30 April 2008

rite of passage, pt 2


It's teardrop-shaped, just like the tears I wanted to cry when I heard my skin sizzle & my previously perfect tan seared to charcoal & I was forevermore scarred for life (is that redundant? I just wanted to make my dramatic point). It's scabbed over now, & coming off in crispy flakes of brown, transparent goodness. I am raw & pink underneath. Oh so sexaayyyyy.

Some people say scars are cool, badass, a good story, & they bring more depth to an otherwise flawless existence. Now I'll say that too.

28 April 2008

rite of passage


I got my Thai tattoo, though not the one I intended, & it’s much uglier.

Motorbike incident. I heard the skin sizzle. Instant 2nd-degree burn. But the real pain wasn’t in my leg but in my vanity. What a big ass ugly scar!!! Boohoo.

But I guess that’s the rite of passage everyone assimilating into Thai life has to go through. Apparently every Thai has the same scar. They know immediately when they see me.

“Motorbike?” they ask.

“Yeah”

(sympathetic grimace) “Here’s mine” & they lift pant leg to reveal very similar scar.

I’m really Thai now dammit. So I have no problems going straight through now when I see signs like this:

This was the sign we saw as we went up to see Doi Suthep, on the mountain that overlooks the city of Chiang Mai. It’s the most sacred temple in Northern Thailand.

There was a Buddhist monk granting blessings in the form of a white string bracelet. His assistant tied mine on me since monks aren’t allowed to touch women. I felt the intensity & wished for many things to come clearer to me in life. It was deep, man.

And then we left the temple, got on the motorbike, & a few short minutes later… I was scarred for life. WHAT THE…?! What kind of blessing is this?! If this is that kind of “hard lessons learned” blessing I feel totally ripped off (never mind that the blessing was free). What’s this supposed to mean? What did I do wrong Buddha? Do you mean to tell me there are bigger things in life than having flawless skin? Vanity is ungodly & a waste of time? Weh!

My kooky friend Ike says maybe I need to have a little bit of bad luck first to get the greater good luck. He told me to buy a lottery ticket tomorrow. Maybe I will.

Here's me modeling my new scar a few minutes after it happened, so it hasn't turned black yet. Don't be fooled by the stupid grin on my face-- it hurt like %#&@* (especially on the inside!!!). Note that the shirt says “No Pain, No Gain” & it’s from the tattoo shop that my friends work at. Appropriate eh? Fuck.

23 April 2008

more notes from the gay zone


Director: You must feel really safe with us.

Me: Why yes, I guess I do.

Director: I mean, absolutely none of us is or ever will be attracted to you.

Me: Oh, er, um, thanks, I guess.


19 April 2008

burmese days


Random fires spotted the mountainous landscape, natural seasonal occurrences resulting from the dry summer heat. I could see the smoke wafting through the bamboo forests as colorfully dressed tribe people carrying babies on their backs & raw materials in their arms made their way up & down the hills from the highway & disappeared into the thickness. It was a 5-hour westward drive to Mae Sot, made longer by the frequent Thai government/border police checkpoints, inspecting all cars for drugs & refugees.

Mae Sot is a town that straddles the Thailand-Burma border, resulting in a cultural collision of Thai, Burmese, foreign NGO peoples, and various hill tribe ethnic minorities such as Karen, Shan & Kachin. It hosts the largest refugee camp in all of Thailand, Mae La, home to 40,000 Burmese refugees.



I wasn’t sure what to expect going into the camp. I had a movie-type vision of everyone living in tents, rampant disease & abuse & an air of desperation. I didn’t know how to mentally prepare (as usual).

There were children everywhere running free & laughing. That was my first clue that this was a real community of families & not necessarily the hopeless prison ground I thought it might be. The few I was lucky enough to interact with were all smiles & manners & curiosity, & some even spoke English. As we walked past rows of bamboo huts, an occasional high-pitched “hello!” would ring out from a corner, obviously for the visiting foreigners’ benefit. And then shortly afterwards, a “bye-bye!” So many children. I can’t imagine what their parents must’ve been through to get them there, but to the naked eye, there aren’t any scars, for which I’m so glad.


