First day in Mae Sai

Entering the “other real world”, before going into the “usual real world”

So I decided that I want to start writing a blog, not because I think I’m a good writer, nor because I think I have great insight to anything, but because I want people that I love to witness the journey that I am taking that I think is essential for my personal growth –as a person, and as a child of God.

I am eternally grateful for what I have been blessed with. Everyday, I would give thanks for all the privileges that I have – more than a comfortable living, education, health, a loving family, a promising career. My mind tells that that I should be happy, and that survival in this world for me should be easy; but my heart longs for something more than consumerism, for an answer to the question “what is my calling”; while my soul searches for God and the way to peace. These are the things that I still struggle with.

So I have just over 2 weeks to be in Mae Sai, which is an area on the boarder of Thailand adjacent to Myanmar. I am volunteering at DEPDC, which is an organization that aims to prevent human trafficking, and today was my first day. I had a pleasure to spend it with Sarah, who is another volunteer from the States that has been with the organization for over a year. She started the day of by giving me a little presentation about the background of the organization and the human trafficking industry.

The first thing that I found astounding is that contrary to popular belief, poverty is not the most major factor of why people sell themselves or their children for sex or labor. A lot of people who are trafficked are people who don’t belong to the nation that they’re in. Many people who were born in Thailand whose parents are not Thai often get stuck in a situation where their ability to be granted Thai citizenship was left to the whim of the local government that is infamous for their bureaucracy. A lot of them end up being “stateless”. Legally, they can’t even travel outside of their district without a permit, or else they’ll be arrested. Most permits will grant them the ability to go somewhere nearby for a couple of weeks, but that’s as much as they would get. Imagine being born in Thailand, and the government will not allow you to legally go and work in Chiang Mai, which is the next to your home town. These people are extremely prone to trafficking, as the trafficker can have them be stuck in a situation where they know nobody, and that they cannot get help from the authorities. I was amazed by how the people that we call “authorities” can deny fellow humans basic human rights such as citizenship in the country that they were born in.

Sarah then told me about why people have the incentive to sell themselves or their children. It’s not always that they don’t have enough to eat. Sometimes, it’s because they don’t have a TV, or jewelry that they see that their neighbors have. These people also know that their neighbors have acquired these luxuries through selling their daughters, and it’s natural for them to think that they should do the same. Sarah told me that she knows a family in Chiang Rai, with a big house equipped with air conditioning, that have sent their daughters to “work” in Bangkok. Consumerism is like a viral disease. Prior, I assumed that it only affected people in the cities, and that it dictates us to only wear certain brands of clothes, and live in certain type of houses. Today, I found out that I was majorly wrong.

Parents and girls hope that through prostitution, there is a possibility that the entire family will become wealthy. Not because prostitution pays a lot, but because the clever ones will deceive men to financially support them on a regular basis. They will say that they’re in love with these men, and that they are ending their prostitution career, but they need more money for this and that. They do quite well financially, but these are the top people. These are the top 1% or less. The rest of them are the ones that are deceived. They are raped, beaten, forced to do all kinds of things they don’t want to do, get sent to all types of places they don’t belong to, have their legs broken, get all front teeth knocked out, get stuck to work on a boat for years with no way out. The list goes on and on.

Our society has gotten to the point where it is okay that parents are willing to put their daughters in this kind of risk for a new set of TV, or may be air conditioning. That it is okay that I have an unused Louis Vuitton bag in my closet that I don’t really need, while there are hungry children who live a few blocks away. That deception, rape, abuse, and denying basic human rights are all fair game when it comes to money. I am not finger pointing, and if I am at all, 3 fingers out of 5 shall be pointed to me. But this is the culture that we live in, a harsh reality recognized by so many, that so few have a solution for.

I don’t know how to make this right, and how to make this world a better place. But later on today, I found joy while teaching the kids English. These are the little kids who would be prone to trafficking when they reach their early teenage years. DEPDC aims to educate them and give them enough skills and self esteem so that when the time comes, they recognize that their human right is worth more than any amount of money can buy. I found these kids to be very pleasurable to teach. They are not naughty, and they don’t seem to be any less intelligent than the kids I know in the city. They remind me of myself and my classmates when we were younger. It made me realized that we were made to be equal in His eyes, and if children are given the opportunity, they can excel. These kids that I was teaching were so cute. They sounded like they actually had fun shouting on the top of their lungs “My favorite animal is lion”, which was the phrase that I was teaching them. They did everything that I had tried to teach them, and they did it well. When one girl showed me that she has written the sentence “My favorite animal is ass”, she seemed so upset and scared when I told her that we don't say that anymore but now we commonly use the word "donkey".  I laughed because it was so funny how upset she was even though I found it to be a cute and funny mistake.

So I am making up the mindset which I hope to last for the rest of the 2 weeks here. I want to learn how to find joy in little things that makes those around me laugh, which are things that money can never buy. I want this journey to continue once I start working in the money driven world of business. I want to learn about humility, and what it means to be a fellow human.