A Reader's Research Request

This mophead hydrangea (hydrangea macrophylla) in Bangkok has nothing to do with today's post whatsoever, but it's a nice image, I suppose.

A request came in a little while ago from reader Kai Jonas, a doctor looking for gay men willing to participate in a survey of travelers and expats being run from Amsterdam in the Netherlands as part of an ongoing project, so I figured I'd put it out there for anyone who wants to participate. I personally have no connection with this research, and while I've completed the survey you're all (naturally) free to make up your own minds if you wish to participate or not. It's not just internet spam... this is a legitimate research project, done with the cooperation of the Amsterdam Health Authority.

What's it all about?  In a nutshell, it's about gay travelers and expats having sex while traveling or living abroad.  There.  THAT got some of your ears up. I'd question their thought that "having sex while travelling or while living abroad has become normal", but maybe that's just me... for the traveling part, anyway.

Since I run a reasonably family-friendly site here I'll offer you the (almost needless) cautionary warning about sexual images in the survey, but the very few you're asked about are clinical in nature and not prurient in the least.

Read the explanatory introductory letter below from Dr. Kai Jonas, the man who sent it to me, and then make your own decision about taking it yourself.  They say it takes 10 to 15 minutes to complete, but I'd say that'd only be if you gave the questions a LOT of thought, and I'm guessing most answers will come to you faster than that.

If you want to see results of the survey at some point in the future you have a chance at the end of the survey to provide an email address to receive them.  Seemed worthwhile to me.

To take the survey, click HERE, and I've added the doctor's introductory letter below. As usual, the link should open a new window for you.

Thanks for asking, Kai. I hope you get some helpers from this post.

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Survey on Sexual Health Risks for Gay Travellers To and Expats Living in SE Asia

In modern societies, having sex while travelling or while living abroad has become normal. Yet, there are certain health risks (sexually transmitted diseases or infections = STI/STD) related to this. Little is known on how gay men deal with these risks and how prevention and medical treatment can be improved for this group. 

In this project, in cooperation with the Amsterdam Health Authority, we want to gather data in order to tailor information and prevention for this group. Why do we do this from Amsterdam? There are two reasons. First of all, we are gay ourselves and open to the issues of gay men worldwide. Secondly, Amsterdam is an international hub and often sees gay travellers and expats with STIs and STDs. 

In this study we are seeking information regarding your time in Thailand or Southeast Asia. When we speak of Thais or Thailand in this study it is an example, you may think of other countries, like Laos, Cambodia, etc. too. You are also going to see sexually explicit images. But it is going to be fun! 

The study takes, on average, 15-20 minutes. Your answers are fully anonymous. We are not interested in single cases, but want to investigate trends across many participants. 

If you have questions regarding the study, please get in contact with the principal investigator of the project, Dr. Kai J. Jonas, k.j.jonas@uva.nl The study has been approved by the ethics commission of the University of Amsterdam (CE 2013-2835)

One Boy's Success Story - The Conclusion

Top on a visit to the Million Year Stone Park a year ago

When we left off yesterday I had - more or less - given my word that I'd attend the graduation ceremony for one of my sponsored students, Top, if I were in the country at the time.  If you don't care to go through the first part, I'd been sponsoring his schooling and visiting with him and his family for more than a handful of years, and seen him become a self-confident and upstanding young man - quite a change from the boy I'd originally met, who spent most of his time apparently fascinated with the ground directly in front of his well-worn shoes.  It had been a heartwarming transformation, and I'd been lucky to be along for the ride.

As can be the case when you're trying to arrange events with school kids - especially teenagers - it's a little like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree. This year's outing with Top turned out to be a solo affair, and at the time he still didn't seem to know the particulars on his graduation ceremony that was around two weeks away.  We said our goodbyes with the whole thing still up in the air, and although I hadn't really said goodbye I figured "well, that's that".

