A Sort of Blog about Neung (June 2005)
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Latest Update: 6 March, 2008
copyright notice
All images, writings, and pages on this site are protected under the United States of America and international copyright laws. A. Andrew John reserves all rights to them (unless otherwise attributed) and does not look favorably upon those who try to steal the work, in any form. Original content may not be reposted, broadcast, photoshopped, or otherwise used without express written permission from and attribution to Andrew John and http:/www.ajkconsulting.com.
Preamble
I first put this website together in May 2005, but rapidly found that events were overtaking our account. At the same time, I didn't want to just add a page for every trip we made, because the story would get too long. So I have now (June 24, 2005) revised the site extensively.
The main website continues to tell the story up to (approximately) the time when I first constructed the site, but has been corrected in a number of places based on things that we have learned since. This page brings the story up to date. I will then use this space as a sort-of blog, providing updates as things progress. I may also add some of my more general thoughts about our experiences.
This is not a blog in the usual sense of the term. There will be few links, and I will only update this page when there are things to say, so there may sometimes be long gaps between postings. I may sometimes edit/update previous entries without explicitly noting that I have done so. I also post in chronological order, rather than the reverse chronological order that is normal for blogs.
24/6/2005
Two Short Trips (April 10 and April 24)
Our next two trips were both very brief overnight trips, where we took Neung to the Merlin Hotel on Khao Lak beach. (Some hotels, such as this one, were spared extensive damage by virtue of being on slightly higher ground or just by the randomness of amplification and canceling of waves.) Neung, as best as we can tell, has little idea exactly what the tsunami was, although she certainly knows the word.
For us, it was and is still a strange experience to be on the beach as though everything is normal. You can't walk those beaches, see the debris, see the piles of shoes -- and then come back a few weeks later and forget all about it. Neung, though, just had lots of fun playing in the waves.
24/6/2005
Medical Care (May 9 to May 15)
These visits are not just a matter of us getting to play with a cute kid in Thailand's top vacation spots. On this trip we took Neung to Phuket. She has significant decay in her teeth, so we wanted to take her to see a dentist (with the grandparents' permission, of course). We had a recommendation of a dentist in Phuket Town, but to our great surprise Neung freaked out completely when we took her in there, and refused even to get into the chair. This is from a child who we had never even see cry before that day. It was clear that it was not going to work at this dentist, and so we got a recommendation for a specialist pediatric dentist on the other side of town.
This second dentist was wonderful! I want her to be my dentist from now on. Her technique consists of explaining everything, showing the child all the tools, letting her feel the implements on the skin before they go inside her mouth -- and also talking and moving very fast, so the kid doesn't really have time to think or process what's going on or get scared. The first visit was just about building up some trust and doing a quick check up. It turns out that Neung's tooth decay is even worse than we thought; she needs multiple fillings, and there are four teeth that need either to be extracted or to have root canal treatment. Two of her molars were almost completely rotted away. It was a real reminder that Neung's difficulties in life go back much further than the tsunami. Her grandparents are good people who care for Neung very much, but they are very poor, and they are not well educated. Dental hygiene had never been high on the agenda. Neung had been going to sleep every night with a bottle of milk, and so major decay is no real surprise
In the end, of course, these dental problems are not that big a deal, because we are still just talking about Neung's baby teeth. We and the dentist saw no reason to inflict root canal treatments on a four year old, so we elected to go for extractions. We went back later in the week, and poor Neung had one extraction and one filling. But apart from a bit of crying when she had the novocaine injection, she was very brave.
We also took her to a pediatrician for a general check up. We had met this doctor on our first trip to Thailand after the tsunami. She has an office in Patong beach that is also attached to a baby/children store, and we had bought up about half of their inventory to take up to the camps in Khao Lak.
24/6/2005
The World Turned Upside Down (Part 1): June 2 to June 10
The whole history of our time with Neung has been quite extraordinary, but this week was in a class of its own. Our plan was to visit for about ten days. We were going to arrive on Thursday and spend the first weekend down in Phuket, taking Neung for her second dental visit on the Friday. Then we planned to spend the week up in Khao Lak. Neung's school holidays were over, so we had decided to stay at the Merlin again. That way we could take Neung to and from school, sometimes taking her to the camp for a while after school. The idea was that we could inegrate our visit into Neung's regular life, so she did not always perceive us as taking her away from one kind of life and into another.
