Ok, it’s really not that hard to grock.

In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, the vast majority of the “enlightened” world hangs out taking drugs (Soma) and ignoring reality.

All members of society are conditioned in childhood to hold the values that the World State idealizes. Constant consumption is the bedrock of stability for the World State. Everyone is encouraged to consume the ubiquitous drug, soma. Soma is a hallucinogen that takes users on enjoyable, hangover-free “vacations”.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World)

The dominate society leaves little room for its members to have any form of creative thinking, artistic ability or individuality. The government pretty much makes sure that people are kept happy with massive doses of Soma so that they stop thinking and don’t cause problems.

They are told that there is another group of people called Savages who they are pretty much raised to think are stupid people who live off the land, away from technology and away from Soma. There are Savage villages setup for people to go see, kept almost like a human zoo where the dominate society can go see how the lesser-people live. The book goes on with some characters meeting the Savages and their lives being changed by them. That’s not really the point of this post, the point is that when I was taken to a Hmong village in Laos, I totally thought of the book.

The Hmong are a hill tribe who live in the mountains of Thailand and Laos (and a few other countries) and who were royally fucked by the USA government during the Vietnam war.

In the late 1950s, southeast Asia, including Laos, was viewed as an important region to the West. With the fall of China to communism and the rise of Communist rebellion in Vietnam, the US sent elite soldiers, the Green Berets, to train Hmong guerrillas to oppose the Vietnamese and the Pathet Lao communists of Laos. Though the Hmong had no desire to play political roles for other nations, they loved freedom and know that there would be little freedom under Communism. They were threatened by the intrusion of North Vietnamese troops into Laos, so the U.S. then encouraged them to fight and provided training and weapons. With CIA assistance, General Vang Pao became the leader of a secret army of 9,000 Hmong men in 1961. Laos was officially neutral as the Vietnam War broke out, and the US had signed an international agreement, the Geneva Accords, intended to keep Laos neutral and prevent fighting there. In reality, this agreement gave the Communists the upper hand, for they flagrantly violated the agreement. Responding to the presence of active North Vietnamese troops in Laos, the US tried to oppose them without appearing to violate the Geneva Accords by secretly recruiting freedom-loving locals to fight the Communist — and these freedom-loving locals were the Hmong.

…

The loss of 60,000 American lives for a no-win war in Vietnam was a tragedy to the huge nation of America, but it was a relatively small percentage of the nation compared to the loss the Hmong people suffered. In 1969, at the time when Congress first learned of our secret war in Laos, about 18,000 Hmong soldiers had already been killed in battle died, and many women and children had died as well. The Hmong were taking a great risk in boldly fighting for the United States, trusting that we would stand by them. But in 1973, the U.S. began to pull out of Laos, leaving the Hmong on their own to fight thousands of North Vietnamese troops in Laos. By 1975, Laos had fallen completely into Communist hands, and the lives of all Hmong people who helped fight the Communists were in jeopardy. More than 100,000 Hmong fled to Thai refugee camps. Many would be killed along the way, especially when crossing the Mekong River to get to Thailand. An estimated 30,000 Hmong would be killed by Communist forces while trying to reach Thailand. Over 100,000 Hmong people died as a result of the war, and today nearly every Hmong family in the US has terrible tales of loss and tragedy relating to the war.

After taking over Laos in 1975, the Pathet Lao Communists stated that they would wipe out the Hmong. A Vietnamese broadcast apparently called for genocide against them. From 1976 to 1979, there were credible reports of chemical warfare used against Hmong villages. The world tried to ignore these reports, and some influential voices in the United States tried to discredit the evidence, claiming that the “yellow rain” that had been used to kill Hmong people was just natural bee feces, not a chemical toxin. By the time overwhelming evidence had been gathered to shatter the “bee feces” theory, the media no longer seemed interested in exploring charges of genocide by Communist forces.

The United States, recognizing the sacrifice made by Hmong soldiers to fight for the U.S., began accepting Hmong refugees into the United States in December of 1975. By 1990, about 100,000 refugees had entered the United States. Today approximately 250,000 Hmong are in the U.S., and a similar number still live in Laos. Over 5 million Hmong people are in Southern China, also under Communist rule.

