Sex Trafficking in Asia

Human Trafficking In Asia

By: Rowan Schwartz

The definition of human trafficking is as followed; “The action or practice of illegally transporting people from one country or area to another, typically for the purposes of forced labour or commercial sexual exploitation.” (Dictionary.com). The human trafficking trade is one of the most horrific and frightening aspects of life for children and women in Asia. For example, it is estimated that that around 30,000 children are prostitutes in Cambodia, (CNN). The human slave trade holds around 40.3 million people captive according to the Global Slavery Index. It is estimated that around ⅔ of those people are from Asia. This problem affects all people; men, women, and children. Thailand, Cambodia, India, China, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Bangladesh are some of the most affected countries, due to human trafficking, in the world.

Cambodia is one of the most dangerous places to be a woman or girl in Asia. When a family in Cambodia is falling short on money or food or shelter, they send their daughters to find a job. The girls usually can't find anywhere else to go, until they find the sex trade. The girls that are forced to work in the sex trade have been as young as four to eighteen in Cambodia, (CNN). The mother or father of the girl is usually the one who is managing the sold sex. It is true that girls and young women have been kidnapped or captured and sold into the trade, but that's not the norm in Cambodia. The mothers that have been caught in the act of managing their daughters “jobs”, have blamed lack of money, food, shelter, and other necessities, for selling their young daughter’s sex. For example, CNN went to Phnom Penh in Cambodia back in 2013. There, they found a girl named Kieu. Kieu was 12 when she got her first “job”, where she would lose her virginity. She was taken to a hotel and raped by a man repeatedly for two days. When she returned, her mother sold her to a brothel for three days and 3 nights. There, she was raped by 3 to 6 men a day. Her mother, Neoung, had managed each and every sale of her daughter's body. After returning home from her second gig, Kieu was sold 2 more times, but when she learned of her mother's plan to sell her another time for 6 months, she ran away. When CNN interviewed Neoung, she stated that, "It was because of the debt, that's why I had to sell her. I don't know what to do now, because we cannot move back to the past." She also said that, “Selling my daughter was heartbreaking, but what can I say?” She blamed her poverty and lack of essentials as the things that drove her to sell her 12 year old's body to the child traffickers preying on young Cambodian children.

The sex trade in Thailand is also thriving. One in five women in larger cities in Thailand have worked or are currently working in the sex industry, (Daily Record). Thailand is one of the largest destinations for the sex trade in the world. Women, go-go girls, children, and ladyboys, have sold sex in major towns or cities in Thailand for a very long time. In Thailand, you will literally see women on the street with signs for sex, and there are bars and clubs that are famous sexual destinations. Local people, foreign and local men, expats, you name it, come into these bars or clubs frequently as sex tourists. The girls working in sex trade are employed for three common reasons. They either need the money and have no other source of income, were kidnapped or captured from their villages or coming from a foreign country into Thailand, or their parents force them into selling sex to gain extra money for the family. These are the most common sources of sex trafficking in Thailand. These women's pimps will watch them around the clock when they are working on “getting a job”, so none of them could escape. Even if the women did end up fleeing, they would be in life threatening danger for crossing the pimps, and could lose everything. Both ways, it’s a lose lose situation, and they work long and sketchy hours for next to nothing.

Prostitution has been outlawed in Thailand since 1960. But a survey in 2016 concludes that there are more than 120,000 documented sex workers, with thousands more going unnoticed. The Thai police are accused more often than not for turning a blind eye when they see illegal sexual activity. For example, a city in Thailand called Pattaya has more than 1,000 documented bars and massage destinations, many of which are home to illegal sex work. Now think, if there are more than 1,000 of these places, then why hasn't there been anybody who checks out the buildings? Why aren't there policemen who have helped the girls that most everyone living in the city knows are trapped inside selling sex? Why isn't there any help or solace for these women, and why is there barely anybody doing anything to stop illegal sex activity in the name of the law?

