who is dehumanizing who?

The phenomena so called traffic will never cease to exist as long as this kind of view and discourse exist.

http://www.glamour.com/women-of-the-year/2008/traffik-book-inspired-by-somaly-mam-2006-honoree

I happened to see the book Traffik above a while ago. The naivete that the project revealed was in a way laughable initially, but I did not dwell upon it. I just thought that it was just another book on the sensationalized condemnation of the third world's third world state, but the perpetrators---this case, the people who organized and carried out the project--- would not recognize it just as the typical scenario would always go. But now I took offense due to the project's employment of the former sex worker Samali Mam, the poster girl of their project---to justify their self righteousness, voyeurism and sensationalism. The whole project is on-going ventriloquism, the same tactics to manipulate the Third World Feminism predicament, and there is no way that I could respond to this in any approving way, so let me jot down here.

What they are condemning is Third World, and their predicament, not even so called traffic, for their understanding seems after all so limited and awry. The nature of the project is to calm their guilty conscience down, or to accomplish their careers as exploiting 'others.' I guess both were the case. And now it is sickening to see this article in the Glamour mag's website where women desperately rack their numb brains to seek out a way to enjoy their sex life. The contrast between two extremes is only there to make those Glamour mag readers feel relieved to be born in the first world. This is visceral.

The project's definition of trafficking was so ambiguous and broad that it confused me, but this project initially embarked as a book now seems to be stretched into some movement to promote the anti-prostitution---not even anti-trafficking---and anti-third world while this apparently developed into a spectacle that combined voyeurism, sensationalism and ventriloquism, to establish the hegemonic structure among women. There is no doubt that you could shoot extremely horrendous images of the impoverished and/or the deformed, if that is what you want whether ethically sound or unsound. Cambodia is easily the best destination to get all done. Go there and shoot sexworkers (voyeurism), there would be tons of horrible images (sensationalism). So they gathered those, and demonize people who were in the business by their own wills, and victimize women who were there without a choice. This choice is mostly economical one, though: workers are controlled directly or remotely by their desperate needs to earn instead of being kidnapped and chained to bed, as the anti-trafficking often portrays. When poverty is the very factor of the predicament they are in, the situation will be just win-win, only for the people who navigated the project. Thus, they are completely unaware that all of those were the victims of having no privacy before Western voyeurism and supremacy, by dynamics with those who want to see them in the exact predicament, not by chains or cells. This project might give those an excuse to their voyeuristic interests, but this would not rescue anybody from anywhere. Just shaming those people even more. Only the people who got involved the project would benefit the opportunity of getting their work done. And they did, by the final touch of putting the poster girl up front, which is just another shameless ventriloquism.

If you took a careful look, yes, the whole world is a brothel given the result of capitalistic economy system that we all are living in. Nowhere in the world is exceptional. A lot of sex workers end up working as a consequence of limited options they had, but that would not necessarily turn the business into 'trafficking,' besides sexworkers often get out of any predicament they were in by earning in the business. They are not doing it because they were just kidnapped, but they are doing it because they need money. But admitting the need and saying this out loud would put those in farther danger, because they would be demonized. I want to mind you of another photo project of the same nature, only in the different location: I bet the documentary film Born into Brothels was a feel good movie for some people who want to pose some more of hypocrisies in the predicament in Mumbai, India.

One thing that people have to understand is that sexwork is not some conceptual hell where only women out of luck or devils fall into. It is an economical condition where women come and go to earn their living. Just because women's admitting their practical needs to make money in the trade does not turn them into witches, or slaves, or transform the whole business into traffic. It is a form of labor, so it should only be recognized so so that the people who work in the trade would be more protected and organized by legalization, instead of putting this sort of campaign to write off their human rights entirely.

This doomed logic of the anti-traffic/anti-prostitution is one form of derivation of male guilt for the sexual inequity. Lots of practitioners of the school of thought are women, but they are speaking in the logic that intends to see and create loophole of the consequences of male desire driven world order today. They are, as a result of the idea, exploiting women and the social powerless more, regardless of their intentions.

