Bản đồ Việt Nam
Maps of Vietnam

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Creators of an Alternate Universe

Watching survivors create works of art that are solely theirs is a joy beyond words. The most unlikely individuals have emerged as genius artists. During art class about 10 of the 40 people here quietly get into the zone and before I know it I'm staring at an intricate dragon, a tree with delicate carvings and detail, a colorful animated monkey, a blooming flower breathing life and color onto a blank paper, a vibrant map of Vietnam. It's unbelievable to me that folks walk around with these images in their heads, this ability in their hands. How is it that they have been deemed by employers here as only good for hard manual labor or servitude? No, these folks are Creativity Warriors...graphic designers, artists, architects, computer engineers, geographers, writers, cartographers, creators.

Fate, destiny make such seemingly random choices for how our lives pan out.

I hope my excitement, enthusiasm, and pure joy is felt by my students through my yelps of surprise, ooing, aahing, and facial gestures mixed with the 3 descriptive Vietnamese phrases I know: extremely beautiful, very good, this is excellent and interesting.

Painting done by a man who is blind in one eye due to an accident that lacerated him clear across his hairline and wounded one of his legs severely. He says that because the bones in his calf didn't heal properly, when it rains outside he feels intense pain in that leg.

ART GALLERY UPDATE

Photos of shelter folks' art have been stacking up.
I promise myself that I will have them up at least by the end of the month.
Where does the time go?

* Survivor's painting of a pond with fish and lotus.

We Make a Way

What I love most about TW is the time I spend with the survivors at the shelter. Everyday I have many unique, beautiful, and inspiring moments with them. For most, I don't know the particulars of their stories. They are the keepers and owners of their stories, and if and when they want to share them with me they can. Decision-making and exercising choice are learned behaviors. What do we do? We spend time together. It's simple, yet infinitely meaningful. We cook together; do nails; they teach me about various plants and herbs; I show them how to dance to Lil Wayne. I find it unbelievably random how the various experiences I've had in the past 25 years collide with their worlds in the most meant-to-be ways.

For example, I was fortunate enough to have piano lessons in my childhood. I haven't played in years, but one of the survivors pulled me aside the other night. She is learning how to play. As I flipped through the sheet music, I was in disbelief that the Beatles song Oh Bla Di Oh Bla Da caught my eye. It was simple enough that I taught her how to play it. A few weeks ago, I had downloaded this very song to my computer. We listened to it so she could know how it should sound. Here she was with very little English, and me, with little Vietnamese, both belting out "Desmond has a barrow in the market place, Sally is a singer in the band!" Words cannot describe the joy within that moment of my life. Life is so random.

Last night, I went with two male survivors to A-Mart, a mini-mall/grocery store of sorts. One man lost his entire right leg in a factory that processed pig meat, the other lost the lower part of his leg in a factory producing steel and metalworks. Durian, the most magical tasting, pungent smelling fruit on the planet, is their favorite, so the three of us chilled outside the store eating one. It was work to devour this thing. It had so many packets of fruit inside it. I might actually be part durian now. The man without a leg has been in TW 7 years now. He has a wife and daughter in TW too, who visit him on the weekends at the shelter. He bought a bag of limes to give her this weekend when she visits. All these years, so much struggle and they still have romance. This man is a good man.

One of the female survivors approached me recently and said (in Vietnamese): "I want to help you with your Vietnamese. I remember what it was like to come to TW and know no Chinese. My employer yelled at us and none of us workers knew what he was saying. It was a frightening and confusing time. Later, I found I could ask other workers who knew Chinese to teach me a few things and little by little I finally know a lot of Chinese. Now I want to help you because I know how hard it is to be in that situation. Don't worry. We will help each other. Just come find me whenever you don't understand something." If this woman only knew how she changed my life in those 3 minutes. Where there appears to be no way, we find a way. We make a way.

It's no secret that my Vietnamese language fluency is limited. It's usually the first thing I say to any Vietnamese person I meet at home and abroad. For the first couple weeks I struggled and I continue to struggle, but with a little creativity and a desire to connect anything is possible. That's what language is, a tool to communicate and connect. There are plenty of people who speak the same language and fail to understand one another. Life here is teaching me how to communicate with people beyond any spoken language. I am full of gratitude.