Top helps at check-out with the family's supplies

This might be a good spot to mention that the Pattaya Street Kids Support Project is, by its own charter, structured to only provide assistance to minors up to (and through, naturally) the school year during which they'll turn 18. Top was somewhat of an oddball case, and I'd like to make it clear that for PSKSP to remain on the "up and up" the funds, contact and details for the extra year Top needed to finish trade school was handled by a trusted friend, although the regular folks were right there in an unofficial capacity to cheer him on.

Graduation gifts aren't normally given by one Thai to another, but I wanted to do something to commemorate his achievement "Western Style", so at the end of our grocery run last month I stopped Top at a watch shop and told him what my thoughts were, giving him a price range that was generous but not ostentatious and asked him to pick out something he'd like.  He'd dealt with my oddball Western ways for years so wasn't all that surprised, and picked out the watch below.

After taking the groceries and supplies back to his family's home we visited a few minutes before saying our goodbyes. As you may already know, the Thai aren't as a rule people who'll stand at the train station and weep, waving farewell with their hankies as their friends or loved ones pull off into the distance, but we all knew that there were no set plans to meet again - particularly under the PSKSP umbrella - but we had each other's cell numbers and emails. I reminded him that I'd gladly attend his graduation, but that he'd need to let me (or preferably my interpreting friend) know where and when it was, as I'd be leaving town in just a few more days. He assured me he would, and our day was finished.

I left Pattaya and went on with my holiday, and when I hadn't heard anything for a couple of weeks I'd figured the ceremony was to take place after he knew I'd be flying home and, somewhat sadly, guessed I wouldn't make it.

Then one morning in Bangkok after my morning walk among the locals I was reading the paper in my room when my cell phone rang. It was Tom, my go-between. "Top just called me. His graduation is at 3:00 this afternoon here in Pattaya. Do you think you can make it?"  Noting it was 20 minutes past 10 I replied "I can try, but I'm not all that optimistic about finding a ride there on such short notice." "Are you close to the BTS?" he asked - and then the light came on. "Yes!" I exclaimed "The bus! I can get a bus!" "OK," he continued "Call me when you get to Pattaya, and we'll go from there."

Top's graduation bouquet

I quickly showered, put on the single set of semi-dressy clothes I bring along each trip - usually taking them home unworn - took the BTS to the Ekamai station and walked the block to the Eastern bus terminal.

Evidently fate was along with me, because when I arrived at the window to buy a ticket for the bus that would get me there in time to make the ceremony there was one seat left. It left in 10 minutes, and I clambered aboard and spent the next two hours with the toilet door knocking into my left knee as people went in and out.

Arriving at the Pattaya bus depot at 2:20/14:20 I was cutting things close. I hailed a licensed bandit in a taxi and paid a dear price to get to the charity office, where my friend Tom was waiting for me.  I jumped into his car and we arrived at the hotel where the ceremony was to be ten minutes before it was to begin.

As it turned out, the ceremony itself was a private affair for students and faculty only, so we waited  outside with Top's mother, sister, younger brother and a close friend of Top's among a crowd of similar folks, all waiting for the graduates to come filing out.  As I mentioned, gifts aren't the norm there, but flowers and stuffed animals are, so I bought a bouquet for him, just as his sister and mother and friend had done. Smaller than the ones they'd purchased, but I didn't want to feel like I was showing off. Just me, I guess.

The first few times it happened I'd felt self-conscious when realizing I was the only (or one of a very few) Caucasians at an event or gathering, but I've grown to appreciate it for what it actually is, I guess - a privileged inclusion - and now I enjoy the "how do you fit in here?" looks I still sometimes get, as odd as that may sound to some. On this occasion I stayed somewhat on the fringe of things to avoid the possibility of Top having to explain that I'd paid for his schooling since his family could not, but the words of gratitude from his sister and mother were recognition enough.

By 3:20 we began to see the robes of students already recognized in groups emerging from the hall, most stopping to pick up a saucer with a cup of coffee and a cookie on it before descending the steps to meet the people waiting to congratulate them. Top was in one of the last groups, evidently, because it was nearly 3:45 before I spotted him filing out with a groups of other boys, all smiling and laughing.

