society Archives - The Cracked Door

When Advancing Seems Hopeless (Life Snippet from Battambang, Cambodia)

This is a life snippet, a picture of a moment in someone’s life to see how different people around the world navigate the complexities of life (here are some other snippets). This woman’s story seems to be a story of doing all one can to beat the odds and rise above the cycle of poverty.

(We spoke in 2023. I decided to maintain the present tense tone in this piece, but the present refers to the end of 2023.)

Chivy (not her real name) is from Battambang, Cambodia. Her dream is to start a restaurant, since she loves cooking and hospitality. She and her cousin recently co-founded a restaurant. It’s on the first floor of the same apartment building that her family (her mother, uncle, aunt, cousins, and her) rents the second floor of. But the business has been struggling.

She worked at her restaurant from 9:00 am until 3:00 pm everyday, and to make ends meet, she had a second job working the evening shift at a local bar as a barista from 3:00 pm until midnight. Her cousin works at their restaurant during the evenings until 10:00 pm when Chivy is gone.

The rental for her restaurant business costs $200 a month (Cambodia uses the US dollar as one of its currencies, so she’s paid in dollars), and her barista job pays her about $400 a month. She uses her second job to pay the rent for the restaurant and keeps the rest to contribute to rent for her home expenses for her and her family.

Battambang has been an important tourist destination until the covid pandemic. Then tourism stopped, causing huge hardship as most people in the small city lost their jobs. People working in tourism, food and beverage, and other service sector industries were the worst hit, because there were now few customers to pay for these services. When I was there, the pandemic had ended. Tourists were starting to come back, but not to anywhere near the same numbers they were before in Battambang and Cambodia, so restaurants still struggled to find customers.

At the same time, she is exhausted. She works fifteen hours a day with only has nine hours in the day to split between relaxation, any chores she needs, and sleep. She has one day off a week on Wednesdays. She says everyday she feels exhausted. Her friends have told her that she is slowly killing herself by overworking, and she suspects she can’t sustain this forever.

At the same time, she really wants her restaurant business to succeed. Her dream is to start a restaurant. Her cousin wants to throw in the towel, saying they haven’t gotten enough business to keep them afloat much longer, but she wants to keep trying. She hopes she can make it.

Both her and her cousin have been strategizing the best way to beat the odds and rise economically from their initial position, but they have found this incredibly difficult.

Chivy would like to move to the US, where she would work for at least 10 years. The greater income in the US (even if she works a low-income job in the US where she is barely scraping by while there) would allow her to save far more money than she’ll ever earn here working as, say, a barista. She would use that money to buy a home for her mother. The family would then craft that home into a homestay where they could rent out a few rooms to tourists and through that, build wealth to allow them to advance to the middle class in Battambang. She told me that moving to the US is a dream, though, that she knows will never realistically happen.

Likewise, her cousin has been trying to find a job in South Korea. She applied for a program the Cambodian government hosts to work there. The program pairs Cambodians with companies in South Korea, where they tend to work in a few different types of low-wage blue collar or service sector industries like manufacturing, agriculture, or if their Korean is considered good enough to interact with regular customers, food and beverage.

She had to take a series of exams to demonstrate her competency. She studied Korean for three months in order to prepare for an exam. She needed a score of 110 out of 200 to pass, and she scored 125. She also had to take a dexterity test, placing blocks in holes and other physical activities, which she also passed.

She is waiting to see whether a Korean employer will choose her. She is pessimistic that she’ll get an offer, though. Korea’s program has 400 slots for Cambodians, and about 2,000-3,000 Cambodians apply for these 400 slots. She said they mostly select men in their twenties for factory work, the industry that would be most likely to hire her, so as a 33-year old woman, they may not pick her.

If she does get a job offer, most contracts are for two years, although some stay for as long as five years in total after renewing it a few times. The typical pay is $2,000 a month in Korea, which would also allow her to save to buy a home to use as a homestay. If this doesn’t work out, though, she may move to Siem Reap (a major tourist city next to the famous Angkor Wat) where tourist and food and beverage jobs are more plentiful.

Chivy’s and her cousin’s stories demonstrate the complexities of trying to advance economically in small cities and towns in Cambodia. Other residents in Battambang have told me the area can feel almost feudal with class mobility being very difficult and people becoming locked into their station in life. This shows how difficult it can be to change that.

Even the best entrepreneurial endeavors are likely to fail and options feeling limited, causing them to look to other parts of the world where they can work and save money, but these options are also limited. It’s easy to feel sad and stuck, and even working 15 hour days may not be enough to cut it to create one’s dreams.

Indifferent Decisions (A Short Story)

(Here is a reading of the story if audio is more your thing)

“So, what should we put?” I asked, pen in hand, staring overwhelmed at the piece of paper.

“Maybe Christmas?” My girlfriend answered.

“What?” My other friend interjected.

“Like Christmas would be nice.”

“That strange creature came to us and bestowed on us the choice of what will survive the apocalypse tomorrow, and the first thing you think of is Christmas?!”

“Sure. It’s a start.”

“What other ideas do you have?” I intervened, as my other friend furled her brow at me. I wrote down Christmas for now.

“What are the most important things that our nation has to offer? Like democracy, our Constitution.” My friend shouted.

“But look what democracy got us now…” She quipped.

There was silence for several seconds.

“I don’t know,” he finally broached the silence. “We are bound to have some kind of legacy. Our culture must have built something great that we can bestow to future people to enjoy.”

I sat there. I thought about the incredible promise we once had: human rights, the dream that everyone would get a house, the Civil Rights movements. “We squandered everything we once had,” I finally lamented out loud. “It all turned out to be lies and false promises.”

“I know what happened, but there must be something in all that that is true and lasting, that future generations need to learn,” my friend almost begged. He so wanted this to be true.

I thought of how chaotic the last several years had been. Always, another disaster after another. A fanatical lunatic in charge. My mind hurt from thinking through all that happened. I could have survived so many mini-apocalypses, but the idea that something truly horrid befell us tomorrow only made me feel drained and depleted. Just let it be quick to get it over with.

“Maybe all we have left is our warning,” I finally concluded. “Maybe if we included the story of how we failed, others could avoid our mistakes and not become us.”

“I don’t think any future human would listen,” my girlfriend objected.

“They might,” I replied.

“We wouldn’t have listened.”

The truth of this hit me for a few seconds.

“It’s our only hope.”

Sleeping with “Bar Women” in Siem Reap, Cambodia as a Way to Meet Someone (A Conversation)

One morning while I was getting breakfast in Siem Reap, Cambodia I had a long conversation with a white US American living there. For anyone unfamiliar, Siem Reap is a small, tourist city in Central Cambodia withu a population of around 350,000 most known for the absolutely amazing Angkor Wat ruins, one of the marvels of the world.

This account is just one perspective on complex dynamics between Western men and Southeast Asian women. It exemplifies the types of inequalities and power dynamics in these kinds of relationships and how both he and the Cambodian women he have met navigate these relationships.

The guy had lived in Siem Reap for about 7 months. He is deciding whether to settle here long-term or go back home. He says he has everything he wants in life (such as a nice home, food to eat, etc.) except for a woman.

