A little bit of New York in Bangkok

I went off to a conference on human trafficking being held in Bangkok by Caritas Asia.  I may have been looking forward to the conference but I never expected what greeted me in the surrounds of the hotel where it was being held.  The hotel is part of a new development which has taken a cultural theme, displaying works of contemporary art throughout its space.  It was like walking into a bit of New York in Bangkok.  I was just overcome.  On realizing what I was surrounded by, I became a tourist yet again in a city that has become home.  I found myself automatically walking around the area looking at the pieces of art, taking it all in and taking photos like any tourist would do.  I was gobsmacked, as they say back home.  Bangkok is so full of surprises.  You think you know it and then you discover something else new. 

So what to do as I want to share my joyous discovery?  Let the pictures tell the story this week.  Enjoy.

Well, while I was enjoying the art of my new surrounds, I went into the conference on human trafficking.  It began with the testimony of a young Thai guy, really only a boy, who had been taken in by the offer of big money to work on a fishing trawler.  The money was the bait for getting a boy from poverty onto the boat and into the slave trade of the regional fishing industry.  He and others like him were taken from Thailand by boat to Ambon in Indonesia and made to work on fishing boats as slave labour.  These boats went out for one to two months at a time. The conditions were harsh.  The work was long and tough.  Any pay was meagre. 

As he shared his tragic and heartfelt story, I felt so disconnected as here I was in my newly found bit of New York in Bangkok listening to a lad talk about a world so cruel and ruthless, a world so ugly, a world so far away but yet part of the same world.  "How can this be so?" was my feeling question. Our world can be so disconnected.  We can be so divorced from the harsh, everyday realities faced by so many around us.  How to understand?  How to reach out?  How to be with the other?