That was the theory.
A few days before the trip we asked Mark, one of our key translators, to call Sanam and remind her of our visit. He got back to us and told us that Somsri's body had finally been identified. The funeral was scheduled for Saturday.
So, to start off with, we had two days to try to learn something about Buddhist funerals. We are always nervous about giving offence in Thailand; it is an easy-going place, but there are many behaviors to avoid, and a funeral would be a particularly bad place to commit a faux-pas. Our quest for this knowledge led, among other things, to a rather surreal conversation between Jill and a Thai chef in Singapore, conducted through an interpreter. In Cantonese.
We arrived on Thursday as planned, and drove to Khao Lak. In the days before the actual funeral, the family of the dead person spends much of the time in the temple, so that was where we met up. We were about to get our first big surprise of the trip. When we got to the temple, Sanam, Panya, and Neung were there. So too was Sanam's son, Chatchawan, and his wife Jiraporn. Now, it is not odd in itself that Chat was there for his sister's funeral. But it was a shock to us, because on one of our early trips we had been told (by one of our less reliable interpreters, evidently) that he had died in the tsunami as well.
Somsri's casket stood outside the temple, surrounded by flowers and candles, and we went with Neung to light some incense.
On the Friday, we took Neung to the dentist. This time the poor mite had to have two teeth extracted. This is not a nice thing to do to a child the day before her mother's funeral. She seemed reasonably well recovered by the evening, but we think she swallowed a lot of blood -- at least that is the most likely explanation for why she threw up during the night. (Did I mention that not everything we do with Neung is fun?)
On our previous visit we had asked the pediatrician to find out a bit about what Neung knew about her mother. According to the doctor, Neung said that her mother couldn't visit her because she didn't have a motorcycle. At the temple, though, Neung clearly understood that this was about her mother. Sanam had told us that she did not think Neung really knew very much about the funeral, and that it did not really matter if she was there or not, but we felt it was important for Neung to attend. When she grows up, it might matter to her a lot. And besides, did we really think that one day we could say to Neung that we took her to play in the Marriott swimming pool instead of taking her to her mother's funeral?
The funeral was much less formal, far less scripted, than any I have attended in the west. When we arrived at the temple on the day of the funeral, there was a meal laid out on the floor of the temple, and we ate a little curry and egg. Then, at some point -- we almost missed it -- they took Somsri's coffin over to the crematorium, which was a couple of hundred meters away from the temple itself. I carried Neung over there. Any thoughts we had had that Neung did not understand what was happening vanished: as the coffin vanished and they closed the door of the crematorium, Neung buried her face in my shoulder and moaned. I had never heard any sound like that from her before; nor have I since.
Tropical rain was sheeting down from a sky so gray that the smoke from the crematorium was almost invisible. The temple grounds felt more like an abandoned lot than a holy place: overgrown and littered. Chickens perched among the miniature Buddhas. Discarded incense sticks and half-burned candles lay on the ground where the casket had sat through the previous days of prayer. Orange-cloaked monks chanted while the family mourners knelt below them. I know that our lives are contingent; this is no great insight. Still, I sat there looking at them – Sanam, Panya, Chat, and little Neung – and I just could not comprehend the chance decisions and casual randomness that had brought me to this place in my life, to an overgrown temple in rural Thailand, to the funeral of someone I had never even met.
And that was just the beginning of the week.
24/6/2004
Lost and Found
I have removed this post (8 September 2006) because it has been superseded by a posting on the page for September 2006.
The World Turned Upside Down (Part 2): June 2 to June 10
For the next few days, everything went as expected. We moved up to the Merlin, and started taking Neung to and from school. And then we got a call at midnight from a woman named Jacky -- a friend of Chat's and Jiraporn's who speaks very good English. She told us that Chat and Jiraporn wanted to meet us the next morning. We had no idea why they wanted this meeting, but we were very nervous. We were afraid that they were unhappy with our involvement in Neung's life, and that they were going to tell us that they thought we should stop visiting. So we got up very early the next morning, took Neung to school, and then drove down to Phuket to meet with Chat, Jiraporn, and Jacky. The whole way down we discussed strategies in anticipation of the things we feared they would say.
