Author Archives: Nicola Gladwell

There and back again

April 20, 2010 – 8:39 am
By Nicola Gladwell | Posted in Uncategorized Comments (0)

Katie Ironside has just pointed out that my departure from Thailand was exactly a year after I left the first time, with our class at SSU. I suppose this must have some hidden meaning, yet eludes me at the moment and so will leave it as an interesting anecdote.

I’m currently in transit on my way back to Canada from Thailand. I’m in dreary yet lovely London at the moment, as ‘on the way back’ is a lovely concept when you’re on the other side of the world, and nearly everything except for Vancouver and Hawaii is ‘on the way’. I’m currently visiting with family and friends.

I’m up early this morning, hungry and thinking of all the Thai food I would love to eat… having an imaginary conversation in Thai with a food vendor in my head as I lie in bed, trying to come to terms with invariably losing this language that I’ve worked hard to learn. Such is jetlag. Yet, I did tend to wake up at 6am in Thailand as well.

‘A People on the Move’ by Joel, sits in front of me on the desk. I feel like a nomad. I’m reminded that there is a whole community of nomad-like people whom I love dearly, all living in a large yellow house… all also building an understanding of what it looks like to live healthily, live justly, live wholly.

Last year March I left Thailand with my class after the study term; we had also been to the Northern Philippines, and East Malaysia. I had been putting an emphasis on human trafficking throughout my studies, and trafficking for sexual services specifically. I knew the reputation Thailand had when I arrived, and struggled with how I could simply be a tourist and a student in a country I so ached for. I felt God speak to me then, as we landed in Chiang Mai; ‘Nicola. This is for something else. But I will bring you back.’ Sure enough, my efforts to connect with the humanitarian world were constantly thwarted while I was there, and when I flew out again, a year ago, I was confident, as I knew I would be back again soon.

I had written a blog here, about a year ago. About Asian dialects poking about in my head long after they were useful to me, about a place called Mae Sai, on the border of Myanmar. I didn’t like Mae Sai when I visited. It was a dirty border town, the most porous border with Myanmar, known for the amount of female flesh and young labourers it allows to pass through its gates. The only entertaining factor here are the US army uniforms the Burmese border guards tend to wear.

Six months later I was on a plane again, this time without my school peers and fellow nomads. I had taken a year out from SSU to go back to Thailand, back to Mae Sai, back to the North. I had applied for a volunteer position with an NGO working to prevent human trafficking on the border of Myanmar. I spent October in Chiang Mai with my host family from 6 months previous, taking a TEFL course.

The five proceeding months found me immersed in a world I had researched and imagined.

From writing or editing grant proposals, to sneaking on to the roof to stargaze with a little Thai sister living at the centre, to singing hymns and camp songs for children, most of whose fates will inevitably be exploited. From educating novice monks on human rights, to worshipping at a dump, to adventuring in Laos to meet up with repatriated girls in their home village after years in Thailand. Eating dog, water buffalo, and chicken feet. From avoiding spies in Myanmar to sitting on a friend’s porch singing worship songs on the same side of the border. From making friends with beggars and celebrities.

Finding meaning in washing dishes at the tiny Bible College near my house. A great pair of sandals someone made for me that I wore for five months until my heel poked through the other side. Breathe. Being.

And now. And now? I don’t know. I sit in the guestroom of a London townhouse. I don’t know where to place myself. I still have bruises from the bed bugs in Laos. I have Thai dialogue running around in my head, more than the simple words I had learned last time. I reminisce on my time in Thailand, both with SSU around me and then with SSU in my heart.

I will return to my community in St Stephen in September to finish my BA in International Studies. to I look forward to being surrounded by nomads in ‘selah’, in a resting point, in peace; a time risk belonging, providing foundation for future transience.

The Business of Redemption

April 24, 2009 – 11:06 am
By Nicola Gladwell | Posted in SE Asia 2009 Comments (2)

Mind-held Thai expressions tease my tongue. Each essay determinately engaging with the SE Asian sex trade…

I have had a line ringing in my mind since our return, mingling with the leftovers of Asian dialects:

In the business of redemption.

What does it look like to be in the business of redemption?

