Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Creating a Village

I am already back in Chiang Mai, a strange occurrence considering that just over a week ago I was here. However, this time I am here to pick up my parents from the airport in a couple hours, an unmistakably exciting reason to be here.

However, my relationship to Chiang Mai is also changing. I used to feel in every visit like an outsider, a confused visitor, a fraud who knew just enough Thai to survive but whose mind was ever switching to Shan. But yesterday and today has reminded me that it does not take spending huge swaths of time in a place to turn a city into a village. The villa I always stay at greeted me happily with lots of questions when I arrived. The man that fixed my friend's computer smiled cheerfully in recognition when I came to him with a computer that would not connect to the internet. The Shan housekeeper at the villa and her younger siblings went to dinner with me after work (as soon as they heard I was going to dinner at 8pm, though they had already eaten, they declared I was not allowed to go alone, grabbed my hand, and took me out the door). This morning the breakfast restaurant owner asked me if I knew anyone looking for work that I could send her way (she knows I know many Shan people who might be looking), and the Shan cook that works with her held my hand as she asked about my parents coming. Finally, I find myself in the same coffee shop that always plays Norah Jones and Eva Cassidy music. As I walked in, the lady that owns the shop asked me in Thai, "You want a latte as usual, right?"

I've gotten in the habit of explaining to people that there's something special about village life that I cannot imagine giving up right now, and that certainly remains true. But I am also coming to an awareness that a person can choose to live as if in a village anywhere really. There may be many, many choices for food in Chiang Mai, but by becoming a regular, I am creating the same sense of closeness and space in Chiang Mai as I have in my village. I am connecting on a human level. I am learning names. I am smiling and following up to the tidbits of story I've learned the last time. While here in Chiang Mai, I do always still miss the real village (I say this while the background noise of construction machinery threatens to blast my eardrums), but perhaps, more importantly, a more transferable mindset has developed in recent months. My home may change several more times in my lifetime. Politics may force that eventually. But I am committed to the human connections that living in a Shan village has taught me.

Tuesday, March 06, 2012

Whispering to a migrant worker

A couple hours ago, I went to Chiang Mai University's dental hospital to get my teeth examined, and I was given the bad news: I have my first ever cavity. Actually, though I had made it 25 years thus far without that diagnosis, apparently a rice-dominant diet has turned my pretty teeth into a hotbed of six new cavities.

While that was mildly disturbing, the good news was they could get back to me the same day to fill them. That has meant I've had an odd number of hours in which I do not want to go too far, because I will be coming back to get my teeth filled, but I also do not have a whole lot left to do on this part of town (besides either sit at my guest house eating mango, as I am doing now, or sit in a cafe). So I decided to explore a little market I had only brushed past previously to fill up some time, hoping I might find some tea, a pillowcase, or a bath mat, the three things I'm currently looking for.

I'll try to go by again tomorrow or the day after and take some pictures of this market. It's really quite small compared to most similar markets, but it holds all of what I love best in a market. The stalls crowded close together. The smells. The snacks. The colors. The spices. Everything. And then random bath-related products in the back. That appears to almost always be the case in every market.

As I was looking for a bath mat, I decided to go check out some of the random bath-related stalls. To my surprise, one of them also had an array of yarn, so I decided to ask if they had crochet hooks, something several girls at the clinic had requested. Unfortunately, at about this point, my Thai began to fall apart, and all I had left was the random assortment of words in Shan that I knew I could use to ask my questions. Of course, Thai and Shan, while overlapping 30%, are rather like English and Dutch... similar, yes, but that doesn't mean speaking one means understanding the other.

But the girl helping me understood me... I saw it in her eyes. I knew I had used the wrong words, but she pointed me immediately in the right direction. I tried to speak again in Thai, but once again failing, a mishmash of Thai and Shan tumbled out of my mouth, and I felt a gentle arm suddenly pulling me further into the shop as she put her finger to her lips.

Finally her own words came out in slow, deliberate Shan for me, so that I would understand, "Older Sister, why are you speaking Shan?"

"I don't know Thai," I answered. "But you know Shan too then!"

Again, she hushed me with her finger to her lips, and added, "Older Sister, there are two of us who are Shan here, but be quiet. There are Thais walking around. Nobody knows."

I looked at her and comprehended for the first time what it really means to not have papers. No ID. To not exist in the eyes of the world.

We went on to chat some more, and she asked me why I knew Shan and was quite happy to learn that I lived in a Shan border town she knew quite well and had even lived in. She craved any knowledge I could give her about her Shan community, but my own linguistic abilities only allowed the most basic of knowledge. We whispered a little longer in a corner of the store, then after verifying where I could get what I was looking for, I left.

And I reflected.

Earlier today my usual "breakfast shop" gave me some extra soup for "being Shan." In fact, they never call me the Farang anymore, only "Miss Shan" (Sao Thai Yayy), a name actually given by the very kind Thai owner and repeated by the Shan workers.

Because I believe in the power of language, I have not yet figured out what it means that when I come to Chiang Mai, the language I speak is the language of the lowest tier in Thai society. The undocumented workers. Individuals who have left their homes for a combination of both economic and political reasons. Individuals who feel no other options left. And find the struggles of life in Chiang Mai to be their only chance at survival.

And I find myself whispering in corners of little bath product stalls, while a young girl calls me older sister and asks me for the news.

The real news is that this young girl is just one of 1.44 million unregistered migrants in Thailand. See: http://www.un.or.th/documents/TMR-2011.pdf

Monday, March 05, 2012

If

I've been thinking a great deal lately about what it means to live well in the midst of stark uncertainty. Right now, my entire community and world exists between two radically different possibilities. IF there is real peace. IF the fighting returns more intensely than even before. It seems one of these two will happen. It seems there's no in between.

IF there's peace, we can move on a vaccination program and start talking about what education in Shan State might look like one day. We can discuss development and consider sustainable agriculture. We can even use buzz words like micro loans and agriculture co-ops.

IF there's fighting, we'll need every available blood donor. And aide. Delivering food. And love for every traumatized victim. And we will face still further daily uncertainty.

I know, I'm using the word "we," because I live in a community that faces this existence. And this future is, in part, my future. But I won't ever go to the front lines to defend my village. And I'll be allowed to leave whenever I decide all the uncertainty is just too much. And I will get away regularly to reconnect with others, skype my family, who are all safe and sound, and drink iced coffees in cafes while writing blog entries with soft jazz music in the background.

When I think about all of this, the longing for peace, which I find myself repeatedly writing about in every letter, becomes almost overwhelming. The second "IF" emotionally overwhelms me for all my friends. Though 90% of the time, every friend and loved one surrounding me is Shan, it is I in the end who can escape the pain, and I find I cannot stand that reality. I want my community, my friends, those I love to have the same ability as I... but I have a passport, and that changes everything.

So, please, pray as all of us as we live between this shaky reality of what could be and what might be. We live with the dreams and fears entangled together. The hope of one day returning home for those I love is beyond words. But the other IF... All I ask is that you pray. That you remained concerned with our little corner of the world. That you read the news about Burma. That you write any and every politician you find when campaigns are run for the sake of Burma. For we live in uncertainty, and the answer to all of our questions about what might be lies in the hands of a few government and military figures... and I'm naive enough to believe that maybe the rest of the world will influence their decisions. So pray. And act. And read. And talk.

And check out Partners: http://www.partnersworld.org

Or the Campaign for Burma: http://uscampaignforburma.org/