ࡱ> c jbjbSS 11]vvvvJJJJ8tJb8>:x(" !!!!!!,zM{M/vv>///zv8vvvv//VT 4@cJJ/ Chapter 16 Prostitution Many Akha women ended up in prostitution in Thailand. When one came to know what happened to their villages at the hands of army it was no wonder. People have to eat. Brothels and Prostitution Prostitution The women, the prostitutes and the view that we all have of them here is a story in itself. Here prostitutes are like a social system. The longer I think that there are girls that are prostitutes and ones which are not the longer I am mistaken. Here there is an aspect to most all of the girls that is ready to take money for sex sooner or later. Everyone can find an excuse for it and most westerners try to always tag it on the men, but quite frankly once it has started it is hard to stop, and nothing pays nearly as good with nearly as little work. Maesai has more brothels in it now than it used to have, many of them new and many built with money coming from all this trade in the rubies from Monshu. There are more Akha girls in the brothels than there used to be. In the past it tended to be a Thai Yai (Shan) specialty. My Shan friend says that Shan families morn when they have a boy because boys cant make the family rich, cant build a new house. So there is certainly a cultural thing there that has been established. But it was never culturally acceptable for Akha girls to become prostitutes, as one can see from their religious ballads and such. The term for prostitution is to sell ones butt. Not very concealing. A government has no requirement to make all of the destructive things available to people. That is social restraint. That evil things are not encouraged. I wonder about that in Thailand, how Buddhism doesnt bother to condemn prostitution as a life style, when it certainly seems to go against the rules written within the religion. A conspiracy of silence. "Saving the Girls" Near the south end of town there is a man named Som Pope who has set up a village for Akha kids, mostly girls. I question this practice from a purely philosophical point of view. The goal is to identify girls who are at high risk for being sold into prostitution and bringing them into a safe environment. On the other hand the Catholics are doing the same thing in Bon Tham and I really cant see much difference than having a nunnery by conscription. By their own admission they say that they will not return to the village. In my mind this is wrong. The village must be preserved, and stregthened. There is all kinds of opportunities for empire builders with money and a mission to set up their own little conscription centers but in the long run the kids are still the loosers in big ways. But it still is not as good an accomplishment as it could be. Those running the operations should be less partisan to their own religious persuasion and put the Akha culture first. Why Did They Become Hookers? Money. They needed money. They wanted some kind of life. And the options for working were not good. This place chewed people up. There were plenty of bad jobs. Very few good ones. There were not enough skills being taught, and without people resources it was difficult to develop the informational infrastructure needed to help more. 01 Express The train charged on through the night. Girls getting on and off, phones ringing, orders being placed, mororbikes to be paid for. Burn forty years in a couple. Sometimes the train stopped at a marriage siding. Sometimes it stopped at aids. But whereever it stopped the faces became more clear, more ghost like. All the soul pumped out. And they all had attitudes to boot, learing faces, scorning laughter, jeering cackles, shiftless and lazy, used to getting it and taking it on their backs. A small gold mine their only resource that didnt require work. Other woman trudged the streets, selling vegetables, but always with joy and a smile. The Chinese woman from the Bead shop ran the place, her family. Some of the girls would be in the bead shop stringing beads with needle and thread for a few months, few days, a year and then went on to stringing something else. John spits on girls (Johnson) 25 noodle stand, nahm Djooh twit twit soup john and I always got at this little shit hole all night thai restaurant with filthy kitchen, bath and all. Typical thai lack of perception about those things Other Houses In Town There were other houses in town, mostly down in the Koh Sai district. From dirt floors to towering concrete, so many girls turning their young flesh old in but months. Old men and old women, running them like animals for rent, few of the customers wary of the door it was on grief. These were the losses. One place had Japanese Bonsai art in it, then the old woman on the corner, hailing, the row of Burmese houses on the turnabout, one or two to the left there, the old scar face cantina, and a few other drive in places to right side near the Baptist Church. Smiles Scar Face Ancient Massage The Alley Ancient Massage Harry the teacher Yunnan The Maesai Prostitute Market What amazes me is how the girls just throw themselves away some times. They got this regular feeding frenzy of guys taking turns in their pants, all in the huddle, trading the girl back and forth and her standing there knowing full what is going on and she could go somewhere else and ask some of the caring people to help but she would rather be in the land of adventure, her own operator or something. To say she doesn't have alternative is not true, it may not be the same as you or I but she has people in her community she can go to. The brothels, the differences, the dead tunas. The girls. What I noticed. No one taught them good and right and nothing good or right would come of it. As a business some were run well and some were not. The little switch. Attitude with some men, she was too slam bam........ The Fat Mamasahns The massage girls They werent really whores, they were more like bankers, looking at this land deal and that one and thinking which one they wanted to rest a few chips on. New motorbikes but other than that they didnt seem to go beyond gaudy clothes and high shoes that stuck out. They never did get their colors right and sorry to those who thought double knitt orange checker was out. They wore it all. The broker comes to Pah Nmm Akha I told her she needed to leave. She did. Must have been the way I said it. Gold Chain Mamasan And the dumpy girl who fed her kids, and other wages of sin Taxi Driver from New York The Pappasahn The stoopy guy with the cloth hat Bonsai Golden Boy The pappasahn guy with the gold, left over from old New York Taxi Deal The Death of Scarface The Chiangmai Girl Her name was Ann. She was from Chiangrai, good looking, when she came in I thought she was an Akha because her face was so open. She made to each altar, ran a brush through her hair, looked at her face in a tiny mirror, then took her seat at the end of the bar next to a fellow from Germany or somewhere. A Thai man sat with him and they all three talked for some time. The bar was not so much a bar as an open drinking shop next to the night market, tv, cable channels, mixed drinks, food, and