Prostitution is not a regionally limited phenomenon but an inevitable development of any predicament people fall into, therefore, it could be one answer to predicaments those came from initially. Confounding the predicament, often economical, with the third world condition and manipulating the logic into the particularity of trafficking is the problem here. Besides, I recognized that terms these anti-trafficking people employ is inaccurate, even though they are conscious of it to manipulate the discourse; they use the word rape even when they mean sessions or services workers engage in to get paid for. I guess this becomes a matter of rhetoric, but it is not right given this could literally cloud the case that really should be distinguished as rape and violence. We could just apply this to a case of the word trafficking. If you play with the word too much like they are now, the exact word would lessen the immediacy it was originally to call upon.

They just used the word traffic and the vague concept of sexworkers to confound and to promote the concept of Third World atrocity triumphantly and sensationally while they just hijack others' subalternity and exploit the narrative. They are not really aware what they are doing but the very cover photo of the book Traffik ironically tells something in the sensationalistic way to the fullest, a blown up photo of a young Asian woman who had her eye taken off. This offers some sideshow like appeal to the first world's prejudiced mind set against Third World, or Asia, and turns the blame on Trafficking. This is a covert form of twisted Asian porn, or something like yellow journalism, no matter what solemn mission they claimed to be on.

The urgency we are really facing is to legalize and organize prostitution, and Cambodia is no exception, so that sex trade would be properly operated with the least violation of human rights as opposed to pushing the whole phenomena into even farther darker side of the world, because prostitution will never perish by itself no matter how much people condemn it. If you call prostitution evil, think where you are. You are living in the eternal brothel, and no one is an exception.

This photo project was so busy celebrating their hypocrisies that they never were aware of the harm they are causing. These people who involved in the project are guilty of exploitation of the subjects. Because this kind of project and the people who buy into the rubbish exist, 'traffic' will never cease to exist. The misplaced blame would continue to give excuses of distortion of others, who often are the powerless.

FYI: according to these people, prostitution in impoverished regions becomes always 'traffic,' because this fits to their preconception of Asia, the characteristic Third World, and its common sex trade practice. But get real and think, Who is dehumanizing who?

The Pleasure is All Hers

Dear Santa,

I wish that I would not get involved in another legal problem. If you promised to make my wish come true, I , in return, would not mind if I can't file a divorce for a while; it is long broken any way.

I just wrote as the above in Guyana Gal'(the blog)s comment that was encouraging readers to post their letters to Santa saying 'Santa is reading your letter'. Although the comment was meant to be very casual one for me, I got inspired once I began writing; it helped me to develop the idea that I always have.

An arrest takes place in consequences of the current legal system and how police force employ it to put their institutional power into practice, in their own way. I actually consider as this; you have to do your best to avoid any of the unnecessary confrontation, trouble or hassle with the law enforcement, because what they believe in is just a baloney that is not really worth bothering with. However, you have to be equipped with a chance if you are involved with activism, especially sex workers' rights' activist so that you can make most of the occasion; your arrest is an asset if you are seriously willing to explore the no-woman' land of advocating human rights' regarding sex workers.

Still it is a headache to learn (and actually you do learn A LOT by the arrest) how much trouble you get into once you practically declare that you are going with war with the whole world in regard to the activism (that is what it is to be in activism and to practice your belief = working explanation), and ultimately your idealism that involves a social reformation. I am proud of myself for discovering what is essentially necessary to practice the theory and actualizing it. But at the same time, I do not deny how desolate and lonely it feels to be completely alone here in the activism land. I know it needs just a bit more of organizing people and occasion to let the concept manifest itself, and 'unite'; but I cannot fool myself forever by the concept of organizing; you just get locked up alone when it happens.