He has gotten frustrated, though, with the transactional interactions he’s had so far with Cambodian women here. He’ll meet different women at bars, take them home, sleep with them that night, intending for them to be a one-night stand. But then the next morning, they ask for money. He says the amount of money they ask for is not much, but he finds it insulting. It makes him think, “I thought the woman was simply interested in me, but then I realize, ‘Oh that’s what kind of relationship this is.’” He also said he usually meets “bar women” or women who specifically go to bars to meet guys there, which to him are “like this.”

He said he felt frustrated in the US with having to pretend to like people’s personalities or have someone play a wingman in order to get to sleep with them. In Cambodia, he can say, “I think you look pretty; do you also think I’m attractive? Okay,” and go have sex. He also likes that women are more upfront about complimenting his body, for example strangers telling him he looks attractive.

In contrast, he got frustrated with how in the US, women are selective and would seem to judge him on things like his job and salary (he worked a blue collar job often labeled as “lower status”). Here he is comparatively more desired. He admits that Cambodian men seem to have it harder than white men such as himself, though. They often have to go through several hoops like justifying their career path if their work is considered menial.

In his opinion, Cambodians require less in life here in Siem Reap: often just wanting a place to sleep, enough food to eat, and a motorbike to get around. For him, people do not seem to know what they are lacking materially: if they lived in a Western country, they would own so much more monetary wealth and material stuff. But to him, this ignorance prevents many in rural Cambodia from seeing what they lack, lowering the material standards of what a “successful life” looks like, almost like a coping mechanism. (Note: This is his opinion. I do not agree that rural Cambodians do not know what they are “lacking” but find the reasons for these differences in cultural expectations for material things to be a bit more complicated.)

Thus, when the women he sleeps with asks him for things, he can hardly fault them for their request. They are often asking for basic needs like food, and compared to the US, what they are asking for is not that expensive. At the same time, the requests make him feel uneasy

I found it interesting talking with him. I could relate to the frustrations and hurt about having people so frequently ask you for money, but it seemed like he was in some way using his status given to white men in that community to have one-sided, short-term sexual encounters. One-night stands are okay when both sides reasonably know and agree on what to expect, yet I sensed that the women he was having sex with had very different expectations and assumptions than him, seeing the sex as a beginning of a relationship, not just something they are doing that night.

Because of his privilege, he could enforce his expectations that this was a brief sexual encounter. He obviously controlled whether he helped others financially, and he could move on to another woman if this woman had what he considered too unreasonable an expectation. That allowed him to satisfy his own desires (both for sex and to be complemented for his attractiveness). To me, this seemed like a vain and ultimately self-defeating approach for finding satisfaction emotionally, relationally, and even sexually.

I found it sad. He seemed to have some kind of insecurity, which he sought to satisfy by continually having sex with different Cambodian women and seemed either oblivious or indifferent to how that subtly positioned the women as a type of object for him. Then he got frustrated by the ways those women tried to respond within that.

These kinds of cross-cultural relationships can be complicated to navigate, though, especially given differences in power. Everyone has expectations for how to interact, which are influenced by one’s cultural context, and when in another culture, it’s definitely okay to communicate your expectations and find people who respect and abide by your expectations. At the same time, it’s important to be aware of where others are coming from and to be aware of how your power and privilege may unfairly impact the situation. I think he simply felt frustrated with how the women did not abide by his expectations, moving swiftly to get what he wanted without thinking through what their encounter must have looked like from their perspective and how his power and privilege shaped the interaction itself.

This kind of obliviousness can be common among those who are in a position of power in society: particularly white men in other cultures. It can also make one think about how positions of power could lead to similar ignorance in our own lives.

Covering for a Flight (Short Story)

Putri quickly uncovered her face. The security officer needed to see her face to compare with her Indonesian ID card. She rushed to cover herself back off with her niqab before anyone else could see her, but she struggled to tuck the fabric back in place. She had never really worn a niqab before and struggled to get it just right.

Ok, done. She did a doubletake around to see whether anyone had spotted her.

“That’s all,” the officer said. “Have a safe flight.”

She walked over to her gate, worried that she be spotted. She hoped no one was around who might recognize her. Her family didn’t know she was taking this trip, and she wanted to keep it that way. The airport was small. Only a couple gates as it was a small town.

She began to look for her gate, but her stomach started to growl. She still had an hour before her flight left plenty of time to grab lunch. She walked up to the line to order some food at a nearby counter. After she told the lady what she wanted, she turned around to find a table. That’s when he spotted her.

“Hello Putri, is that you?” a voice called to her from behind her in the line after ordering her food.

She turned around, and there was Ismail in a casual yet professional suit jacket and button down shirt. What was he doing here?

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Or, I guess I didn’t know you were going on a trip.”

“Yes sir,” she replied.

She got a better look at him when she turned around to find a seat. He looked like he was wearing nice clothes that he hadn’t tidied up yet, almost as if he was flying to a business meeting and would button his collar and apply his tie after he arrived. He smiled at her as she walked by.

He approached her table a few minutes later after he had gotten his food, “Funny thing seeing you here,” not asking if he could join her.

She said nothing. “You look nervous,” he said to keep the conversation going. “Have you never flown before?”

She nodded yes.

“I see. I was nervous the first time as well,” he tried to reassure, but she got the sense that he had been too young the first time he had flown for him to remember. From a wealthier family in the town, he was now a business man. He was always going somewhere on some trip.

“Yes, my flight heads out soon,” she replied, hoping to use this as an excuse to leave the conversation.

“Where are you going?” he responded.

She had been so anxious she had completely forgot where she was flying to. She got out her ticket from her pocket, which read that she was flying to Bali. Too frazzled to say its name, she showed him the ticket.

“Oh, that’s a fun place,” he replied. “Today, I’m going to Manila, but I wish I was going there, though. It’s much more fun,” chuckling.

“Are you traveling alone?” he filled the resulting silence with.

What an unfair question. She had never been able to lie, so she simply nodded her head yes. He looked at her like one coming upon a nice cake at the shop of a bakery.

“And are you meeting anyone there?”

She nodded no.

“Wow, have you traveled alone before?”

Again, she simply nodded no.

“That’s very brave of you.”

“Thank you,” she murmured politely.

Never mind that he traveled alone all the time. She leaned back in her chair as if to get away from him as much as possible. He now saw her as available.

“You know, it’s very nice to get out of this town every once in a while. It puts things into perspective. To see new possibilities.”

She eyed the clock and checked the time of her flight. She was about to say that she had to go catch her flight, but he came in too fast.

“When is your flight?”

She read him the time.

“That’s not for another hour. You don’t have to worry about it now. As the first time you’ve flown, you must be a little nervous, but trust me, it’s fine. You have plenty of time.”

Ugh, why won’t he let me leave?

She looked throughout the hallway of the terminal to think about her options. How could she get away from him? She saw a sign for the toilet. That would work.

“I have to go to…” she began, but before she could mention the toilet, he came in again.

“I was talking with your mother the other day.”

She paused and sunk a little into her seat. This wouldn’t be good. She couldn’t leave whatever he was about to say unsettled. She would have to stay.

“She said you have an exciting interview coming up. That’s amazing. Congratulations!”

He paused, clearly anticipating something from her other than the blank stare she gave him.

