Poppies & Globalization

I like my cuppa tea now and then, but whoa...

So when the Dutch Empire began exporting goods from Asia, namely "exotic" teas from Darjeeling, India (where it had been used therapeutically for while already) back to Queen Victoria of England, there began an amazing story of poppies and globalization. Vicky's desires for tea quickly became trend and soon all of England was tea crazed. Tea was determined to be best consumed in porcelain, so thus began the rise in porcelain production--a minor note, but interesting. Of course, tea was significantly improved with a bit of sugar to enhance it's bitter flavor. Thus began the need to also create and export sugar. Thus began the slave trade to sugar plantations in the Americas (here's one more reason for me to boycott sugar... as if being diabetic wasn't enough) Tea was also implicated in the American Revolution, due to it's culpricity in the Boston Tea Party.

Ok, so fascinating chain of events, but stay with me here...

Meanwhile in, for the most part, unexploited lands of native communities in Asia, such as the Golden Triangle (where Burma, Lao and Thailand meet in the north), Turkey and Afghanistan, poppy fields were being harvested as usual for therapeutic and medicinal purposes (easing pain mostly.)

The East Indian Trading Company began to sell opium in order to pay it's tea expenses. Conflict quickly arose between commercially powerful Britain and opium controlling China. Thus began the opium wars. These wars ended when Britain forced unequal treaties upon China which left China with incredibly restricted export regulations and they had to fork over Hong Kong with a cherry on top for the subsequent 155 years to British occupation. China, depleted not only by Britain, but also by opium--economically and physically as so many of the population were addicted and severely ill (1 in 30.) China had a revolution, which lead to the modern Chinese power. China desperately wanted to stop opium traffiking because of the extensive damage.

The opium trading restrictions simply lead to a rise in sales and use/abuse in Siam (now Thailand) and its imports to the west. Thais were imposed by an unlimiting importation of opium. Later the American CIA covertly endorsed opium production in Thailand (specifically the area of the "Golden Triangle") the intention was to compete with and defeat opium efforts in Communist China, the American enemy. CIA endorsement of opium production was underway in Afghanistan as well, to fund and supply weapons to the Afghan people as allies to the American enemy, Communist Russia. In Afghanistan these efforts lead to its neighboring consumers, Pakistan, currently becoming one of the highest density populations of Heroin addiction in the world. 

Incidentally, opium is made for consumption by boiling the raw material from poppies to eliminate impurities, it is then reduced to a thick and beautiful molasses-esque batter. So intense in fact that critter-passers-by keel over dead simply due to the toxic fumes. Not just weak tiny bug respiratory systems, but big critters.. die. Anyway, the development of the more common powdered heroin substance came to be because of the ease of transport, particularly to America, where it was purchased from various mafia cohorts and sold with additives for bulking (powdered sugar or various other, often rather dangerous, substances.) This powder is typically snorted, boiled with water and injected, or boiled all the way to its original form and smoked.

Now, back to the impacts of mass, unregulated production of opium; in Thailand opium was so widely available that the degrees of addiction warranted grand intervention by the present royal family. The beloved King of Thailand made great strides in the illegalization and banishment of recreational opium, but because addiction is, well, addictive, a new drug simply took the lead. Methamphetamine, in Thai: Ya Ba (meaning insane medicine) became the drug of choice, particularly for Thai youth. Now public health measures are making a big difference in its rates of abuse and rehabilitation... and now alcoholism is on the rise.

Unfortunately, I'm sure, this will not be The End of the amazing story of poppies and globalization.

This has been a public service announcement from your friendly global nursing student. Thank you for listening!

Vast flood of information credited to the Hall of Opium in the "Golden Triangle" Chiang Rai province of Northern Thailand. Photo courtesy of google images.

Muay Thai Boxing is like Tap Dancing Recitals

It's an art. It's practiced, by generations, and entire families, in anticipation of a big performance. And yes, sometimes people get hurt. Ok, maybe not like the tap dance recitals that moi particiapted in per se.

Kai, in Thai, means "Chicken"

So it was rather appropriate, when we were leaving the cooking farm, to have Kai say "that's my face" as we passed a chicken farm on the side of the little dirt road in random outskirts Chiang Mai.