In Bangkok, in June of 2016, police shut down a massage parlor that was trafficking sex workers. They arrested more than 100 workers employed, and 15 of them were underage. These workers were offered no help or support, they were just arrested. How is incarceration going to help these sex workers in the long run? They will have even less than they did when they get out of jail then when they went in. Chances are, they will work even harder in the sex trade afterwards, because that's where the easy money is. The pimps also are almost never caught. But, there is hope. On July 19, Bangkok's Criminal Court Division for Human Trafficking convicted 62 people. All were sex traffickers. A newspaper called ‘The Atlantic’ wrote an article that stated, “Also included in the list of convicted criminals are former local politicians Patchuban Angchotipan (“Ko-Tong”) and Bannakong Pongphol, who were sentenced to 75 years and 78 years, respectively.” They also wrote that overall 62 out of 103 defendants were convicted for charges that included human trafficking, murder, abuse, kidnapping, and illegal firearms. Every single one of the defendants pleaded not guilty in this case. Sunai Phasuk,  who researches for The Human Rights Watch said that some of the people convicted were eligible of the death penalty. “The fact that there are very senior officials charged with this crime will help deter criminals in trafficking networks in the future,” he stated. This was an completely unpredicted achievement for Thailand, but unfortunately, only a scratch on the surface.

The last example of human sex trafficking in Asia is Indonesia. Indonesia’s government has promised the people that by 2019 they will have shut down all red light districts. But the war against sex trade is far from won. Prostitution in Indonesia is illegal, but, like many places in Asia, the law does not stop the sex industry from thriving. Indonesia’s sex workers are positioned mostly in the country's capital, Jakarta. Jakarta serves as a home to more than 11,860 female sex workers, according to a 2014 survey from three Jakarta AIDS Commissions. You can only imagine how much that number has spiked in the three years not tallied. Out of these women, an estimated 3,435 of them sell their bodies in the central districts of the capital, Jakarta. These statistics do not count males, transgender people, or ladyboys, so the actual sex worker number is realistically much, much higher. In the large cities in Indonesia, when passing a shadowy street or a street in a red lighting area, women hold up signs for sexual bars, or are just simply in lingerie, out and about, trying to lure in customers. Their pimps are usually keeping a close eye on the girls or have someone else to do so, to make sure they can't escape. But the girls barely ever try to, too afraid of the consequences, or have no place else to go. The “Anjelo ” are also a common sight on these shadowed streets. The “Anjelo” are the motorcycle drivers meant to ship the girls around to new street curbs, or to the brothels or hotels where the sex exchanges happen. Pichayada Promchertchoo, a channel news Asia reporter, said in less than an hour driving and roaming the streets in central Jakarta, 6 women had offered their services. Indonesia is predominantly a Muslim country, so it strikes many as odd that so many people work in the sex industry. Even so, commercial sex is booming in places like Jakarta and Surabaya.

The sex trade in Asia and Southeast Asia specifically is a horrific cycle that has shown no signs of stopping. Sold sex has been happening since the beginning of time. Brothels have been open even in the Roman ages, they are a part of culture old and modern. My belief is that we should legalize sold sex worldwide. This way, it wouldn’t be an illegal business, we could tax off of it, the workers would be protected by the law, and it would be a much safer situation. If we made sold sex legal, the law could actually bring justice to the men that rape the women or beat them. It could give the women a higher salary, it could also prevent sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned children by making sure that safe sex is the law. We could tax off of it and use that funding for so many things worldwide; education, poverty, or hunger. People might not like the idea of making sold sex legal, but the amount of people being hurt or kidnapped or thrust into awful situations will just keep growing if we don’t put some parameters around it. Just because something is illegal, doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. We’ve seen this with drugs, guns, discrimination, and so many other problems. Sold sex is already out of hand, laws to legalize and protect workers could help girls being torn out of their villages in rural Asia, could stop women from getting pregnant at 14 because the man who was paying her didn’t want to use protection, and it could help the 40.3 million people involved in sex trade all over the world. No person should ever have to find themselves in a position where they are forced to sell sex. Asian prostitution is a dangerous form of work, but the people who do find themselves selling sex deserve equality and granted safety from their government.

“Raid on Bangkok Massage Parlor Reveals Trafficked Sex Workers, Corrupt Cops.” Chiang Rai News and Information on Local Issues, Politics, Events, Celebrations, People and Business., www.chiangraitimes.com/raid-on-bangkok-massage-parlor-reveals-trafficked-sex-workers-corrupt-cops.html.

