August 1990 “A big, red sun was setting over smoggy Bangkok as the plane took off — setting as my heart is sinking – wrenching pain to again leave and say good-bye to good friends, and to once again leave a beautiful girl behind. Parting with Nit for an uncertain future – am I making another mistake? At the same time still smarting with the awful hurt of losing Jessie the year before – shattering those dreams. When will I be able to settle on someone, to finally be content, satisfied? Wishing I had taken her with me when she so wanted to go… now just fond, bittersweet memories. Really wiped out, heart-broken, so tired of it all. On to Hawai’i – back to my own country; back to school. A timely change for this fried expat. Look forward now, and enjoy the memories.” [Personal Journal Entry]

Thailand

The beach was windswept, empty and stretched as far as the eye could see. A ferry was tied to the pier, but the passengers had long since disembarked. No one was in sight. Had she gone off somewhere? If so, how would she find my bungalow – she didn’t know where I was staying.

Suddenly Nit appeared from behind a sand dune, looking somewhat lost and alone. A small travel bag, black satin trousers hanging high and loose around her ankles, the wind blowing in her hair. I felt terrible. I was late getting to the pier, and wasn’t there when she arrived.

Our reunion was tender, but somewhat dampened, as I was to leave for school in America the following week. Nit and I had been living together in Bangkok for nearly a year, and we had been preparing for this for some time. There were plans for her to follow me to Hawai’i, but as is so often the case, plans fall through.

We didn’t know it then, but this beach holiday was to be our last one together. One week later I would leave, and that would be the last I would ever see her. It still rips my heart apart to think about it. Distance and too much time apart spelled the end, and she eventually married someone else in Thailand late the following year.

Hawai’i

In August, I began my Master of Public Health (MPH) studies at the University of Hawai’i, School of Public Health and moved in to an apartment with three other students – one was a friend from my Samoa days. He had been a Peace Corps Volunteer when I was there with the YMCA, and invited me to join their Hawai’i household.  What a privilege it was to have the time, resources and purpose to read and tie together some of my ‘real world’ experiences in a comfortable academic setting, as articulated and validated in relevant research and stimulating classroom discussions, which helped make sense of it all.

It was to be another jam-packed year of incredible highs and some intense lows – the heart-wrenching parting of friends, some wonderful reunions, and riding an incredible wave since arriving in Honolulu – turn right for the University, turn left for the beach.

Indeed, it was a significant year of transition returning to ‘civilization’ after nearly a decade living in the comfort of the outside world. But Honolulu was a beautiful, clean modern city with a friendly relaxed atmosphere, a perfect climate, a stimulating university setting and mostly Asian and Pacific people living in the beautiful Hawaiian Islands. I was stayin’!

So it began – my tumultuous re-entry into the Western world as this ‘primitive man’ so to speak, prepared to ‘leave the trees’ – as illustrated in a Far Side cartoon panel showing a cave man clinging desperately to a tree at the edge of the forest as a truck stood by waiting – presumably to take him to the city.

Again, I was in for some of the highest highs and lowest lows as I entered my graduate program at University of Hawai’i School of Public Health. Not least of which was an insidious ‘reverse culture shock’ that eventually materialized, as I was faced with an American culture I could no longer relate to, nor easily return to.

I had chosen Hawai’i partly because it was the only Public Health graduate degree program in the country that didn’t require the Graduate Records Examination (GRE) for admission, and feared I was not likely to score well after nearly 10 years away from school.

As it turned out, I was awarded an academic scholarship from the State of Hawai’i to finish my MPH degree. And, at the bidding of several of my professors and former international development colleagues, I applied to the East-West Center, a federally funded research center on the university campus for an academic scholarship to pursue my doctorate. After all, four more years in Hawai’i sounded pretty nice, with fully funded research that would probably send me back to one of the Asian countries I had been so sorely missing.

Actually, I had applied for an East West Center Graduate Degree Fellowship once before — for my Master’s program, but missed it by one place. Out of roughly 600 applicants each year, typically only two are chosen in Public Health – and I came third. But my professors encouraged me to re-apply for a grant to do my doctorate – which I did, and again received a rejection letter. Incredibly, my application had actually been lost and not even considered by the selection committee – and they would not meet again until the following year.

Amazingly, and at the urging of one of my professors, the committee broke protocol and reconvened to review my application – and soon after, I received my acceptance letter and continued on to complete a doctorate in Public Health – fully funded for four years, with research support in Thailand on the topic of abandoned children and HIV/AIDS.