The U.S. takes in the most refugees from this camp each year. In the beginning they took all at once, but every year the camp would grow & grow & grow, possibly because more Burmese flooded the camps hoping to be exiled to the U.S. as well. There are “America Training” sessions & bulletin boards posted for the refugees to familiarize themselves with American customs & such before they depart.



Funny, some of the pictures were of obese people eating McDonalds. No joke. Oh the shame. And did you know that the majority of Burmese refugees end up in Missouri??? Oh the shame! (I kid I kid) But seriously, weird.

This is BiBi, our Mae La host for the day. He works with educational systems & curricula for the camp. He is the only reason we were able to get into the camp, as I don’t think they normally allow tourists. He is awesome.



More disheartening was the Burmese migrant clinic, Mae Tao. It’s a wonderful health service & training center specifically designed to provide quality care to displaced Burmese migrants & ethnic peoples along the border. It was established by Dr. Cynthia Maung, who has won a host of awards for her work there, including the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership (go Pilipinas!). They do wonderful caring work for a population that desperately needs it, but it was difficult & emotional to witness the cases they deal with, & what few resources they have to work with. They didn’t have a proper blood pressure machine to use when one of my housemates donated blood. They ran out of beds for surgery patients. They also ran out of rooms, so patients were strewn about on mats in what used to be a conference room. There is no separation for patients with airborne contagious illnesses, making spreading possible. And this really broke my heart.



It’s times like this that make me feel the smallest and most helpless. I gave my card to the administrator if they could ever use me (after all, I do work in healthcare), a tiny gesture but I just couldn’t walk away doing nothing at all. For more information about the clinic, check out the links at the end of this post.

Although this health poster there made me laugh out loud. I’m not quite sure what message they are trying to send… any guesses?



Our beautiful host while we were in Mae Sot was Moon, who opened her modest home to 6 strangers (my housemates & I), plus our driver & our mutual friend Wad, who was her classmate in university. She speaks several languages (English, Thai, Burmese, Karen & a few other hill tribe dialects). Amazing woman she is, & she’s only 25!


She moved to Mae Sot to establish the Karen Student Leadership Network, which trains young adults from refugee camps in leadership skills, which they can then impart to others within the camps. Once every few months they hold a 3-day meeting in her office, & for that she has to first go collect the 30 students from 5 different refugee camps—a grueling process that involves much paperwork including official permission from the Thai government & referral letters from NGOs. Two of the students even came from across the Burmese border (illegally?), risking the lives to come to the meetings. Day 1 of the meetings is usually spent getting them basic things like toothbrushes that they may have left behind in their rush to get out of the camps. Our visit happened to coincide with one of these meetings. We were ushered into the office for what I thought was a casual viewing (as usual), but there were 8 chairs prepared for us at the front of the room, while the group of about 30 young adults sat of the floor facing up at us with wide eyes & snapping pictures. Like… huh?? I thought they were so much more interesting than we were & snapped pictures back. Odd sight we must have been, snapping each other.



We exchanged questions & answers, with Moon translating back & forth between 4 different languages. We heard stories of how they got to that meeting that night, got into the camps in the first place, got arrested on several occasions—all these crazy harrowing stories told with a smile. They had equal interest in the work we all did. I had to field so many questions about sex workers, which showed where their concerns really lie. Many migrants fleeing into Thailand, having no official identification, no useful training, & no local language skills, end up turning to sex work for their most viable income. We asked them what made them want to be at that meeting that night, some risking their own lives to be there, & they all answered it was worth it, because they would be able to help their communities empower themselves & better their lives. I felt humbled. Really really really humbled.

Bought a bunch of stuff at Borderline the next day, “A Creative Space for Expression in Exile.” It boasts handmade products from women’s groups in Thailand & Burma & in doing so, enables them to have access to fair trade income generation opportunities. 80% of proceeds go towards various related causes. Shopping for a good cause! I loved it.



Support support support.

17 April 2008

holy s--- songkran!!!


It is so hot here. It is a steamy Thai summer, & the sun beats down relentlessly for 12 hours of the day, melting concrete & makeup & brains without mercy. My bedroom has no aircon, so I lie awake for at least an hour each night after going to bed, unable to sleep even with an electric fan pointed 2 inches from my face blowing hot air, & I wake up uncomfortably drenched in sweat as soon as the sun peeks its head out over the horizon once again. I take 3 showers a day. It is unbelievably hot.