I saw the movie Mona Lisa Smile last night, and believe it or not, I could not help but cry all through the movie. It was novel for I did not expect any of those that came over to me during the whole movie. The idealistic art history teacher (Julia Roberts)'s first year in Wesley in 1954 was what the movie was about, when the academic environment was only a facade of manufacturing livestock for marriage institution, which women were mostly relying on as means of their immediate survival rather than seeking out for independence. Roberts role just found herself challenged and questioned for her idealistic idea of women's potential by the environment where they were supposed to share the idealism and hopes but in the no one did. She was labeled to be a too forward thinker, or even the subversive, by the opposing authorities in the institution, that was disillusioning to her enough to leave in the end. Only her immediate students got her message 'to think on your own for your very own interest' to begin to actualize her idealism, which was now all theirs after the year of unusual education.

The bitter sweet end lingered for a while even after I finished the movie.

The movie made me wonder if people from later times would recognize how the legal system of 21st century claimed and proved women were to be subjugated by men's control; women were not independent existence with subjectivity, but rather to be handled as men's assets. I hope they would laugh at this point of history for the backwardness, just as Robert's showed ads for domestic electric facility in class to convince how women were restricted and limited to domestic slaves as opposed to human beings. I wish women in future would be situated somewhere remote from where we are now to the point where they recognize the fallacy of our time perpetuated against women; I wish that those women in future would be able to make their own decision, good and bad included, pleasure and pain also belonged to herself, and most of all, I just wish they would be once and for all free from being punished by being on their own.

This is all I want, Santa.

Chym-a

ask local people

http://belledejour-uk.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_belledejour-uk_archive.html#116645583535319340

although Belle du Jour is not a local resident of the area where the incident took place. I caught the BBC coverage on the arrest of the number one suspect of the serial murder in Suffolk, England.

How to illuminate the longest night of sexworkers

I always leave BBC program on all night long when I am home, but I've got to tell you that it is very painful tonight to hear it repeat the story of the serial killer, who is suspected to have murdered five prostitutes in the area of Suffolk, England. I also caught the story in today's Bell de Jour's entry
http://belledejour-uk.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_belledejour-uk_archive.html#116594069090545998 , and my heart sank. Just when the news coverage on a serial murder case in Atlantic City, NJ here in the US made me think how unfair and backward the US law has been and the majority people's opinion about the industry are irrational and primitive, and more importantly the current law's very conditional idea about human rights is liable of perpetuate this hate crime against women(and those who in the profession). The articles on those victims of the Atlantic City serial homicide targeted working girls even in a paper like NY Times were quite prejudiced, so how bad could it be in the right wing papers that I do not read. This made the victims look as if they deserved it due to the fallen state they were living or violating the law, without shedding any light on other sides of their lives than as the dead bodies that were found in desolate area in NJ.

I at least do hope, or even demand the tragedies as these would raise people's awareness and urgent the legal reevaluation on the agenda to include all of us, as opposed to only the selected people, to require the social justice, which is 'now or never'. Just when another serial killer who is suspected to have killed six women who were in the business plead not guilty in Canada, or when people show more sympathy to the lacrosse team of gang rapists, and muggers from Duke Univ than to the victim, to say the least how the legal system works when those two are contested, we have to reevaluate how primitive our country's take on the business; can it be called freedom when all of us are not bestowed the rights? I cannot say it louder that we have to raise people's awareness more than ever as this ultimate predicament confronted us this close to the extent that we cannot pretend as if it does not exist in the society.

From BBC tonight, a story by a Anglican church leader who advocates the human rights of sexwrokers and more favorable recognition for sexwork to urge the necessity for social changes around the structure seems to light a small but clear light in the darkness of the discourse: how different could they be from all the redneck fanatics of US church authorities, who are ultimately clueless, ignorant and afraid of the basic human rights and people's exercising them.

