Born Into Brothels

For all of you looking for an excuse not to study for midterms or do some cleaning, I highly recommended the documentary Born into Brothels. This film chronicles a photographer’s experience getting to know the children of prostitutes in Calcutta’s red light district. Noticing their fascination with her camera, she gives them the opportunity to snap photos. Their pictures give a unique window into life in this corner of society. I was struck by how articulate and aware these children are, particularly the girls, wanting only a chance to go to school and escape “joining the line” as their mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers have done before them.

Microcredit – breaking the cycle of poverty

Through an SAS trip, I visited the organization RIDE (Rural Insitute for Development and Education) in Kanchipuram, a village in the state of Tamil Nadu. Over the course of two days we learned about the work that RIDE does, including releasing bonded child laborers, operating bridge schools to help these children transition into mainstream education, and making microcredit available to women in the community.

Child labor is illegal in India, but as the founder of RIDE observed, there is a law for everything in India, and no one pays any head to them because they are not enforced. The children in this particular area are bonded at a stone quarry, or in the silk weaving industry. Some of them are as young as 4. They work from 7am to 7pm, with a 30 minute break for lunch (a small cup of rice). Parents sell their children into bondage because they don’t see the value of education – they don’t believe it will help their children get anywhere. (There are many problems with the public education system in India). Instead, they feel their children should contribute to the family income, like everyone other member of the household. (Most bonded child laborers live with their families).

Many, if not most of the multinationals in India utilize child labor, directly or indirectly. If they are not directly employing child labor, they are subcontracting to firms that use child labor. Some of the companies named included Ford, Hyundai, and Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola is one of the companies most dependent on child labor – 58% of its work force are minors.

RIDE operates bridge schools where freed child laborers can adjust to being in school before they are transferred to mainstream education. We had the opportunity to go to a bridge school and play with some of these children. Some of them had terrible scars all over their faces, from mining accidents at the quarry.

In addition to taking children out of these terrible working conditions, RIDE strives to address the root causes that motivate parents to sell their children into bondage – poverty. RIDE strives to reduce poverty by providing microcredit to rural women in the state of Tamil Nadu. I became interested in microcredit last year and have since become convinced that it is a compassionate, sustainable way to give people a hand up out of poverty. For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, microcredit is lending small amounts of money – as little as $20 – to those in extreme poverty. Traditionally, banks have not granted loans to such people because it is not profitable to do the administrative work for such a small amount of money. In addition, banks are skeptical about the fiscal skills of people who have never managed capital. In lieu of collateral, microcredit lenders require instead that borrowers come in groups (usually 5-15) and pledge for each other. One or two members of the group can take out a loan at a time; when they have repaid their loans, the next few can take out loans.

Borrowers take their loans and invest it in the tools they need to set up a simple business – for example, buying a cow or a sewing machine. They can immediately start to generate income, some of which goes towards paying back the loan each month. The average repayment period is 10 months. When they have repaid their loan, they are eligible to take out a new, larger loan to expand their business. Microcredit organizations around the world have an average repayment rate of 98-99%.

In addition to the basic economic principles of microcredit, there are certain social features that are common to most microfinance organizations. Many microcredit organizations focus on or lend exclusively to women. All provide a network of support for the borrowers, such as training in basic accounting, counseling on business plans, vocational training, and regular “check in” meetings to ensure that borrowers are on track for repaying their loans.

What seems like such a simple concept has far reaching social effects. Women around the world who have had access to microcredit have gone from having no source of income to being able to pay for medicines, feed their family, accumulate savings for financial security, and put their children through school. In some cases the woman’s income surpasses that of her husband. Women’s role in society – the respect they are accorded and rights they exercise – begins to shift as they become financially empowered. I had the opportunity to interview some village women who have taken out microloans through RIDE, and I was struck by how confident and vocal they were, in a culture where women are traditionally housebound and timid. I heard stories of how they have marched into the district magistrate’s office and demanded answers as to why certain policies had been enacted. While initially men resisted this social change, when they saw how their wives could earn income they became supportive of microcredit, some of them even bringing their wives to join a borrowing group. As microcredit spread to a new village, men began to accord more respect to all women, whether they had taken out loans or not.