all the other bars were open so you could watch several TV's at once, sitting on a comfortable bench, some music, and good air plus light. I picked this one sat next to the dividing wall, watched two other tv's and like it that it was the quietest. Some of the girls hooked, maybe all of them hooked, some did not, so they claimed. The girls had grown older and uglier by the year, the places were many now, what had only been along Tapae Gate area, dark loud places. Now there were all of these large airy open shops and they were rather pleasant for just sitting and talking, never very many customers, you could wander from one to the other. I drank one beer, then went to coffee, the German left, and the young lady came and sat down across from me. With big eyes and pleasant smile and she spoke like only Thai girls know how to do, in gentle broken english that was pleasant enough, better than my Thai. Maybe in a moment though I would feel like the only part that was missing was a screen and this would be a confessional. Her soft eyes, deep and holding, and I chatted with her about her life. Like a spool, it slowly unraveled, spinning faster and faster. She was from Chiangrai, she had been married, she thought he was a good guy but before the baby girl was born he started doing speed. His parents had money so he didn't have to work, lots of time, but soon there was no food for her or baby. Before this or after this, family friends had called from Switzerland, they had a job for her, she was in her teens, all she needed to do was sleep with a few men. Yeah, she did that for three months and came back and built a house. Cause the water leaked in through the roof in the old house. Her mom and dad farmed rice, but had no land and so had to rent land and then give fifteen percent to the owner. She said she met some nice men. Sometimes they wouldn't sleep with her, only wanted to be friends and be kind to her. She wondered about getting married again but thought if he would love her, her three year old daughter. Sometimes she charged the men a thousand baht, they paid the bar three hundred baht first to take her out, sometimes she charged them three thousand. This was a three thousand baht night but I wasn't going to be a customer. You make me want to cry she said. First I wanted to do boom boom with you when I sat down but you said nice things to me so I want to be your friend. Give me your email. I got lots of friends. No, not so many of them care about me. I got western friends and Thai friends. The Thai boys all like to do speed. Its one hundred twenty baht here in Chiangmai for one pill, but sometimes eighty baht. After a customer makes love to me, I want to kick him, she lifted her leg up and kicked it out to the side of the table, a blue high topped clogg on her foot. I make about twenty to thirty thousand baht a month, but I got lots of problems. I have AIDS. I don't know if I have it, I had a blood test three months ago, but I say that. I'm scared I'll get aids, my folks are too. I make all the guys wear condoms. I feel like you know, like I could be, should be in heaven, but instead I'm down in that other place, what do foreigners call that, hell, yeah that's right, hell. Maybe she felt her customers were taking more than they paid for? I don't do all that well, I have to pay for a motorbike, a room, food, clothes, stuff for my face to make it look good, stuff for my hair, but I don't have a phone, then I give some money to my folks. But there isn't much left over. My room is fifteen hundred baht, really poor, it was, a decent place in Chiangmai was three thousand a month. She came and sat beside me. A man came, two, into the bar and sat down. What do you feel like when men come in the bar that you made love to before and you see them and you are sitting with someone else, I asked her? You know, this is an old story I said. You are a pleasant person, easy to talk to. Yeah, she said, I say what I think, no right side left side like the wind or snake, turn and turn again, no I don't like that. I gotta leave here and go see someone at two thirty am. They need a ride. Yeah, this is an old story. You won't be young forever, you should quit and go back to Chiangrai if you are unhappy don't you think? You know, that is what makes this story so old, only you can make you quit, but only you makes you keep working at this, no one makes you come here. Yeah, but I like to help my parents. Do you have a brother, I asked, a sister? No sister, just a younger brother. And would he go out and work to help mom and dad? What's he do? Yeah, I figured, stays home and drinks beer but you like to do this. So why should you worry, where will they be when you have AIDS and what will come of your daughter, is it good enough that she will stay with your folks while you lie dead, gone up in smoke and ash? Only you can take your hand out of the moneky jar and no one is going to help you. You wanna beer? Yeah, I'll have one too. How come you drink coffee and then beer? Oh, I like had one beer, then the night is young, and so I had a coffee so I don't get to dumb and sleepy, then I have another beer and I don't mind. A kid walked up to me and shoved flowers in my face. No, I don't wanna buy any for ten baht or no baht I told her in Akha. She called her friend, this guy speaks Akha. He's cheap. The other night her friend had come, a friend from Burma, the one with the little sister who has the crippled leg. Yeah, what kind of deadbeat is your mother? She won't let folks fix your sisters leg. Yeah, I know. That's being a jerk. Well, my dad, he wants the money from her begging, but he's dead now, so just me and mom and her. Yeah, but you down here pimpin? How old are you? Eleven. You didn't learn english for free, what you pimpin western guys? That's stupid. Take me back up to maesai will you? No, you gotta get that woman to do it, she brought you down, I got nothin to do with it, you aren't riding with me and the cops will pull you off the bus. If you wanna go up there I'll give you the money for the bus, but you gotta get on that bus and not just eat the money like you all do. She wandered off down the walk with the woman with her bag of clothes. The Thai woman was surprised I bought her a beer, I was glad she didn't need to ask first. I asked her what she wanted to do, what her hopes were. You know that is your job, you gotta hope, no one can do that for you and when the gamin is done, the money's soon gone and you know that, look at these hacks. She went over to the sidewalk on the other side and talked to a Thai guy, then came back for a short moment and then got up again and hugging her jacket to her, a black one with red lining, fighting off the unusually early cold and wind of November, she excused herself to the bathroom. A Katoy came in, fat boots, vinyl pants, short chopped hair that he kept going at with his hands full stop. There was a small space where his lips didn't quite reach his ears. Blathering away and then out of the bar. A horrible death face of a man who wasn't Thai and wasn't Indian came in with an older western man, like his lover, and sat