We could not have been more wrong about this meeting. It turned out that Sanam, Panya, Chat and Jiraporn had been having some very serious discussions. The meeting was about whether Jill and I would take Neung to be schooled and raised in Singapore.
Some background is needed here. We had always been very careful never to suggest that we should adopt Neung or take her from them. (In fact, the first version of the website explicitly said that we were not expecting to adopt her.) Nevertheless, on various occasions in the past Panya had indicated that he thought it would be good for Neung if she were to be schooled in Singapore someday, and we had made it clear in response that if they ever wanted us to take her, we would be thrilled to do so. This never seemed imminent, though; we always had the impression that he and Sanam were thinking about several years from now.
When we had met the family at the temple the previous Thursday the topic had come up again, and Panya had said that he was worried that if Neung left too soon, she would forget them. Up to this point, we had had no idea that this was a major concern of theirs. Through our translator, we tried to make it very clear that, were we ever to bring Neung into our lives, we wouldn't take her out of theirs. After all, we had been traveling to Thailand every few weeks to visit Neung; we could just as easily visit every few weeks to bring her back to her grandparents. We also explained that, were we to take Neung, we would be committed to ensuring that she retained her culture and her language.
So we had a long meeting with Chat, Jiraporn and Jacky, discussing the practicalities of our raising Neung in Singapore -- and then the next day we did it all again, but with Panya and Sanam there as well. This was a very emotional meeting: I think everyone there was close to tears at some point. And in the end the decision was made that we would indeed take Neung. The plan is not for us to adopt her, at least at this point, but for us to become her guardians in Singapore. Adoption may be something that we will all consider a bit later, but we do not want to take Neung completely from her grandparents at this time. For now, the idea is that Neung will live with us in Singapore and go to school there, and we will bring her back frequently to see her grandparents. Down the line, when we have all known each other longer, and when it is clear that we are now all part of one family, it might be that the best thing for Neung would be formal adoption, and we will do this. Right now, it is too big a step to take.
This is an act of extraordinary love by Sanam and Panya, and I hope we can live up to it. My wish is for them to become the grandparents that they should be, rather than the parents they were forced to be.
24/6/2005
Six Months After the Wave
Today, June 26, is the six-month anniversary of the tsunami. I'm typing this on the balcony of a room at the Marriott Hotel in Phuket. It is the rainy season, yet today is a beautiful day, and i can see the sea glinting and sparking through the palm trees. Earlier, we were on the beach with Neung, although the water is much too rough for swimming in the ocean. I am much more conscious than I ever used to be of the power of the water, of the way that even a small wave can almost knock me off my feet.
I think far too often about how Somsri died. Like most people, I suspect, I have difficulty getting my head around large-scale disasters. A quarter of a million people died as a result of the tsunami, but I don't know how to think about that. One individual, on the other hand, I can imagine much too easily. Forgive the banality, but I hope Somsri was one of the lucky ones. I hope she died quickly, swept off her feet and drowned before she knew what was happening, or struck unconscious by a piece of debris. I hope she was not trapped somewhere as the water rose; I hope she did not drown out at sea; I hope she did not slowly bleed to death from injuries; I hope she did not suffocate, hours later, from the sand in her lungs. I hope she did not have time to worry about whether Neung was safe, or about what would happen to Neung if Sanam and Panya also perished. Sometimes I feel that everything I do for Neung is in fulfilment of a promise that I would I could have made to Somsri as she died.
The Marriott is where we stayed when we first came to Thailand after the tsunami, and we have stayed here many times since. The main reason is location -- it is located near the northern tip of Phuket island, and so the journey up to Khao Lak is significantly shorter than it would be if we were to stay in most of the hotels in Phuket. Right after the tsunami, of course, almost all the hotels further north were out of action and so we had to stay in Phuket. On our more recent trips we have often stayed in Khao Lak, but the Marriott is still our hotel of choice when we need to be in Phuket.