The UN has cited microcredit as a major strategy for meeting its Millennium Development goal of halving poverty by 2015. Last week, the Grameen Bank (the first microcredit organization, established in 1983 in Bangladesh) and its founder, Muhammed Yunus, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It is significant to note that the award was given in Peace – not Economics. In explaining its decision the committee recognized that in order to address much of the violence in the world today, we must first address the desperation that drives people to such acts – desperation that is rooted in poverty and the inability to fulfill basic needs.

additional reading

• RIDE
• Poverty Fighters: read stories of entrepreneurs in the developing world using microloans to lift themselves out of poverty
• Kiva: this website gives you the opportunity to contribute directly to an entrepreneur’s microloan and follow their progress in establishing a business

India

I expected to be overwhelmed by India. We had been told that nothing could prepare us for the poverty, chaos (both good and bad), and diversity we would experience. While there was a great deal to see and learn, I wasn’t overwhelmed. Part of this is certainly because I stayed in the south, and didn’t get up to the northern states where people are poorer and more desperate. Nevertheless, I had the opportunity to get an in-depth look at life in India at several social strata.

The highlights of my 5 days in India were going to IITM (Indian Institute of Technology – Madras) and meeting some CS students, the SAS field practica – “Child Labor in Rural India” and “Working Women’s Forum” which allowed me to see firsthand the impact of microcredit operations, and meeting Rama, a refreshingly honest auto-rickshaw driver (Google “auto rickshaw” to see what these tiny vehicles look like).

IITM is one of the 7 IITs, popularly referred to as the “crown jewels” of the Indian education system. It is located in Chennai (Madras was the British name for the city). It took us a solid 2 hours to finally find some students to talk to – they didn’t have a visitor’s department and were perplexed as to what we were doing there. Finally, an administrator in the Placement Office (career center) just called a couple students who work for him to come show us around. They came expecting that we were recruitment officers wanting to offer them jobs, but were happy to take us around anyway when it became apparent that we were just students. It was very interesting to learn about Indian perspectives and attitudes on IT and globalization (for example, India is infatuated with Google). I was surprised by how worldly and informed these CS students were, compared to their counterparts in China, and indeed even in the US. With China, much of this can be chalked up to the government regulation on information, particularly internet censorship. As for the US – complacency? The top jobs are all in the US now, but there is a lot of up and coming talent globally, and they have their eyes on those positions.

I grilled those IITM students about IT in India (and they grilled me in return), but I’ll refrain from going into that in detail here. Ask me if you’re interested in what I learned.

I’ll talk about microfinance in a separate post, so I’ll jump right to talking about Rama, the auto-rickshaw driver. In Chennai, all the rickshaw drivers know that Semester at Sea pulls in every 6 months, and they can make a killing ripping us off outrageously if they all collude to keep prices high. Rama refused to play this game, and charged us the local rate – 1/16 of what the other drivers were asking. He explained that “bad money will burn in their pockets” – he believes in kharma. Rama is a Sri Lankan refugee. He was an electrical engineer in Sri Lanka, but when he brought his family to India due to the civil war in Sri Lanka (which continues to this day), he found that he could not get a job as an engineer unless he paid the right people. Refusing to do this, he ended up driving a rickshaw.

Rama has 3 daughters. One of them is married, and he struggles to put the other two through private education (the public school system is terrible). One of them is in college studying history; she wants to be an elementary school teacher. The other one is in high school and wants to go into law. Rama said that while we were here, we were like his own daughters. He held our hands as we walked across the street – “because Indian traffic is very different from what you are used to” and made sure we made it safely back to the ship. On the last day, he bought strings of jasmine flowers to pin in our hair, explaining that this is what Indian fathers do for their daughters on special occasions.

Rama wants to save up enough money to buy his own rickshaw, so he can earn more money (the one he currently drives is rented from a company). He tells me that the next time I come to Chennai, he will drive me around in his own rickshaw. His daughters are sometimes a little exasperated with him because he comes home so late, but they know he is happy taking care of the tourists he meets. I certainly appreciated all of his help and honesty, and wish him the best of luck.

trapped in Burma

It’s hard to imagine how anything could rival my experience in Vietnam, but Burma (Myanmar) was another amazing experience. This was the first country I did completely indy – I had no SAS trips. I went around with a few other students, seeing the Golden Rock Pagoda, Shwedagon Paya, a Buddhist monastery, the white elephants, and Scott market. The highlight of my trip, however, wasn’t the sights we saw – it was the people we met.