A very pleased Top poses with his family

There weren't the extended clinging hugs and tears you might see at a graduation here in the USA, but there were smiles of acknowledgement and nods of respect exchanged for the flowers and congratulatory remarks between family, friends and graduates. It was restrained, but joyous - if that makes any sense. I stood back and watched with great satisfaction that I'd had a minor part in it for Top. After all, I wasn't the one who had to drag him out of bed to get him to school or stay on his case to finish his homework; I was merely the benefactor. Still, it was a great feeling.

Facebook - the same around the world! Students lined up to have their photo taken here...

For Top it was one of life's defining moments, and he stood holding onto the folder containing his diploma as though it were a life preserver, and, in some ways it might well be just that. 14 years of schooling through a rough childhood and adolescence was quite an accomplishment for this boy - now a man - who had actually learned a marketable skill, as well as hope for a good life ahead for himself, and, hopefully, his wife and children, if that's the path he chooses.

Top and his friends pose for one of their friends to take a picture

By now many of the groups were finished posing for photos and had begun to stake out spots to share the buffet dinner that was part of their graduation package, and Top was (casually) glancing about to spot his friends while we were still hold him in place to visit. I figured it was about time for me to cut him loose, so through Tom I told him "School wasn't ever easy for me, either, so I understand a little bit about how difficult it's been for you to stick with this."

I waited for the translation, and could see the look change slightly on his face. Not quite a smile, but a tightening of the lips.  "I just want you to know that I think you've done a great job, and I'm proud of you," as out of reflex I reached out and took his hand to shake it. He looked me straight in the eye, covered my hand with his and said (in English, something I'd rarely heard before from him) "Thank you.  Thank you so very much."

I was still standing there looking surprised when he smiled, and repeated what he'd said, shaking my hand again with both of his. "You're welcome, Top. Keep in touch and let me know how you do from here, will you?"  When that was translated for him he smiled again and nodded, glancing over at his friends.

"Go... have fun," I encouraged him, motioning for him to go over to them, and that needed no translation. He turned on his heel, waved goodbye and ran off to join them, his gown flapping in the afternoon breeze behind him.

Will I ever hear from him again?  Who knows - and that wasn't the point to begin with. There are plenty more who also need this simple step up, and I hope I can be there to help a few more before I need a nurse to take care of me.  Yes, it was a little sad to see the regularity of it come to a conclusion, but what a feeling to think that the ripples from this one pebble may spread across generations.

Sitting on the bus back to Bangkok a couple of hours later I saw the homes of people who labored - and would continue to labor - beneath the weight of poverty, and thought to myself "You've done a good thing."

As I've said before: we can't save the world, but we can save little pieces of it.  If you love and care about Thailand as I do, please consider joining in and saving one small bit of it yourself.  The website is the Pattaya Street Kids Support Project.  You won't regret it.

To paraphrase the 80's song: "The future's so bright, he ought to wear shades".

Cambodia, Pt 3: The Genocide Museum In Phnom Penh

The barbed wire remaining on the site of "S-21" is no longer electrified, but can still raise unpleasant images.

Just as a fair warning: the posts over the next few days may be unpleasant for some of you to read. I thought perhaps this introduction might be a way to ease you into it, if that's possible.

Man's inhumanity to man is often difficult to face, but it's something you can't avoid when visiting a site such as Tuol Sleng, one of over 150 "interrogation" centers the Khmer Rouge used as what were, in essence, really nothing more than torture chambers and murdering sites while they ran roughshod over the men women and children of Cambodia (then Kampuchea) from 1975 until their fall in 1979.

Not perfect, but a pano showing part of the inner courtyard of the S-21 grounds

Tuol Sleng was a high school until the Khmer Rouge won the civil war in Cambodia in 1975, and in August it was converted into a prison and interrogation center, housing as many as 1,500 prisoners at a time. Estimates as to how many actually passed through Security Prison 21 (aka S-21) differ, but the number lies somewhere between 15 and 20 thousand. You can bet only a few handful walked out of there as free citizens.