The Buddhist New Year celebration of Songkran coincides with this most sweaty season, when the sun enters into a new position in the zodiac. The word Songkran is derived from Sanskrit & means passage into a new phase. Sacred Buddha images are washed & water is symbolically tossed on one another as a sign of blessings & cleansing for a prosperous year ahead. It's a good way to cool down in this heat. But Chiang Mai takes the festivities to a whole other level, & the city erupts into full-blown water warfare. No exaggeration either. For FOUR WHOLE DAYS it is absolutely impossible to stay dry, as the moment you leave the confines of the house, you’re pelted with water guns, hoses & buckets-full of water. The square-shaped moat is the center of all the action & becomes a throbbing mess of slippery bodies, flooded streets & pure pandemonium. Pails attached on strings are lowered into the moat & subsequently emptied onto a victim’s head or the passing motorists. On the street, open tuktuks & pick-up trucks filled with revelers & huge drums of water speed by & blast everyone in their path with water canons. And if you’re really lucky, you might just end up in the moat, as my roommate did when she went to refill her bucket & a (now former) friend shoved her in. Shudder. And I hated the ice water! Cold then hot then cold again. No one & nothing is safe, & you have to shield your most delicate belongings (i.e. mobiles, cameras) in quadruple-wrapped plastic bags or leave them at home altogether, lest they get damaged. I can only wonder how many mobiles have been destroyed, skin rashes have broken out, and shoes have been lost in the moat over the course of the festivities.

It’s a welcome respite from the heat, & the first day I was fully into it, but by day 2 I was hiding indoors & begging for mercy. How could this possibly go on for 4 days??! You can’t get anything done. There’s no greater feeling of dread than when you’re walking down the street alone, still shivering from ice water attacks & there is a group of 20 boys on the sidewalk, waiting with evil grins & water hoses, ready to ambush you. And you have to good-naturedly take each & every water attack, bow your head & thank your assailant for the “blessing,” even thought he nearly ruined your $400 digital camera with a bucket-full of parasite-infested murky moat water. Yaaargghhh.

These are the best pictures I managed to take, since every time I took out my camera from its plastic fortress I was risking its life. I looked like a drowned rat. But so did everyone else. The gay boys were especially sexy in their see-through & skimpy t-shirts. I worked with them one of the days of the festival handing out wet condoms & dancing on the streets. The only straight boy in the pic, the guy next to me, is a local celebrity apparently, but I have no idea who he is. I think his name is Tek?

When not working I was out at one of the millions of parades or outdoor parties going on, or my favorite bar, which had transformed into a soaked & sloshed wonderland. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.


I just realized that I’ve been able to participate in at least 3 New Year celebrations in the past 4 months. It’s like starting over & over again, & a reminder to keep a brighter perspective each time. It’s turning out to be a very good year.

15 April 2008

it's bali, babi!


The trip we’ve been planning forever to celebrate Sophie’s 30th birthday. We flew in from all corners- Sophie from New York, Pren from Hong Kong, Audrey from the Philippines, me from Thailand, with one Bali local, Karen, to show us around. Much eating, drinking, shopping & laughing ensued. I’ve so missed my friends.

Pictures say it best.

Surfing on Kuta beach. Many battle scars- including scraped knees, mangled toes, bruised chins, choked throats, & severe ass burns.


Dancing & drinking at beachside clubs.




Poolside pampering, massages & manicures at our Seminyak villa.


Sunset, cocktails & fois gras sushi at our everyday hangout & the bestest bar in Bali, Ku De Ta.



Finally meeting the famed Babi Guling in the mountainous jungle village of Ubud. That is, roast suckling pig stuffed with Balinese spices. Hands down the best meal of the trip.


And the villa! I went from sharing a bunk bed, aircon-less, ant-infested little house to this.


It was so hard to leave. I think I even shed a tear.

Bali, I love you. Terimah kasih!


06 April 2008

erin is surfing in bali


A shame that being on the go all the time means less time to update you all. It's amazing here! Plenty of pictures to come. :)