Living the Life

...apparently they are real. They are one of those things we always talk about, but are almost mythical in a weird way since we are so removed from them and the lives of the people affected by them.

Mae Sot has about 10,000 people working the factory life. The majority are Burmese migrant workers- some illegal some legal.

A sixteen year old girl who has been working in one of the factories already for two years told me that this is a typical day for her right now:

7:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
half an hour for lunch.
1:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m.
hour for dinner.
6:00 p.m.-11:00 p.m.
=$5.00

How did you spend $5.00 today?

This article will give you a better understanding about the lives of Burmese refugees living in Thailand than I can. I'll just give ya the pics.

Such an amazingly beautiful place.
The camp has been in existence over 20 years, but is still considered a "temporary" settlement.
These three angels were born inside Mae La Refugee Camp. They are three of a community of 46,000 Karen people waiting to go home. As a refugee, they are limited movement to within the camp.
A lot of the camp is virtually a dense labyrinth of wooden fences separating tightly compacted housing units, although this picture does not really give the full effect.
Never known anything but the inside of the camp. Never set foot in Burma but waiting for the day she can return to the place she knows is home.

Here's a worthwhile article. Oh yeah, finally talked to my friend and my boys are alive and well. Yippeeeeeeee. Mentally, everyday I am in Nepal right about now.

Better than the journalists... some more random emails. I have so much to tell you guys about other things like Burmese refugee camps and sweat shops, so in a few days I'll do that... but now I am wicked tired but want to keep you up on Nepal. Tomorrow the Nepali community and the Thai Trade Union are joining together and protesting at the Nepali Embassy here in Bangkok in support of the efforts in Nepal.

Hi Pamela,

I think you have been thinking and worryingabout the situation of Nepal. Nowadays ,it seems that the whole Nepal has got up against the autocratic ruleof the king.Every people whether old or young, women or children, students ,teachers , lecturers, doctors,lawyers, labours, businessmen, journalists, and othergeneral people have been in the streets to protest against the king since last two weeks. It is even more interesting that the tourists are also taking part in the demonstrations.

would you have taken part in the demonstration ifyou were in Nepal?

The seven party alliance have rejected the offer ofthe king and had decided to continue the strike. They have considered the king's annoucement as decietful step.The announcement has not addressed the demand ofthe people's movement. well the parties are demanding the revival of the dissolved parliment , interimgovernment to negotiate with the maoist and theelection of the constitutional assembly so that the maoist problem would be solved.Today about 300000 people participated in the protest rally in kathmandu defying the curfew and such type of rally was organised all over the country. more than a dozen people were injured by the police fire in kathmandu. In pokhara we organised a protest rally inpokhara where about 50000 people took part. Although the seven parties, maoist and the people ofNepal have rejected the king announcement, the international community specially India and America have approved the king announcement and they are asking the parties to take initiatives to form a new government.They are not understanding that the formation of the new government is not the solution of problem.

What do you think about the situation ofNepal? How the democracy could be restored and theproblem could be solved?

Hope to talk to you soon.

hi emma,

well, i am not in jail now. i have been fighting with the police since last two weeks in the streets. our one friend was shot dead by the security force in pokhara and more than two dozens have been killed up to now all over the country. just an hour ago the king had made an announcement that the political power is handed to the people and he had asked the seven party alliance to recommend for the prime minister.the political scene is still not clear.the leaders are in meetings to discuss about how to react the king announcement. once i had seen your friend and her mother at a mass meeting held at amarsing chowk.
ok bye

I just got this from an orphanage in Kathmandu. Pray for Nepal.

Dear Sister Emma,
We wish you happy greetings in the matchless name of our Lord Jesus
Christ. We all are fine and doing well. Because of strike children can not
go to school. Pray for us because this strike is affecting so many things.
We don’t how long it will go but here we are facing the shortage of every
thing. How and when will you come in Nepal? At present don’t make your
journey to Nepal and also convey this massage those recently planning to
come in Nepal not to come.

Within two weeks since the general strike called by seven party alliance,
Nepal has witnessed “people power” unprecedented in her history. All major
cities and towns have surged with protests unseen in the past and
unimaginable until just a few days ago. Cities where the regime resorted
to brutal suppression, killing the protestors have only surged back
putting the state on the defensive and the participation of the people is
great and overtaking the 1990’s Democracy Movement.

Nepal is bubbling in political fire. We poor are becoming poorer. We are
inside the room listing the gun sound and watching the television news.
The situation is worse than before. The prices of things are very high,
for the example normal price for one kilogram salt was NRs 10/- but now
for it costs NRs. 50/- per kg. How to survive? Need your sincere prayers
for the healing of Nepal.