“Global Center for Pedophiles.” CNN, Cable News Network, edition.cnn.com/interactive/2013/12/world/cambodia-child-sex-trade/.

Marszal, Andrew. “'Thailand Is Closed to Sex Trade', Says Country's First Female Tourism Minister.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 17 July 2016, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/17/thailand-is-closed-to-sex-tourism-says-countrys-first-female-tou/.

“Escaping the Clutches of Sex Trafficking in Thailand.” Google, Google, www.google.com/amp/www.aljazeera.com/amp/indepth/features/2017/07/escaping-clutches-sex-trafficking-thailand-170730071208339.html.

Baynes, Chris. “27,000 Prostitutes in Pattaya's Red Light Area Could See Roaring Trade Wiped Out.” Dailyrecord, 16 Feb. 2017, www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/sex-sells-worlds-sleaziest-city-9835405.

Promchertchoo, Pichayada. “Indonesia's Sex Trade 'Impossible' to Shut Down.” Channel NewsAsia, 14 Mar. 2017, www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/indonesia-s-sex-trade--impossible--to-shut-down-8009820.

Cambodia's Brick-Kiln Debt Slaves, by Griffin Schwartz

Cambodia's Phnom Penh is a very populated and overflowing place. The more buildings that are made, the more bricks are required to build the new structures. But where do all these bricks come from?  Cambodian bricks are made in brick kilns. It is a process that includes melting the material and shaping it (the brick,) with heavy duty machines. There are over 300 brick kiln factories in Phnom Penh. But what people don't tell you is the brick kilns in Cambodia are actually slave factories. Brick kilns in Cambodia financially enslave people. They don't care if you're a child or an adult, you have to work until there is no more debt. Furthermore the government has “tried” to help and thinks it is not a problem anymore.

In Cambodia, people borrow money from owners of brick factories. But after they borrow the money, they have debt to this factory, so they have to work off this debt. This is when people get tricked, and when they start working they get paid by the brick. On average they get paid 300 riel, the Cambodian currency, for one brick Which is equivalent to seven cents in US dollars. In America a bricklayer will get paid 22.47 dollars per hour. So if you get paid 0.07 per brick, you will not have enough money to buy essentials. So they take more money from the company which over time builds more debt. In one story, Mok Thy ( a cambodian mother) borrowed 12 dollars from a brick making company 15 years ago. That 12 dollar debt turned into 2,800 dollars worth of debt. So these innocent people are trapped and drowning in debt, and when they die they will pass their debt onto their children who will have more debt. It is an endless loop that will never end.

Child labor is also a huge problem in brick kilns. All over the world children are forced into work. In Vietnam, kids work in sweatshops; in Nigeria kids mine; in Yemen, kids hunt; and in Sudan, kids farm. Like the other countries, Cambodian kids make bricks for money. People need to make more bricks because you get paid by the brick. So usually whole families will be working off the debt, including children. It is actually illegal for children in Cambodia under the age of twelve to do any work at all, but if you go to factories you will see 9-15 year old children working just as hard as their parents. But in Cambodia, it is not just waking up at 3 am and working all day that hurts the kids. In brick factories there are huge machines that can break you in half. There have been many times when kids slip and fall into one of the machines, their arms or legs are broken and crumpled forever. Some kids say they work for food, others say they do it for debt and others say they do it because they want to help their families. There is no way of denying that child labor is bad, it ruins kids’ minds and bodies. The only other option is school, if kids go to school, they can start a new life. Most families can only afford one kid to go to school. So just like their parents, the kids are stuck in a loop, but the difference is they will have been working since they were nine!

You would think that by now in 2017 Cambodia's government would stop all this child labor but they haven't. In 2006, the government found more than one hundred kids working in brick kilns, by 2012 they had supposedly put all the working kids in schools. But when reporters went to factories outside of Phnom Penh, they found many kids working. Were these kids even helped by the government or are these new kids to the business? No one really knows. When people told the labor ministry of Cambodia, it rejected this as a “false statement” and said that debt bondage and child labor is not going up. So obviously, with no help from the government, these people are again stuck.