Burma was taken over by a military junta in 1989, which remains in power today. It is one of the most isolated countries in the world, having only recently reopened to foreign investment and relaxed restrictions on tourism. When it was a part of the British empire, Burma was one of the most prosperous and advanced of the British colonies. In the 80s the UN ranked it among the 10 poorest countries in the world. Since then, the economy has improved somewhat, but many people still feel that Burma is slipping backwards in development. The people have endured decades of repression and economic stagnation. Criticism of the government has been brutally put down. Plainsclothed secret police patrol the streets, listening for a whisper of dissent – particularly when Burmese interact with foreigners. Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been under house arrest on and off for years.

We were warned before disembarking that attempting to discuss politically sensitive issues with Burmese would certainly get the person interrogated, and possibly thrown in jail or worse (Burma has a record of human rights abuses). Accordingly, we did not ask about such topics, but from my 5 days of interaction with the Burmese I could tell that many of them are bursting with desire to tell us what they have suffered and what they want for the future. Often they would come close to saying something sensitive, then shy away.

We had the good fortune to meet a monk, Aung, who has been teaching himself Spanish (note: name changed for his protection). He hopes to get a sponsorship to a monastery in Mexico. When he discovered that we spoke Spanish, words poured out of him – criticism of the repressive government, of their detached economic policies that have ruined the economy, the censorship of information. Aung is an incredibly articulate and thoughtful person, speaking both English and Spanish beautifully (mostly self taught). Despite all the restrictions has managed to become very well informed about the world. He comes from a fairly disadvantaged situation, even for Burma – he is one of 5 children in a family of peasants; his father died when he was very young. He joined the monastery when he was 11, and through this avenue has managed to become educated. I was struck by how much he knew about American political history (particularly of Lincoln and FDR), and about current world situations.

Aung challenged all my preconceived notions about what a monk is like. He is full of energy, singing along with the radio in the taxi, always joking and laughing. He likes to watch soccer and didn’t get much sleep during the World Cup. He has a Gmail account (supposedly blocked by the government) which he accesses through proxies. He is intense and passionate, not serene and detached. Aung is such a broad-minded and curious person, trapped in a country that has isolated itself and peers out at the world nervously and suspiciously. If given the chance, I am certain he would be an active and engaged global citizen. I fervently hope he will have this opportunity.

observations in Vietnam

Vietnam’s tropical fruits are amazing. My relatives took me to buy mangos, durian, and oranges (which are in season) from the market. I have never had such richly flavorful fruit before – it really makes a difference when it’s grown in an actual tropical climate vs. a hothouse.

Traffic in Saigon: everyone rides motorcycles or mopeds, and people don’t pay much attention to traffic regulations. Interspersed between the motorcycles are cyclos (like a bicycle with an attached carriage for a passenger; human powered taxi), some taxis and cars, and the odd truck or two. No one stops for anything – everyone deftly weaves around obstacles and cross traffic. The scariest thing to do is make a left turn – you just plunge into a wall of oncoming traffic. As a pedestrian crossing the street, you’ll be waiting a long time if you’re looking for a break in traffic. You just have to step off the sidewalk and walk at a constant pace, making eye contact with moped drivers. They’ll dodge around you, so long as you don’t change your pace or direction (so don’t stop or break into a run).

In China & Hong Kong I was usually addressed in Cantonese or Mandarin when I was only with other Asian students, but when I was with white friends we were all addressed in English, even if the local person only spoke a couple words of it. I don’t know whether it’s because I look partially Vietnamese, or whether it’s because the people are not as accustomed to Asian tourists, but everyone expected me to be able to speak Vietnamese, from the official changing money on the ship to every shopkeeper and passerby.

Ben Thanh Market & Cai Rang Floating Market

[I wrote the following report for my Ancient Technology of Food class]

In Vietnam, I had the chance to both explore the Ben Thanh Market in Ho Chi Minh City and the Cai Rang Floating Market in the Mekong Delta. In Ben Thanh Market, past the aisles of shops selling every manner of durable good there are food stalls, and beyond that there are stands selling produce. In the back, there is a “wet market” where you can buy meat. The produce stands had every kind of vegetable and fruit neatly stacked on display. Some of the stalls had little display racks that look exactly like short supermarket aisles in the US. Everything was sold by weight, and often bundled for easy purchase. Nearby the produce stalls were bulk goods stalls that sold dried beans, flour, rice, and related items by weight out of open sacks. I counted at least 5 varieties of white rice, a sack of black rice, and a sack of brown rice at one stand. The most interesting section, however, was the “wet market” where organs were laid out on plates for purchase (including brain, kidney, liver, heart, intestines, stomach, and other organs I couldn’t identify). Chunks of muscle, of course, were also for sale. Nothing was refrigerated or on ice. There were also buckets of live seafood and fish in water for sale. If you wanted to buy a fish, the woman would gut it right there for you in front of your eyes.