According to unauthorized news agencies up to today all over the country
15 are killed 1500 are seriously injured and around 5000 are arrested.
Turning down the king’s offer for dialogue to activate multi-party
democracy, the country’s seven largest political parties want to
established democracy through people’s movement, not through negotiations
with the King. There fore the general strikes is enforced strictly from
Saturday. Actually the King’s offer for negotiation is part of a
conspiracy to prolong his autocratic rule in the country. Dialogue is
possible only if the king gives up his autocratic approach of dealing with
problems.

The king’s commitment to multiparty democracy has been an integral part of
all his addresses since he staged the coup dismissing an elected
government on October 4, 2002. The king has also been talking about
holding parliamentary elections, which is also repeated in his New Year’s
address. It is unfortunate that the king has failed to realize the gravity
of the movement and the desire of the people. The country has already
moved into elections of the Constituent Assembly while the king has been
stuck to the parliamentary elections. The king should realize that the
country is burning today. The people are not going to compromise with
anything less than LOKTANTRA(absolute democracy), which means the king
would have only a ceremonial status. Let us hope the monarch takes the
situation seriously and acts promptly to protect the institution. The king
still enjoys the leverage only because people are still not fully
convinced of the Maoist commitment to the multiparty democratic system. It
the Maoists announce ceasefire and come up with a convincing roadmap for
the restoration of multiparty democracy, the situation will be entirely
different.

I love to hear from you as soon as possible because I am longing to hear.

This is only a glimpse of my 13 days observation of political activities.
I hope to have an opportunity to share more with you. Please, keep the
precious people of Nepal in your prayers. Many think that the current
king may actually not give democracy because his word and action are
always differing from each other, pray for him too.

It's been political Mayhem with a capital M in Nepal. I haven't talked to my kids in weeks. Tried calling- no phone or something. Talked to my little bro, Ashish and told him to get over there and make sure they are alive and all but he said it was impossible because of road blockades. Funny thing is, Ashish lives only about 2 km from my guys.....

I am so sad and wondering how "real" mothers with "real" kids deal with this kind of stuff all over the world. I am thinking about how Tibetan mothers send their kids off on some venture through Nepal in hopes of settling in India.... not really knowing whatever becomes of their kids.

I am sure my guys are fine.... but I just wish I could hear it from their own nonsensical banter and Gopal's entertaining stutter. In the mean time, I will just have to day dream about the month to come....only six more weeks until I get to hang with my Asian family day in and day out.

This is them doing some dance for some ladies and me right as it started to rain.

...who want me to marry Anand my BFF, you better start a collection for my plane ticket to Cali because I've only got a month. Tommy Vu I am sure is going to be the chair person of this.


Yo PJB,

How about this for reply speed? Anyway...........

"we know that there is still a herum of indian girls and the occasional white girl ranging from chennai to boston to waco to san diego still seeing psychiatrists because of the trauma you caused them with all your mind games, so lets not even pretend like i am the bigger player."

That was a wicked funny paragraph. But can you please spell the word harem correctly and not spell it as "herum?" It makes you sound uneducated. I thought you were supposed to be an author.

Anyway, I am ready to marry you if you come and visit within the next month.

Peace and Grace be with you. Shalom & Happy Easter,

Boy Who Wishes He Had A "Herum"


haha.... too bad I am too busy and have no desire to go to San Diego right now. Oh well, guess he's just gonna have to stay my surprisinglymoreathleticthananyotherguyever Indian brother. Sorry to let ya all down.

Hola folks... here in the former Siam Kingdom it's New Years.... Which means I am in a perpetual state of wetness because New Years Thai style consists of water guns, hoses, buckets and flour thrown every which way all the time. So groovy. Wish I had pics but I am scared of bringing my camera anywhere in this wet madness.... Don't ya wish you were here? :)

My loveland is in chaos. My place of residency is in confusion. But at least the Avs got a win.

The Christian rule for action is simple: Venture to act in accordance with the truth and at the same moment through this action you will collide with the environing world. Your action will be such that you will discover the collisions of the essentially Christian. In no other way can one enter into the situation where faith can come into existence. Venture right into the middle of actuality. Risk – and then God will truly come. But now God sits and watches to see if there is one single person who will venture.- Soren Kierkegaard

Today is all about the prayers. I haven’t called on you guys to pray for much lately, so here we go. A long built up list :).

I have a few friends who are currently here in Uganda. They’ve all ventured to act. Reading their emails makes me restless for the Kingdom in a good way. Pray for my friends, Shauna, Tony, Sara, and Dave in Uganda. Pray for the widows and children they work with- that they would see God in all things.

