You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July 2011.
Me and the cutest 3-year-old - she has the sweetest voice and loves to sing, but also can be very strong-willed. This one is a leader and needs to be nurtured in the right way so that her spirit won't be broken by harsh discipline
Thankful for times and people who change your life… thankful for the ability to choose where I want to work and everything else. The former trafficked women I met in The Golden Triangle region do not have the freedom to choose because they were born in a village and have had limited education, nor have they developed confidence in themselves to fulfill their dreams. Those of us who do have decision-making power can help empower the voiceless. We have a huge responsibility if we’re willing…
Notes by a global nomad:
It’s been quite a journey since a few months ago when I frantically packed for The Golden Triangle region and with fingers flying and burning up the keyboard, I finished a book project (actually it’s 3 separate books). After flying to multiple cities, and traveling by trains, planes and automobiles, my head feels like it’s spinning with the faces of different people I have met and the colours, the textures, the outlines, the smells of the vastly differing contexts all run in a long smoky blur. The challenge now is to write what I’ve witnessed.
I miss the folks at my last pit stop… the former prostituted women I had met and interviewed and especially this adorable 3 year old Ai Xin who left a mark on me. I haven’t uploaded her photo yet. But I can share this: her father is a pimp and her mother was a 16 year old who was forced into prostitution. Her 35-year-old father could no longer care for her full-time. Ai Xin was out with her dad all night while he did his pimping work and she had the filthiest mouth (she’d repeat what her father would say). Some abolitionists convinced Ai Xin’s dad to release his daughter to their full-time care and it turned out that he had asked his older sister to take her in, but she refused (he beat her up for some other issue and she was angry with him). Now Ai Xin’s in a safe home for former sex slaves who are single mothers and her innocence is being restored.
She’s a three-year-old child again!
Here’s another photo with elderly ’Asian Holocaust’ survivors of the Asia Pacific War from my collection of memories this year:
These grandmas are so girlish and happy in this picture. They loved taking these photo booth style pictures.
“If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow-creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large.” – William Wilberforce
I have been without internet for sometimes the entire day and I have lived to tell about it. (half kidding)
It’s intense to be around abandoned kids and former sex slaves. So some of us volunteers decided to kick back and hang around with some elephants at the minority village!
No twitter and facebook access and spotty wifi + a very intense schedule on the road = neglected blog. I have a few more cities to go before I have an extended time of work.
I call him Bif. He had his wheaties and then some this morning. FYI: he responds only to Chinese with a heavy dialect.
Poseurs for a day in minority dresses. I'm wearing a Jingpo outfit at the far right.
I am this minority rock star's biggest fan for the moment
Hani minority guy at the village well
At a touristy village theme park that features 26 minorites... I need another day to go through all of the minority villages
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