The movie Call and Response made me think of Phone.

Phone is a girl I met in Thailand during my seven month stay there. I volunteered at an outreach to prostitutes once a week. I think at that time prostitution was kind of illegal but not really. The country depended on the sex industry–or that’s how they looked at it. So even government workers owned some of the brothels.

Rahab ministry’s hair salon was in Pat Pong, a district known for its sex bars. In that salon I met Phone. She was 15 years old. She was friendly, spunky, cute, loveable. She called me P’Nun (pronounced Pee Noon). Nun was my Thai name, P is a word for addressing someone older than you who is a friend or a family member. She had my cell phone number. I remember her calling me once and being upset because she was sick and didn’t want to go to work.

Phone worked in a sex bar, but I don’t think she was servicing men with sex yet. She was new in the bar. She had to dance on the tables in a bikini. She didn’t like doing this. To do something like that in Thailand is very shameful and embarrassing.

I will never forget her saying to me, “P’Nun, would you take me home with you. I’ll be your maid.” I will Never forget, and have regrets. At the time I didn’t think there was anything I could do for her. At least she was connected to Rahab Ministry and if she asked them for help leaving the bar, they would have helped her.

I don’t know if she was forced into this. My impression was that she was from a poor family. She came to the city to work and support her family. Of course, this is where she ended up.

Call and Response:

My call is Phone!! I want to yell out her name.

But, what is the response. It’s been four years. She is now 18. Is she out of the bar? Is she OK. Is she alive?

I’m so, so sorry Phone.

Maybe you know the meaning of this saying “call and response”. I didn’t before I saw the movie Call and Response. I’ll tell you this much, it relates music to slavery. 

If you haven’t seen Call and Response, please see it. If you are interested in fighting modern day slavery, I know you would want to see it. It’s probably the most well done documentary I’ve seen on modern day slavery. It incorporates music which is a really unexpected way to address this issue. 

Some of the music artist in this film are: Moby, Natasha Bedingfield, Cold War Kids, Matisyahu, Imogen Heap, Talib Kweli, Five For Fighting, Switchfoot, members of Nickel Creek and Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers, Rocco Deluca.

It’s absolutely beautiful and moving and heart-wrenching.
It’s totally not for profit either.

I saw it at the Hollywood Theatre in Portland and the director was there, so that was quite a special thing!

I don’t know how long the movie will be running, but this weekend was supposed to be the weekend that it’s showing. So don’t delay in finding a showing near you!

What do we want?
Democracy!
What do we want?
Democracy!
What do we need?
Freedom!
What do we need?
Freedom!
China! China!
Stop selling weapons!
China! China!
Stop selling weapons!
Free, free…
Free Burma!
Free, free…
Free Burma!
Free, free…
Aung San Suukyi!
Free, free…
Aung San Suukyi!

October 6th 2007

Today was an international day of protest for Myanmar’s freedom, or Burma’s freedom. The Burmese protesters use the name Burma instead of Myanmar.

I planned to lay off of the social activism but…I was drawn to the “free Burma” protest in Portland today.
When I learn about cases of political disaster that have occurred in the past (the Apartheid in South Africa, the hootsies and tutsies, massacres in Guatemala…) I have thought to myself, ‘if I was an adult when that occurred then I would have made some noise about it.’ I want to be a part of social revolution history.

I’ve been reading news about Myanmar (formerly called “Burma”) lately. I’ll let you know what I’ve heard about Myanmar through news and people. There is a military government in Myanmar. There has been a lot of human rights abuses in the past. It is a very poor country. In 1988 a student revolutionary group protested, and thousands of them were killed for it. Over 10,000 people in Myanmar were killed that year by the government. Aung San Suukyi (her name is in the chant above) helped found the National League for Democracy, won the Nobel Peace Prize, and was elected Prime Minister. The military wouldn’t let her assume the role of Prime Minister and put her under house arrest where she remains to this day. This year people have started protesting again because the price in gas and food has been raised to unaffordable prices. The monks were the ones who were on the front lines of the protests this time. Now the protests aren’t only about gas prices, but government reform. The government has been arresting protesters.

The group that met in front of Nordstrom’s across the street from Pioneer Square in Portland was no more than 40. At least half of the protesters were refugees from Burma. I felt confident participating in the protest because it was led by Burmese people. I wouldn’t be so confident if it wasn’t started by Burmese people. I’m happy to see people fight for their own freedom. I’m happy when immigrants don’t forget about the people in the country that they came from.

When I first joined the group I took pictures. When the people started chanting, I chanted with them. Then, a girl in front handed me her sign, and I took her place in front. The sign I held had photos of poor village children in Burma–some had horrible skin diseases. I asked someone about this later, I was told that the people in the villages are treated like animals by the government because they aren’t provided with any basic needs. They have no option to go to the doctor for horrible rashes.

There was a man next to me who held the red “student flag” with the fighting peacock on it and he was from Burma. He said he had fought on the Thai/Burmese border in a revolutionary group. He had also lived in a refugee camp in Thailand. We had a connection because he used to live somewhere on the border that I have actually been before. He has been in the U.S.A. for six years.

I also talked to the man who did most of the the chant leading (yelling) for a while. He was one of the student protesters in 1988. After protesting in Burma, he protested at the Burmese embassy in Bangkok, Thailand. I think he was there to seek refuge. But it was illegal for Burmese people to be in Thailand, apparently except for refugees. Immigrants from Burma who were caught would be whisked right back to the motherland–even though it was probably their worst nightmare to return. He was able to come to the U.S.A. as a refugee. He told me that although he escaped the hardships in Myanmar he doesn’t want to forget his people who can’t escape. He doesn’t want 1988 to occur again but he doesn’t think it will because this time the world is aware of the situation in Myanmar. He talked about how the people in the government only make decisions that benefit themselves but do not consider benefiting the people. A country is the people, not it’s government, he said.

A young man who was passing by stopped to talk to me. He asked about why we were protesting and I said, “Burma”, and he said he didn’t know about the situation in Burma. I told him about it, and then he asked me what we were trying to accomplish by protesting. I told him that I didn’t know because I wasn’t an organizer of this protest. Personally, I told him, I wanted to raise awareness and make some noise, and support the Burmese protest. I was a little unprepared to answer his question and even said some stuff that sounded stupid. He seemed to be challenging me to think more about why I was protesting and if it’s really effective or not. I’m glad that he cared enough to say something, and I think his question is a really good one. I felt like I was misunderstood though, and that’s not a good feeling.

The Burmese leader I talked to said that they’re going to protest every Saturday until the government changes. What he hoped that the protests would accomplish were direct change of the government, and UN involvement I think.

I would like to keep thinking about the effectiveness of protests and what more could be done in this case than a protest. Got any thoughts?

I’ll tell you about my special connection to Myanmar in my next blog.