Pray for my kiddies in Nepal- Gopal, Saroj, San Saroj, Arjun, Dorge, and Rashon- pray that they will not fall back into old habits. Pray they will learn that they are loved. Pray that they will continue on their path of restored life. Pray for the heart ache I have being away from the notsolittle little ones. Pray for Amma, the 80 year old Christian widow who helps takes care of them.

Pray for Ashley Lovell, my separated at birth twin. She’s got her hands full with a bunch of kids only very far away- South Africa. Her kids have yet to show major break through, have yet to be even the slightest bit weaned from addiction. Pray that she will continue to work with the same strength she did the very first time she met them. Pray she will love and love abundantly and that God make major breakthroughs in the lives of the boys she loves as her own.

Pray for my three Thai friends, Byrd, Shine and Big. (I have been in Thailand way too long because I don’t even think their names are funny- haha). Byrd has just gone back to Khao Lak, the Tsunami area- where he has been working on and off since the tsunami. Pray for endurance and a fresh brokenness. Shine is going to China this week- his first time outside of this region. Pray God will give him greater insight on what it means to be a missional Christian. Poor kid is a musician and he just got asked to play at Impact Arena (a huge arena- hence the name) but he won't be able to because he will be in China... so he's a bit bummed out. Big is moving to China for the next two years. This lookslikeasurfer cool Thai kid doesn’t speak a word of Chinese so he’ll be going to a language school. Pray that God will help him learn quickly. Also pray he finds a local Thai restaurant quick! Haha just kidding, but the boy can only eat so much dim sum.

Pray for me in Bangkok. I have only one more month of classes to endure before my thesis, but it’s a very intense month and the only place I want to be is anywhere but here…I keep day dreaming about one way plane tickets to Kazakhstan and I don’t even know the capital of the place.

Okay that’s probably long enough I am sure. I hope you liked my usage of the bold feature. That's to help you along if you don't like to read. I learned that tip from Byrd, but he's the master at color-coding which is all too complicated for me.

Here's a small piece of wisdom I found on Monk Xay's wall yesterday when I was hanging with him at the monastery. Speaking of Monks, the famous Monk Somchit text messaged me at 6 am this morning (uhm, it's Saturday) to ask me what I was doing and to tell me that he woke up at 4:30 am to read. I wish I could give myself those kind of orders.
This is just a random picture near Monk Xay's temple. I don't know why but I kinda like this picture.
This is my favorite meal at my favorite restaurant in all of Thailand. It's spicy cucumber and egg salad with some different chutney stuff. Isaan food- aloi mak (delicious!). And yep, we plan on eating that greenery in the mortar.

Every once in a while I get an email that's just, well... priceless.

This colourful piece (sorry about the expletives, friends) is from the Manchesterian (is that a word?)- or simply, the Brit, who thinks he is Thai. He's left this beloved land and re-entered the world of hum-drum monotony and I don't think the transition has been without a bit of turbulence.

Since I have a few friends who like this sort of thing, here's the message from the bloke:

You caused me to go on one when you started on Revolutions. . so get yourself a brew.... it's a long rant... and a little insight into British politics for you...

Here in England everybody's lifestyles seem dangerously similar, like in the introduction of Trainspotting (have you heard of Trainspottingthe film about the smack heds in Edinburgh) At the beginning Renton is listing off all those words that people aspire to and think they need, to 'choose life'. . . England's like that, but much more ordered, straight and far more materialistic.

Here we are in the middle of our very own Somnambulist Revolution as it may come to be known in history (if I become famous), we have agovernment who have taken the name 'Labour' hoodwinked all its voters but rejected all its values and pushed through more totalitarian state controlling bills than any previous Government in British history; Protection from Harassment Act, Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, Terrorism Act, Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, Criminal Justice Act, Prevention of Terrorism Act, Police and Justice Bill,Identity Cards Bill and finally the magic: Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill which gives present and future Governments the power to push through Bills without a commons vote or House of Lords veto option. That final one is huge and the irony of it all is, if it wasn't for an un-elected power chamber - the House of Lord's (still containing privileged members by birth right??) veto we'd already be unquestionably living in the autocracy I think we are. Everyone of these bills takes legislative power from the people and puts it in the pocket of the PM, a PM whose facing a corruption scandal, have you ever wondered why Lord Sainsbury, owner of mmm Sainsburys is Minister of Science and why he contributed £2m as either a loan or gift (nobody could remember which last time I heard) to the Party prior to the last election?