down. It looked like he had the hep too. The Thai girl came back and sat down again, talking about the last details of her confession. She had herself caught between the money, the power, and back home where she had none of that, yes, you are addicted to that I told her and that is probably worse than speed, make the best you can of it, but in the long run it will be you that steps in or out. I picked up my change and walked off into the darkness. Prostitution 1-4 Prostitution #1 Date: Tue, 08 Jun 1999 13:35:54 +0000 From: chiara cardoletti < HYPERLINK "mailto:c_cardoletti@hotmail.com" c_cardoletti@hotmail.com> References: Chiara: I will be sending you a longer reply but just wanted to comment: I dont think we can fault the woman for going into prostitution, that is a choice she makes in the here and now, and that is her choice, but that does not mean that it is good or that she had other choices. In some cases she did but in many she did not. But what we must also look at it is that many times there are women in the same life situations who dont go and some who do. There are too, distinguishing factors that cause one to go over others, but over all the Akha have so few rights, that they arent all in prostitution is what amazes me. However we now have a very dangerous trend where the churches are taking girls from villages to sav e them, but they dont and can not help the whole village, and taking the girls, stresses the village, making it collapse further and they have no way to save the whole thing once that happens, so they should not take them but strengthen the village instead. More later, I now live in the village, and believe me I can see why a girl would be a prostitute with all the asaults on the sanctity of the village. These are good people in an incredible predator environment and these house operators should be shut down. Matthew. Prostitution #2 Date: Tue, 08 Jun 1999 13:36:29 +0000 From: akha children and Chinese Baptist Church chiara cardoletti < HYPERLINK "mailto:c_cardoletti@hotmail.com" c_cardoletti@hotmail.com> References: Chiara: I am up here in the mountain and get a little more time to fully go over this. I should first say that the situation of prostitution is very complex. There are some thoughts on the missions that I will try to cover also, and now, alas, they are related issues. My feeling is that prostitution, as an objective issue, is not good for the human body or spirit. I have witnessed here over the years, as I have seen girls go into this trade their decline, often quite rapid, in both regards. In otherwords they physically show signs of ill health and related sadness if you will. But along the way, decisions the woman make do play into this. I am not saying that they ever had that much of a good hand. Obviously had the choice been an express train to Harvard with the nurturing needed, they would have taken it. I do not try to asses blame in this by the way, I dont blame the women, whatever their choice, none of it here seems to be that clear. But I have seen women, girls I guess one would say, based on age, but mentally much women, who under the same conditions dont go into prostitution, while friends in the same situation did. So there are many levels of reasons for entering the trade. Some girls go into it because it is a fast money ride, and if they are savy, one that they can control. Many go into it for drudge work that is secure and pays, even though they dont like it. Others it would appear, dont mind it, sort of an annoyance at best if even that. The ones with savy that go into it, appear to go into the side of the business that allows them the most control. This is usually massage. Here they sort their customers, and when they find likely prospects, they sign that man up as a husband if you will, and having signed up several, manage them time wise for the proper return. This brings us to the issue, that though many dont do well financially in this business, they hold out for the hopes they will because of many of the ones as I have discribed above, they make make very good money at it. There are sure plenty enough who hit the jackpot, maybe several times. In the end these people make make far more money than anyone close to their age with any level of education in the same region. This then raises the issue of colusion, which clouds the issue. In the west we like to classify prostitution as a victim event. There are also several good books on the social management of the female anatomy as something that belongs to the state or the church, for better or worse. From this position many of the misconceptions are born. But the fact remains, that many girls, entering the trade at say 15, if they are pretty, or clever, or both, can manage several husbands and by this means gain a level of wealth unimaginable for their families, land, a big concrete house, mortorcycle, car, etc. These items take twenty and thirty years for the other families to get. Who can blame the girl, if she marries a poor man, or if she marries several rich men whom she manages for the greatest financial return. But can we always say that she is the victim in this, I dont think so. She is doing it for great profit and in that regard is basically a business person. Now the problem occurs when we look at the over all numbers. The number of women who hope for this good work environemnt is far greater than the number who actually make it. The picture that the most fortunate women paint from truth and also to save face, causes many to think it is easy or that they will be so lucky, so many go into the trade. But overall I would say that in so many percent of these cases only the house wins. Far more girls fall on hard times before they become women. So there are levels of fortune in the trade. Those at the top can least be considered victims, because if they had all the opportunities that we could provide, they would still be making less money than what they make at what they do. They know this, they know the risks, education about the risks seems to be highest among those making the most money, so they are better off in this regard also. It can easily be rationalized. Intellectually we may oppose it. How can we measure their spiritual loss? I am not sure. I think they have to measure that. Other girls know the money that is involved, are pretty, yet turn it down. Who can say when the lines get crossed? I dont know, that is why I dont attribute blame, because there are so many factors. However, on the lower end of the pay scale it is more obvious why the hand has been forced. In many of these cases the girls father has died. She is the oldest, there is no money, she goes into the business as one of the only available courses to bring in big enough money to feed her mother and brothers and sisters, and maybe get them to school. Maybe she can hold out the slim hope that she will hit on a rich man who cares for her, but this would not cheer one much under the conditions of duress that generally dominate the situation. Economic duress. Then there are those who get pushed into it by friends, family. For instance the older sister is