On the bus ride out to the Mekong Delta, we passed acres of flooded rice paddies lining the highway. Though we didn’t see any water buffalo, presumably because this wasn’t a time of year when their labor is required, we were told that one of the most common ways for children to earn a little pocket money is by watching water buffalo after school and during their vacations. We visited a farm in the delta and got to see women weeding plots with small hand tools. We also saw a man chest deep in the river, harvesting something that looked like watercress. The produce is placed in baskets that are hung one on each end of a pole, which is carried over the shoulder to small motor-powered watercraft (like canoes) to be taken to market. As we drove up the river we passed many such vessels, mostly transporting fruit (especially lychee and logan); there were also some transporting pineapples and herbs. We got to the floating market early, at 8 am, and observed locals buying and selling produce. The floating market is located at the juncture of seven canals, and is composed of a collection of boats anchored near one another. Most boats only sell one item, though I saw some larger vessels selling two or three types of vegetables. Every boat advertises what it is selling by securing a sample to a long bamboo rod that is tied like a flagpole to the boat. There were pineapple boats and potato boats, watermelon boats and orange boats. I noticed a proliferation of tubers (sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, radishes, turnips, and beets); there was also a lot of fruit. Noticeably lacking was rice. There was a grocery boat that sold amenities like salt and sugar, but residents must obtain their rice in some other fashion. As we made our way back, we also observed some fishermen taking crabs out of a trap in the river.

Both of these situations show that in Vietnam the markets are still closely tied to the consumer. There are very few intermediary steps between the farmer and the consumer – particularly in the delta, where food goes is sold directly by the farmer to the consumer. For urban consumers, trade lines must be relatively efficient, and new product is delivered daily; otherwise, raw meat could not be kept unrefrigerated and live animals could not be sold. Presumably, meat is bought fresh and consumed on the same day. All parts of the animal are used, including all the internal organs & hooves we saw for sale; they are not wasteful.

The importance of the ocean as a source of seafood was highlighted by the abundance of live crabs, mussels, squid, and other animals we saw in the wet market, and their presence in many local dishes. Concerning the variety of produce, I noticed many tubers (sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, radishes, turnips, carrots, and beets) for sale. However, I did not find that many tubers in Vietnamese cuisine. There were some pickled turnips and carrots, and I tried some sweet potato chips, but otherwise they were curiously absent. Especially striking is the lack of potato in food, when I saw many boatloads of potatoes in the market. There was also a proliferation of fruit: watermelon, pineapple, oranges, lychee, logan, durian, mango, dragonfruit, and others I did not recognize. The availability of fresh fruit is evident in the diet: fresh fruit juices are relatively inexpensive and easy to obtain, and fruit is served with every meal. Fruits have also been worked into savory dishes, such as pineapple in sour soup and winter melon soup. Finally, rice continues to be an important part of Vietnamese diet as well as a major export, as shown by the miles of rice paddies and the abundance of rice varieties available at the Ben Thanh Market.

pirates!

We are refueling in Singapore (though not allowed to get off the ship) and going through the Strait of Malaca (I think). These are apparently the most pirate-infested waters in the world, so we’re pushing through at 26 knots, nearly our top speed (we usually go around 17 knots). There’s a pirate watch stationed, and our ship is being escorted by police boats. We have been reassured that it is extremely unlikely that we’ll be targeted, because there are so many people on board. Usually they go for cargo ships with a lot of valuable freight and only 4-5 crew aboard. Nevertheless, we peer around in the gloomy mist that has shrouded our ship and reduced visibility.

Homeland

Vietnam was an incredibly emotionally intense experience. It was my first time visiting the land where my parents were born and grew up, a place I had heard so many stories of, but which had never taken on reality for me, like a fantasy land. My sister and I as children pictured this land in sepia and white, the tones of the old photographs we had seen.