“I didn’t know it was in Bali, though. I thought it was somewhere closer.”

That was the lie she told her mom about this trip. That she was heading to a nearby town for a few days for an exciting job interview. Her mom even took drove her to the bus station. Instead of catching a bus, though, she took a taxi to the airport to head to Bali. When she got back, she was going to say the interview didn’t go well and that she didn’t think she’d hear back from the employers. This was the only way she could think of to get away from it all. Her family would never have approved of her taking a trip alone so far away.

“Yes,” she finally spoke. “It’s in Bali.”

“I kind of wish it was somewhere closer to here. Maybe then we’d be able to see each other more…”

“I know,” she said. She couldn’t have him go blather to anyone that he saw her at the airport, but how could he convince him of that without explaining that this was all a lie?

“Are you considering moving to Bali?” he asked.

“We’ll see.” She was just going on a trip to get away from it all here, but she didn’t need to tell him that. Part of her would love to move to Bali. She’s seen all the pictures, but deep down, she knows that would never happen. She’s just taking a trip. He didn’t need to know that.

“Don’t you have such a nice life for yourself here?”

Absolutely not. She hated this small town, trapped in the same set of relationships with the same people, far away from any semblance of a good economy, but instead she just sat there and said nothing as he continued. He knew he had his life set here with his family business, so of course, he’d prefer if she stayed too.

“What are your plans?”

“I don’t know yet. I am just going for a single interview. I don’t know if it will even work out. If it does, I will figure it out from there.”

“I wish I had known you were going to Bali. I had friends there who you could have stayed with. What are your plans after your interview? You still could hang out with them if you’d like. They could show you around.”

“Thanks, but I won’t have time. I have a tight schedule.” She wished she could stay with someone she knew. It would have saved her a lot of money, but she would never stay with any of his people.

“It’s not a problem. I can text them right now…”

“No!” she shot back. He looked almost taken aback by an assertiveness in her voice that she had not before in the conversation. “Don’t tell them!”

He looked puzzled at her sudden conviction. “Why? It’s not like you visiting there is a secret? Do you…”

He saw her look of horror at this statement.

“You haven’t told anyone in town that you are going to Bali. Have you?”

She didn’t say anything but just looked at him dejected. Her secret has been found out. “I just don’t want anyone back home to think of me differently, as someone with such an opportunity, unless I actually do get the job.”

“That’s fair. You may have to tell them eventually, though, but I’ll keep your secret.”

He agreed to keep it under wraps. She no longer had a reason to stay in conversation with this man.

“Thank you,” she murmured. “Now if you would excuse me, I really have to use the toilet.”

She left too quickly to look at him give an excuse for her to stay. All she heard was him faintly calling back that she hoped she had a good time. She didn’t care. She was free. Would he actually spill the beans? That was a problem for another day. After the toilet, she’d find a different place to wait in the airport, one where he was unlikely to be.

The Freezer (A Short Story)

There it is, the Cooler. The place I’d have to go. My boss asked me to do an inventory to count every single thing in that cold dark room.

I walk into the huge fridge. The door automatically snaps shut behind me. It’s a long corridor with one bend, which leads to another narrow sliver of a room. A passageway to nowhere. On all sides are piles of boxes of frozen foods, almost squeezing me shut at any moment. No matter how many times I come I can never get used to this space.

I begin my inventory count with boxes of canned peas. For each box I see, I make a mark on my little notepad. Then I move onto the next item. It’s pretty boring. Why did I even accept this job? I had little choice at the time. It offered a paycheck after I graduated, the only way I could find to pay my student loans and afford rent. I can still picture my father’s dejected expression when I told him about the offer. My dad was too polite to say what he thought, and just gave me a blank congratulations, but I could tell he was realizing that all his dreams for what his son would amount to would come to nothing.

Anyways, where was I? I was now counting ice cream carts. If only I could eat one. There’s a new cart. I mark a check on the page, but wait? I check where I marked it. Was that the group for ice cream or one of the other foods? I can’t remember. My little notepad is becoming filled with little groups of marks, too many to remember which is which.

I’m such a fuck up?! I can’t even count carts of ice cream. No wonder I can’t find a good job. I’ll be stuck working here until the day I die.

I guess I never really liked my job anyways. It’s so boring. That is the real reason I can’t keep anything straight. I just don’t care. If I had a real job, I would do it well, or at least, I hope I wouldn’t find a way to mess that up too.

A loud crash in the other passageway snaps me back to reality. What on earth is that? Something must have fallen. Was that me? I’ve been shifting boxes around to do this count, but I hadn’t touched anything over there. Why would something have fallen over there?

I place my clipboard down and walk over to see what happened. There’s nothing. No strewn boxes. Maybe I just heard something. Maybe someone dropped something on the other side of the wall.

I come back, and I can’t find the notepad. I thought I had just set it down on this one box. Where could it have gone? I look around. It’s not on the other boxes. Did it fall somewhere? I start rummaging through a few boxes, moving some around and looking through them. No notepad. I can never seem to find anything anyways.

Kneeling before a box, my butt accidently knocks the stack of boxes behind it. A couple of them crash loudly onto the ground. Just another example of me failing. I begin to look over to see the damage.

But several more boxes fall. This time, they’re in the other room. I shoot straight up. That can’t be me. I hear a growling noise. Something is there.

I don’t have time for this, and I run straight to the door, but it’s locked. I try to pound against it, but no one is outside. The door is pretty thick to seal in the cold. It’s not like they could hear my knocking anyways. My phone has never worked in this deep part of the basement. The creature moves as I knock, as if the noise is stirring it.

This can’t be happening. I do the only thing that makes sense, and that is to go back to work. It’ll keep my mind off of whatever is going on on the other side. That’s all I am here to do. I count the boxes of items. I don’t have my notepad, but that’s okay. I can keep track of the numbers in my head. I hear it moving about. It knocks over boxes, and its breathing grows strained like it’s choking on its own droll. I desperately cling to counting my canned mangoes.

WHACK! It sounds like an entire shelf of stuff has fallen over there. I completely lose track of my count. The bang seems to dig into my very bones. “I’m so dumb?!” I shout reflexively. The creature stops for a few seconds of eerie silence. Then it makes its way towards my room. It must have heard me!

I instinctively dive behind a set of boxes in a vain attempt to protect myself. I’m too much of a wimp to take it on. This is why I deserve death. I wasted my life; why wouldn’t I also waste my death, just sitting here waiting for it to come pounce on me. And what a way to go? In the very bowels of my employer, who doesn’t care enough about me? I bet they’d just clean up my body, make an insurance claim about the goods my blood got spilled on, and move on like nothing happened. Why did I waste my life here?

I hear the monster on the other side of my tower of boxes, gurgling and foaming. That’s it. If I am going to die, I might as well do something. I knock over a box of cans on the top of my stack so that it falls directly on top of it. I hear it whimpering in pain. That slowed it down, but it’s still making its way up my tower.

I plunge my hand into another box and the first thing I can find. It’s a small metallic can of tuna about the size of a fist. This will work. I can use it to punch the beast. Its ugly head rears the top of my fortress as it climbs down, coming straight for me.

