2/12/2005

One Hundred and Twenty Six Days

Not many people have elaborate and complex spreadsheets just to tell them where they live. I do. I had to put one together earlier this year to help figure out where I had been resident for tax purposes in 2003 and 2004. In case you are interested, in 2003 I spent 136 days in the US, 112 days in France, 68 days in Singapore, and the remaining 49 scattered across eleven other countries. In 2004, I spent 164 days in the US, 106 days in France, 57 days in Singapore, and the remaining 39 scattered across eight other countries.

When we moved to Singapore a year ago, the plan was for all this to stop. Finally, we would truly be based in one place. Sure, we still expected to do quite a bit of traveling, but we thought that the constant moving around was over, at least for a while. To which the only appropriate response at this point is: Hah!

For the third year in a row, I have failed to spend more than six months in a single country. Assuming we travel to the US as planned for the Christmas break, I will have spent 167 days in Singapore in 2005. The longest uninterrupted period of time I have spent in one country this year is 23 days (in Thailand, on this last trip, when of course I still had to make a side trip to Bangkok). Between March 30 and November 10 this year I was never more than two weeks in one place.

I have made 19 trips to Thailand this year.

I have spent a total of 126 days there.

Every one of them worth it.

3/12/2005

Of Course...

... that doesn't mean all our worries are over. There are still three hurdles ahead. First, we want to sign a document with Sanam setting out our promises and our understanding of the guardianship arrangement. This is intended not so much as a legal document (although we will have it notarized), but more as a letter of understanding, just to make absolutely sure that we are all on the same page. Second, we have to get a visa for Neung to allow her to attend school. This should be reasonably straightforward (not the first time I have written those words this year, I fear) but the particulars of our guardianship arrangement make it unclear exactly who should be signing what form. And, third, Sanam would like us to register Neung with the Thai embassy, and while we know no reason why that should be a problem, we always worry a little bit because of the special interest that the Thai government is taking in children who are victims of the tsunami. We should be able to take care of all of these in the next week, after which we can move on to worrying about our formal application to the Singapore court to be her guardians in Singapore.

3/12/2005

"I Don't Like Singapore!"

Her wailing objection was not so much to Singapore in the abstract as to the very concrete piece of Singapore that leapt up and hit her in the face as she was minding her own business running down a hill. Thankfully, she came out of this collision with nothing more than minor scrapes on her nose, lip, and knees, and a rather impressive bruise inside her upper lip. She is an active, tough little girl, and her legs are constantly covered in scrapes and bruises. Jill once asked the teacher at her Thai school if Neung was well-behaved. "She's not like the other girls," said the teacher disapprovingly, "she likes to play football with the boys."

Meanwhile, when I picked Neung up to comfort her after this very nasty fall, it was evident that Sanam thought I was being way too soft on her. In some ways the last few days have felt like an extended job interview, with the nightmarish feature that it was almost impossible to explain or communicate anything. For example, it was simply not possible to explain that we were being less strict with Neung than usual because we feel the need to cut her some slack as she goes through this last part of the transition.

In any case, it is over. Yesterday we all signed the letter of understanding and Jacky and Sanam registered Neung at the Thai embassy. Both went off without a hitch. Typically, the paperwork that I was least worried about is the one that has caused more trouble. The Singapore immigration authorities have not seen a case quite like Neung's before, and so the processing for the school visa may be a bit more complex than we had hoped. The first person that we encountered was unfortunately the worst kind of bureaucrat -- the sort who sees something just slightly outside the normal parameters and immediately declares it impossible. After a bit of discussion, however, we managed to convince her that this was really not such an unusual case (bringing Sanam and Neung into the office helped, I think), and she became much more helpful. I'm hoping the process will still be straightforward, but even if it requires a bit of management, I simply cannot imagine that, in the end, Singapore will refuse to allow a tsunami orphan to attend school in Singapore. In the meantime, the paperwork trail continues: today, we will go to the American embassy to try to get a visa for Neung so we can take her to California for the Christmas holiday.

This morning I went to the airport with Neung so that we could say goodbye to Jacky and Sanam. Sanam, as you would expect, is somewhat sad, but I think she truly believes that she and Panya have made a good decision. Neung seems to be doing very well under the circumstances. She has had some bad nights, though, due (I think) to both the general level of stress in the air and the fact that the tsunami seems to be very salient for her at the moment.

