to a few of those encounters, I don't believe I realized the sincerity of their inclusion as I did then.
Another moment was having the privilege of getting to shake hands with former Prime Minister, Somchai Wongsawat, who came to show support for those who lost their lives to the fight and to those who continue to fight for justice.  I had a face to go with the "good guys" - it isn't every day one comes across a government official who believes in pure democracy.
The last moment happened as we walked back to our car, electricity in our speech as we all compared notes from our individual experiences throughout the night.  Not being able to understand Thai and talking as animatedly as we were, we almost missed what was being reverberated on the speakers near the back of the venue.  A. Dave chuckled out loud to himself, and someone walking next to him asked what he was laughing at.  He said, "They're talking about the 'farang' journalists. They're saying, 'Let the foreign journalists take this back with them: the Red Shirts love justice. We want democracy.'"  I internalized my pride for having been a part of this sliver in history, because a "sliver" to me is a way of life for thousands.

One last look at the full, yellow moon silhouetting a man perched atop his pick-up truck, observing with one knee up the festivities from the periphery of the parking lot, we got in the car and drove home.