Isabelle Adjani and EU

Regarding for the on-going argument on EU membership they are fighting for, I have been very much interested in where Turkey is situated historically and currently culture wise and geography wise. According to what I read and heard so far, the majority of Turkish view the issue heavily on the side of FUCK EU! or WE ARE BETTER OFF WITHOUT YOU, EU BITCH, never on the side of 'are we European yet?' Personally I support their view more than what EU representatives claim as their official, and less frank statement about their dissidents or aversions they have against Turkey. I bet unfortunately Turkey is not going to make it in EU, but there should be more worthwhile activities to pursue for them provided how interesting intersection they have been located in all the time in the history. Nowadays, they concluded that they would not make it in EU because of the majority of Muslim population. Well, as none of us in the world can disregard how incompatible Muslim culture is in the occidental world and how the hypothesis is being proven by US foreign policy. What about studying why on earth Turkey wanted to become a part of EU to begin with? Or why did only Isabelle Adjani make it in becoming European regardless of her Turkish heritage? Her case was not even a petty tokenism but look, she is the absolute indispensable figure in France. (=the answer: her case was 'passing' type. She was not open with her ethnic heritage for a long while. Even now, has she ever treated as non-euro? What kind of roles has she played in her career? Very worthwhile to examine.)

But seriously, why the hell did you think you had to be part of Euro as opposed to be happy about what you are in this world where is becoming more Orientalized, at least population wise? Listening to the Greek radio program now where people, call-in and personalities of the program both, vehemently chimed in and condemned Turkey's attempt and ultimately the whole nation with so much of overt hate, I am quite disheartened. Why did they think they had to be Euro where would they be barely tolerated, as opposed to be welcomed, at best?

"They need their own place where they can practice their own ethnic heritage and identify themselves as they are without any intervention," I heard it once more even now in the radio program. "I wonder what they were thinking to join EU, if they ever did." Woow...

A movie recommendation of the issue "Journey of Hope" circa 1990.

Aerobics and Globalization

Regarding the newest booker, The Inheritance of Loss www.cyberpresse.ca/article/20061011/CPARTS02/61011094/1017/CPARTS , of which I am yet to get a copy in a hurry, I am reminded of Arundhati Roy. It is not very unpredictable, for t is based upon just the very common cultural association, as this also remarks. http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/24/features/desai.php .

Still, that does not annihilate how idiosyncratic Roy's work was to me, as well as her persona as a writer became so, who got involved in the activism that was the natural consequence of her point she empathized from early in her career; I often wonder if the God of Small Things was her first, and would be the very last, novel. She got the Booker just to throw herself into the whirlwind of political conflicts, and what matters most here is that it does not matter. She accomplished something unattainable and unusually generous for people, just as her presumably the only novel became all the more holy.

Along with the trivia I happened to remember of Roy's was her having made her living as an aerobics instructor just until she hit the literary market by the novel. This strangely touches another network of associations, and I cannot help but go back to the small episode from Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, the Iranian graphic novelist. In Persepolis Vol.2, you cannot overlook, even though the part that was depicted quite casually; the author (this is a memoir of her childhood and youth in Iran, her home country) became an aerobics instructor after she had failed her schooling in Austria. It spared barely half a page that she got it as the transitional job for the new returnee just until she would be admitted to the university, which was the toughest, therefore her state was precarious; the description goes 'I had my hair permed, and became an aerobics instructor; now I'm a modern woman,' as if to convey how this was not a big deal. From her dropping out in Austrian school system to having her hair done curly. Paradoxically, I believe, this nonchalant depiction proves that the aerobics instructor job meant really a big deal, if not to her personally but as a female youth in the society in 80's.

I recall this as one of the points that struck me the hardest in the whole memoir. To my amazement, in the country where women are not allowed to be present in public without a veil, not sporting aerobics but seeing its prevalence by then enough to give women courses and a job of the instructor. Or, this minute episode also indicates the imbalance the world for even today of 2006, so imagine how big deal it could be. The author Satrapi, just as the author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, is from the privileged background and how nonchalant stance is greatly attributed to her class. Anyway, this offered the good documentation to examine how much the Western way of life was prevailed, and monopolized only by selected people whereas the rest of the area is completely dismissed as invaluable and undesirable.

While BBC ever discusses how the cultural and economical center is shifting from the conventional Western big countries and USA to the East in a broad sense, where used to be dismissed as useless and packed, it does not seem to have any chance to correct the disproportion of the world when the change is brought about only in a superficial business level. I hardly imagine the political power will be passed onto Eastern hand, not in my life time, which translates the fundamental lack of independence of Asia.