*Photo: Sunset at beach in Danshuei, TW

Stinky Tofu

Every morning I walk from the women's shelter facility to work. On the beginning of my walk the buildings are tall pretty apartment buildings and convenience stores. In a bit, I take the back way into a long alley of gravel where semi-fenced off to my right, there are tall wild grasses. The beginnings of the smell of something rotting starts at that point. For about 5 minutes I travel this way, until I reach the mounds of trash, the remains of a demolition project that just never got cleaned up. Rusty chains, yellow asbestos looking stuff, shattered wood, and of course, people's discarded bottle over here...food remains over there, all lie waiting to be discovered by a trash truck.

At this juncture, the trash meets a putrid, waste-laden sewage creek from which the stench of rotting plant and animal matter cling to the humid air, filling one's lungs to the point of pure disgust. The photo does the smell no justice. A rocky cement paved ledge about 1-1.5 feet wide lies next to the creek. I remember the first time a survivor showed me how to get to work. A large bag over my shoulder I had thought, "This is a joke right?" Thankfully, this part of the walk, the offensive creek and cement ledge is only all of 1 min or so and every so many feet the path decreases to half the size and I cling to the posts jutting out to prevent falling in the creek with the tiny fish eating pond sludge.

When I reach the end of this, I have to hop the creek by a gnarly tree. Someone put down two weak slabs of plywood-looking-feeling concrete for a makeshift bridge. I keep wondering when and if this will give one day under my weight, sending me into the creek I fear and loathe. The creek is on the backside of the office, so once I pass the 4 ft crossing I'm on solid land and at my place of work.

Every day I'm reminded how mixed up life is, how precarious things really are. The sludge creek leads to a place of refuge, the VMWBO office, where Tan has lived for over one month because the stress of working 13 hrs a day in a tile factory, 6 days a week, lifting heavy construction materials overwhelmed him. One day he got into a fight with another worker, a physical fight. His employer refused to pay him and then fired him. Tan came to Taiwan for several reasons. Of course one of them was to send money back home, but he also, at age 22, saw TW as a ticket out of the depressing conditions in VN and his dysfunctional family. For him, an older son in the family, it is his responsibility to help the family survive. His parents grow food on a small plot of land in front of their tenement in a rural part of north VN. He suffers a large scar that turned into a keloid on his upper arm because a machine cut out a large chunk of his arm. Two years ago Tan paid $8000 to some man who showed up in his village one day talking about a country with work and money. He didn't even know where Taiwan was. I'm astounded by the number of traffickers, often the same cultural background as those they traffic, selling their own. What does it mean when we sell our own?

Tan doesn't know how he will find work to pay off the rest of his debt. I think hard about the fact that in the U.S. he and his family might have had other choices. I think about all the American college students who are getting an education for their debt, while Tan is being human trafficked for his.

The sludge creek reminds me that outside the walls of the shelter, VNese are treated like 3rd class citizens. It stinks. It stinks stronger than any decomposing matter. But the creek also reminds me of the balance between the dark and the light, because in the midst of the human rights violations committed in TW, there are people like the shelter staff and caring folks in the states who are doing their part to fight for basic decency and justice. I guess it's like Stinky Tofu, a Taiwanese delight. Darkness and light, stinky and delicious, do dances around each other. I can't lie though, that creek smells like shit.



*Names have been changed to protect anonymity.
**Photo: 2 works of art made by women in the detention center. On the left, a more optimistic view. On the right, a depiction of a detainee's self-portrait of her sadness. Buon means sad VNese. The woman on the right mentioned repeatedly how ugly her drawing was. I told her I thought it was very, very special. She has been in the DC for 5 months.

Two Unrelated Items

I am struck by the amount of migrant workers in Taiwan. Perhaps that's a naiive discovery, but a discovery nonetheless. Though the VMWBO office (Vietnamese Migrant Workers and Brides Office) serves Vietnamese, I am horribly aware of the Thai, Indonesian and Filipino workers facing similar human trafficking issues. In fact, at the International Human Trafficking Conference I attended, I came away feeling that Indonesians have less resources to address this social problem. I've noticed many Filipino detainees in the detention centers too. I wonder how much of Taiwan's economy is fueled by darker-skinned Asians. I'm probably going to get in trouble with that statement. Oh well, it's the truth. Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders have always ranked lower on the Asian scale of privilege. Just like Latinos in North America, the Asian continent has it's own hierarchy of people groups.

On a lighter note, I lost my Invisalign retainers again. I have a lifetime reputation for losing things. We all must be good at something and my talent is losing stuff. I somehow managed to put them in a napkin on a table in the common room. I discreetly asked one person and in about 30 seconds, about 8 shelter residents were involved in the search. It was pretty embarassing, especially because I already managed to lose my phone's SIM card and a few other items over only 3 weeks. Thus, though there's not many things the shelter folks can say in English, they know the phrase "I lose things a lot." And yes, we dug through the trash and found them. Definitely blog-worthy.