I draw back my fist when I realize that it nuzzles its head against my leg. What does it want? I don’t know, but it seems friendly. It looks at me, whimpering in a high pitched voice at my shaking body that I have curled up in the fetal position. I feel an immense compassion towards it: it was simply trapped in this dungeon just trying to get by, like me. When it realizes that I’m not going to give it food, it wanders over to the puddle of food that fell out of their packaging all over the floor in another part of the freezer, slurping it up desperately.

I seize the moment and rush to the door, trying to jiggle it open again. It turns out it was unlocked the whole time. I guess in my panic before, I couldn’t get the latch at the proper angle. I rush outside and don’t look back.

Screw this job. I’m going home.

Rejected by Others: Growing Up with Epilepsy in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

This is a transcript of my conversation with Bella in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. She describes her experiences growing up with epilepsy. Throughout her childhood, others have judged or alienated her because of her disease. This is her story of overcoming the stigma others have placed on her.

She spoke Indonesian, and our friend, Hanisa, translated our conversation into English. Because of the way we switched languages throughout the conversation, I decided to post a transcript for anyone interested in reading Bella’s original statements. For anyone who, like me, does not speak Indonesian, all you have to do is copy and paste her statements into a translation app.

Original Version Published Here: https://youtu.be/m8GGnTFydqM

Transcript of Our Conversation

[Stephen – Video’s Introduction]

Hello everyone. This is Stephen with the Curious Life and this video is the first video in a series I’m starting. My plan is to interview people in the different places I visit as I travel the world and talk about their struggles, talk about what life is like for them, and in some cases some of the biggest struggles that they face. The idea is to help people think about the different types of struggles people face in different parts of the world and maybe help people who might experience a similar type of issue in their own context and help them think through how to navigate it themselves.

In today’s video, I’m going to talk with my friend named Bella in Yogjakarta in Indonesia. So she’s going to talk about her experiences growing up with epilepsy and maybe most importantly how people treated her growing up. A lot of people alienated her and bullied her and did a lot of mean things or you know didn’t understand her or her condition. So hopefully this video will help for anyone thinking about people who might be different and what might be going on and help kind of understand the different ways that people with different conditions might behave differently and be more sympathetic. Or also people who maybe are growing up or who have to live with something like epilepsy. So I hope you enjoy, and you’ll get more videos like this in the coming weeks.

[Our Conversation]

[Stephen]

Hello everyone, this is Stephen. I’m specifically here with Bella, my friend, and also with Hanisa. Hanisa is here for translation support and emotional support as well. Bella, how are you doing?

[Bela]

Fine.

[Stephen]

Good. That’s good. And [turning to Hanisa] how are you doing?

[Hanisa]

Good as well

[Stephen]

Yeah, I wanted to talk about maybe some of your journey. So for context, could you tell people a little bit about yourself?

[Hanisa]

Jadi perjalanan kamu gimana? Kamu minta tentang diri kamu?

[Bela]

Perjalanannya sungguh sulit, kadang ada yang mudah, sulit, terus liku-liku lah ya. seperti itu. Saya

mengalami epilepsi dari kelas 6 SD dan mengalami skizofrenia mulai dari lulus SMA tahun 2020.

[Hanisa]

Eh, jadi so she said that the journey is hard for her. Sometimes it’s easy, some is hard. She has been struggling since she was diagnosed with epilepsy as well. It started in elementary school

[Stephen]

Yeah wow. This makes sense.

(Oh and one other quick thing for anyone in case you’re wondering, I do have a cold so if my voice sounds deeper or if I randomly start coughing that’s why.)

But yeah, what was it like growing up with epilepsy?

[Hanisa]

Kamu ngasnya gimana in elementary school? Tumbuh tumbuh ya kamu kamu kamu kan tumbuh gede dari kecil udah epilepsi itu rasanya gimana kamu rasanya dari kelas 6 SD itu? Heeh. mulai ke trier ya. Heeh. tentang pembulian.

[Bela]

Terus dan SMP saya memilih individu waktu sekolahnya dan akhirnya SMA saya memilih pakai C. Oh. Saya memilih individu karena saya trauma karena dibully dari kecil.

[Hanisa]

So she said that at first the most triggering experience for her was when she was in the sixth grade. When in the sixth grade she got bullied by her friends. When in junior high school, she used to be a lone wolf. She used to be a person who didn’t interact with anybody else.

So at the senior high, she chose to do Packet C in Indonesia. It’s like an exam but not the majority of people who do it. It’s not the original exam from senior high school. You can do Packet A for is for elementary school Packet B is for junior high and Packet C is for senior high [in other words, Packet A is an alternative competency exam on can take to graduate from elementary school, Packet B for junior high school, and Packet C for high school].

She did Packet C because she didn’t want to experience having to go around in school. Yeah, that makes sense.

[Stephen]

I mean, I’m glad that you had that option, but it honestly seems like there’s a bit of hardship there. How did the students bully you?

[Hanisa]

Jadi dia paham. Jadi kayak untung ada kayak opsi lain itu dia ada pakainya tadi kayak jadi bisa menghindari itu. Tapi kalau dia tanya lagi jadi kayak kamu gimana merasanya waktu ekspresi waktu pengalaman waktu kamu dibul merasanya seperti apa?

[Bela]

Saya merasa sakit hati karena telah dibully tanpa merasa bersalah. Saya sebenarnya tidak pernah punya kesalahan dengan teman-teman SD, tetapi saya dibully dan dikata-katakan kotoran hewan, kuman dan tidak suka dengan teman-teman yang lain.

[Hanisa]

He said that she was so heart-broken when she was in elementary school at that time when she was in sixth grade. She felt that there’s friends who say bad things to her. Used to mock her saying that she wasn’t even a poop of the animal. She said, “You are bacteria.” And other bad words. They all said to her, but she felt like she didn’t do anything wrong at that time. But all of her friends, they mocked her.

[Stephen]

Why did they mock you? Was it just because you had epilepsy? That seems awful.

[Hanisa]

He kamu diol-ol tuh epilepsi aja atau kayak kenapa aku bis diol kayak

kira-kira? Teman-teman tuh kayak gitu kenapa kamu tahu enggak atau kamu enggak tahu benar?

[Bela]:

enggak tahu em kamu

[Hanisa]

So she said that her friends didn’t know that she had epilepsy at that time so it wasn’t about it.

[Stephen]

Yeah this makes sense. It seems like the like in of itself having epilepsy is something that can be very difficult to process especially as a kid. And it seems like you kind of also had to deal with people treating you differently at the same time.

[Hanisa]

Jadi pasti dia bilang pasti berat buat bela kan. Jadi kayak sesuatu yang kalau

diketahui nanti kan pasti orang-orang bakal kayak gitu kayak gitu.

[Bela]

Heeh. Bagaimana caranya mengalami itu perjuangannya dan entah bagaimana rasanya yang mengalami seperti saya. Entah itu bisa pulih atau tidak. Belum tentu orang yang mengalami seperti saya akan sekuat ini.

[Hanisa]

Iya. She said that many people experience epilepsy, but she doesn’t think that every other person can survive as much as she survived. She grew. She learned as much. She didn’t stop believing in herself. She still has the courage to stand within herself.