And here I have got to confess my Central Asiaphile taste; I love movies from India, and rock music from Pakistan. If I will ever take yoga lesson up, I would never go for an instructor who just took a crash course on how to become a yogi in three months, except Mimi in NY http://miminewyork.blogspot.com/2006/07/yoga.html . All the more, seeing those authors from the countries where women's rights are severely restricted actually have supported themselves as nothing but AEROBICS INSTRUCTORS tells us something very dynamic; it absolutely challenges the stereotypical assumption and helps us in the West, time and time again, to correct our prejudice and ignorance about the underrepresented area's women's condition. Arundathi Roy was there in India, teaching aerobics, not Yoga, just like as Jane Fonda was in 80's as the leading female guru of the world. A turn off or an empowerment, you decide, but it is one of the agendas people have to get over with and get used to in the context of so called globalization.

A maid vs. A sexworker

As I was publishing the previous entry, I recovered a memory of some incident that I did not know how to digest immediately for the nature of what it really was;

A while ago, I visited my husband's business partner's house in NJ, roughly an hour ride from the city. Their household is a typical suburban one of Jewish couple in their late thirty with two little daughters. The wife is a talk therapist, and I found it fascinating to ask a lot to her for her profession that I always found curious. While I was there talking to her with kids running around us, there was this shadow of a young and thin Asian woman passing by with very little attention paid to. After a little while, I recognized that it was not a hallucinatory sight. The next thing that I did was to check my mental notes in an enormous speed if I ever got informed that they had any exchange student or a boarding guest in the house. There was a moment when the wife seemed to be struggling with some subtle difficulty to keep on ignoring the Asian shadow in the kitchen in front of me, and probably so because she felt some guilt. To her eyes, all Asian women might be no different; this partially achieved sense of equality, which carefully exempts themselves and never to question the inequity, disturbed her and made her question why she was talking to another Asian woman as if she was her equal. She might be even frustrated by the fact that her husband actually was working with a man, crazy and vulgar enough to marry someone like her maid in the kitchen. The sequence of logic reminds her of some world she would never want to get involved with, because she is an accomplished white woman without no stigma attached. She awkwardly said "Noi is a maid. She speaks Chinese, too, " without caring if we should be introduced to each other. I acknowledged that girl was from Thailand for her name. I walked up and introduced myself. She spoke good enough English, and I assumed that she was educated. She said that she graduated from university in Bangkok, and it had been three months since she came to America. She said she spoke Chinese as well. I tried to speak in Chinese just to find that it would be even more difficult to speak in Chinese with a non-native Chinese speaker. I was not in any further level than beginner's. She did not seem to grasp the idea of Asian American, or expatriate of long term time, which surmounts the length enough to vanish their roots and ties to their origins. And I probably had a very first contact with a woman who came to the country as a maid although I met plenty of Asian women mostly consisted of Eastern ones in the sex trade; I seemed to have been thrown off for I was hardly equipped with a way to deal with a deep rooted stigma and humiliation in such a regular occasion as in a kitchen with kids and mom. The humiliation in the sex industry is more predictable, therefore you could always be prepared for it. As a result of the study, you did not have to experience such a gig of ego bruise.

If Asian women are attached to the stigma of those who take dirty jobs which white first world women no longer bother with, and still have no problem surviving in the society, here might be the exact example of how the stigma was lived up to, with certain twists, depth and complexity of individual life. So call Asian women all the names possible and assume they are all the same; they are same only in how different they are paradoxically, just like all the white women's lives are never same. Globalization progresses only if it ignores and dismisses the complexity of each and every human being detailed info in life. Noi and I have things in common including how we look to the Western eyes, because they want to see only the sameness and how we are different from themselves.

I have long forgotten that I originally got inside of the industry to initiate my enactment of the theory of Asian women to the Western eyes (other than needing to make my living), and I got too immune to everything so soon that I hardly remind myself of the fact.

Besides, come to think of it, there was a time when I was a live-in baby sitter in NJ, somewhere about an hour from the city. I almost forgot about it as well and I would've completely forgotten if I did not recover the memory due to this night's encounter with another girl from Asia in NJ, because that goes back even before when I started working as a prostitute.