Freedom in Contained Spaces


The detention center project has started after much coordination and negotiation with police officials and the NIA (National Immigration Agency). Yilan has two DCs, one for men and the other for women about a mile away. Our plan is to run a 2 hour recreational program at each facility every Friday. Our actual time allowed varies on whatever the guards dictate for that day. It was rough going on Friday, but with sweat pouring down our faces, Hope, Dave, Mina, Cha Chinh and I proceeded, first with the female detainees, and then later drove to do the same at the center with males. Because detainees, victims of human trafficking, are cooped up all day, many with dire circumstances, the recreational program is meant to give them some time where they get to focus on something relaxing and fun. Time where they are not treated like criminals.

The women's facility was more prison-looking that the men's, a very visible and noticeable difference our team noted. Shrouded in barbed-wire, from the outside, the place looks ominous with the feeling of an extreme-security prison. Guards here don't smile and we had to watch our every move because in the blink of an eye our recreational program could get shut-down. We brought styrofoam hearts and barrel-shaped objects for the women to decorate. Unfortunately, the guards would not let us give the women sequins, beads and other fun decorations we had brought for them to glue onto the objects. The guards fear suicide attempts and warned that any small object can be consumed to commit suicide. In all, there were 41 women.

I noticed many women drew pictures of themselves depicting their sadness and depression on the objects. Some drew pictures of loved ones back in Vietnam, and a significant amount just stared listlessly at other women drawing. When I tried to help these particular women think of something to draw, they were either too shy or too depressed to engage in conversation that was productive. Many women would comment that their drawings were ugly and even after I told them I thought each drawing was special, my statements weren't well believed. We ended the hour with a relaxation exercise that I led. A majority actually did the deep breathing, but many stared at me with curious eyes as I had them stretch their necks and connect with the feelings in their bodies. They need time to get used to our presence and understand what we're they're to do.

I find myself sitting with the uncomfortable feeling of helplessness for the cultural differences among these women versus women in America. I am sitting with the discomfort of not-knowing how to insert my foreign ideas that these women's lives are worth more than slave labor. This is definitely a life lesson in patience, persistence, and creativity. What does it mean for these women to be caged up when it is they who traveled overseas to make money to send home to their families in Vietnam?

About two hours later we arrived at the male facility and set up painting/drawing areas for them. We asked them to draw something about themselves. About 1/3 of the 38 men did not want to participate and sat idly watching others draw. I moved from cluster to cluster, making small-talk and positive comments about their work. I'm sad to say I was terribly uncomfortable by the suggestive looks I got from the men, many of whom asked for my age and whether I was single. Furthermore, if I wanted a boyfriend. Some made offers. To be fair, these men have had no contact with women in the DCs. Prior to detainment, they labor 11+ hours a day, 6 days a week, in factories making stones, tiles, car parts, etc that are both used in Taiwan and exported to countries like America. Others are fishermen. In the small villages and communities they are from in Vietnam, women are for making babies and raising children. I try to remember these facts when I feel my skin crawl from their flirtatious comments and focus on the work and the sweat pouring down my face in the stuffy auditorium.

About 90% of the men did not take my breathing relaxation exercise seriously. Many just watched me with very observant, peering eyes. It didn't help that the guard offered to interpret my words into Chinese (since many of the men understand a fair amount of Chinese). I discovered his understanding of my English was pretty limited, though I used basic, rudimentary verbage. Dave, the American psychiatrist studying Chinese, also tried to chime in which made the entire thing messy. All in all, our team learned at lot for how to modify the program for next week.

Three thoughts linger. There will always be people who are desperate for a better life. Consequently, there will always be people in the world ready to exploit others to fulfill a need for cheap labor. What can I do to ease the suffering of those who are subject to these situations? I hope that the hours that our team spends with the detainees over the coming months serve as contrasting moments of freedom in a life that has not been fair to them. Because, surely, life is never fair.

There are 4 detention centers in Taiwan. The NIA, National Immigration Agency, detains foreigners at these locations who need proof of paperwork or are suspected of breaking the law. Because of the poor conditions of trafficked people in the DCs (detention center), we've started a recreational program at the Yilan DC.