[Stephen]

That’s good. That’s awesome. What do you think helped give you that courage?

[Hanisa]

Kamu kok bisa seberani itu se percaya diri itu dengan dirimu untuk apa yang membantumu kayak apa sih gitu?

[Bela]

Saya berjuang dengan diri sendiri karena saya menyemangati diri sendiri kalau orang itu tidak pernah ada yang memilih saya. Terus dan saya pernah dibully itu. Hm. Saya rasanya sakit hati ingin rasanya ingin balas dendam. Hmm. He. Dan saya akhirnya kelas 5 SD mengamuk di satu kelas dan mengguyur satu teman saya, teman dekat saya.

[Hanisa]

So she said that after she got bullied in elementary school, she wanted to take revenge on the people who bullied her. And that actually happened when she was in fifth grade, she took some water with her, and she splashed it on the person and burned her in class.

[Stephen]

Oh wow. This is a different story but when I was that age I also did that to a boy

who was yelling at me and I happened to have some very hot water cuz I was boiling some water. And I realized that like it’s hot, and it was bad. It didn’t burn and which is good, but like I didn’t really think about it all the way.

Yeah. This makes sense. I mean maybe in general: What was it like learning about your epilepsy and processing that you had epilepsy and some of the other issues that you also developed like schizophrenia and stuff like that?

[Hanisa]

Eh, kamu gimana

[Bela]

Kayak memprosesnya di dalam diri kamu kalau tahu oh aku ternyata emang aku absus aku juga aku rasa kamu cara mengosesnya biar bisa kayak berdam kayak udah gitu kayak gitu. Heeh. Oke. Saya berdamai dengan diri sendiri karena telah diberi saran oleh kakak saya karena pemulihan itu penting dan harus minum obat rutin jika ingin sembuh.

[Hanisa]

So she made it herself. She said that what helps her the most is her sister. Her sister told her you can be good if you keep doing medicine and you keep on growing as a person and I will be there to support you. You said that ya?

[Bela]

I oke maamin sekarang boleh.

[Stephen]

Ok, that makes sense. And that’s important to have that support from your sister, from your family. How did you feel when she said that?

[Hanisa]

Perasaan yang bilang gimana pas kakak bilang kayak gitu?

[Bela]

Rasanya tidak terima jika dikejar-kejar atau di dipaksa untuk minum obat. Sebenarnya saya tidak suka waktu itu awal kena epilepsi dan saya menyembunyikan obat itu di bawah kasur dan saya mengaku kalau saya sudah minum obat dan obatnya habis.

[Hanisa]

So she said that at first it was hard for her to accept that she had epilepsy, and when her sister said that you have to routinely have your medicine she didn’t want the medicine. So she hid it below her bed, and she didn’t drink it, but she said she drank it to her sister or family.

[Stephen]

This makes sense. Yeah, that makes total sense. I mean I’m glad the medicine can be complicated in of itself like what is the what is the medicine like I thought sometimes epilepsy medicine can be both complicated and have a lot of side effects too.

[Hanisa]

H jadi kamu kan medicin medicine perepsiaan jadi medicine perepsinya tuh apakah apa banyak atau kayak harus kayak ben harus teratur atau harus kayak berbari gitu?

[Bela]

Awal kena epilepsi, saya meminum obat dengan tiga kali sehari, pagi, siang, malam. Setelah bertahun 2 tahun kemudian, dosis diturunkan menjadi dua kali sehari. Lalu diturunkan kembali pada tahap selanjutnya jadi satu kali sehari dan tahun ini jadi 2 hari sekali.

[Hanisa]

Hmm. So she said when at first she got diagnosed with epilepsy, she had to drink medicine three times a day, and two years later she got the dosage reduced to two times a day. And then after that got reduced again to one time a day, and right now a day she only drinks it once every other day. So it’s getting less and less so. It’s getting easier.

[Stephen]

And what do you feel like? So, with what you’re saying with your sister, we were talking about focusing on personal growth. What do you think the growth has looked like for you over the last couple years?

[Hanisa]

Kan kamu tadi aa kayak fokus tentang pertumbuhan diri gitu. Nah, pertumbuhan dirimu yang beberapa tahun ke belakang ini seperti apa?

[Bela]

Saya sebenarnya perjalanan hidup ini sedang mengalami stres terus dan saya mengalami merasa kesendirian individu, tidak punya teman, merasa dijauhkan dengan teman dekat dan ingin bersosialisasi jadi tidak percaya. saya diri dan saya memikirkan memutuskan untuk mengedap di rumah sendiri menahan diri di rumah sendiri.

[Hanisa]

Hmm, so actually what she said right now was that she feels so lonely. She feels so stressed. She’d like to try to hold the life that she’s got going on lately. She felt like there are no friends who understand her, like, “I cannot say anything to anybody. My friend got away from me, and they want to get close to me.” And she said that she chose to go to her home and isolate herself there and don’t want to be with anybody else.

[Stephen]

I could definitely see that. If your friends are discounting you like that, I could understand wanting to go home and be safe there. When this happens and when you go home by yourself, how does it feel?

[Hanisa]

Perasaan bilang gimana pas sudah tahu perasaan karena kamu enggak gitu kamu mau pulang.

[Bela]

He enggak bukan e setuju juga.

[Hanisa]

Tapi kayak kamu kenapa enggak itu kamu mau pulang aja gitu enggak mau kayak gimana perasaan kamu kayak waktu pulang sendiri gitu?

[Bela]

Heeh. Banyak saya merasa tidak dianggap dengan teman, tidak berguna kepada tetangga. Dan saya merasa sakit hati, merasa rendah diri kepada diri sendiri, kecewa dengan diri sendiri. Kenapa saya selalu direndahkan, dijauhkan, dan diejek dengan teman sebaya?

[Hanisa]

She said that her mind is occupied with thinking that all of her friends, her peers, don’t want to get near her, and she cannot interact well with her peer group. All of the friends keep putting her outside of the circle.

[Stephen]

I could see that, and obviously I’m not like a medical expert, but I thought some of the medication for epilepsy could be very strong and that it can do a lot too. This makes sense. It’s unfortunate that this has been isolating you in this way. What helps you feel connected with others?

[Hanisa]

Jadi apa yang kamu merasa kamu merasa terhubung dengan orang lain tuh apa yang kamu apa yang bisa merasa terhubung kayak apa yang maksud saya merasa

[Bela]

terhubung dengan orang lain mulai dari berobat seizo ini dan saya mulai percaya diri setelah minum obat penyakit kizo ini dan saya jadi percaya diri untuk bersosialisasi kembali dengan teman sebaya saya dan saya ikut bergabung di komunitas KPSI. Saya merasa bangga dengan diri sendiri dan saya juga senang bisa berkumpul dengan teman-teman yang lain seperti Mbak Hanisa dan teman yang lain. Karena saya suka dengan teman yang pengertian, mendukung satu sama lain dan bisa apa? Mendukung belajar untuk mengenali penyakit mental.

[Hanisa]

She said that felt connected now especially with people in [the mental health support group she joined] like me [Hanisa] and the other friends here because she likes it when people around her are understanding. The people around her can support each other in their own way like that, and

said she likes it. That she can learn a lot from joining this community.