(http://www.jefflindsay.com/hmong.shtml)

As we were nearing the Thai border on our boat trip down the Mekong river, we stopped at a Hmong village that was setup along the river bank. The village in many ways felt like the Savage village in
Brave New World. As each boat parked, the big tall white tourists were greeted by dirty, brown naked kids who took tried to sell us handicrafts. I was lucky in that most of the kids seemed to ignore me for the adults, who would easily buy the stuff they had for sale. The village was setup to look very traditional, but to me it felt like it was setup to handle tourists and didn’t really show a traditional way of life. Of course, as I write this, I am wondering that if perhaps dealing with tourists in this fashion has become a traditional way of life; replacing traditional slash-and-burn agriculture and the need to frequently move that comes with it. In a country where there education is still developing and where ethnic minorities often struggle for full recognition, this may be one of the few ways to make a living.

The only photograph that I shot is the one above, of the western ball-cap sitting in a pile of grass. It seemed to sum up the contrast of the whole place, and also leave open lots of questions. Was the ball-cap a gift from a Westerner, or was it made in China or Burma by one of the Hmong and brought back once the factory work stopped.

Anyway, most of the people I met there either didn’t speak Lao or just didn’t want to talk to me. Hopefully I’ll be able to study Hmong language before I head back.

So I’m probably not your average tourist, when I travel I find that my interests are much more about language and contemporary culture than in seeing lots of old buildings. I think that it’s mostly seeing how other people live their lives that interests me, but I strongly feel that it’s impossible to understand a different way of living without understanding the language too. I don’t mean just understanding how to order a plate of rice, but understanding the vocabulary and grammar and how it reflects a way of thinking. I know it’s not possible (for most people) to get a level of fluency in a language before going to every new country, but even just getting the basics down will give you the foundation you need to learn more when you go to that country.

In looking at the way that people live their lives, I love seeing things like small-town nightlife and universities. In big cities, there are separate night clubs for every possible subgroup. I don’t even just mean gay or straight, in big cities there will be separate places for young gay guys, heavy gay guys, lesbians, etc … In small places (like Luang Prabang) there is one night club (well maybe two, I’m not totally sure) … Especially on weekends, it will be full of just about everyone. Young gay college kids, parents with kids at home, a handful (well hardly any really) tourists, teenagers, etc … Everyone will go out to in what in many ways is a form of a community center. Shared experiences bind groups together, I’ve talked before about how different it feels being an outsider in Thailand than it does in San Francisco. When I lived in San Francisco, my friends were from all over the world, we grew up with different foods, different TV shows, different educational systems. This is true even for people who grow up in USA, the experience growing up in Texas is much different from the experience of growing up in Vermont. In Thailand, people generally grew up with the same TV shows, same food, similar education, similar testing, and (for the most part) a common religion and king. When you see small-town night life, it shows you that common shared experience that people (across multiple sub-groups) all have together.

Both the international and local papers had a crisis to report on (anyone know what the Chinese language one says) …. the world really is a mess. I blame อี Bush for it all. In other news, my voter ballot came in the mail today … it will at least feel good to mail that in.

Here’s an article on the situation in Thailand.

So I just got one of those new iPhone things that seem to be all the rage. It really is the most amazing phone that I’ve ever used, really just an Apple computer that fits in your pocket. There are some interesting language learning tools for it that I have been playing with (look for a future post) and there is also this digital camera deal. I had pretty much sworn off using digital cameras as I got annoyed with the look of the photos, something about them just didn’t look as nice as film. I still feel that way, but with this one I’ve found that I like how the immediacy of it all allows me to experiment with composition and how it allows me to document strange things around me.

I shot the following two images on my way home, the second one just shows how horrible traffic can be after the rain … the first one shows the same thing, but it also gets at the unique rules of the road in BKK. On the lower-right side of the image, there is a motorcycle cutting through traffic going the wrong way … something that is pretty normal here. Right-of-way in BKK is generally determined by who is bigger and also who is alive. Cars give way to buses, motorcycles give way to cars, strange cart things gave way to motorcycles and people have to watch out for everything. Sidewalks are generally safe, but motorcycles often use the sidewalk as a shortcut when traffic is bad. Crosswalks and red lights are an indicator that things might be safe to cross, but there’s no guarantee … things here give way to the who-is-alive rule, if a car runs a red light, runs you over and keeps going, it doesn’t really matter if she ran the red light or not.

It is also really common for motorcycles to weave through traffic, often going the wrong way down the street … which explains why it is somewhat common for people to open car doors into bikes and to just see bad motorcycle accidents in general.

The strange with it all is that there is virtually no honking at all. In rare cases where a motorist needs to let you know something, he might honk but there is virtually none of the bored or vindictive honking that happens in USA (or the non-stop honking of India). It’s almost as it Thailand’s culture of manners and not intruding into people’s space tells them not to honk, but to feel free to them run red lights, cut people off and have an occasional hit-and-run … don’t try to make sense of it.