Peace Love & Mango Sticky Rice

Internal happiness is like dirty laundry, advises our organic farm Thai cooking instructor--already I feel like I'm going to be able to relate to this... "if you have a dirty shirt, you can't get it clean by adding clean shirts to it, it will just get everything else dirty. You must wash your shirt, wash, by hand, all the dirt off, and beneath will be what was there all along, your clean shirt!"

Roughly, but rather poetically, this means that happiness cannot be purchased with material things and wants and desires. Happiness is in there, and if it's not readily available to you, work on that a little, and soon enough, you'll find it.

Hmm, this reminds me of a joke:

What did the Dalai Lama say to the hot dog vendor?

"Make me one with everything!"

What did the hot dog vendor say to the Dalai Lama?

"That'll be two bucks."

The Dalai Lama hands the man a five, and waits.

...and waits, and says to the vendor "where's my change?"

And the man says to the Dalai Lama: "Change comes from within."

ps. Thank you to mom for so many rad opportunities together in Thailand on your visit, we did so much, and had a beautiful time--all three generations. I feel very lucky and truly happy--no need to wash any dirt off this happiness.

pps. Happy 57th wedding anniversary G & P and happy 75th birthday grammy!

Yum, I Love Pai.

Sawatdii Krap, followed by a flirty whistle is how we are greeted in Pai by the pretty talking bird at the gate of our beautiful bungalow. Pai is charming, it's a quiet and quaint mountain town four hours north of Chiang Mai [not an easy few hours mind you, thank goodness for ginger supplements, but it was well worth the wooziness!]

We cruised around the hills on a little motorbike for a few days, taking it all in... natural hot springs parks, a bare-back elephant jaunt, organic riverside restaurants and lounges, traditional Thai massage and medicinal herb saunas... it was soo delicious. We had a beautiful time.

Now, I am back to classes, and Forest has taken off again to meet Mike and head into Laos.

Obama and Palin and Penis Envy

I can now count to 999,999 in Thai*. I should ask someone how to say a million, then get someone to challenge me, like kindergarteners... but alas, I am doing more important things with my time, such as discovering the best way to simultaneously spend one hour of my life plus six dollars. My body type was made for Thai massage; fairly bendable, happy to be popped and cracked and layered just enough so the pain is good pain, for example, when your masseuse curls into a ball and rolls onto her back while holding your arms over her head and walking her knees into your back as your bum lifts off the ground. Très acrobatic.

This weekend I jaunted off to see mom and grammy in Krabi, on the southern peninsula of Thailand, west coast, Andaman Sea. It was über fun. Mom and I even took Gram out for a 3 person kayak trip (she was our queen in the middle, sans oars.) Turns out my camera isn't of the underwater variety--thankfully my pictures were salvaged and people seem to be hopeful that it can be nursed back to life; "it happens everyday" the locals kindly reassure.

For clinical this past week we visited the local Planned Parenthood for our community health course. Again massage and acupuncture are widely used modalities, just like at prison, the drug addiction treatment center and the child development hospital too. We were at one point shared the information that STI prevention and education is being done in outreach settings in rural Thailand. Apparently it's tricky because the condoms don't fit. We were told they are too small for Thai people and too big for the Hill Tribe communities. To which I promptly asked if that was an actual valid statement based on a documented report of clinical testing, or if it was a massive general assumption possibly based on institutionalized racism? This was very much lost in translation. I reserve my suspicions. Later we were shown the condoms, as our curiosity was not lost on our presenter. What was most unique about these was the expiration date, 2555! Wow, that's some serious preservative (melamine?) This is when we learned a great new fact about Thai culture; the calendar is, of course, based on Buddhism. Buddha was born 543 years before J.C., so there you go: normal preservative (I suppose it could still be melamine), presently it is the year 2551 in all Buddhist countries and the size-discrepancy is still to be investigated.... but I probably just won't have the time. However, my offense at the likely affront on the phallusism of it all shall remain.