[Stephen]

This makes sense. What have been some of the biggest things you’ve learned in this community? And maybe for context for anyone watching, she’s referencing a community here in Yogjakarta that has people with different kinds of mental health issues whether it’s epilepsy or other things, and they come together and try to kind of talk things out like a small group community support.

[Hanisa]

What was the question?

[Stephen]

Oh, I’m sorry. The question was: How have you been growing in this group? Oh, what have you learned?

[Hanisa]

Apa yang kamu jadi paling paling kamu pelajar yang pelajaran apa yang kamu dapat PKWSI selama 2 minggu?

[Bela]

Oh, masih dapat. saya bisa mengenali penyakit mental, mendapat saran dari dokter saya bahwa harus melakukan aktivitas atau kegiatan sehari-hari itu penting karena agar membantu otak untuk berpikir kritis dan bisa membantu kesehatan mental jadi sehat lagi dan push.

[Hanisa]

She likes it that she can learn from her peers. As well, she can manage her own diseases, and she can talk to the psychiatrist there and KPS as well. She likes it that way. She can grow to be a better person here in KS.

[Stephen]

This makes sense. I’m glad that you have this opportunity. It seems like you’ve been disconnected from so many other people because of this condition. I guess one other question I wanted to ask: Given what you know now, is there anything that you would have done differently if you could go back in terms of how you kind of processed and handled all this?

[Hanisa]

Kalau kamu bisa masa lalu, adakah hal yang kamu pengin ubah? Dari situ eh dari situ sekarang kamu gimana?

[Bela]

ingin mulai belajar dari awal lagi. Seperti belajar di waktu SMP, SMA itu saya rasanya ingin mengulangi lagi karena saya seperti merasa kurang ilmu saja dan saya besok tahun depan ingin kuliah di kampus impian dengan dari pihak Yakum. H dan semoga saya bisa diterima.

[Hanisa]

So she said what she wanted to repeat. She wants to redo the time when she was in junior high school and senior high school just because she feels like the knowledge she had wasn’t enough, and she is planning to apply for college in the near future, by the support of Yakum, from that organization. She is hopeful that she can be accepted with courage.

[Stephen]

I hope I hope you get that too. That would be awesome. And I also think like you for many of us myself – I was like this – college can be a time that we can kind of redo a lot of the aspects of either high school or middle school that we would have done. It’s an opportunity to, on some level.

[Hanisa]

Jadi, kamu bisa ngulang lagi yang kamu pengin pulang di SMA, SMA kamu ngulang pas kuliah. Jadi kamu bisa lakuin itu pas kuliah. Jadi itu jadi ada kesempatan buat kamu tidak bisa mengekerien yang kamu experience SMP SMA bisa experience kuliah.

[Stephen]

I have a final question, but it does have two parts. The first part is what would you recommend for anyone experiencing this having this starting at a young age like you. What would you recommend they do to help and help grow?

[Hanisa]

Saran dari buat teman-teman yang sama yang berak ituus apa biar mereka juga tetap bisa tumbuh tetap bisa berkembang gitu ya?

[Bela]

Sarannya saran saya untuk teman-teman yang mengalami seperti saya harus semangat dalam menjalani hidup ini untuk minum obat rutin biarpun itu perjalanannya berat anggap saja obat itu adalah vitamin dan itu bisa memulihkan penyakit biarpun perjalanannya dan waktunya lama semoga yang mengalami saya bisa sembuh pulih, dan tetap semangat untuk menjalani hidup walaupun mengalami penyakit epilepsi dan skill.

[Hanisa]

She said to all of you who experience the same as Bella. She said to keep on fighting. You can pass through that and don’t forget to drink your medicine regularly. Think of it as a vitamin so you don’t think much about it.

[Stephen]

That makes sense. I would agree with all that. It’s like I think in a case like this to take your medicine. It’s like investing in yourself. It’s like growing yourself, making sure you’re on track. So this was the second part of the final question: What would you recommend for anyone who has someone in their family encountering this or has a friend or somebody they know who is having to deal with epilepsy especially at a young age?

[Hanisa]

Kalau saran cara bu orangnya saran buat keluarganya itu apa?

[Bela]

Kalau punya seorang yang punya seperti yang insyaallah masih muda gitu kalau tidak saran saya sangat sulit dijelaskan karena ibu saya, kakak saya, adik saya tidak percaya kalau saya mempunyai penyakit mental itu mood-nya sedang naik turun karena saya dianggap seperti anak pemalas walaupun saya bisa melakukan lakukan aktivitas apapun saya kadang naik turun mood-nya dan orang tua saya tidak percaya dengan saya kalau saya itu sedang mood eh tidak mood biarpun saya bermalas-malasan, tapi saya masih tetap bisa melakukan aktivitas sehari-hari.

[Hanisa]

She said that her mother, her sister, her brother didn’t understand her and said that she was being labeled as lazy. But she didn’t think that she was lazy, just not having the mood to do the things their parents or siblings say at that time.

[Stephen]

Yeah this makes total sense. I bet I think for some people sometimes people can label something as lazy and not realize that it can just be a little harder for you to do it. Like in some people with this condition doing something for people that maybe is normally this level of difficulty for them is that higher level of difficulty for you. It just takes more work. So it doesn’t seem fair to consider you lazy for not being able to do it. It just might be that that thing is a little harder for you to do.

[Hanisa]

He itu ya hal-hal tadi gitu tuh kamuak enggak bisa kalau kamu ngesiap langsung kamu tuh malas kamu tuh gini ya karena itu itu sulit waktu itu untuk melakukan hal yang disuruh waktu itu karena memang belum kan belum pas itu kan sama waktu itu.

[Bela]

Iya.

[Stephen]

Yeah. And I did say the final question, but I do have a followup question on that real quick. If somebody knows someone, you know, in a family or friend who has this condition, what can they do to try to understand it better? You know, maybe unlike your family who didn’t always seem to understand.

[Hanisa]

Kalau dari eh kan tadi bilang kalau yang belum belum semuanya paham gitu kan.

[Bela]

Iya.

[Hanisa]

Nah, kalau misalnya sebagai berat pilihnya seperti apa? Kalau biar orang mengerti paham itu kayak seperti apa yang baik gitu kalau orang yang juga sarannya?

[Bela]

Heeh. Caranya saya sebenarnya ingin memberitahu keluarga saya kalau saya itu bisa melakukan aktivitas apapun. Tapi keluarga saya tidak percaya kalau saya itu anaknya kadang rajin, kadang suka membantu orang lain dan keluarga saya tidak pernah percaya dan saya dianggap anak pemalas kadang-kadang karena orang tua saya pulang waktu orang tua pulang pulang kerja saya masih tidur saya karena kalau tidak mood saya kerjaannya tidur dan saya mager kalau untuk melakukan aktivitas apapun jika eh walau mood-nya masih naik turun

[Hanisa]

She said that she still has an issue with trust in her family. So her parents when they got home she saw that Bella was sleeping at the time just in the bed and didn’t do anything. And that makes her parents think that it’s a thing that Bela shouldn’t do.

[Stephen]

Hm. This makes sense. How would you have liked your parents to have responded in that situation?

[Hanisa]

Penginnya kamu orang gimana kayak gitu?