greedy, so she sells little sister. I have personally seen this, and the odd thing is that very seldom does the little sister resent it, she has a dark side about it, but generally gets with the program and goes as far as she can with it, still part of the overall family economic and social unit, even after she gets out of the business. I think that there are two dangers in this whole issue. The first is automatically making them all victims. This does not reflect the many personal decisions that many of the girls make. The second is ignoring the situation, the greater external situations outside the village and family that cause many of the problems that birth all of this. Overall, the reality is that as a group, the poor, no matter where you go, do not have the social or economic rights that would allow them to fairly compete in the system and this creates a lot of prostitution. It appears that prostitution would be high in any group that was suppressed and had to find alternative means of income. This in cases where we see so much prostitution throughout a group or groups. The greatest mistake is the errors we can make in guessing the causes of all of this. That is not to say that some are not obvious. I have seen many groups come in here who know that prostitution of girls is a hot issue for getting money from western people, like I mentioned, it would appear that there is a victim mentality that contributes to this, but this produces another event which people here refer to as Super Pimping. This is where the NGOs are making far more money off saving the girls from prostitution, than the pimps would be making off them selling them for sex. A whole lot of money can be gotten for Saving the girls. This may make some people some real nice feel good jobs, but it does not solve the problem overall and probably makes it worse. For one thing, it doesnt address the problem at its origin, and secondly it gives the impression that the girl suddenly has a bargaining chip, that she can sell herself more than one time, that responsibility is still not an issue. Otherwise, what would we tell the many poor girls that chose NOT to go into this trade? That they are just stupid? Also, if we make a program for correcting what is broken, but dont take note of what is causing the brokeness, how will we ever catch up, waiting for it all to be broken, and then trying to artificiall do what is done correctly by the natural. In Thai society there is very much a caste system of the very rich few and the very poor. This also produces a lot of prostitution along with other factors. But one can not attempt to address the problem of prostitution in Thai society without addressing the fact that basically the society is not under the rule of law, that the rich take what they want, that the poor are without a song. However the problem is extreme when you take a group like the Akha in the economic position of duress that they are in, and coming from a vastly different societal make up and are forced to deal and cope with all the pressures of encroachment that have been pressing in on them. We had some discussion of this on eco polotics list, that people can live in as much comfort as they like as long as they dont take what belongs to others, or take away the very basics from others. The west as a group however, is unable to stick to this when you look at the extension of the consumption system and how far it goes out, including nation state societies such as Thailand and finally ending up at the Akha. For instance, if a Thai has bought into the extension of the western dream and needs all the trappings of the west, like a nice mercedes and so forth, what may he have to do to get it? Own a lot. And owning a brothel in Maesai may be part of owning a lot. Greed. No new game, but the western model of flash and spend, buy and own, makes this problem worse. And this pressure goes out to the Thais who are now gobbling up every last shred of land that the Akha have, as fast as they can, and when the Akha dont have land, they dont have food and their daughters go into prostitution increasingly so. The rich come, steal the land, then the poverty that causes, increases to them the availability of cheap girls from the very same families they stole from, for their entertainment. So it is just a model of plunder and rape of the inhabitants of a region. There is no feeling to it, it is done with intent and ill will. I know of scores of situtions where this occured and there is no recourse. No rule of law. The UN would have that people have a right to some land, even if they are a stateless people, but this law is violated all over Thailand and other places. Everyone is being forced to be a surf for the rich. Now we run into the problem that many NGOs in an attempt to help if this is their real attempt, which I doubt, as compared to being in a popular cause, start pulling girls out of villages. It is sort of mind boggling that anyone would come up with this solution. It is so western, and Akha villages and culture is anything but western. Further more one would ask what gives them the right, it seems rather arrogant to interfere in such a way, especially when the result is inaffective and there are better courses of action, no doubt less showboat and less popular. In addition it contributes to the marginalization of the village, just accelerating the decline that much faster, and there is no way that this method can keep up with the speed of deterioration that it is busy contributing too. It ends up being a form of highgrading of the village girls in the end. The less fortunate get nothing. In addition it splits the genders, removes available girls from being married, makes them a part of another group and fully qualifies as genocide under the articles of the 1948 accord on Genocide. Removing individuals from one group and making them part of another. It should be noted, that with few exceptions, (I can think of only one) this is all being done by Thais, which dont much like the Akha anyway, and western missionaries, white with an evangelical agenda, which doesnt give much concern for the Akha either. In my opinion the solution would be to start with first respecting who the Akha are and doing away with the western race based predjudices agains them. Then one might start working in a way to help them defend themselves as a group. This includes land rights, ID card rights, rights to their own form of non Thai based education, protection from unlawful search and seizure, the legalization of smoking opium for personal use. A forum for voicing grievences with either the Thai, or Burmese government. But who is going to give them these? Yet if we dont then we are basically saying that we can more easily fix what we can not keep from being broken. That is an odd form of logic. That by forcing a girl into prostitution, we can somehow swoop down at the last minute and save her from it. Yet the considerable weight and wealth of the missions, who like to showboat saving girls has not been brought to bear where it needs to be, to address the core issues that are causing this problem. And