Open office windows at S-21

When they began their reign of terror in 1975 the Khmer Rouge justified such centers as merely a means of locating and prosecuting those from the previous Lon Nol regime, but their means of gathering information began brutally and degenerated from there.

Most of those brought to S-21 ended up at Choeung Ek sooner rather than later; Choeung Ek being the site better known to the world as the Killing Fields, where over a million met their deaths in some of the most brutal ways imaginable. For the first year S-21 was open for business the bodies were buried on the grounds and nearby area, but they ran out of room.

A tourist comes out of a torture room on the second floor of one wing. 

If you take that figure of a million and break it down for the roughly four years of the regime's reign that comes to over 680 human lives snuffed out per day.  I suppose "snuffed out" is too gentle a term, as most of them came to a far more unpleasant and violent end, but that's a story still to come. Let's just say for now that ammunition for a quick kill was both expensive and in short supply, so they used whatever they could lay their hands on to do the job.

Although it's a tourist stop the current government endorses visitors to see - if for no other reason than to say "never again" - it was, naturally, a very somber and quiet place.  

For the boorish there were signs like the one above, advising visitors to show respect for the carnage wrought there by refraining from joking and laughing. I personally saw nothing but groups of somber folks - Western tourists, but also small school groups - moving slowly and quietly from room to room and display to display, each more disturbing then the last when you followed the course suggested by the arrows on the walls. 

Next we'll see some photos used by the Khmer Rouge to document the people who passed through Tuol Sleng, and then in the next post we'll move on to the actual processes themselves.

One young man who passed through the Tuol Sleng interrogation center. May he be at peace.

Those Ubiquitous Thai School Uniforms

School kids, as seen in the "Gift of a Lifetime" post

Throughout Thailand you'll see them: millions of children heading to and from school in their regulation attire. You'll see them in a lot of other places around town, too, because most of them don't go directly to and from home any more regularly than we did as kids; stopping for snacks, to play with friends, shop, and do everyday things. On any laundry day you'll see the same uniforms hanging in the yards of houses, apartments, and condos. Many times I've seen them hanging on balconies with the rest of the laundry to dry.

Two boys having ice cream at a school luncheon

According to figures I've seen there are almost 6 million primary students in Thailand, 4.7 million in secondary schools and over three quarters of a million in vocational education. Education is compulsory for the first 9 grades of school, and the government pays for much of it, as it should. Evidently they're not doing too bad a job of it, as the completion rate is just shy of 82% and the literacy rate for youth aged 15-24 is 97.98%. Figures and statistics can be manipulated from hell to breakfast, so take these with as many grains of salt as you wish, but we're in the ballpark.

Some of the hundreds of uniform items in the story I visited

While out shopping with one of the students I sponsor there this last trip they were interested in buying some sports equipment with their allotted spending money, and we'd stopped in at a shop that just happened to sell uniforms for some of the schools in Pattaya. Many of the students from more humble homes are quite pleased to have the proper clothing and equipment for their favorite sport, and I've bought my share of soccer balls, shin guards and cleats for them at different times.

While I was waiting for the clerk to tally my total I looked around the shop and found a large corner of it stocked with the very uniforms I'd seen around the city. In addition to the uniforms there was another small shop just next door that did the custom stitching of the school and student's name. I'd been to similar stores here in the U.S. during my own school days, but only to buy the required attire for the physical education classes, one of my least favorite parts of my school day. 

While today's post may not be as interesting to everyone as some aspects of Thai life, it's very much a part of it.

Some families are hard pressed to come up with the funds for their part of the school costs, and that gives me another opportunity to suggest that if you can afford $10 a month you might want to to check out the Pattaya Street Kids Support Project site and help. A year's donation will mean you have two or three less dinners out a year, but it can make a lasting difference in the life of a child - and their children to come. As I've said before, we can't save the world, but we can save little pieces of it.