I am finally leaving... tomorrow that is. I am soooo excited about this job. There has been a series of unprecedented events that has taken place in Burma that might one way or another affect my job in Burma since Amy is trying to place me with a political organization. Two days after this job was approved by SFU, the authoritarian government in Burma released 9,000 prisoners, who were mostly petty thieves and only few political prisoners. Few weeks later, the power struggle within the junta resulted in the ousting of the prime minister who was more open to reform and flirted with the idea of releasing the Nobel Peace Prize Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, who is also the head of the NLD (National League for Democracy) party. Under mounting pressure from ASEAN, EU & the US, the government in December again released 5000 more prisoners, this time 2 prominent political prisoners were released. Maybe the release of prisoners won’t translate into more refugees migrating into Thai refugee camps on the border, or maybe it will. I want to be busy busy busy when I’m there. Right now my biggest concern is that the majority of the attention has shifted to the Asian tsunami and that much of the work and progress of the organizations I'm associated with will be ignored by the UN, NGOs and other international bodies.
Here is my itinerary for the next 7 months:
January to April - Working in Mae Sot, Thailand
May to June 16 - Travelling in Tibet & China (Tibet finally, WOOHOO!!!)
June 14 to 18 - Taiwan and Vancouver
June 19 to June 24 - Oklahoma & Texas.
June 24 to July - Travelling in Mexico (if I still have money)
Emotionally I’ve been up and down since Jon left. Yes I am excited about this job, but at the same time I will be gone for at least 6 moths (4 if I decide not to travel) and will miss my friends, family and my bed!!! Not much I can do now about it… just gotta suck it up. From the Bangkok airport to bus station, I’m hoping to get my taxi driver to drive by the United Nations Asia headquarter. I wonder how busy it is there since they are coordinating the largest humanitarian relief project in history.
I will update when I get settled down in Thailand.
阿姨, 我明天就要去泰國了. 我現在是很高興, 等了那麼就, 可是也有一點怕因為我是要去那麼就. 在泰國要到四月低然後再去中國到六月中. 我聽我媽說如果飛機有空位的話,她三月放假的時候會去泰國看我. 我爸也因該會一起去.
我在泰國工作的電腦是不會打中文得, 所以我走的時候是沒辦法在這留言. 如果可以的話, 我會跟你些個email跟你講. 對了, 我也有個新email, 是jjchou107@gmail.com. 我很喜歡這新的因為我現在也可以看中文, 以前的就不能. 以後你就可以寫中文了(可是在泰國的時候我不能寫中文給你). 你可不可幫我跟舅舅和大阿議講? 謝謝了.
我下七個月是這樣打算:
一月到四月 - 在泰國工作
五月到六月 - 去中國
六月十四號到十八號 - 台灣和溫哥華
六月十九到二十四號 - 美國(結婚)
六月二十四號到七月 - 墨西哥（如果還有錢的話）