Warrior Pose (19 page)

CHAPTER 11

Asia Stories

I
F I WERE YOU, I'd take Hong Kong,” the senior producer for
Nightly News
says with conviction as we sit together at his desk in the middle of the network newsroom. “Japan is an economic powerhouse, China is surging, Burma has become Myanmar with a brutal military junta in charge, Cambodia is now Kampuchea and still recovering from the Khmer Rouge bloodbaths, Laos is in chaos, relations with Vietnam need mending. You'll never be at a loss for important stories.”

Marc Kusnetz is arguably the most intelligent person at NBC's headquarters at 30 Rock. Remarkably seasoned in domestic and foreign news, he is compact, studious, and handsome, with thicklensed, John Lennon glasses and a bushy head of salt-and-pepper hair. Whenever I want guidance, I seek out Marc, my news guru.

Covering the Gulf War cost NBC a fortune and the Miami Bureau has been closed, so I'm a homeless foreign correspondent. Other bureaus also have been closed or downsized, with photographers, producers, and correspondents let go. It's been a bloodbath. But because of my work in the Gulf, I've survived, and have been offered three choices for a new posting. Two are for what we call domestic news, at a bureau in either Atlanta or Los Angeles. The third is a foreign news posting, in Hong Kong. NBC covers all of Asia from its Hong Kong bureau, with mini-bureaus in Tokyo, Beijing, and Manila. I've been fascinated with Asia since the Vietnam War protests of my
early teens and have always longed to see it. Hong Kong already was my first choice, and Marc's confirmation is all I need to finalize my decision.

Hong Kong is like a mini New York on steroids. Carved from China's southern coast, it's enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea. Its heart is Hong Kong Island, where the British first established a colonial foothold in China after the Opium Wars in the early 1800s. The island's tallest mountain, Victoria Peak, rises almost 2,000 feet above sea level, offering stunning views of the expansive harbor and burgeoning city below.

In late fall of 1991, I find a beautiful flat on Victoria Peak at the end of a dead-end road in the jungle foliage that rings the mountainside. This is the tropics. Humidity is often above 90 percent, with temperatures topping 100 degrees. The forest is full of cicadas. The drone of their deep mating call constantly fills the air. Dragonflies course the thick breeze like miniature helicopters. Giant, multicolored spiders weave fantastic webs that hang between the branches like canopies. My new home is all windows, with sweeping views of Hong Kong's dazzling skyline and the vastness of China beyond. Looking out from every room, I feel like an eagle perched above its domain, ready for the hunt.

In the early morning, I often walk from my flat to the top of Victoria Peak and circle the top of the island to exercise my back before it's boiling outside. The journey begins with a panorama of the South China Sea with its thick scent of salt air. As I wander down the path, there's a wide natural park on my left, facing the ocean. Wealthy Chinese who live on the Peak gather here at daybreak under the shade of massive, ancient banyan trees, with thick roots hanging down from their branches like vines. The Chinese are doing tai chi, a meditative form of slow-motion movement that dates back to the time of Buddha. Despite the heat and humidity, many of them, men and women alike, wear mink coats as a display of their affluence. Beyond the park, the path becomes remote and heavily wooded, as
if far from civilization, and I have it all to myself. Suddenly, halfway around the Peak, the Hong Kong Harbor and skyline come into view again as the din of the city cuts through the silence with a roar. It's a complete knockout, the most dazzling sight I have ever seen.

Hong Kong is still governed by the British, who are on notice from the People's Republic of China that the colony will revert back to Chinese control six years from now, in 1997. Known as the bankers of the world, the British have long made Hong Kong the financial center of Asia. The world's most elite global corporations maintain a high profile here as deals are cut to fund major projects throughout the vast region. It's like an international village, and the NBC Asia Bureau is smack in the middle of it all.

Hong Kong is also known as a gourmet's paradise. After a morning of researching stories, my producer and I usually venture out for a sumptuous meal of Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Filipino, or Thai cuisine. The streets are always thronged, and the traffic is thick. Because the British drive on the left side of the road, I'm disoriented and have to be careful not to step out in front of one of the double-decker transport buses that dart by at full throttle just inches away from the curb. At the end of the day, I drop by the Foreign Correspondents' Club to have a drink with seasoned reporters from around the world and listen as they swap tales of adventure and intrigue.

Before we shoot a story, unless it's breaking news, we have to pitch it on the conference calls with 30 Rock. Either
Nightly News
or the
Today Show
has to want it before we're allocated a budget and authorized to spend funds. Given the size of Asia, it's always an extended road trip for us when we do get approval. Then we're hurriedly packing our gear, dragging a dozen or more heavy metal cases of camera and sound equipment through airports, checking in and out of hotels, loading travel vans, unpacking, then repacking again.

Traveling throughout Asia is fascinating, but the distances between the countries we cover are daunting. Sitting on long flights and working longer hours gnaws at me and fills my body with tension. My lower back is always tender now, and has started to flare up more often. To keep the secret of how much pain I'm in, I've doubled the strength of the Valium to relax my muscles, and increased the
dosage of Motrin to lower the inflammation. I also have a refillable prescription for Vicodin, the narcotic medication that helps kill the pain. Since I renew all of them as early as possible to ensure I always have extra meds for an emergency, my travel kit is beginning to look like a mobile pharmacy, or maybe a drug dealer's private stash.

Thai Sex Slaves

Once called the Kingdom of Siam, Thailand enjoys an important strategic location in Southeast Asia and was long a buffer zone between the French and British colonial empires. Bangkok, an exotic and dynamic city of more than 9 million, is a regional force in finance and business. Ancient cultural landmarks stand amid its growing number of skyscrapers. Hundreds of ornate Buddhist temples dot the city, symbols of a deep spiritual heritage. And then there's Bangkok's infamous prostitution industry.