Which leads me on nicely, take your everyday grocery shopping, there are only 4 Supermarkets to choose from depending on your prosperity and locality, Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys and Waitrose. I do my bit by buying the Observer from the paper shop but that's shit, we should be buying organic food from local farmers and using our pound more intelligently as opposed to handing it on a plate to the big conglomerates, God forbid this practice ever takes hold in Thailand. Imagine all those food sellers disappearing, Bangkok wouldn't be Bangkok, please don't shop in Tesco Lotus or Big fucking C!! England is certainly a soulless desolate place for it's love affair with the out of town shopping park. What is it that CarpetWorld and Currys have that your living room doesn't on a squalid soggy Sunday afternoon?

It seems odd that a proud nation built on the fleets of Nelson's andSir Frances Drake's with Battles of Dunkirk, the Somme and the defeat of the mighty Spanish Armada et al, can fall pray and as under to a bunch of baseball cap wearing spotty faced yanks (no offence)representing Wal-mart, so much so that they stipulate we have to look as stupid as them whilst earning our minimum wage, Have a Nice Day...Fuck ThaT!!

As a nation of conquerors (glorified yobs) we've had plenty of practise oppressing and corrupting a gloriously/dubiously named 'The Red Empire' since before, during and after the Industrial Revolution. Further to the perennial question what the fuck are the US doing in Iraq, well what the fuck were 'us' Brits doing there pre and post WW2 and why the fuck did we annexe Kuwait from Iraq installing a 'more favourable' puppet regime motivated by Western Mullah…

On losing our Commonwealth to the US (just as George Orwell predictedin 1984 in 1949) the UK's need to control has turned in on itself. The means and subject may differ but the need, reason and desire are exactly the same. The barrels of guns have been replaced by thelenses of CCTV, and data of Interpol, GCHQ and Credit Checking agencies – they'd rather kill us but they can't – oppressing you for some assumed misdemeanour is much cleaner, politically correct and let's be honest who wants white man's blood on their hands. They can't get away with killing us… but they would if they could' and they don't even need to now. They can just simply keep watching us chase digital camera images with digital camera images, everyone's a winner baby!

So where's the resolve? It isn't in a Revolution, what Revolution we don't revolt we're British we accept, stiff upper lip and all that, anyway who gives a fuck so long as Grant doesn't get killed on Eastenders and my Ipod looks shit hot, Hey am, I sleepwalking into Carpetworld?! It's just not cricket to act like those somersaulting frogs over the channel , and what's so good about Revolution anyway? It's exactly what it says it is Revolution, no matter how far you revolve you always end up in the same place!

A coup d etat forces out the old corrupt law makers with the support of the people, the new incumbents get their feet under the table and as 'power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely' Then the people get wind of it, oust their corrupt Government and we go on...and this is labelled progress!

Mao Tse Dong ran China ragged on the basis of continual Revolution,the madness of his Great Leap Forward where millions died convincing their leader and themselves that crop and steel production where at an all time high, then came the Cultural Revolution where a huge army of schoolies took to the streets and humiliated their mothers and fathersin one of the most horrifying chapters of history ever.

Take the ptochocracy of the Khymer Rouge need I go on?

But I believe in Revolution.

Hope you enjoyed that rant of insight into UK past and present as much as I did. Not very much filled with love, hehe, so maybe a bit random for my blog :P but, since I've been in the habit of talking politics, I thought I'd feature another voice.

*phtochocracy: government by the poor.

This is my zealous professor from last semester, Dr. Bello. He's left our little world of BKK to teach in California for a few months before going back to the Philippines for a while. Today our lecturer reminded me of some things I learned from this guy.
Then when I googled for a photo of him, I saw this picture and was reminded of how he used to fall asleep in class sometimes. Mostly because he would come to class straight from the airport from Germany, Hong Kong, Brazil or who knows where else. Overworked, but for a cause. I also like that this picture says my nickname (or one of them)... And since we are on the topic, read this book. I haven't read it (yet), but I've read some of his other work, sat under his teaching for a semester and I guarantee he will make you think.

Except for the rare person I know who has been here. And even all those people probably either don't care or they already know everything I am putting here. But, I'd still like to tell you.

Thailand has a law that you have to vote. Or at least turn up to vote. You have the option of checking the "no vote" box once you do go. So, Thaksin, the corrupt Prime Minister did a few pre-election pay offs to ensure he was the only major candidate in the recent eletion. In protest a number of people checked the "no vote" box- more people abstained than actually voted for him. It's a big debate- should he stay or should he step down?

An opinion poll said 70% of Bangkokers said he should step down. Interesting conundrum here.

But all my American friends have Tom DeLay to worry (or I should say no longer worry) about. :)