LGBT Story Project
After three months of traveling, I feel I am about to have an emotional break-down. I can’t help but feel the deep sadness and helplessness inside.
It all happens in Bangkok, a place claimed to be a paradise. Why is that, you may ask. I wonder about it, too. Travel fatigue, constantly moving and context shifting, and hundreds of hellos and goodbyes, homesickness, and frustration with writing…I guess they are all good reasons. I don’t know where to stay, what to do, how to cheer myself up. I became agitated and more and more frustrated in my little dorm room in a little hostel. That’s then I realize sometimes, for people like me who are antisocial most of the time, actually should get a private room. Rendezvous with fellow GISTers is such a joyful experience. We may be the only ones in this world to share something in common and understand some of challenges we encountered during these study trips. And alas, time to say goodbye. Like a train has to leave. And more goodbyes to say. So many interesting people I have met. I am curious about their life. I want to pry even more into their life and learn about their stories, thoughts, and frustration and happiness. But like Mekong River running towards the sea, I can do nothing about it. Meeting with new friends, again with old friends, and saying goodbye have become more and more difficult. Listening to retro music, billows of homesickness come and devour me down. It’s not exactly about my own home, but something I am familiar with, something I have expertise in, something I can control and tweak to making things work better or beautiful. I am in vain when travelling. I can’t do the usual things I am good at. I feel so truly about my own limitations when in a foreign environment. My skills are nowhere to be used. And I also realize, all I know actually is not that special. People don’t have to have elaborate things in a fancy way to achieve their end goal. They can speak spoken language but they can still convey their meaning. All the survival skills I picked up in big cities, often times, they don’t work in these emerging cities. No one to talk to intellectually is also another major source of frustration, I guess. Once I schedule fewer meetings, when more and more free time takes up my life, a sense of vainness and void quickly disseminate and takes up the whole space. I also find I am not happy anymore with people I used to. That realization likes a big sword, stirred up the beautiful memories I used to possess, toss them in the air, and shred them into pieces, like snowflakes, and then let them drop back to the ground pathetically. So I decided to move on. I can’t stay in one place for too long. I need to change. I have to run.
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Today, when asked by a scholar to show him some of my research findings, I come up with some questions I have been contemplating inspired by all my meetings along the way, by creative writing. They are not very systemic... I like them even though I still need to hone them. I know I wouldn't be able to ask some of them without talking to people here and there!
How to enhance LGBT people's confidence in their SOGI by creating better access to information? · What messages to deliver? What information do LGBTQI people need? · What channels work best for different groups with different demographic features? · In which way people can share and use meaningful information cross political and cultural borders? Role of academia and education · What are some of the hot research topics in Southeast Asia and greater China area? · How to create a cross-disciplinary platform for all LGBTQI related researchers? · How to incorporate academia research findings into nonprofit’s work and media coverage? · How to produce new knowledge together with practitioners? · What’s the most pressing issue we can work on about SOGI education in school system? How to identify and clear the obstacles on the journey of LGBTQI people’s coming out, e.g. · Changing psychological and clinic doctors' perception and practices · How to deal with family values in each Asian society? Will PFLAG model be useful? · What multinationals can do to help build an equal and inclusive working environment for LGBTQI people? How to engage and leverage private sector to provide services most needed but neglected by the public sector for LGBT community? E.g. · Job opportunities for kids who are kicked-out from home or dropped out from school · Medical care for different age/SOGI groups · Legal service · Senior care services, etc. Funding and talent building · What’s the landscape of LGBTQI related grantmaking look like in SEA and Greater China? · How to introduce more philanthropic dollars into this sector? · Developing multiple funding strategies to encourage and nurture the field · Customize supporting programs for practitioners and field leaders The other day I had an interesting conversation with Dan. We were staying at the remote mountaintop school in a Karen village near Chiangmai, Thailand. We looked at the sixty plus primary school students and wondered how their future life would be. You know, for kids who are already in their sixth grade, half of them are still unable to read or write. This is appalling.