In conclusion, Cambodia's brick kilns are in equivalent of modern day slavery. What slavery means to me is people forced into something they don't want to do, whether it's through physical force or debt bondage. Slavery means taking innocent people such as children and elderly people to do their dirty work. Slavery means people are comfortable with the idea of a human making another human work under their laws. Over the course of world history, people have been kept as slaves. In ancient Rome, slaves were treated like trash and killed in arenas. In America, slaves were forced to work in cotton fields their whole lives. Slavery has always been in our world, and I think it is thriving in Cambodia.

How you can help:

Like I said earlier the government won't help but you can:

The most effective way to help is to tell people about this problem to educate people you know and to send money or school supplies anything will do.

http://caringforcambodia.org/donate-now/

https://www.cambodianchildrensfund.org/donate/

Pictures

bibliography

Field, Alexandra. “The Children Working in Cambodia's Brick Kilns.” CNN, Cable News Network, 27 July 2017, edition.cnn.com/2017/07/26/asia/Cambodia-brick-kiln/index.html.

“LICADHO, A Cambodian Human Rights NGO.” LICADHO, www.licadho-cambodia.org/.

China on the Rise, by Colleen

We have been astounded at how few Americans we’ve encountered on our travels.  A small smattering in Venice, Prague, and Luang Prabang.  But not many.  It seems the obnoxious American tourist busses have been replaced with Chinese tourist groups - we saw absolutely huge Chinese tour groups all over Europe and Asia, everywhere we went. A few people mentioned that perhaps Americans aren’t traveling as much because of terrorist attacks, which may be true in Europe.  Attacks in Paris, Brussels, London, Barcelona - perhaps these are keeping Americans at home?

Or is it Trump?

The Laotian Times cover stories today highlight the current divisions between the way Asian countries perceive of their respective relationships with America and China.  The paper discussed Trump’s visit to Asia, noting that in Vietnam he was very clear to begin his talks with his “America First” message, stating that he is open to trade, but wants to make sure that America isn’t “taken advantage of anymore.”  In contrast, and in the same day’s edition, the paper also published lengthy articles regarding the excitement over President Xi Jinping’s upcoming visit, a discussion of Chinese investment in Laotian students, (China is offering hundreds of scholarships for Laotian students to study in China), and an article discussing the bolstering of development ties between China and Laos. China is also building a high speed rail line linking Shanghai to Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam.  Additionally, billboards everywhere throughout Thailand and Laos are in Chinese and describe Chinese development projects throughout SE Asia. Chinese infrastructure is expanding throughout SE Asia, and goodwill is being built alongside these projects.  Empires expanding through railways and scholarships.

While Trump builds walls, bans immigrants, refuses investment abroad, even among allies, and evidently wishes to return America to a mythic time before the global economy, multiculturalism, and the internet, the rest of the world moves on.  No one is waiting for the Great White Savior, and China is filling the gap.  Interestingly, the most common greeting we encountered upon telling both Europeans and Asians that we are American was “Oh Yeah, Obama!  We love him!”  His presidency still garners goodwill across the globe.  But people are reticent to bring up Trump, and the most common response we received when we apologetically asked people what they thought of Trump was fear - most people asked if we thought he was as crazy as Kim Jong-Un. The second response was laughter, accompanied by pity.  A lovely young French man told me that so many of his friends just felt so sorry for Americans, so embarrassed for them, and so confused about how all of this transpired.  I had to agree.

It is difficult to travel internationally and to feel so deeply ashamed of our belligerent, bellicose, unqualified, greedy, terrifying president who is truly dismantling everything we supposedly stand for as Americans.  And it has been fascinating to observe Chinese presence everywhere we go.  We studied the rise and fall of the Roman Empire a few months ago, and I suppose we are living through the rise and fall of our short lived American empire.  I sure am glad Griffin is excited to be learning Mandarin.  

Democracy and despotism (by Greg)

I woke to the sound of a loudspeaker broadcast — all in Thai, so of course I couldn’t understand a word.  But the speaker droned on in the unmistakable tone of “official” broadcasts the world over.  The darned loudspeaker had been waking me up every day since we got to Thailand.  But since I was up, I decided I’d better write my long-overdue blog.  (I can’t very well tell my kids to stay on track with writing assignments when I’m behind as well.)  And what had been on my mind the last several weeks was the Thai king, or former king that is.