I am reminded of: plant pots made from painted car tires in the Philippines; a Malay man’s obsession with mundane rocks allowing him to find a wealth of value in his collection of unique stones: singing boulders, growing gems, and petrified wood; in eating meat, Asians use the whole of the beast: even if this meant finding pig snout on my plate in the Philippines and chicken feet in a Malaysian curry; a dollar-store toy that we would scorn in the west has found new value in the hand of a Filipino girl, as does the scrap tin finding its place in the sea of huts within Manila or Bangkok.

In the business of redemption. what does it mean?

Perhaps it means finding value in imperfection- in another’s garbage, setting it free from judgement and compartmentalizing snobbery.

I loved Thailand; I could live in Chiang Mai. I would ride to work on an elephant and guide rafts on mountain rivers for a pitiful living, seeking wisdom from aged monks and taking a master’s in sustainable living or linguistics at CMU. However. I have a problem. I can’t get it through my head- you have to help me.

There are over 2 million prostitutes in Thailand; in Chiang Mai all of them are brought from destitute Burmese villages and trafficked through the village of Ma Sai on the border. I was in Ma Sai. I bought a pen. And a necklace. All Burmese teen girls traveling through Ma Sai leave without their virginity and thus their hope for a future and marriage, and almost half leave with an AIDS death sentence from their first few weeks in the industry.

What does redemption mean to a sex slave in Japan, in Bangkok, in Kuala Lumpur? If I see so much of what we call garbage being redeemed throughout Asia, isn’t there a way to redeem the consequences of societal chastity, idolatry, obligatory merit-making, hierarchical systems, and poverty?

In the business of Redemption.

Thai vocabulary, redemptive ideas, thoughts of the summer, and efforts to summarize my year at SSU swirl around my mind. I feel reminiscient of a Hogwarts student awaiting the next school year, or Arnold buckling his seatbelt in the Magic School Bus. I feel like all my life I have been taught to stand on a gymnasium line or sit quietly without being told why, and now my experience has set my mind free from dictated learning. Let me ask questions, don’t break life to me gently, let me dive in and let me experience both the joy and the pain of humanity. What will I learn next year?

I think redemption would be a good business to get into.

A disconnect in Reality

March 24, 2009 – 11:06 pm
By Nicola Gladwell | Posted in SE Asia 2009 Comments (1)

Sometimes this is only an adventure, only pictures to display on Facebook, only an opportunity to gather exotic gifts. Sometimes I forget if this is reality. I am awakened by a Thai woman whose features strikingly resemble my Mom’s.

Is it for power? Is this rash display of wealth for power? meaning? hope? There are only a few Thais actually in here (only one of the perhaps thousands of Wats – temples – that speckle Thailand) the rest are Farang – Tourists. I want to be an ‘experiencist’ (as opposed to a tourist). Are these images only to create a tangible god to worship? A symbol makes it easier to unite under, not unlike a nation’s flag. Though the icon is so important to Buddhist culture, I feel that creating an image of Buddha is saying that his teaching wasn’t enough. I could speak of a thousand things, but this seems to be foremost on my mind; maybe Jesus and Buddha can sympathize, as we performed a similar gesture with his cross. I can’t help but think how many people could be fed if people were not giving money to build a temple in order to increase their merit, of how many rural daughters and sisters it took who work in urban brothels to send money back to their families  to build a golden Wat surrounded by rice paddies: a place for boys to get free education and a strict hand. Then I talked to older Monks- Monks who preach against worshipping Buddha, who’s favourite part of the day is meditating morning and night, and who simply by their peace and laid back attitude almost have me flying to Cambodia to become a monk as well.

I have found a lot of societal contradictions here in Thailand; they confuse me and I wonder if I will be privy to Canada’s own versions of these contrasts when I arrive back in Toronto. The world shown to casual tourists differs sharply to the real Thai world; the high morals expected of Thai women contradicts the slack attitude toward prostitution; in fact the hierarchical culture even seems to support it.

I want to be an experiencist… I don’t want to see old buildings and flashy tourist-traps if they serve to hide the triumphs and the plight of the people. I want to sit and understand. Upon coming overseas, I thought that the differences must not be so rash; in the end we are all humanity. Somethings, however, I don’t understand; I want to, but I don’t. In some ways this trip has pulled the world together, and in others it has blasted me with awareness of what a vast and varied world we live in.

As a tourist it is easy to detach oneself; it is dangerous to realize that you are entering into another’s life for a short time on the other side of the world and really recognize that they are just as real as you are. What would happen if I truly saw myself selling mango sticky rice for a lifetime, or blindly playing an accordion in the middle of a market? I am sitting in an internet cafe in Bangkok city and cannot weld this disconnect in reality– *sigh; one contradiction that I desperately do not want to add to the mounting list already existing in Thailand.

