Culture shock
Pear has been gone for a week now. Apparently she had been planning her escape for some time, and has covered her tracks well. No one seems to know where she is. She did show up briefly at her mother's on Tuesday, but rather than grabbing Pear and sitting on her, her mom just asked if she was going to call me and casually let her go.
The other day Bpon and her little brother helped me look for Pear. We walked up On Nut Soi 10, Pear's childhood hangout. Soi 10 is a busy narrow street with absolutely no sidewalks--more like an alley. I was carrying my computer bag, and had to hold it in front or behind to keep it from being bumped by a passing car. I am not kidding. I thought to myself, “What kind of culture builds streets like this?”
We found Pear's father's home. His landlord was there, said he had not seen Pear. Then her father walked up, sporting a fresh tattoo on his lower left leg, so we asked him. He was defensive, as if we were accusing him of hiding her, which we weren't. Pear's relationship with her father had soured very quickly after she discovered his childish self-centeredness, so it was very unlikely that she would stay with him, but would maybe ask him for a little money.
From there we dodged cars for a couple hundred more yards to a computer game room where we figured we could find some of Pear's friends. We ran into Mai, about her age, who also said Pear had not been around for quite a while, although she had stopped in a while back to say she was leaving.
Walking back a different way, we called a couple of Pear's other friends, who both thought she must be with a guy who worked at Soi 15. He used to call my phone every once in a while, asking for her in slurred speech I could hardly understand. I pondered about getting the police involved, wondering if they would do anything. “What kind of culture is this,” I thought, “that lets kids just fall between the cracks and throw their lives away?”
We found Bek, the guy everyone thought Pear was with, on Soi 15. A homely, unimpressive young man about 20, he was working at a small machine shop. He looked bewildered and said he hadn't seen Pear either. He could have been lying. Maybe if we told the police about him they would find out. Or maybe they wouldn't bother.
That night lying in bed I worried out loud about Pear. Her mother had said repeatedly to wait until after the Songkran holiday, Thailand's biggest annual festival. I figured that if we had no word by then we could get her mom to submit a report to the women's and children's police division. “They won't do anything,” Judy said. “Don't say that!” I retorted, raising my voice. “Everyone says that!”
“Why are you mad at me,” Judy wondered? I had to apologize. “I'm sorry, it's not you. I'm angry at the situation.”
This sort of thing happens to cross-cultural workers from time to time, and it wasn't the first time for me. Something in the host culture gets to us, and we get mad. Sometimes it's right, sometimes it's wrong, and I'm not so self-righteous as to think mine was purely motivated. I do love Thai people dearly and to me most aspects of Thai culture make us as Americans feel loud, rude and disrespectful. But sometimes problems like this make me angry.
This sort of laissez faire attitude is not unique to Thailand. It can be found anywhere including America, where many times in our inner-city work I felt incredibly frustrated at the lack of action to prevent kids from gunning each other down. When we look at any culture through the lens of God's love and justice we will be shocked. We do have to be careful not to judge or blame, whether another culture or our own, but if we compare the standard of light to darkness, as John does for instance in his first letter, we will be appalled and cry in horror. People do what they know, and what humanity knows is selfishness. Individuals, families and social groups will love themselves and little more. It is God's people who must set a different standard, loving our neighbor just as much as we love ourselves, even if it's a broken kid that many might say is too far gone to help.
I keep praying for a phone call, or maybe a voice calling from outside at 3am to open the door.
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