What could we do to help? Dan also mentioned low income people he met in Nepal, street youth we saw everywhere and even LGBT kids who were kicked out of their homes. What could we do to help them? No doubt, one easy way nearly everyone can think of, after these poor kids are fed and sheltered, is giving them education. I think education is important and sometimes, it might be the easiest way out. I always feel that way when it comes to my life. Without education, my whole life will probably be completely different. However, will school education be really effective to everyone, especially to people we see right now? I doubt. At this school, kids have spent about 5 years here but they are still illiterate. I’ve seen their text books and watched a few minutes of their video classes. Do they need to know every bit of fancy life described in those colorful books? You know, they live in such a small, remote and impoverished village. Octopus, giraffe and pandas won’t help them much when talking to foreign visitors, which according to my observations, is probably their major income source. In these cases, do we want to reconsider what tool to provide for them? Maybe the quick solution for these kids is to help them master English or Chinese ASAP so after a few years, they can find a job in Chiangmai’s blooming touristy industry. We need to educate people, but at the same time we need to let them learn some skill to make a living. Dan mentioned, in the case of runaway or kicked-out LGBT youth, yes they do need the education about HIV/AIDS, but they also need to be able to earn some money. Why don’t we provide some training and help them become peer trainers, peace maker, sustainable farm keepers, facilitators… He argued that donors may like the idea as well. It will help diversify their portfolio. They don’t always put money into one single cause but can support various initiatives and generate bigger social impact. This conversation definitely reminds me of OPEN group I visited in HCMC, Vietnam. The founder maintained a big house to provide shelter for young people who are kicked out of their families once they come out to their parents or discovered by them from nearby provinces where people still hold a strong belief that being LGBT is a wrong doing. To keep the house going, they are trying out online shop and selling second-hand clothes. Their way of trying to be self-sufficient is definitely interesting. But I sense some waste of labor and talent. If they are some good training, maybe those talented kids can do more on their own? Power of a group
GISTers met again after the launch in January. Different than last time, we had much deeper and meaningful conversations about the content, technology being used, goals and challenges each of us experienced along the road. There were actually different rounds of conversations. The first round was a group debrief in Bangkok. I somehow decided to save the content for candle light talk in Chiang Mai and started sharing something more in general, about challenges and need I have. I actually had many questions before I came to this rendezvous. I wanted to pick up my peers’ brain and learnt from their best practices. It went surprisingly well. Some of the major challenges I had were: Information management · How to keep track of contacts · Building a self-owned research database · Manage different channels, e-mail, Facebook message, WeChat messages and LinkedIn mails · How to document and present people’s stories · How to manage notes · Transcription · How to keep up and digest all the background information · How to present final result—writing · How to draw the best out of the people you interview · How to make analysis · How to find right parameters for final matrix Time management · Purposes of this trip have shifted/sharpened · GIST trip planning · Next step and the time division of current schedules Relationship building · How to build valid connections with massive contacts · How to keep in touch with people in a meaningful way · Gifts and appreciation Emotion management · Different emotions I have felt · How do you deal with them Trip arrangement · Budget · Logistics Surprisingly, people threw out all kinds of answers and suggestions. The feeling was really good to see the power of a group. I still remember that during one of the first few lessons in APLP first semester, we played this game to answer questions. A group did get more answers right than what each individual can get. Some of the new ideas I can look into are: Wonderlist Evernote Google tag One note Ask what PhD students use (in general or who are from the schools I am hoping to get into) How to take notes---make your notebook indexed Access … I felt deeply appreciated about everyone’s suggestions and contribution. At that moment, I really felt the power of the group. There were more moments later during our group project in the mountaintop school. Hope more people can enjoy this. |
AuthorHi this is Martin. I am traveling in greater China and Southeast Asia. Looking for conversations, adventures, and more. Archives
April 2015
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