I’ve been telling myself throughout this COVID-19 situation that I’m lucky that the lockdown allows me to stay home and finish editing all my works, after having spent the entire year in researching and producing a great many sources. Among those is what I’ll be presenting at Ver Gallery on July 11.
For this work, I picked one interviewee, out of scores of Burmese immigrants who work at bars and live in Chiang Mai, hoping for better lives.
I became friends with many of them, following their lives from a distance via Facebook feeds. For the one I chose, I offered him what I, and he, wanted the most, taking him across the border back to his hometown in Shan State, after six years away. I asked for his permission to film this.
Editing works, I haven’t set my feet out for a month, feeling I have more time than ever before reconsidering what I’m doing.
I’m still following their lives, at home via Facebook. All of them are unemployed because of the closure of the bars. Many couldn’t go home and need to take any available jobs, mostly daytime construction work—the one in my artwork as well.
Occasionally, I ask him how he’s holding up. He has 200 baht left, having instant noodles with eggs everyday. His Thai girlfriend also works a nightlife job. She’s not qualified for the government’s 5,000-baht relief subsidy, but some of my friends who’re doing much better financially are. I can’t help questioning the management of this relief.
Two months have passed: Thailand’s COVID-19 infection rate is at a satisfactory level; the suicide rate is, though, higher than that of COVID-19 related deaths. This is a fruitful outcome of the government’s masterful restriction of people’s rights by imposing curfews. The total opposite can be said for their people’s management skills, judging from the relief and healing measures. The gaps between social classes have been made clear, and those who don’t have access to resources, in particular, are bogged down and cannot find a possible way to continue living in this area of the Earth called Thailand.