We hadn’t planned to visit Thailand at all, so I was completely unprepared when we arrived to discover that the entire country was prepping for the late king’s cremation ceremony in just a few days.  He had died a year ago after reigning for some 70 years.  And the one thing you hear constantly in Thailand is that the Thais love, love, love their king.  So I’d been thinking that flippant questions about where they’d kept his body were probably better left unasked.  In any event, it really did appear that the Thais loved and respected their king.  Much of Bangkok was shut down for the week of the ceremony - a huge, loud, frenetic, jam packed SouthEast Asian capital city rendered eerily quite and subdued.  There were huge pictures and memorials on almost every street corner, shop wall, subway stop, ... you name it.  

 

Huge numbers of volunteers were out preparing for the ceremonies.  And without exception the Thais was dressed in only black, grey, or white.  Apparently, people had dressed in somber colors for the entire year.  Even a week after the cremation ceremony, in the Northern city of Chiang Mai, that was still true.  Strange to see an entire population in muted colors.

Every Thai I asked about the king appeared genuinely moved, describing a humble man who rose early and worked every day for the good of the people, despite his wealth and position, and did a great deal especially to improve the lives of the poor in the remote Norht.  He is credited with many agricultural and economic improvement projects, and sharply curtailing the opium trade in the North.  Given our ever-more polarized and vitriolic politics back home, I couldn’t help but be suspicious of an entire population so unquestioningly in love with a king.  So I tried to research his legacy.  And it does appear that he is “credited” with a great many improvement projects.  But, as it turns out, it’s a crime punishable by prison term to criticize the Thai king or his family in any way. In fact, you can’t even openly discuss the succession, even though outside sources seem pretty clear that the new king, his son, is not well-liked.  

So just how “true” is the the late king’s glowing legacy?  I couldn’t really tell.  To be fair, I only did a bit of internet research, but most of what I found was the official story from government sources.  Not to say that characterization is false; while there is another story, it too seems somewhat hazy.  Thailand was an absolute monarchy until 1932, when a popular revolution forced the then-king to accept a constitution with significant limitations on his power — sort of on the British model.  In 1946, the 18-year old Bhumibol Adulyadej, was crowned after his elder brother died of a gunshot to the head …. (Yes, shot in the head.  I found almost no information about this.). 

Throughout his reign, King Bumibol (also called Rama IX) supported a string of military dictatorships.  He also brought back many of the symbols of a strong monarchy, and least according to some outside accounts, appears to have exercised a great deal of control behind the scenes. 

In the early 1970s, there was growing political unrest in Thailand, especially among students. At first, the king supported the demonstrators, even granting them sanctuary in the royal palace compound in 1973.  But as the demonstrations continued, the king began to support right-wing and paramilitary groups. These right-wing groups were anti-communist in name, and while there were definitely communist movements in Thailand at the time, it appears that any reform or anti-establishment movement was branded “communist.”  The right-wing opposition grew with the king’s support, and in 1976, massacred at least 46 (and probably over 100) student demonstrators at a University.  The king not only continued to support those groups after the massacre, he supported the ensuing military coup.  Since then, Thailand has seen a few short-lived returns to parliamentary democracy, but has mostly been governed by a series of military dictatorships.  The current regime came to power in a 2014 coup that abolished both houses of the legislature and prohibited all political gatherings.  

So, what’s my (admittedly cursory) conclusion?  The late king was a force of stability and prosperity for Thailand. Thailand never experienced the horrors of communism seen in Cambodia or Vietnam, and it clearly benefited from economic stability and foreign investment (although the king also amassed an astonishing amount of wealth even by the standards of other monarchs).  The king might even have been a true champion of the poor, although it’s hard to gauge his actual impact and motivations.  But, for all of that, he clearly was not a champion of democracy or individual rights.  

All of which has me thinking once again of the increasingly divided and vitriolic politics at home.  I don’t understand the motivations, or even the rationales, of Trump supporters.  But whatever their reasons, they do not have a problem with his authoritarianism — in fact, it seems to win him points with his supporters.  If I’m feeling generous, I suppose they must believe that a “strong” (i.e., anti-democratic) leader will bring stability and thus economic prosperity.  But even if that were true (and I’ve never believed it), are those folks willing to pay the price of authoritarianism?  I know we can’t directly compare Thailand.  But I just asked someone about the droning message over the loudspeakers.  Apparently, it’s the military dictatorship’s twice-daily “news” announcement - broadcast in every village and city across the country.  Maybe we can compare. 