The last month, and particularly the last ten days, might be the most stressful I have ever lived through. (Of course, it may just be that I am repressing memories of graduate school.) The drive from Ban Nam Kem to the Phuket airport, a mere four days ago, seems as if it took place in another lifetime. As I drove through Thai Meuang (one of the towns on the way down), there were dozens of monks lining both sides of the street. That massing of orange robes in the light of early dawn is just about the only thing that I remember from the drive. It felt like an honor guard.

This morning's British newspapers are reporting on the British inquest of tsunami victims: one more reminder, as if I needed it, of what the wave did to so many families around the world. Yesterday we discussed with Sanam and Jacky what Jill and I will do with Neung on the anniversary to commemorate one of those 270,000 deaths.

Tonight, though, I will open a bottle of champagne.

7/12/2005

Karma Santa

The six months that passed between Sanam and Panya first asking us to raise Neung, and our finally bringing her to Singapore, were not easy for any of us. They did have one big benefit, though, which was that Neung made a very smooth transition from living with her grandparents to living with us. Since the day her grandmother left, she has been doing wonderfully well: sleeping better, behaving better, and generally seeming happy. (To be clear, I don't mean to imply that Sanam's presence was a bad thing; it was just that Neung had certainly picked up all the tension and uncertainty in the air, and she now seemed to understand very well that all the waiting was over, and that the promises we had all made to her were finally being honored.)

For the last few months, Neung has been very taken with Superman. I think it started when she saw a Superman movie in the Nam Kem camp. Sometime around Hallowe'en Jill bought her a Superman suit, and Neung would wear it every minute if we let her. Without getting too much into amateur (or in Jill's case, semi-professional) psychology, I think there is something very compelling in the idea that Neung craves the strength to take control of her environment, instead of being buffetted around in the way that she has been for the past year. She lost her mother, she lost her home, Jill and I kept appearing and disappearing, and nothing was under her control. More than once, she has told us how if another tsunami came, Neung/Superman could push the water back. Her improved well-being of the last couple of weeks owe a lot, I think, to the fact that her life is seeming a bit less random.

The U.S. embassy granted a visa without problem, and we have finally heard that Singapore seems ready to grant the student visa that Neung needs. While waiting for the student visa, we put her in a kindergarten/day care that did not require it. This meant that there was at least a bit of learning and structure in her day.

It also meant that our little Buddhist kid started to learn about Christmas. I have to say, it is amazing how quickly the Santa myth takes hold. We uttered not a word about it, but within a couple of days she was gaving us all the details. I remember that my father told me once that he tried never to lie to me and my brothers about Santa Claus, but was simply noncommital about anything we said. I think I ended up doing the same thing. I didn't particularly want her believing all that stuff, but neither was I willing to burst the balloon. The myth and the magic are powerful.

We are spending the Christmas holiday in and around San Francisco, with Jill's sister and her family. The one-year anniversary of the tsunami actually falls on Christmas day evening in California, but we felt that it was better to keep Christmas tsunami-free. The day after Christmas, we all went to a Thai temple in Berkeley in order to make merit for Somsri. An extremely friendly and helpful Thai monk (maybe the particularly laid-back monks gravitate to Berkeley?) helped us through the process of lighting candles and incense, said a short prayer, and gave us all string bracelets. We took the opportunity to talk to Neung again about her mother. Neung doesn't remember much about her, but she has described more than once playing on her bicycle with her mother, and also being transported on her motorcycle.

Driving home from San Francisco last night, Neung started talking about the tsunami again. Her English language development and cognitive development now permit her to express poignant counterfactuals: "If no tsunami, Neung can play with her first mama". And then, while Jill and I were trying to keep it together in response to that, Neung observed that "if the water comes again, Santa Claus stop it".

I like to think that her first mama would have been as amused as we were.

27/12/2005

On Cultural Indifference

It was clear from the start that one of the reason the tsunami generated so strong a response in the west was because so many European and American tourists were affected; unlike some, I was never too bothered by this. If that was what it took to generate generous outpourings of aid, then so be it: the most important thing is that help found its way to those who had lost so much.

I also understand that makers of documentaries naturally draw on the video footage captured by tourists, and are drawn to interview tourists because they speak English. Nonetheless, I was deeply offended by a documentary that was aired last night on The History Channel. The documentary was an hour long, and perhaps 25 percent of it -- two full segments -- dealt with Thailand. Yet I don't think there was even a mention of the tsunami's impact on the people who actually live there.

27/12/2005

Bea Makes the Big Time

The link probably won't be active for very long, but right now, on the London Times site, there is a set of photos commemorating the anniversary of the tsunami. (Click here, and then click on "Tsunami Anniversary".) Tabea Johnson features in the very first photograph.

27/12/2005

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