certainly with the money to build big hospitals and host a horde of programs and people, all living very well, they could address these issues with the governments. Course it isnt popular or easy and that is why it doesnt get done. The last is a quick fix, and it wont last nor meet the need. But at least they should be honest about what is bringing this tradgedy about rather than wring their hands. Villages can be helped with these core issues in other ways also. Lets say for argument that it is impossible to work for these basic rights (which I dont at all agree with) then lets look at what we can do. We can work to help the village to defend itself, its land, its culture, its heritage and increase its options, not along western lines, but along Akha lines. This would come with safe water, increasing nutrition via agriculture by poviding seeds, sapplings, expertise. The Akha did fine while left to them selves. They are not left to themselves now, are being increasingly pressed, and so it is going to take working through the villages more intensely in order to assist them. For instance some villages can start planting tea and coffee, more vegetables and fruit. But there is not money for the plant stock. The end idea is that is the village has sufficient nutrition, if they are also defending the land by increasingly mangaging it, it will be more difficult to displace the villages. There is a problem here, because the Thai policy would appear to be to get rid of the villages all to gether. So in some areas big roads are being put in, no regard to the environment, and urban sprawl being created right up into the jungle, taking precious tracts of mountain land with a few Akha villages and in a few years wiping the environment out completely. The solutions are not mysterious. Just makes me wonder why so many people only want to solve the problem at the last minute? Maybe it is because addressing the problem early on would bring up too many uncomfortable issues, like western economic policy, the habit of turning and looking the other way, as long as they get what they want, which doesnt happen to be justice for the Akha. We see a huge mission presence in Northern Thailand, they live well, they live fat, but when you bring up helping the village, over helping the girls, thus eliminating the problem at its core, they get very hostile. For one thing they cant do anything without it being attatched to their colonization policy. So they help villages only if they become Christian as in white Christian. You cant help people by having a personal agenda. It doesnt work that way, so the missions go for village conversion and dont care much at all about village rights, because they themselves are busy violating these. Overall, the issues are both complex and simple at the same time. I would say that the Thai and Burmese governments are to blame and that the missions are deep into human rights violations. But there is no organization that is so completely fanatic and relentless in their human rights violations than the mission establishment, and they are able to do this solely BECAUSE the Akha are denied their basic rights. So how does one figure? Missions must have abused impoverished people under duress and oppression in order to build their power grid with all its built in control over people. That is why villages dont have clean water but have multi thousand dollar churches, in some cases very large and very expensive. And then when you look at what they take away from the people and what they foist on them, it is nothing less than criminal and I dont expect to see the degrading of the villages and the level of prostitution let up any at all. I might add that in Akha culture selling yourself is considered very taboo, yet this occurs heavily amoung the christian Akha who have been denied their tradtional culture. To me it is obvious that this would be the result, but the missions cant see it at all, because they are right, and commisioned from God. Anyway, that is my two bits worth. I dont blame the girls who enter prostitution, I think it would be better if they wouldnt and I know of many causes, but I dont blame them. Matter of fact what amazes me is that more dont do so. Matthew 8 June 99, Prostitution Prostitution #3 Date: Tue, 08 Jun 1999 13:36:52 +0000 From: chiara cardoletti < HYPERLINK "mailto:c_cardoletti@hotmail.com" c_cardoletti@hotmail.com> References: Chiara: I ended up answering this in two emails, no problem. Glad you have some questions. The problems here with the missions are severe at best. The Akha are mostly without defense against their efforts and are being colonized by them at the expense of their culture and overall longterm survival. It is so odd that the question that the Churches cant answer is if there would be any Akha culture left at all if they had their way? I mean, lets play this game out in a war room if you will. What will we have left. The answer is obvious, that in the end, if they had the ability to work every village as they would in their campaign, there would not be one shred of Akha culture left. We know this because where they have been successful there is no culture left. And what then is lost. Well, first off there is the huge violation of human rights that is going on here. Secondly, they are silencing an entire culture, an entire way of life, an entire collection of massive size of traditional knowledge about the earth and what lives in it, how it is made up, how to stay alive as a genetic code for a very long time, generation after generation. The church immediately attacks this and it is in the end lost. This is nothing but criminal. The culture is lost, the people are made into idiots for the glory of the church and the language is either lost or reduced to prescribed content only. But if you ask these people they can not answer. They should be in court and my end goal is that they will have to pay compensation in millions of dollars to the Akha for what they have taken away. The Akha are not poor, just much stolen from, faster than they can regenerate themselves, that is why we have laws, why are not the missions required to live under the rule of law? There is not much written on the Akha. Why is this? I have documented proof that the m issions knew very early what the Akha were about and what their culture was about, but it was kept hidden, because they needed disinformation to protect their agenda, had people know the fantastic intricacies of these people they would have sprung to their defense much earlier. A New Testament was produced, a few books, but the missionary who produced all of that, knew far more than that. It was also odd that on one hand he established Baptist churches that wiped out all of the culture in those villages, and on the other hand he carefully passed himself off in anthropological circles as an expert on that very culture. He obviously saw no contradiction in this. A few others do. At the same time the Akha women were discouraged from wearing their traditional clothes and head dresses he was busy making a business of buying head dresses and selling them. Currently I am in a