There is a slum in central Bangkok called Klong Toei. It's right next to a pig slaughterhouse, aptly nicknamed Slaughterhouse Slum. Thousands of Bangkok's poorest people live crammed together here in makeshift shacks, sitting in the shadow of one of the most expensive cities in the world. An acrid stench of death permeates the air. Rivulets of pig blood, urine, and feces run through the narrow mud streets. The only hope for the hordes that live here is Father Joe.

“Ho, ho, ho, I'm a renegade and we're taking back what belongs to these poor people!” Father Joe Maier is a pudgy, red-faced Irish-American in his mid-fifties who wiggles his hips when he laughs his trademark “ho, ho, ho,
”
like an elfish Santa Claus without the beard. He lives in the slum, too, alongside those he serves.

“The rich can take care of themselves,” he says with a glint in his eye. “It's the poor who need us,” Father Joe tells me as we walk carefully along with my camera crew, watching our step to avoid pools of filth. As we turn a corner, he stops abruptly, leans down, and hands a crumpled bill to an emaciated old man sitting in the dirt.

“I don't care if someone is going to spend it for taking drugs, sniffing glue, or drinking booze,” Father Joe says with an impish smile. “You have to give every crazy person you see on the streets a few
baht [Thai currency]. We take them all in, people with AIDS, child prostitutes, dope addicts. These aren't bad people and we have no right to pass judgment on them. Jesus never judged anyone, He just loved them all.”

Father Joe's personality is so authentic and infectious that it's impossible not to love him instantly. He is a down-to-earth, unpretentious, and truly spiritual human being who has devoted his life to the people here, building schools for the slum children, hospices for the AIDS victims, and shelters for young prostitutes. To free the girls from the sex trade, he tells us, he has to buy their freedom from their pimps, and it usually takes a tough attitude, firmly standing his ground, and never giving an inch.

“Some of these girls are as young as ten years old,” Father Joe says gravely as we enter a small schoolroom filled with ex-prostitutes. They now have desks, a few books to study from, and the incredible luxury of a teacher. “Poverty forces them into it. Then the gangsters enslave them. And don't forget,” he delivers this point with great emphasis, wagging a finger in the air, “it's American, European, and rich Asian men who are responsible for this and they should be made to take the blame. Shame, shame, shame on all of them!”

Father Joe courageously confronts organized street criminals who prey on the poor. He occupies unused portions of government land, erects makeshift shelters overnight, fills them with destitute families, and shames the government into not evicting them. He condemns the Catholic Church in Bangkok as being too interested in serving the privileged and indifferent to those truly in need. He's more than an activist. He's a radical for peace, compassion, and justice.

After filming a story on his work in the slums, Father Joe agrees to collaborate with us on an investigative piece into the sex-slave trade. Given his work in rescuing young prostitutes and dealing with pimps, he'll be an invaluable source on the inner workings of Patpong, the massive red light district that forms the heart of Bangkok's sex trade. Due to its proximity to Saigon, Bangkok was the city of choice for American troops on R&R (rest and relaxation) during the Vietnam War. As a result, prostitution boomed. Thai women are known as among the most beautiful women in the world, and so
the clubs have thrived, gaining international popularity. Now they're filled with foreigners from all walks of life, many of whom signed up for “Sex Tours” in their homelands designed to look like business or tourism trips.

Inside Patpong's glitzy bars, outdated disco music blares from cheap speakers as colored lights swirl around the walls and ceiling of the dark, smoky rooms. Young girls, most of whom have been sold to the slave traders by their impoverished families, dance topless on stage, wearing neon colored string bikini bottoms. Numbered cards hang around their necks like they're cattle at a livestock auction. Titillated customers whisper a number to a waiter with the casualness of placing their drink orders, and arrangements are quickly made to slip the girl of their choice into a back room or send her off to the customer's hotel. Thai-Chinese gangs run the show behind the scenes, and they can be brutal with anyone who gets in their way.

“There's AIDS here, so you have to be careful,” a businessman from Arizona yells out over the music to Father Joe and me as we stand at the bar of a Patpong club. He proudly lets us know that he's here with several buddies on a “Sex Tour” organized by an American travel agent to look, of course, like a business and tourism junket.

“I've been coming to Patpong for years. My wife thinks these are business trips.” He laughs, pleased with himself. “I only choose the youngest girls, you know, twelve, sometimes eleven. Less chance of disease. Stick with me and we'll find you a young one, too, maybe a virgin!”

Even if he watches the news back in the States, it's too dark in here for him to recognize me, and he has no idea that I have a hidden camera in my lapel filming his every word. I wonder what possesses him to do this and how he justifies it to himself in whatever moments of self-reflection he might have. I wonder even more what his wife and kids will think when they see him on the news and discover what he really does on his “business trips.” It's impossible for me to have compassion for him, but I feel terrible for his family back home.

After filming in the clubs, we interview Thailand's Minister of Tourism, Mr. Weerasak Kowsurat. He's a tall, handsome man dressed in a perfectly cut dark blue suit with a crisp white dress shirt and
burgundy paisley tie. Having earned a law degree at Harvard, he speaks impeccable English, which he demonstrates as he stares straight into our camera and says, “I invite all of you from anywhere in the world to come to our beautiful country. Come enjoy our temples and dance, our cultural heritage and fine cuisine, our beaches, parks, and mountains. Come enjoy Thailand. But leave our women and girls alone. Have some respect and do not exploit our poverty. Please, have the same respect you would expect us to show your wives and daughters.”