[Bela]

Pengertian mengerti kondisi saya kalau saya itu orangnya tidak pemalas. Karena saya malas itu karena mood-nya saya naik turun. Dan saya sebenarnya pengin melakukan aktivitas karena ingin membantu. Tapi saya tuh terasa naik turun. Jadi orang tua saya tidak percaya kalau saya itu memiliki gejala yang lebih apa di bawah dari orang lain. Dan saya ingin menceritakan pada orang tua saya kalau teman-teman di komunitas ada yang lebih parah dari saya. Tapi saya tidak berani karena saya mungkin dianggap mereka hanya omong kosong atau bohong gitu ya. Jadi orang tua saya menganggap saya di keluarga saya paling malas ya.

[Hanisa]

She said that she doesn’t think that she’s the laziest person. That they must be really hard.

[Stephen]

Yeah, that’s really unfortunate. It probably adds insult to the difficulties you actually face on a regular basis to then have people say you’re lazy and just say that and to think about you that way.

[Hanisa]

Pasti susah pasti enggak enak Mas kalau orang yang bilang kayak gitu terus enggak gitu.

[Bela]

Sakit hati sekali rasanya. Rasanya saya ingin pengamuk tapi saya tidak berani. Saya mending diam saja menahan rasa marah, menahan amarah daripada membikin membuat keributan di rumah. Lebih baik saya diam daripada saya dimarahin, diomel-omel, dikatain yang tidak-tidak dan akhirnya menjadi masalah besar.

[Hanisa]

She said she wants to explode to her parents. She wants to say that that’s not true. She wanted to define herself but she chose to keep it by herself and didn’t say anything. But yeah that’s her from inside.

[Stephen]

That makes sense. That does sound very hard. I guess for now let’s say, “Thank you for doing this.” How would you like to sign us off? Would you like to do the peace sign or what would you like to do to sign us off?

[Hanisa]

Mau saya gimana buat kayak gantungnya untuknya gimana?

Terima kasih semuanya karena telah melihat saya di sini dan mendengar saya kisah dari remaja sampai dewasa sekarang ini. Saya ingin memberi saran kepada teman-teman semua jika mempunyai kisah seperti ini, harap diperjuangkan walaupun rasanya berat, sakit hati dan harus sabar mengalami menjalankan hidup ini walaupun memang itu memang berat bagi yang mengalami. Dan terima kasih sudah saya akhiri. Sampai jumpa.

[Stephen]

Thank you for listening and bye. Terima kasih. Thank you and peace.

What Even Is a Haiku?

This is a surprisingly complex, debated question. Many English speakers may see a haiku as a three line poem that follows a 5-7-5 syllable structure, and that’s basically it. Teachers have drilled that into us as children.

This interpretation of syllable counts is at best an attempt to approximate Japanese conceptions of haikus in their own language, and this is not the definition most professional English-language haiku writers seem to use. For starters, the Japanese concept of “on” that English speakers translate into “syllables” seems a bit more complicated. Haikus in Japan were a genre of poetry, and like all genres, it evolved over time. But when writers write haikus in English, even if they claim to be basing their work on this tradition, they are really doing something entirely different.

I see my own haikus as a cultural US piece of literature rooted in my own American cultural context. How people in the US thought about Japanese haikus has its own history, largely based on US culture and how people in the United States interpreted Japanese society and literature. I started writing a haiku a day, not because of any affinity with Japanese culture but because the poetry style seemed short and easy to write every single day.

I am also very loose in what constitutes a haiku and what topics I could discuss. I almost always followed the structure of a 5-7-5 syllable three-line stanza (except in some cases where we intentionally broke it) because that constraint gave me friction against which I could be creative.

Some in the United States view haikus – or at least the original Japanese concept of the word – as having certain themes or stylistic features: thematically focusing on nature, having at least one piece of seasonal imagery, possessing a “cut word”, for some employing a certain broader distant vantage point, and so on (for example, see https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/senryu-poetic-forms). These are fine conventions, but I generally did not follow them. I allowed my haikus to be just about anything, whether that be the act of writing a haiku itself or a frustration I felt that day. In a few cases, I did happen to write about nature, but that was the exception, not the rule.

This reflects one of the fundamental tensions I see on how English-speaking poets conceive of the genre of “haiku” as a whole. Some English haiku writers see themselves as continuing in the “Japanese tradition” (or traditions) of what a haiku is, adapting those practices to a new language and cultural context, maybe refining some of the details on their way. These are more likely to desire a strict syllable count and maybe thematic attachments to nature and other common “traditional” haiku conventions. Others see the haiku writing process as a type of stepping stone for developing their own forms of poetic art.

If this were a spectrum, we would fall much more on the latter side. On a practical level, we often talked about societal themes given how passionate both of us are for those topics, which may, for a traditionalist, fall closer to the Japanese senryu tradition than haikus (although I don’t think we happened to follow that tradition strictly either).

At the same time, many English-speaking poets with a looser sense of what constitutes a haiku follow strict syllable counts – often making their haikus 2 or 4 lines or some other number of lines long – or use haikus for purposes substantially different from what the traditionalists might view haikus. On a practical level, I found the 5-7-5 syllable constraint useful to both channel my thoughts and force me to improve our writing, thus almost always abiding by it.

I think most English poets who try to write haikus too easily think of themselves as continuing a Japanese tradition they are not a part of. Words and ideas travel across cultural contexts, changing in the process. We should accept this. When I, at least, write a haiku, I am doing something fundamentally different from what Matsuo Bashō or Yosa Buson centuries ago in Japan. Yes, we call them “haikus,” a word that happens to come from a similar word for what they used to describe their own work but transformed as it became a part of the English lexicon. What they wrote was fascinating; don’t get me wrong, but what I do when I write haikus is still my own personal reflection situated in my own cultural context.

The Tower of Hattan (A Short Story)

One day a man of Hattan said, “We should build a giant skyscraper up to the heavens. It would be the perfect city, heaven on earth, with everything we need all in one place: our homes, our businesses, our shopping, our schools, our worship, our recreation. We would be able to do everything inside without ever having to leave.”

Many people in Hattan liked this, so they elected him mayor. They began construction immediately in the city’s center.

God saw their desire to build a wondrous tower just like the heavens and decided to help them. As construction demands grew, they needed more and more workers, so God brought people from all corners of the world to help create, build, and dwell in this new heaven, and they settled in the areas surrounding the tower.

As these workers started to build, some became weary of how these foreigners were hurting the city. Even worse, they started to incorporate their own thinking, their own concepts into the building. As the building became larger, these became parts of the foundation of this skyscraper.
The mayor tried to counter with an even more ambitious, unified plan to build over and around the deviations, which had become too embedded into the tower’s structural integrity to remove.

This required even more people with even more language and ideas. They moved into the ever-expanding communities surrounding the tower. Eventually, these peoples became weary of constructing the tower for the ungrateful inhabitants. Instead, these communities elected a new mayor who cancelled its construction once and for all to focus on the economic development of the now sprawling city and its residents.

At a press conference after her inauguration, she announced, “We will preserve the remains of this site as a memorial to our attempt to build a tower over the heavens.”