prolonged, poorly financed effort to record much of the culture and knowledge in Akha and redistribute it immediately back to them in Akha. It will be a very long time before I have any of it translated into English. At the same time that I am underfinanced to pay for the writers and the printing of the books, the very groups that are involved in the human rights violations have all the money they need and want. Overall there are good books on the Akha. Jim Goodman did two good books, Meet the Akhas, The Akha: Guardians of the forest If you get a copy of the missionary Paul Lewiss ethnographic notes on the Akhas of Burma in four volumes from Cornell Library, you will quickly smell a rat. He wrote a huge amount of information down, in one of the most isolated times of the Akha, yet somehow it is not widely accessible and the Akha surely didnt get a copy of what he wrote about them at expense of their effort and time to teach him. He really plays the slippery fish on this one. On the convention for children, I would first look at the impact that the church is having specifically on targeting children, turning them against parents and culture. They claim they are about Jesus, they are not, in fact they are about imposing their culture in place of the one the Akha children have. Well, the event with the Denmark Teacher and the Chinese Baptist seminary was a turning point, someone besides myself, saw first hand what the problem was, had their own project of building a school room stopped by the students from the mission, documented it, and confronted the mission themselves with it. They only laughed at her and treated her very badly, denying everything till the police came and though not much came of that at first, the shot was heard around the world so to speak and for once there was a focused case that people could begin responding to. This was an enormous help because on top of everything else the mission was suddenly aware of how seriously we were treating this and that we would stay on it, and the missions have no favored status in Thailand overall, since the Buddhists are increasingly feeling threatened. At the same time we had a confrontation with Campus Crusade and the Jesus Film Project because they used slanted information in their translation of the Jesus film into Akha, after we specifically asked them not to. It was a simple change they could have made, and it would have been more accurate, but instead they used the word Peeh Mah for the high priests that crucified Jesus. Peeh Mah is the word for the village poet and historian. This is a specific attempt to discredit the culture, the same as they translated it for the new testament. But the church never made any secret of caring nothing for indigenous peoples cultures. Yes, still struggling. Way too much to do, way too much concern, and no money to print books. On the good side after the one conflict with the Chinese baptists in Maesai, then word finally got to another chinese mission that they were listed on the internet for doing speaker broadcasts of their denomination to both baptist and catholic villageres and Akha religion villagers against their wishes. They finally stopped. Course I sort of implied to them that if they didnt get the point to stop making the day and night broadcasts starting at 5 am and lasting till 11 pm off and on I would be more than glad to rip their speaker system down. I have a house in the Akha traditional village and they had wired a megaphone on a tall bamboo pole half a kilometer away and were broadcasting to us without our approval. It finally stopped, I think they know there is something in the woods. By the way, that village that the mission is built in just had its third suicide within a year, all within 50 meters of the very wealthy Taiwanese Baptist mission. this time it was a 14 year old girl that hung herself. Maybe it is a gospel of alienation? I tend to think so. Waiting to hear from you. Matthew Prostitution #4 This is the sad reality. On one hand we have in the west increasing alienation between the sexes, which in my mind increases the demand for no questions asked body contact, if you want to call it that, I think, with no ill intended, that increasingly in the west, men and maybe women, are just becoming ill from not enough of this natural contact with all the alienation. I see it here, people who have very kind relationships with prostitutes, just want to be with a human being, and a score of western men marry them and treat them as anyone else would a wife. But what gets me is the first link in the chain. Because most girls wont get the dream of a man marrying them. They will not come out alive one way or the other. And it is the first link, the person that takes them down off the mountain, the first deception. Frankly someone should kill these people. Then the Thai acceptance of the Karaoke which could not survive without these rental girls. I have seen village girls end up as trash, b oth physically and emotionally within six months. First, let me say I just spent the last 15 days, at the age of 41, working on incredibly steep mountainsides, eating damn near nothing, drinking unclean water and chopping vegetation, smoothing the soil and planting rice in weather from extremely hot and dry to solid rain and mud. The hillside is so steep you can not stand up on it. And they go home at 6 walking an hour back to the village off the mountain (used to be up, but they got forcibly moved) and then get some rest and do it all over again starting at 4 am. These people are tough, they have just about zero nutrition, and they have a million predators including the blasted missionaries in the fancy trucks, out buying off the headmen in exchange for abandoning the culture. So if the daughter ends up a prostitute, but they eat, you can see the incredible yet tragic relief it is. Just isnt talked about and that is it. To some degree, cant afford much and dont appear to think that they ever will get much anyway, save for a better house, buy land, etc. Simple, no wives to marry. No kids, no genetics. I get just about no help from no one except the occasional $50 from a friend. I have no clearly organized fundraising help and it is very difficult to communicate this need for a person to help organize fundraising back to someone in the west, why should they bother, seems to be the feeling as long as they are comfortable, there is not money for books, writers, medicine or fuel, just about nothing, I am always hoping someone can help organize something, I dont get time to go back to the US, Oregon, where my folks are old and live, because there isnt money for that either, and if I do go back it is hard to blow your own horn and raise money for yourself, people get turned off by it, better to have someone do it professionally for you and that is what I am looking for. I am working in a jungle pocket of numerous villages. They are putting in a new big access road and already the karaokes are popping up full of tribal girls as prostitutes. It really sucks, someone really needs to wack these people.They are slow motion murderers. You got that right. I always have the big guns coming here, saying how it should be done, just they want big admin overhead, buildings, etc. and when you got all that where is the time for the families in the villages? But it brings in money, makes people rich and settled. Dont underestimate it. We have a really good video out now, The Akha Way. This is a start, the people were real kind to help me, I did the video, they put it together, is real nice, just needs to have more done as a sequel. I think that if you came here what you saw going on would break you heart and then how the NGOs, super pimps we call them, make a big business out of it, and are pulling girls out of the villages making it harder even yet on the natural survival of the villages. The missions are real bad about this. I have a girl friend, never went to school a day in her life, full of knowledge of the jungle, and when I think how easily she could be bewitched by it all and end up in a brothel as all the others do it makes me shudder. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you need to come here and see what is being done to them by the missions. They call them out of the villages if they are not allowed to come in and start with all the Jesus stuff and turning them against their parents traditional beliefs (this was not recommended by Jesus even) and soon split between parents and children. And what they destroy in indigenous beliefs is incredible. By the way, I am swamped, and I am looking for editing help on this kind of thing also. I got all this stuff crashing around in my brain and it needs to be in a book, just need some help clarifying and focusing. They try, not nearly as sucessful, you need really squashed people to take control or they will kick your ass, so they prey and profit the harder the Thai govt crushes these people, they love every minute of it, their goal is to put a church in every village and that is what they are after. Forced control, social and religious. They dont seem to notice but of late there may be more concern. I think I got one set of building speakers shut off. But I am one person, working on less than $500 a month for everything, visa, food, fuel, meds. Yes. 8 years. Oregon. Thanks for writing. I hope that you keep in touch. I am in the mountain a lot but do answer all mail. Matthew The Girl Must Go to Japan A family friend of steve, she has been a prostitute for a couple years already, but her father, in his fourties, a selfish lazy man wants her to go to Japan so there can be money without work for him. She doesn't want to go but he insists that she do. She will have to pay more than a million baht back, and sleep with many men for a number of years before she can come back and she may get aids. But she will get no peace and has no where to go, and maybe there is no emotional escape from such men, even if running away. But then days later I heard that she got a reprieve. Don't know how long it lasted, but her friend called a police woman she knew and he handcuffed her to her chair so she missed her bus to Bangkok. The Sailom Joi Go Go bar with the pudgy old Chinese woman The girl with the scar near her mouth, "Lik Serv" and the fag that served beer. All the well worn girls from China, some Akha. The cops, firing their guns, being stupid. Typical akha girl goes down the hill story of transition Buy out ch mai girl No victim, a gambler who wanted to be bought out by a japanese with lots of money, it is the money parade until you land a big one and the mamasahn is the broker Death of the Huai Krai Akha Woman From Header Left Side 9,000 baht hut nimit built for the roof, what a crook. stold the grinders, my harmonica, lots of little shit, offered to sell Ah Meeh etc Entertainment? Two Belgians were busy entertaining an 11 year old and a 14 year old here at the guest house. Here you got to see it all. Another time later I saw them with a girl from Bangkok who had gotten up to maesai and lost her wallet in Burma. She came down to my table near the railing and I noticed long burn marks on her arm and hand like someone had repeatedly taken a soldering iron to her. The back of her hand was covered with cgarette type burns. The underside of her arm was covered with methodic cuts from a knife. All long healed, she declined to talk about it and said she didnt like to think of it. Scarface The scarfaced man could get anything. He cruised town, walked into this brothel and that one, looking at what hung on the hook, looking for this young thing or that, or was it just his night off, his baseball hat raked back he chugged an M loi hah sip drink and walked out in his baggy white pants and got on his red motorbike which made a distinctive putt putt putt as it burped its way down the street, taking him to another look in another pink room full of resting bums beneath busy beds upstairs. Akha prostitution lots of it 3 years bangkok girl Charlies wife, Gist of the job opportunity prostitution first guys Girls keep her going small talk of the job, I dont know really, it seems all very depressing Meets boyfriend in the brothel Friends die of aids this they dont talk about much Puking cutomers customers arent mean but sometimes sick Mamasans run the place, good and bad ones, the good ones do a better business than the slouches African man builds a house for whore, motorcycle story No feeling below waist That is the impression that one got, watching the hookers walk the street. I don't know if there is a harder place than maesai for that. Bullet holes in brothel steel door In pump at esso at Ban Pasang Akha Woman Then there is the one woman married to the American, from Chiang Khong. Insists she is not Akha. Dresses Horribly. She is friendly, yet loud and often rude to him in public, making sure to make a scene. I think that for some of these people there is ongoing pain, anger, that they try and take out on the world around them, ongoing lack of resolution. The turn around Right there where the dog was was the turn around. Ellen Bruno said that there was a phallus in the little shrine. Looked like one. I had no idea what it meant. But surrounding the turnaround were all the brothels, and one clinic. The one road led to the left and to the river and a makeshift crossing so there were always cops there checking the comings and goings as well as lots of motorcycle taxis. playing jacks whore Akha notes Belongs in Prostitution Plenty of Akha girls think they are on the top of the world as they gather gold and prositute themselves. They are going through a cultural gate which they can never come back in by, having lost their rooots forever byt their own actions of disowning their traditions. Or at least it would seem that way. Prostitution A prostitution alternative will not work in this town without including somehow that it is wrong. Sure it has its uses and reasons but these are all parts of a crippled picture, not as it should b e. Prostitution is not sustainable, healthful and it is quite cynical. As compared with what is right. Not everything can be relative.  