Elephant cruelty Cruelty in Thailand

https://www.petaasia.com/issues/entertainment/elephants/

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40501667

South east Asia is an amazing place, it has incredible temples and food.  But if you look closer you can see there is a huge problem in Asia. This is the animal cruelty problem. I have only spent 5 nights in Bangkok and there were elephants in plays and tigers in cages.

In Thailand there are two sides of this story. The first is the tourist’s perspective, over 30 million people come to Thailand every year.  Mostly tourists will go to animal shows and ride elephants and take pictures and then go home. What they don't understand is that they didn't have a special connection with that wild animal, they didn't see the scars under that elephant's ear, and they most certainly did not understand that elephants in the wild will travel as far as 50 kilometers while the average zoo  space in Thailand keeps them in chains. Of the 45,000 elephants in the world 3,000-4,000 of them are kept in captivity in Thailand!

Most of the elephants in captivity were captured from Myanmar where they lure baby elephants into trap pits and if necessary shoot the mother.  When the elephants are in the hands of the Thai, they go through a process called phajaan. Phajaan is a horrible process that basically will break the baby elephant, the poachers will beat them and poke them with long nails or bullhooks and deny them food and water (some don’t survive.) A wild elephant calf will stay with its mothers pack for at least 16 years but now they are ripped away at 6 months.  After this process, the elephants are forced to work all day with not much food. Elephant’s skin is prone to sun burns, so a wild elephant will coat itself with mud for a natural sunscreen, but if captured, elephants have no work breaks, and will be riding around with a sun burn and 10 tourists on its back. In Thailand more than 13 million people took cruel elephant rides in 2017.

That cruelty is definitely happening, but what was not taken into account was what were the workers thinking. We should not treat the workers with disgust. I believe it is horrible to treat an elephant like that, but we westerners don't know what's it like to be living in Thailand in a small village. What if you don't have a choice, either be starving or be cruel to an animal to survive. In America we don't have as many jobs as we should have but in small villages in Thailand they make money off of tourists. A small village in Thailand doesn't need one million doctors like the USA does, there are less job opportunities. So if you want to help this cause, don't just donate to the Elephants. Also donate to the people of Thailand because if all the elephants are taken away, the people will be left with nothing and they will starve just like the elephants.

HOW TO HELP

https://www.saveelephant.org

https://www.worldwildlife.org

https://support.peta.org/page/1855/donate/1?locale=en-US

Selfies in Borobudur by: Rowan

On October 15, my family decided to go to Borobudur. We were all really excited we're looking forward to it. Unfortunately for us, it was around 90 degrees, but with the humidity it felt more around 120. We all piled into a car for an hour and a half, alternating between turning the AC up and down because the cars get really cold. When the drive was over, we stepped out into the hot fog and picked our way over to the entrance. On the way we were stepping over the ever present people, garbage, and random trinkets strewn across the roads. When we got to the entrance we were all ordered to put on sarongs and we were let in to Borobudur!

About 10 minutes into our tour with our guide, whose name in an English translation was “happy”, the first ambush started. 2 men came up to my mom and asked to take a picture with her. Not wanting to be rude, she said yes, and that was the beginning of our 3 ½ hours of fame.Quickly after the men left, 4 Muslim girls came up and grabbed my arm and then Griffins, and took turns with each of them holding our hands and snapping pictures. We were laughing and going along with it. Then a whole class came up to us to take a picture, and the whole Butwartz family became involved. After a couple of minutes of pictures we got on with our tour, and trust me, it was a peaceful 5 minutes.