We docked in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) on 9/27 and I wandered around with a friend on the first day. I got measured for an ao dai (traditional Vietnamese dress) and we explored Ben Thanh Market, which had everything from bolts of silk in every shade and hot pho (Vietnamese rice noodle soup) to live fish (gutted in front of your eyes when you purchase them for dinner) and animal organs on trays for sale. We then took cyclos (small carriages for one person which is peddled by the driver) in search of the house where my mother grew up. It took about an hour and involved a lot of backtracking and asking directions, but eventually we settled on a location and got out. As we sipped coffee at the café across the street, stories poured into my mind, of the everyday and the lifechanging moments, stories I had not thought about for a long time.

The second and third days I went to the Mekong Delta with an SAS trip. We took sampans through the maze of interlocking canals to see a floating produce market, coconut candy factory, & brick factory, and walk around in a farmer’s fields. On the fourth day I met up with relatives in Saigon, and on the last day I went to the Cu Chi tunnels, the famous extensive underground network of the Viet Cong.

I didn’t know what to expect when I met up with my relatives. My other experience with distant extended family (in southern California) was awkward, with little to talk about, compounded by my sister’s and my broken Cantonese. It had been a relief to leave that house. This time, I waited outside the gates of the port, scanning the flow of traffic for someone to make themselves apparent. Four people broke away from the crowd on motorcycles and came and greeted me with grins, tossing me on the back of one of the bikes and zooming back into traffic. Over the course of the next couple of hours I was introduced to a bewildering number of people, and even my relatives themselves argued over how exactly they were related to me (Chinese kinship is very complicated). What I managed to eventually sort out was that the 4 middle-aged women who spent the most time with me were sisters; they are my father’s cousins (my second aunts once removed? I don’t really know the American system either). Their mother (my grandfather’s sister) was also there, and a couple other people who’s relationship to me I didn’t ever quite put my finger on. Regardless of how the formal relationship actually works, all of these people were incredibly warm and welcoming. I didn’t feel like a guest at all; I wasn’t fussed over or scrutinized, just swept into the conversation flow. There was good-natured teasing all around and my aunts acknowledged etiquette I might be expected to abide by (such as pouring tea for my elders), only to waive such tradition. As a consequence, I didn’t feel pressured to figure out what I was supposed to do next, and could just enjoy their company. One elderly woman fussed over me, taking my hand when we crossed the street and nagging me to get home safely (and early). I’m not sure exactly how she’s related to me, but she made me think about my grandmothers, neither of whom I ever knew because they both passed away before I was born, never having left Vietnam. The whole experience gave me a glimpse of the warmth and security of an extended family, which I have never experienced before (I have one cousin in the States; our family gatherings at Thanksgiving and Christmas are never more than 8 people). Coming out of a culture where family is so important, it was a huge sacrifice for my dad to leave this network, striking out on his own in pursuit of the possibility of freedom and a better life. I wonder how different he would be if he stayed in the same city as his cousins, aunts and uncles.

During these past three months, I’ve sometimes been tired and lonely, missing my friends and family at home. My parents left Vietnam knowing they might not ever see their friends and family again. When they missed them, it was across oceans, without relief in sight. What fortitude it must have taken to face each day, in a completely foreign country, surrounded by strange sounds, smells, foods, and a foreign language. When they headed off it was into great uncertainty, with no idea what it would be like or where they’d end up. And people say I’m brave for going to Ecuador with fellow students for two months.

Every time I interacted with a young woman in Vietnam, I looked at her and thought, “I could have been her”. For every person who successfully got out of Vietnam, many others never made it out or perished in the attempt. I felt uncomfortable being waited on and called “madam”; so easily the tables could have been turned and I would have serving the privileged foreign girl her drink or helping her buy silk. One of my aunts told me that she and her family had planned to flee the country as well, and were supposed to go a week after my dad and uncle left. The government cracked down during that intervening week: my dad and uncle got out and my aunt is still there.

I have never before identified as a daughter of this beautiful country. I grew up culturally Chinese, was sent to a Chinese school to learn Mandarin, was taught about Chinese history, celebrated Chinese festivals. I am ethnically Chinese, but coming to this country has showed me that I am also Vietnamese. My family history is intimately tied to Vietnam, its war, and its people. When Chinese people ask me what part of China my family is from, I say Guangzhou, a southern province, but I have no identity with that place. Many of my friends have been to China several times and have family there. My parents have never been to China. It used to make me feel rootless, like I was Chinese without a homeland. Now I realize that my homeland is Vietnam, where my parents grew up, were I still have family.