In any case, many of the staff here at the Marriott know Neung by now, and they spoil her horribly. I swear that when they ask her where she comes from, she puts a little extra quiver in her voice when she says "Nam Kem". Once we ordered a coconut for her -- and before long there were four different waitstaff crowded around her, scraping out the coconut flesh and feeding her. We need to get this kid to Singapore before she starts thinking that life with us consists of nothing but swimming pools and room service.
Much of the last couple of weeks have been taken up with seeing lawyers in Singapore to find out what papers we need in order to assume guardianship, starting to investigate schools, and coordinating with Jacky to try to help then to get a passport for Neung. In principle guardianship should be reasonably straightforward, but we do want to ensure that Sanam fully understands any documents that she signs. In addition, many of Sanam's official documents were lost in the tsunami, and so need to be replaced.
We have to travel to Europe for the next two weeks, but our hope is that we will be able to bring Neung to Thailand when we return. We are still very nervous about whether this will all work out. It almost feels like tempting fate to post these latest events for public consumption. (There also might be some complications involving Neung's father. Although we have tried to tell the full story on this site, we have said little about Neung's father, since we don't really think it is our place to talk about him. You will just have to take our word for the fact that no-one thinks he should play any further role in Neung's life.)
I have had occasional moments of uncertainty about whether we are doing the right thing for Neung. Sometimes it feels as if we are ripping a child from her home and her family. But I remind myself of several things. First, she lives with her grandparents, not her parents, and as I said before, we can now allow them to be grandparents. Second, their lives were a struggle before the tsunami, and are a much greater struggle now. Though they are very good people, it is not clear that they are able to keep Neung safe, and I know they worry about their ability to raise her. Third, the reality is that Neung's life opportunities will be very different if she lives with us. Were she to grow up in Nam Kem, the best outcome for her would probably be to end up working in a resort. That would be fine, but there are also many far worse outcomes for poor young women in Thailand. If she lives with us, she can be anything. Sanam and Panya understand this very well, and this -- I believe -- is why they honored us with their request.
26/6/2005
DVI
For a long time, whenever we stayed at the Marriott, the only other guests seemed to be relief workers, diplomats, or people who wore clothing with the mysterious acronym "DVI". That stands for "Disaster Victim Identification". More recently, though, the tourists seem to be coming back. I am starting to be optimistic that, by the time the next high season comes around, tourist traffic in Phuket will be returning to normal.
But even now, six months after the tsunami, we still keep encountering DVI workers. To be honest, I don't know what kind of work they are doing, though I imagine at this point that most of their work is computer-based DNA matching, rather than pathology. Although it must start to seem very distant from the personal tragedies, I imagine it is still sometimes emotionally draining work.
In any case, we now try always to say a few words to any DVI workers that we meet. We tell them that we have seen how their work changes people's lives; how a burden was visibly lifted from a mother when finally, after five months, she was able to have a funeral for her daughter; and how a little girl was finally able to cry for her mother's death.
We thank them for that.
28/6/2005
Communicating with Neung
"Does she speak English?" "A very little." "Do you speak Thai?" "No." "So how do you communicate??"
It is certainly frustrating at times. Our coming and going is unsettling for Neung, and although we do our best to make sure she knows when we will be leaving, and when we will be coming back, it is still confusing for her. We would like to be able to reassure her that we are taking her out of the swimming pool so she can eat lunch, for example, not to take her back to the camp. And sometimes we would just like to be able to negotiate with her, the way you occasionally need to with four year olds ("no, you can't have ice cream until you finish your vegetables"; that kind of thing).
Truth to tell, though, it hasn't really been that hard. It was in everyone's interest to get bathroom communication figured out quickly, so we managed that. Sign language went a long way at first, and then she learnt words like 'swimming' and 'eating'. We have learned to communicate sequences of events as numbered lists ("one: shower; two: breakfast; three: swimming..."). She is also clearly working hard on her English, and sometimes we have these conversations where we try to teach each other vocabulary. (I will write something about my efforts to learn a little Thai at some other time.)
She plays it to her advantage, as well. When we want to get her attention, and she doesn't want to give it, she will ignore us until we pronounce "Neung" just right. And that 'eu' is a difficult vowel, dammit...
28/6/2005
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