Unrelated, though it makes for a good title, I now segue into politics--a previously indirectly mentioned topic in this space. Namely, I am having a heck of a time being so removed from much of the goings on, but I am equally relishing in the stark absence of those awful televised party bashings that many of you back home are no doubt inescapably being inundated. I am by no means out of touch completely. The class has convened at one of the professor's apartments for every debate thus far, even if it meant shifting her own theory class for it. I also have the internet. So I have replayed many times the glorious Palin interviews. And just a word here, if I may, "because she's so pretty." is not an answer to: "Why do you support Sarah Palin as a VP hopeful?" Source: BBC.

A lot of things are pretty; Miss America is probably really pretty, I think male peacocks are pretty, and stained glass windows. But I don't think these would make very good options for president (McCain is a septegenerarian, and probably a really stressed out one too.) Now, I'm not saying pretty equates with stupid or inept, not at all. Case in point: my model friend Kaiulani, if you're lucky enough to know her. I'm only saying that Americans (you know the "hockey moms" and I believe Palin also used the phrase "Joe Beer Belly,") cannot use "pretty" or even drop-dead gorgeous for that matter, as a criterion for choosing to sway McPalin. Or maybe I should just say what I really feel here... I heart Barack! He would beat Palin in a poltical beauty contest any day of the week, Obama, you're beautiful.

*Incidentally 999,999 goes like this: Gǎao s33n gǎao muun gǎao pan gǎao rćcy gǎao sìb gǎao!

Chiang Mai Living

Sawatdii Ká!

Kun chūū arai ká?

Mai chūū? Mai bpen rai ká!

We have been learning Thai, it's fabulous. Last week we were given Thai names. Most Thai folks have long multi-syllabic elaborate names, and most tend to go by nicknames such as; "cup", "the verb to grind a large mortar and pestle", or funny sounds, or even, "pig". So we had a lot of fun acquiring Thai nicknames in class. Incidentally I am Jǔm, which is a fun sound.

In other courses: our first psych clinical is Monday, we will be visiting the Chiang Mai Child Development and Drug Addiction Treatment center. I’m looking forward to learning how mental health is viewed by the Thai community, if there is more or less stigma/acceptance/understanding than I imagine there is at home, or from my only previous mental health experience working in England as an auxiliary nurse in a mother-baby mental health hospital. We are also taking community health nursing courses, and our first clinical was to explore a given neighborhood and perform a community health assessment from our observations. My group and I chose the area around the Women’s Correctional Prison. It was fascinating, perhaps we can arrange a visit inside the prison at a later date, but we did receive massages from former inmates who are taught massage in prison so that they may have access to a sustainable occupation when they are released. Eighty five percent of the incarcerated women were there for methamphetamine use. My masseuse volunteered that she used to sell cocaine... sort of, here is how that came about:

My friend Kimberlee said: "How was your experience in prison?"

Massage practitioner: "What do you mean?"

Kimberlee: "What did you do... [trailing off "there in prison?"]

Masseuse: "[Interrupting her] Ah, cocaine."

Kimberlee: "Oh, cooking?"

Masseuse: "I sell."

Kimberlee: "sewing?"

Jane: "She just told us she was imprisoned for selling cocaine."

***

We're staying in the faculty nursing dorms on campus at CMU and my end of the hall is full of international masters and PhD students in the nursing department; from China, Lao, and Vietnam. It's very fun, especially cooking together in the kitchen.  I have been recruited for English grammar assistance on a regular basis, just the other night I edited a 20 page excerpt from a PhD students thesis on job satisfaction in nursing. It was a huge editing project. I am certainly going to be busy with homework while studying in Thailand... just not my own!

We had our first field trip as a group this weekend as well. We have been seeing lots of great nooks and crannies of this amazing northern town. The photos above are from the trip to Doi Suthep, a marvelous temple with 306 steep steps, already high up in the mountains—it was beautifully misty, as well as the elephant reserve, where we cuddled sweet elephants and fed them sugar cane and bananas.

Life here is wonderful, and my mom and grandmother just arrived in Bangkok! Welcome to Thailand!

***

Jane Silver
  
Faculty Nursing Dormitory 3
  
Chiang Mai University
  
110 Inthawaroros Road
  
Sriphum District Muang
  
Chiang Mai, Thailand 50200

Mobile #:

[from the US] 011 66 853 404 155

[from within Thailand] 0853 404 155