“The past mayor promised to build a heavenly place for us to live. What do you say to criticism that you are stopping this attempt to construct this heaven?” A journalist inquired.

“We are still going to try to make this city into its own heaven,” she replied. “But God’s Heaven is just wide before it is high.”

How to Speak to a Stray: Treating the “Dangerous Other” with Respect

One day, when I was walking down the street in Suva, the capital and biggest city in Fiji, there was a dog crying in extreme distress. He was a hairless dog with only a small strand of hair on the ridge of his back. The indifferent way the other people responded to him made me think he was a stray: no one took responsibility for him or decided to help him when he was clearly shouting in pain.

He was sitting on the edge of a hill on a concrete staircase. He tried to simply sit on the hill but could not keep his balance. He would topple down the stairs, slamming into the concrete on the way down. Each time he fell, he would try to burrow into the crevice of the stair he was on, only to lose his balance and fall again until he crashed into the gutter below. There he cried chest deep in the water, seemingly disoriented, unsure what was happening.

I tried to approach the dog, but the dog who lived in the house did not like me and barked territorially at me. So instead, I called soothing words to this dog as he lay there frantic in the water. The soothing tone of my voice – or at least the fact that he had stopped falling – seemed to calm him down, and he lay there panting like he was still processing where he was. I still don’t know what was wrong. The way he was twitching on the one side made me think he was having a stroke. I will never know since the other dog wouldn’t let me approach, so eventually I left.

The people who lived nearby came out, but they seemed indifferent to this dog as if he wasn’t their problem. A few hours later, the boy living there told me that the dog had scurried away, and they didn’t know where he was now. They didn’t seem to care much for this stray dog; I guess it’s just one of many to them in the neighborhood. I just hope that however long this dog has left to live, he has as little suffering as possible.

Here’s another example. One night, when I was walking into a store to buy some water in American Samoa, I saw two dogs lying there. A staff member exited the little shop carrying a large, empty cardboard box, and one of the dogs followed him. He looked excited walking next to him wanting to say hello. The guy whacked the dog with the empty box harshly as a way to tell him to get away.

When I left the store a few minutes later with my water, right as the staff member was walking back into the store, the dog seemed noticeably more distressed. He was barking erratically like he was emotionally distraught. From the barks’ tone, I thought he was a mixture of scared and angry. He didn’t approach me as I walked by a few feet away, and he didn’t seem interested. He was just barking his distress to the world.

These islands are full of stray, semi-domesticated, and pet dogs who roam the yards and streets. Roaming dogs are common in many countries around the world. What feels weird is the extent to which humans in Oceania only seemed to interact with hostility with the dogs.

In response, the dogs in this part of the world feel noticeably more aggressive. When I was walking to my Airbnb, several dogs came after me growling, showing their teeth, and trying to signal that they would attack me. That is the default response many dogs have to any human they do not know. A neighbor recommended I carry some rocks when I walk to throw them when they barked at me, and I have seen others carry a big stick for a similar purpose.

I do not doubt the practical wisdom in having a weapon in case of a specific dog who seems intent on biting you. I have had dogs there come within a yard of me biting meanly like they are about to jump me. Interestingly, they never do; they seem to only try to warn me, not actually come after me. A weapon, though, just in case the dog changes its mind does sound nice in a situation like this.

At the same time, I feel like this kind of hostile response to dogs, in general, just leads to an arms race. Dogs become more aggressive, and in turn the humans become more violent in response. It just escalates the response necessary to handle a dog. Dogs in this part of the world seem noticeably less friendly. Even if they think you are safe, they will stop at about a yard/meter away. This is not normal for dogs, who are often very eager for pets. I suspect because so many humans have lounged themselves at them, that they have learned to feel afraid when a human is nearby. There has to be a better way.

Some of this may be cultural. Not every culture or individual likes dogs, for example. At the same time, I wonder if there is a broader pattern for how to deal with others we perceive as threats. During the heat of an attack, we may need to defend ourselves, sure, but in my experience, how we respond to others influences how they in turn respond to us.

But if we treat another (whether a dog, another animal, or a fellow human) as a threat that we need to stave off, they will pick up on that energy and respond to us accordingly. Maybe we should cultivate creative ways to nonviolently engage with others around us rather than cajoling those we see as threats to our wellbeing. This may take innovation but leads to more wholesome relationships.

The Woman in the Green Dress (A Short Story)

I stood there transfixed. I didn’t know why. I hadn’t been dumbfounded like this before for a long time. What was it about her?

She stood in front of me smiling. She had long, straight black hair down to her shoulders. There her hair ended with a slight fold like a J on her shoulder, and the straps of her green dress started. It was an elegant green shawl with a matching green gown that extended all the way down to her legs, where it seemed to almost transition into the green from the forest.

“Why are you dressed so nicely to walk through the jungle like this?” I asked. And at like 6:00 am, I thought to myself.

“Oh thank you,” she chirped back. “I’m on my way home from my night out.”

“Where do you live? I see nothing but banana trees.”

“Come. I can show you.”

She grabbed my arm and started walking. I hesitated at first, but I had nothing better to do. I wasn’t really feeling my morning jog anymore anyways.

As she walked, it seemed more like she was gliding through the shrubs rather than taking steps. She moved with the ease of someone who was at home in this place.

“Where are you from?” she asked.

I explained how I am an American on vacation to Chiang Mai, needing a break from the constant churn of work.

“Humanity just constantly spins in an endless cycle,” she replied.

“Where are you from, and what do you do?” I asked, but she just grabbed my arm.

“I’ll show you,” she beckoned. I got confused as she took me deeper into the forest, where it seemed even less likely someone would live.

Suddenly, she stopped, in front of a massive banana tree.

“This is my home,” she explained. I began to reply, “Where? In the tree?” There was nothing here, just the forest. But as my words came out, she waved her index finger in front of my mouth, whispering “Shh.” I got really sleepy all of the sudden and collapsed into her arms.

Next thing I remember, I woke up on a bed in a bedroom with yellow walls.

“Where am I?” I screamed.

She walked over and sat on the bed next to my feet. “This is my home.”

“What?! Where did you take me?”

“This is my home, inside the banana tree.”

I screamed confused, but she whispered to me to go back to sleep saying she would explain when I was ready.

That was how I first came here. When I woke up next, I learned that she lived many many years ago but now inhabited this tree.

She said she once was a living person, but after her death, she realized how much humans stress themselves with the constant churn: to produce more, build more wealth, gain more status. Like a wave constantly hitting against the shore in an endless cycle. Now, she lives in the banana tree in peace and tranquility. She can go out and visit the humans when she wants to watch our flurry of activity, but she has mostly just enjoyed the peace of being in the forest.

“You sound like you need a break,” she explained. “So, you can stay with me as long as you’d like. I have everything your mortal body could possibly need here: food, water, a bed to sleep. But you can leave anytime you like.”

Sometimes I do go out for a few days to see the human world again. But mostly, I find peace in the tranquil state of existence under the banana tree with her by my side.

When I do go into the city, I find signs with a picture of my face labelled as a missing person. By this point, the humans must presume I’m dead. But they can only view “living” as producing within their system of constant churn, so it makes sense they would view my existence as a type of death. But I have really never felt more alive in my life.