I hope to come back someday- Dichan my pen Farang; con Thai dee Kwa!

Sa wat dii Kha!

what makes the difference?

February 25, 2009 – 7:17 am
By Nicola Gladwell | Posted in SE Asia 2009 Comments (0)

I almost forgot to take off my sandals before entering the outer premises of the Mosque. As my white feet touched the carefully swept cold. patterned pink tiles, we sit in a line as a buzz of activity rhythmically surrounds us. The rev of a scooter, a loud speaker reciting Hebrew. Joanna came to deliver long skirts and head scarves to us. I sit, with only bare hands, feet, and face, tight against laura as the number of men gathering in the inner Mosque grows, and I hear the sounds of hands, feet, and faces being cleansed at a water trough to the left of the tiled area. We look elegant in our head scarves. I sense only a slightly different atmosphere as I do in an immense cathedral. There is a fluorescent digital clock on the front wall. Its numbers contrast against the ancient Muslim devotion. Some enter wearing traditional Muslim garb, some wearing fashionable or athletic clothing. I can see the British influence in their choice of soccer garb. I feel protected covered by yards of cloth, comfortable even. I feel confident as I drink in my scarf-framed scene as deeply as I can. I wonder what the decorative circular caps the men wear are for; I wonder what the overhead speaker is saying.  I wonder who recorded it. I wonder if the activity gives a sense of peace, belonging, and meaning. I wonder if any of the men praying here have doubts. I wonder if it is okay I writing? A gecko scales the wall in front of the men in the room I can only see through a centered open door, next to the out-of-place clock. Is the path to the Mosque worn… does the wearing paint on the handrails comfort them? How do they feel about a line of white female faces looking at them in wonder? Later I would talk to Sofre, a Muslim man, about the tension between Islam and the West; we even talked together about Shane Claiborne and Jonathon Hartgrove’s healing experience in Rutba, near Baghdad. His hurt face pleaded with me to not believe the stories about Islam that we are told, instead to go back to my country and tell of my experiences in Keningau. When I come back, ask me about the kids, the musicians, the politician, and the school teachers I met there. “When you cut yourself, your blood is red, and so is mine… so what makes the difference?” What a healing adventure.

Tracks

February 3, 2009 – 12:42 am
By Nicola Gladwell | Posted in SE Asia 2009 Comments (2)

A friend at school loves to make lines with a snowplough; anyone coming to the university wearing only socks can recognize when someone has made tracks with wet boots inside Park Hall; and I have a niece who loves to make families of snow angels in lines. This afternoon I hope to snowshoe in the woods around Dominion Hill, the retreat centre I am at for the weekend; next Saturday, I hope to sink my toes in white sand on the North coast of the Philippines. It seems like God made us able to make tracks for a reason… looking behind at the trail I’ve made in the snow, I receive affirmation that I am here and present; I have physically made a difference to my past.

These weeks leading up to our trip to Asia, we have read a lot of books, written a lot of book reflections and reviews, and listened to a lot of lectures: I am beginning to think I know more of South East Asia’s History than Canada’s. As I read the stories of these nations over the years, I often wished I could change the path that they were heading in; I could see where the trail was leading and the events that would eventually perspire. Western Colonialists have left footsteps in SEA and can look behind them to recognize their presence and the reality of their actions. Sometimes corrupt national leaders have risen in times of upheaval, their steps only leading to tragedy.

We are about to embark on another adventure that will be leaving a trail, and I guess I’m a bit anxious about the path we’ll make and the tracks we’ll leave behind. I’m scared that I don’t have the cross cultural know-how to make good decisions, that I won’t know when to trust and when to be wary, or what parts of my character that aren’t globally appropriate and which of my many idiosyncrasies are. I feel like I will make a lot of mistakes, and I’m nervous about how many confused – or even worse: hurt or distanced - looks I’ll get! I want to learn as much of the language as possible, be risky enough to ensure that I live consciously, and love new friends freely. I want to leave behind no regrets: a trail of relationships that both reach beyond and embrace cultural differences, experiences that enrich the meaning in my life, and a stretched world view, transforming the goggles through which I interact with my experiences.

But for now… I’m going snowshoeing :) .