On to the next steps...!

My last entry for a while I think, as I finally managed to get a concrete plan and am heading north to a little village along the border called Ban Luang on Saturday. I'm quite excited actually, both to get out of Chiang Mai and to finally get further with my research. I will get in touch with children that have recently come over the border from Burma, and are living in a near refugee- like camp situation. Though it will be a short stay -3 days- it is a good start and might lead me to some other villages and contacts. From there I have more stops. I see this as the beginning of a bigger trip around north Thailand!

So tomorrow I'm debating heading up the mountain here around Chiang Mai called Doi Suthep, kinda as my last thing to do here b4 moving on...but who knows what mood i'll wake up in, haha. Besides that, I'm gonna have to repack all my crap, which of course I managed to bring unnecessary items that i'll just leave behind at a local NGO here.
Managed to visit a Shan wat (temple) here today and talk to one of the young monks-in-training via the translator I've found, Nam Pun. Though it wasn't the greatest convo, didn't learn as much as I would've liked, it was somewhat insightful in that it shows how the Shan are networking to provide the children that have no proper papers to get an education etc. Most of the boys there were recently come from a migrant farming community and from Burma, which does say something about the aims of that particular wat. Also, a wat is considered safe b/c monks cannot be picked up by the police, and on top of that Shan and Thai are freely taught in the wat with the added bonus of basic needs of the children being met (though of course this only counts for the boys).

And although I've mentioned that I'm not the biggest fan of traveling alone, i have found that in this way i am forced to immerse myself in local culture faster, and that is a big plus. Finding those yummy cheap food stalls, that cool fruit shake for only 10b, the little words and customs that make it easier to connect.

hmm, somehow my silly ramblings have reached a dead end now. oh i don't know if i mentioned the Shan migrant family I met here in Chiang Mai this week. Got to meet them through a guy named Mario Lao, who has set up a team to provide extra education/other needs to the Shan living in urban Chiang Mai as construction works. The families live in basic bamboo shanty houses, which have been know to burn down. They live on the land of their latest contractor, until the next job when they move on. Its an unstable life, and the major worry for the parents is that the children don't have a stable life and future. With the current way papers are giving to these migrants, children will end up with temporary work permits like their parents or will end up back in Burma with no proper birth certificates or any kind of citizenship there either. They basically end in a no-man's land.

Well, this gives more of a glimpse of the types of children I am seeing here. I find it hard though, to try to stay neutral, to just be 'doing my research', asking questions but not doing anything...it seems a bit hard to be treating real human lives as 'specimens for research', something i don't think i will ever get over.
--> pic: sunset over the hills surrounding Chiang Mai, and a take-away meal when i get tired of hunting down food 3x a day ;-). they've got some yummy, spicy food here, and i'm constantly asked if its too spicy, at which i shake made head bravely, saying "just a little bit but its good" with a smile, while my nose is running and my lips are burning haha!

Stories and Events

hmm, okay so its been another week. i have now officially been here for 2 wks, and i'm pretty sure i'm waayyy past the so-called 'honeymoon phase'. as i'm rewinding my brain through the past week, let me stop at a few interesting points. note: for those uninterested in long stories, i suggest a skim or skipping this post.
Brilliant me decided on tuesday afternoon to go visit the 'tribal museum', as it was advertised as a good place to visit before any trekking trips in the northern hills of thailand were many hill tribes reside (hence the title tribal museum). as i'm heading off to the northern areas in about a week, if all goes to plan (which it never does so no worries, i won't deceive myself). but the best part of planning i suppose is making the plans themselves, and then discovering how much more fun it is to throw the plans out the window and let some adventure lead you. anyways, b/c i'm heading north soon, i thought the tribal museum might be an amusing, if perhaps informational, place.