I’ve been meaning to post some information about my university for a while as it is a very unique place, in that it draws people from all over the country together to learn in one place. More so than other universities, Ramkamheang, creates a broad cross-section of the country, drawing people from very different socioeconomic backgrounds and age-groups. The cost per credit hour is 25 Bhat, which means that a normal 3-credit full semester course, runs 75 Bhat (a little over $2USD). I don’t know the details of how things are funded, but I am guessing that there is significant government funding going into the place. Out of approximately 600,000 students, there are around 10 of us foreigners … I’m the only white person, there rest are Japanese, Chinese, Lao, Cambodian and Burmese. (There is an international college that is part of the university which has more people from the Occident due to its instruction being in English, but that is a separate entity).

The grade is made of of a single final exam and attendance to classes is not required. Many students go part time while working, sometimes coming to classes but other times trying to read the text books at home. Students who graduate are thought to be very hard-working and self-motivated, as the lack of an attendance requirement or mid-term exams allows for lazy students to slip through the cracks.

The majority of the classes happen at two campuses in Bangkok, and there are also close to 30 satellite locations around the country which are setup for distance learning. One thing I find so visually interesting is that there is often different technologies all layered on top of each other. There are many large lecture halls used for exams and freshman lecture classes, each one seats about 500+ students and is outfitted with giant ceiling fans (no air-conditioning) and large TVs that hang from the ceiling. The professor stands up at the front to teach, his face and lecture notes are displayed on the TVs and then there is a full editing room in the corner where the lecture is edited and broadcast out on the internet and via satellite for students who can’t make it in.

One you get into your major courses, the class size drops down considerably. My Spanish class is in a room like this with 15 students and my Sanskrit class is in an even smaller room with 4 students.

There is a lot of construction going on and many buildings are slated to be torn down and rebuild over the next few years.

There school was built 37 years ago and there are some really strange things that remain, including this Austin Powers-esque conference-room.

There is a full TV and radio production facility, where the university produces content for its own television station,

and where lectures are broadcast live to satellite campuses. I haven’t been down to any of the satellite campuses yet, but plan to eventually. From what I understand, they have rooms full of TV monitors where students watch a lecture and also microphones which the students can use to ask the professor questions.

The full photo survey that I’ve been doing can be seen here.

thai newspapers will print just about anything to get people’s attention. they particularly love photos of dead bodies, or when the police force a shoplifter to reenact his crime for the camera (causes the criminal and his family to loose face and let’s the store clerk who caught him gain face).

this particulartly strange photo ran a week or so ago … the caption reads “Mr. Sskri Anunnrawad, a well-known professor, had this show repair needle shoved into his head by the cobbler Mr. Jerun. Ohh what good luck that it didn’t enter his brain! The cobbler apparently wasn’t happy with some situation caused.”

bush is coming to town, which means it’s time for the thai government to do a quick clean up … make things boring for a week. everything always goes back to normal once he is gone tho. it’s become clear tho that bush’s problems don’t stem from his general lack of competence or the fact that he’s dumb, apparently thai farmers have put a curse on him.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/JG31Ae01.html

Pirated DVDs, fake Swiss watches and imitation designer garments are fast disappearing from Patpong, a red-light strip in the Thai capital popular with tourists, bargain-hunters and others. The clean-up comes ahead of US President George W Bush’s two-day visit next week to Thailand as part of his final Asian tour as chief executive.

The US has pushed for stronger IPR protection in the proposed FTA than is currently mandated by member states to the World Trade Organization, which allows for generic drug production under certain circumstances through a compulsory licensing arrangement. US officials have taken issue with that clause and were behind the 2006 removal of a World Health Organization country representative to Thailand who argued against the FTA.

Local interest groups, particularly the farmers who have suffered from previous free trade deals, doubt those scientific assessments. They demonstrated their displeasure with US trade policies the last time Bush visited Thailand in 2003, placing a curse on him by dropping his photograph inside a pot and tossing it into the northern Ping River amid chants and black magic mantras. Bush can likely expect more of the same during his visit next week.

In an organized society we have the hospital, school, police station, the law courts. But after all these things are dealt with there is still a gap inside of everyone which can only be filled by reading, listening to music, writing poetry, making art, looking at art.

When you get up in the morning, sit on the edge of the bed, keep your eyes clothes and then only stand up when you’ve thought “what do i want to say to the world today”.

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