I started to notice a bunch of school girls and boys sneakily taking pictures of Griffin and I, so it became hard to listen to what Happy was saying. I waved and they all waved and ran away, by that wasn't the last I would see them. We then were able to actually get a decent hour of actual learning in, but Griffin and I wanted to go to the top of the building, so we kind of ditched our parents. As soon as we got up to the top, the real beginning of picture-mania started. Out of nowhere, we were bombarded with a bunch of old ladies thrusting their kids and grandkids at us. That was the first wave, if you will, of our fiasco. Then it was little schoolgirls and boys who were really adorable and super shy, so we were more willing with them. Griffin got a lot of attention from schoolgirls who were giggling and he was always saying, “sorry I have to go find my parents now”. There were no other white people at the top, so we were on our own. Somehow it started to get hotter and the air got thicker and we had literal lines forming to get pictures with the white kids, is naturally, we started to run away from them. The top of Borobudur is circular and the exit is impossible to find because it looks like the entrance. We finally found the exit, and then, what left like the thousandth time, my arm was pulled away from where I was in the crowd, and I was face to face with a Indonesian boy. So from him I got an interview, and by then I was so tired and sweaty and annoyed that at the end of the interview I said, “okay yeah bye.” I was seriously exhausted!!

We ended up waiting for another hour down at the exit in the heat. By the end of my time at Borobudur I had taken pictures with grandparents, kids, moms, dads, aunties, uncles, school children, and even a deformed man with his parents. I had sweaty grandmothers wrap their arms around me without permission, no consent for the babies being shoved into my lap, men who took 5 minutes just to take one picture, people who grabbed me, made me stand up, and made me move so THEY could get a better light for their picture. By the end, I was so tired and also a little loopy, that I fell asleep in the car ride home. Borobudur was definitely the place that I had my 15 minutes of fame, and it's something I’m not going to forget anytime soon.

Snorkling on the Gili Islands by: Rowan

Today, the family decided to go snorkeling. The plan was to get up a 7:45 and get picked up at 9:30. But of course, things didn't go as planned. For the past day or two, I've been sharing a room with Griffin in a little cottage. This morning I was woken up by a strange noise. Grumbling and mumbling I reached over blindly for my phone and the screen flashed: 6:30. Then I heard Griffin calling, “here kitty kitty, come on kitty how did you get in here?”. Groaning, I got up out of bed and saw that there was a cat in our outdoor shower. So that was my morning, and of course I couldn't fall back asleep, so I just got up. After all of the packing and breakfast and running around was done, we finally made it to the boat. There were probably 25 people on the boat and we quickly motored off to find some good snorkeling spots. All in all, we saw and touched an octopus, saw gorgeous fish, swam down next to quick turtles, and most of all, looked at coral reefs.

The coral reefs in Indonesia are beyond anything I've ever seen, full of fish and occasional splashes of color. But that’s the thing. I don't know what a real and alive coral reef looks like. When I see reefs nowadays, I see only a couple of parts that are alive. The rest is gray and dead, slowly breaking off and dissolving in the water. The sad part is that the dead reef is what I thought an alive reef looked like. But I learned that reefs that are alive are colorful and moving and have a massive amount of sea creatures surrounding them. Because they are part of the ocean cycle, they give food to many sea animals, and now there is a lot less food in the ocean due to the dying reefs.

In 2004 there was a massive tsunami, and most of the Indonesian coral survived, which was very rare. Now, that coral off of the northwestern coasts of Indonesia are dying at an alarming rate. Scientists say that the cause is dramatic increase in water temperature, and they're saying that other reefs across Asia are in just as much danger. Marine biologists from the Wildlife Conservation Society say that in May 2017, they recorded surface temperatures off of the island Sumatra in Indonesia. The water there was 34 degrees Celsius, which is 4 degrees above long term averages.

Another reason why the coral is dying is due to expansive coral bleaching. Coral bleaching is when algae in coral tissues are expelled. The reason it's called coral bleaching is because the color it turns looks like the color of bleach or gray. The reason it turns a different color when it's dead is due to warmer water and way more exposure to sunlight that is unfiltered by clouds or wind. This unfiltered sunlight is due to a warming atmosphere with less protection because of how many greenhouse gasses we are emitting. Studies by Australia’s James Cook University and Indonesia's Syiah Kuala show that 80 percent of the corals that have been experiencing coral bleaching and warmer water temperatures have died in Indonesia's seas.

These beautiful reefs can grow back. The only problem is, they need their normal water temperatures again, and the world’s oceans are only getting hotter. For coral reefs, the future doesn't look good, and most reefs in Indonesia, and in Asia in general, are serious danger of being wiped out completely.