Our team consists of My-Nga, the program coordinator, Hope, a master's student with social justice background from the U.S., Dave, a psychiatrist from the U.S., Cha Hung, and myself. Last week, we became aware of a Vietnamese case at one of the DCs. A woman had tried to commit suicide by biting a piece of her tongue off. She was non-communicative, so Mina, Dave and I went to the shelter she was at to offer her some assistance.

As we walked into her room, the odor of her infected mouth became obvious. She had been suffering for over a week with her oral wound untreated and used a towel to cover it. The only nutrition she had consumed for a week was milk. She was only able to vaguely mumble that taking medicine hurt. Some of her answers didn't match our questions, a typical occurrence in trauma victims. She was refusing treatment because she thought the medicine was a trick, that people were coming to kill her. After a very tender and tedious conversation, she was able to say that 5 men had tied her down and raped her in the DC. She was shaking and began to sob. My intuition told me that, clearly, something very vile must have happened to this woman.

She had been an undocumented worker in TW for over 5 years. She had no history of prior mental illness and after 1 week at the DC, she had become disoriented, dissociative, and suicidal. A week prior, NIA had tried to repatriate her to Vietnam twice, but each time, she would refuse to board the plane at immigration, since she felt that people in TW were out to kill her. She stated that if she went home to Vietnam, she'd be trafficked against her will to China where things would be worse.

It was unclear what parts of her conversation with us were accurate. There is a chance some of her thoughts were delusions, but even so, she was experiencing them as reality. Dave offered to medically treat her wound, and again she refused treatment. Our team wanted the NIA to hold off on repatriation until she was able to receive adequate medical care in TW, but instead, she was taken to the airport where this time she boarded the plane to Vietnam. My mind was reeling after that case. In this work, there are always limitations to how we are able to help. We are frequently reminded of this fact.

Dear Friends, Supporters, and Newcomers,

I went back and read some of the previous interns blogs and realized that I didn't formally introduce myself. There was the long entry a few posts prior detailing my professional life. I figure it's just as important for you to know my personal side as well, so that you can understand a bit better my stay here in Taiwan (TW).

First and foremost, I care deeply about the basic human rights of others, the rights that allow us to live with peace in our minds, souls and bodies. Though suffering and loneliness are an intrinsic part of being human, I also believe that it is as core a human need to develop relationships with others to address this pain, to build community, to socialize, to partner with others and experience joy. A lifetime whizzes by in a flash. Before we know it, we become the very people we used to look up to. We grow up. We age.

So I ask the question: In the short time that I am here on earth, what meaning do I want to make of this life? At 25 years old I don't have the answers, but a wise friend once told me, it's not about the answers; it's about the question itself. The importance lies in the question. And so I ask you: In the short time that you are here on earth, what meaning do you want to make of this life?

Fast-forward to the present in Taoyuan, TW, to a shelter full of Vietnamese migrant workers who have been trafficked to work in factories, offer sex to brutal men, sometimes to be the sex plaything of all the men in one family, or be caregivers in people's homes. Many of these workers enter TW with a debt of around $7000. The conditions in VN are so deplorable, so dire that people would sell themselves, their daughters and their sons in the hopes that they can make money overseas as a migrant worker and have a better life. $7000 for a better life, a life that is a fairytale and hardly ever attained.

Do I think that my being in TW is going to stop human trafficking? Honestly, no. Where there is a demand for cheap labor and sex trade, a supply will be offered to meet the need. It's economics 101. But I'm not going to stay idle because I don't have a magic wand to solve this global problem. I'm here in TW because the mistreatment of other people is a local problem. Over here, it's the human rights of Vietnamese getting trampled on, but who is to say whether those rights might be yours or mine at some not-so-distant future.

Yes, I'm a therapist. I have a degree that says I spent a lot of time and money to learn about how people heal and fumble through relationships. Here at the shelter, it's not about my degree or my work experience. It's about me simply being with the folks here. Please understand, education and experience matter to an extent, but the biggest impact I have here is with my presence and the fact that I offer my time and share myself with others who are have been dealt a rough hand in life. I let them know that I choose to be here with them. I want to be here with them. I value developing a relationship with them. These facts allow me to be part of their community to where I can offer some healing through my presence.

They have an chance to experience a positive interaction with another human. That doesn't take a fancy degree or lots of money. It takes intentionality. Intentionality can propel a feeling of empathy and humanity into a place of action however big or small. Whoever you are, wherever you are, I wish you the best in your choice-making as you, much like folks here, struggle to make meaning of your life. I hope you join me in my journey through the next 5 months. May you find this blog informative...tangible...inspiring.

~ Calix

P.S. The people here call me Xuan, a word related to the season of Spring. I will be using both.