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A!8"8#8$8%|HH ,6G{HH(d'`????????icl8*TTT*TTTT*T**TTT*T****TTT*TT*T******TTT*TTTT*T*DyK c_cardoletti@hotmail.comyK @mailto:c_cardoletti@hotmail.comDyK c_cardoletti@hotmail.comyK @mailto:c_cardoletti@hotmail.comDyK c_cardoletti@hotmail.comyK @mailto:c_cardoletti@hotmail.com Subject: Re: The CGI hosting References: <008901c03ccc$ae02fc00$9ac1e4d8@mclaughlin> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I sent mail to them just now to ask that, at any reate, their server and fee is the way to go. Matthew Toni wrote: > I think this answers that money question. > http://www.webgenie.com/Software/Shopcart/hosting.html It says $250/yr to > have them host the cgi part of this program. They mention in there that not > all servers support cgi scripts. So that's something to check out. Also > it's not apparently that easy to make them work right. > > Anyway, you'll probably want to look this over. > > Toni -- http://www.akha.com http://www.akha.org Donations by check or money order may be sent to: The Akha Heritage Foundation PO BOX 6073 Salem OR 97304 USA By Visa Card Secure Site: https://www.givetocharity.com/cgi-bin/give.pl?CODE=10956 From - Mon Oct 23 15:54:02 2000 X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 Message-ID: <39F3FCA7.5E0F821A@loxinfo.co.th> Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 15:54:01 +0700 From: Matthew McDaniel Reply-To: akha@loxinfo.co.th Organization: The Akha Heritage Foundation X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 (Macintosh; U; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: cia-drugs@egroups.com Subject: Re: [CIA-DRUGS] THE WAR PROFITS BUSINESS References: <01C03CAC.FB219F20.Gaetana7@bellsouth.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Nothing will end the incessant warefare on this planet other than a so [6@6NormaldhOJQJkH'mH 6@6 Heading 1$dh@&58@8 Heading 2$<@&588 Heading 3$<@&CJ<A@<Default Paragraph Font,@,Header  !, @,Footer  !.)@. Page NumberOJQJ0Y"0 Document Map-D  2 Style1 B Style2(U@Q( Hyperlink>*B*$    j)7BP]wiw_I/! ~ P 2    l~a>KQ]r;moprstvwyz|}N{ nqux{i:::"@Q@j@,XXX !!8@0( N=:x B S  ? _Hlt495404851`@a@ 15GKvy K R  &*+06:y}*-.1}TYclqw3<`g 2$6$X$\$$$(%,%<&@&I&R&v&z& ''D'H' **7*@* ,,,,Y/_///000000222222330353k3q333 44F5K566_8b8V:\:]:g:::== ????@@@ @{@@pBzBzE~EVFZF=HFHXH\HHH[IcIKKyMMZZ]]]]````bbOcUc#f,f8f?f_gdgi%iiixjjRm]m^mdmnn%r-rttt(tv vvvEzNzq|сׁ؁<BV^ JQlq&-;E$&29|fkTYfj #')wz{=?@CԶܶ+/49]bks!).7"HOW_SX!'03Matthew McDanielFHard Drive:Desktop Folder:Akha Maesai Story: Master:23 ProstitutionMatthew McDanielEHard Drive:Desktop Folder:Akha Story: Master:Needs:23 ProstitutionMatthew McDanielEHard Drive:Desktop Folder:Akha Story: Master:Needs:19 ProstitutionMatthew McDanielEHard Drive:Desktop Folder:Akha Story: Master:Needs:18 ProstitutionMatthew McDanielMHard Drive:Desktop Folder:Akha Story: Master:Needs:18 Prostitution-tourismMatthew McDanielMHard Drive:Desktop Folder:Akha Story: Master:Needs:17 Prostitution-tourismMatthew McDanielWHard Drive:Desktop Folder:Akha Story: Master: Parts Finished:17 Prostitution-tourismMatthew McDanielkHard Drive:Desktop Folder:Akha Story: Master: Akha Story Chapters:19-25 Predators Part 3:16 ProstitutionMatthew McDaniel:Hard Drive:Temporary Items:AutoRecovery save of 16 ProstitMatthew McDanielxHard Drive:Desktop Folder:Akha Story: Master: Akha Story Chapters 953 pages:16-22 Predators Part 3:16 Prostitution 20 hh.@hh.@80.@G L@@GTimes New Roman5Symbol3 Arial3TimesMNew Century Schlbk"qhe$SɌC |]SZ$0ddFlorenceMatthew McDanielMatthew McDanielinftinftinftovrtovrtovrtovrtovrtovrtovrtovrtovrtovrtovrtovrtovrtovrtovrtovrtovrtovr Oh+'0p  , 8 DPX`h' Florencet lorMatthew McDanielrdattNormal Matthew McDanielrd13tMicrosoft Word 8.0d@xA@n @ս`|]888cSS8goHqA<`lo8<8@88cngH=A;5@<<`cw >http://www.hotmail.com. > > > > > > Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at > > > http://profiles.msn.com. > > > >-- > > > > > >http://www.akha.com > > > >http://www.akha.org > > > >Donations by check or money order may be sent to: > > > >The Akha Heritage Foundation > >PO BOX 6073 > >Salem OR 97304 USA > > > >By Visa Card Secure Site: > >https://www.givetocharity.com/cgi-bin/give.pl?CODE=10956 > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________________ > Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. > > Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at > http://profiles.msn.com. -- http://www.akha.com http://www.akha.org Donations by check or money order may be sent to: The Akha Heritage Foundation PO BOX 6073 Salem OR 97304 USA By Visa Card Secure Site: https://www.givetocharity.com/cgi-bin/give.pl?CODE=10956 From - Mon Oct 23 16:18:13 2000 X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 Message-ID: <39F40252.F456040E@loxinfo.co.th> Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 16:18:13 +0700 From: Matthew McDaniel Reply-To: akha@loxinfo.co.th Organization: The Akha Heritage Foundation X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 (Macintosh; U; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: tim-team years, she's mainly focussed on the Karen in Kanchanaburi. Maybe it's > because of her personal situation. I heard she has a baby so that she can't > travel as she did before for doing case studies. But she's been deeply and > sincerely involved in the people's struggles at Thung Ya/ Huay Kha Kaeng > area for many years and lots of contacts there, etc., etc. Anyway, I also > think it's not okay that she hasn't replied to you. > In general, however, I appreciate that the Bangkok Post has much better > featured the grievances of hill peoples - including your fight around the > Akha village a few months ago - (possibly that's also thanks to Sanitsuda > because she's one of the assistant editors), while I've been utterly > disappointed about the dearth of articles in The Nation - they simply don't > have the journalists to get down and do the work. That's also true in terms > of tourism issues, and therefore I sometimes write opinion pieces for The > Nation myself. Perhaps you can try to do so as well, using a pseudonym, if > you like. I could refer you to the editor of the Sunday Nation, who will > certainly be interested. > > Regards, > Anita > > At 11:28 AM 10/23/00 +0700, you wrote: > >Anita: > > > >Thanks for the update. > > > >I would like to ask you a favor. > > > >I have written Sanitsuda Ekachai many times and asked her, as a responsible > >columnist, why, if she is interested in the Forestry Department abuse of > >power, she never investigates the great quantity of information I have on the > >situation, as it would lend itself heavily to show evidence of how Forestry > >operates. > > > >Maybe you could  f fAPPLAPPL             ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~Root Entry (    ( 0  F8 v Data  (8 4 ,0 0 8 8 1Table  00 0 `   0%  ((,0  0WordDocument0  ,$   (,(40SummaryInformation 0 (( 0  4  $ @ DocumentSummaryInformation 80 (  CompObj ,  $  (( X8 ` 8      0 ( D0"  (  FMicrosoft Word DocumentNB6WWord.Document.8ltT,5 h$)h$[$u ${$`%%/ If the frontmost application is the Finder, this AppleScript program adds an alias of the selected item to the Speakable Items folder. 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