so as i walk down from my guesthouse, down the same little road with the myriad of mom and pop shops that i have walked at least twice a day every day, i signal a songthaew. a songthaew btw is a red truck, or what the thais like to call a red taxi, that u just hop in if the driver is going in the direction you need to go, paying about 20baht per ride. this is all well and good when the driver knows where you want to go, but my driver that morning had not a clue about any 'tribal museum'. "museum museum? ah okay" he says. i point on the map and even at the name in thai to show him its not just any museum i want to go to. he looks a bit confused, but ever happy for a customer, and of course a farang he might be able to charge a bit more from, he tells me to hop in. with some confusing pointing at the map and broken dialogue back and forth, he ultimately drops me off not about halfway to my destination, near the bus station and points me to a language center across the street, ha! okay so i was prepared for a little adventure of this sort, so laughingly i step out and head across the street to the language center, figuring it never hurts to ask. although the two students and teacher spoke english and were very helpful, they also were not quite sure how to help me, trying to teach me to say tribal museum in thai (something along the lines of pitipichipak chao dong) so i could tell the driver. finally one of the kids says, why don't you call the museum and ask them for help? haha. okay, no luck there. i head back across the street and flag down another songthaew, this one a white one which usually means the head out farther from Chiang Mai. I say tribal museum, he says okay, and i hop in the back. not 5 mins later (during which i had a glimpse of the thai perspective of gender and sexuality, i won't elaborate here) the driver hops down and signals for me to get out, we're here at C.M.! I'm thinking C.M., not quite familiar, but alright. C.M. is a big electronics shop as it turns out, and now i'm thinking i'd better just ask for directions on how to walk. inside a kind lady draws a map, and i walk in the heat for about 15 min., seeing a sign for Tribal Museum but no arrow. I walk into what looks like a big park, and decide to ask my 5th victim where the Tribal Museum is. She is a kind young lady who does not speak much english, but decides that she must walk me all the way there! This involved some short communication of names, where we're from, how hot it is, and that she really doesn't need to take me there, but that she really wants to. in the process we hop a fence (well she slips through, i have to hop it, hehe), and walk past a large pond whose banks are lined completely full of dodgy platform huts on the water. by dodgy i mean they could have been perfectly legit and perhaps even cute lunch/snack venues, but for the mounds of beer and other alcoholic beverages, the loud crappy music and the curious absence of many women, making them more what i would call 'seedy pond-bars'.

anyways, long story, but i finally get to the small building they call the tribal museum whom actually no one knows anything, wander around semi-interested but also gaining only one good bit of information: the Shan are not considered an official ethnic tribe, and so there was no information on the them, and interestingly this i found out later, also makes them even more susceptible discrimination, and makes them fall in a large gray zone legally speaking. One organization i emailed, IJM, actually said they can't do anything for the Shan in Thailand because they do not have any proper legal status to work with, unlike other ethnic tribes from Burma such as the Karen.
Well that was my tuesday adventure, and though slightly exhausting because of the heat (which is only get worse as thailand heads into the peak summer months), overall quite amusing.
Wednesday marked my date with Partners, a relief/development organization for the Burmese displaced people. Garnered a bit more info on what work they are doing with the Shan, which is only now really going into full swing, and is very much medically focused, and also more interestingly got some contacts with Shan people themselves. This happened by tagging along with a clothing drop-off at a rather vaguely named Sport Center supply point. Basically, this is a place where the Shan in Thailand are organizating supplies and funds for the IDP camps on the Thai-Burma border, and also where education for some of these camps is being spear-headed. Like I said, given the situation of many Shan in Thailand (and esp. recently with a migrant incident that caused uproar and deportation of many Shan), they are weary of questions and hard to contact, so this was a great opportunity to kind of get some 'insider connections'. I do however need to find a way to make these work for me without scaring them off.
One tid-bit of info i got that day that was interesting is that although the Shan don't receive much aid and fall under a difficult rights/policy situation, they do seem to be quite resourceful, are aware of their situation and try to be as self-reliant as possible in the midst of it. This, one lady suggested, in contrast to the other Burmese groups that are receiving a lot of aid and attention.
One thing i have a noticed as i read the newspaper here, hear from and read articles of the NGOs i have visited, and read some of the government's view on things, is that the situation of refugees and migrants in Thailand is sticky and unclear one. Every person involved sees it from one angle, and uses this angle to their own benefit. this is not to judge whether what they are doing or their intention is right or wrong, but rather to say that the picture of the Shan people here in Thailand and Burma is one painted in a variety of colors, textures and styles, invariably placed on the market to be sold to a target audience. i take nothing i hear for granted.
Thursday passed by with an afternoon of internet at a cafe, making phone calls for my upcoming trips etc., and trying to figure out more concretely how to set up some good interviews to get the information i need without offending, how i'm actually gonna approach the children, and so forth. from reports of others that work with the Shan, it all requires a nuanced approach.
Friday I met with a potential translater, a very willing young woman who because of university commitments and bad motion-sickness, might not work out so well. but we will see. she of course was trying to be enthusiastic, this being one of few opportunities for a job and practicing her english, which also happens to be her major at uni.
in the midst of all this, i have wandered chiang mai so more (i have discovered some great fruit stands, much to my delight!), switched to a better sunnier room, and have been taking things one day at a time. monday holds my first interview with a Shan migrant family here in Chiang Mai, and hopefully my last week in the city will be productive, will make more concrete my upcoming plans, and hold some good revelation on how to get good results for my research!
--> the pics: a songthaew, the mark on my hand from jumping the fence, the seedy pond-bars, and some interesting postings at the museum

A Random Weekend

okay, so its sunday evening and i'm a little restless. walked through an amazing Sunday Market as they call it here, which is a bunch of small stands with food and whatever wares they want to sell you. this is mostly silk, vibrant cloth bags and clothes, and various trinkets made of teak wood. the sun sets as the market starts up, and there's lively lights and people everywhere. i'll post some pics if your interested. which btw, if you know me you know i don't like playing the tourist, so i've also avoided all the many treks and tours advertized here like the plague. and although i love pics, and like taking them too, i'm a little shy when it comes to standing out with my really white skin and doing the whole 'foto foto' thing of all the major sights. but i've braved it these last two days.
yesterday, i went to the Chiang Mai Zoo. It was Saturday, i had gotten a late start to my day, and i needed to get out and fill up my afternoon a bit. so what better to do then....go to the zoo! haha, yeah. well i was already overheated by the time i got there, only to find out that it basically on the side of a mountain, and so definitely what you could call 'hilly'. did see some cool animals, and the zoo really was quite pretty, with a nice view of the city (though really hazy b/c of the heat, have to wait for a view and blue skies till it rains! good luck with that, hehe). yet culture here isn't as used to seeing single ladies walk around by themselves, and of course not at a zoo on a saturday.
i came home tired and sweaty, but felt triumphant at having gotten out of the city.
well, i have no idea what i'm doing tomorrow, but that's o.k. i have one appointment with an organization called Partners set for wednesday, and have already met 3 diff. ppl/organizations this last week. hope to fit a few more in this week, depending on if i can finally get in touch. somehow, even if organizations have a website online, those working pretty directly with the Burmese or the Shan don't like to give out any addresses. so much for dropping by! will be working on finding a translator as well. i did hear one very interesting tip: to go to a wat here in Chiang Mai called Wat Pa Pao, which is apparently the hub for all Shan nationalist movement etc. If i get in with a native Thai speaker, i might be able to talk to a monk and get some wonderful insight into the world of the Shan!
hope you are all well on all the other sides of the world!

Beginnings

So here I am sitting in my small room in a random guesthouse in Chiang Mai called the Green Tulip, with a fan cooling me off and the curtains drawn on my 'window' to the hall. With a shared bathroom, its simple, clean, cheap and great mostly for one reason: wifi. Okay, so travelling around the world isn't supposed to be about hiding out in a room staying connected to this sucking-the-life-out-of-people space called the internet, but i've found that when doing research abroad, trying to make contacts, trying to finish assignments for school,and overall attempting to be semi-serious about life and all its often crappy responsibilities, internet is okay. The key i guess is to ditch it when no longer needed (something i really do plan to do).
Anyways, moving on. Having arrived here a little less than a week ago, after a long trip from Amsterdam, thru Zurich, and then Bangkok, I'm still getting into the swing of things. But I am REALLY loving being away from school, cold weather, and what I like to call 'my average life'. Warm weather, good food, and relaxed atmosphere is def more my thing!
Picking up Thai has not been very successful thus far, with me only get so far as kawp koon ka, sawatdee ka, kaw thot, and an occasional name of food or places i need to go. this i find rather frustrating when i can usually understand and pick up more than 3 WORDS when i am somewhere.
In my attempt to get started on my research on the Shan displaced children, as I so naively dubbed it before l left Amsterdam, I have found that my topic is as dynamic and complicated as i feared it was back in my lil bubble in A'dam, as well as underresearched by any kind of young foreign students. So most reactions I've gotten are, so what exactly do you want to research again? and what's your plan of action to actually reach these hard-to-reach people? basically, i'm seen as either quite naive or a little odd.
given that chiang mai is popping with tourists and farang (foreign) students that want to study buddhism, thai massage and thai cooking at the gazillion wats (buddhist temples) and schools here, i guess my interests are a little unusual.
overall though, i am finding that this adventure is much more enriching than the life of an average student in NL. this is what i hoped for before i started my master's in Children's Rights in Int'l Dev (don't ask exactly what that means), to get out there and see what life is all about. too bad there happens to be research involved ;-).
my only pitfall: making contacts with diff. organizations, interviewing, etc. is one thing, but i really don't like doing 'fun' things alone. ahh well, this too shall be resolved shortly!
well, that's about all the inspiration i have to write about now.
till next time in the adventures (not quite perhaps) of a pseudo-researcher.