On an unbelievable roll – that first year in Hawai’i was like riding a huge wave.  Absolutely loving all the fresh and stimulating activities with barely a spare moment to sit and reflect on it all. Biking to the beach for a swim each morning at 6 AM, to school for breakfast at 8:30, and then back home to collapse at 11 PM.

But all the while, missing my Thai girlfriend Nit more than ever, and still hoping she would be able to come to join me in Hawai’i. But her commitments at home, coupled with time and distance were making that dream harder to hold on to. Nit spoke almost no English and had never traveled overseas, which made such a long trip seem even more daunting.

Meanwhile, a steady stream of demanding academic responsibilities and social commitments at school filled my days and nights, especially after being elected School of Public Health Class Chair.

A full schedule of fun-filled but exhausting social gatherings including plenty of good food and drink, hiking, biking, swimming and barbecues on the beach — I could barely keep up with it all. And all the while, feeling the intense impermanence of life.

Distant friendships, relationships, endless experiences. But how to hang on to it all?

Stay tuned for ‘Back to School: Alaska (Part One)’ coming soon!

You can read more about Jim’s backstory,  here and here.

Author’s Note: In 1989, the Thoed Thai Highland Health Center Project implemented by Tom Dooley Heritage, an American non-governmental organization (NGO), in collaboration with the Royal Thai Government Ministry of Public Health was handed over to Government to assume full responsibility for its continued operations. The five-year Project was a successful international development partnership which provided capacity-building support (funding and training) for its gradual integration into the Thai Rural Health System. 

The experience also set the stage for my eventual entry into graduate school in Hawaii, USA — but not before accepting a one-year position with the Catholic Relief Services, another American NGO, which supported refugee relief work on the Khmer border and community health development in poor, rural communities in Thailand. 

Chiang Rai Province, Thailand

Though extremely difficult to leave, my time as Project Director at Thoed Thai Highland Health Center in northern Thailand had come to an end. The Thai Government was poised to assume full responsibility for operations of the Project, which had developed an appropriate health service delivery model for preventive and clinical health care by training and facilitating the entrance of local health workers into the Thai National Health System.

Innovative community-based health and development strategies had been successfully introduced, including gravity-fed village water systems, household gardening, community-based opium detoxification, and vector-borne disease control.

A multi-ethnic cadre of village health workers trained by the Project had been established and were providing basic primary health care services in their local communities as part of the Thai Rural Health System.

Meanwhile, the District Immigration Officer was certain that I was CIA. After all, the area had been saturated with American CIA agents conducting opium eradication. And although I was not a medical doctor, somehow I happened to be the Director of an American health project in the area. Furthermore, I spoke and understood Thai language reasonably well and probably just looked a little too ‘military.’

In many ways, it was like running a summer camp. Nights lit by serene lamplight, a fun, youthful staff, lively parties, variety shows.  Nine languages were spoken at our health center, representing the various local ethic groups (and three Americans) that comprised our staff. But we used Thai language for general communication and staff meetings.

Exhilarated and somewhat traumatized by the toughest and most intense work experience yet, I reflected on the many harrowing experiences, such as being pulled across a raging torrent on a swing-like board and cable where a bridge had once stood, before being washed away in the annual flooding due to widespread deforestation in the surrounding hills. Or the night a huge storm ripped through our area tearing the roofs off a dozen houses and knocking down ten others. 

All was quiet following the violent storm. But there had been heavy shelling along the border all week long and insurgent fighters belonging to a rival drug warlord had reached the perimeter of our village. Wounded soldiers were arriving at a makeshift clinic across the road run by some of our health staff who were loyal to the local drug war lord, Khun Sa. 

Eighteen of us living at the health center boarded the hospital truck to evacuate down the mountain, but we decided the washed out road — at night and with numerous trees down — would be more dangerous than to chance lying low at the hospital.

And of course, each 13 kilometer journey up our treacherously steep and slippery mountain track was an adventure in itself, hanging on for dear life with the rest of the passengers – some of them vomiting – in the back of the violently pitching pickup truck.

Riding with my favorite Chinese drug-running driver – we barreled wildly along the heavily rutted road past flooded rice paddies, climbing higher into the mountains that filled the horizon. Meeting other trucks head-on and lifting them out of the ruts to get past, then flying through villages as dusk settled over the hills — with a full moon on the rise — and arriving home in time for a warm beer and a plate of fried peanuts at our only restaurant.

Bangkok

In stark contrast to my 18 months in the mountains (with no electricity or running water), it didn’t take long to settle into the comfortable ‘expat lifestyle’ based in Bangkok with the Catholic Relief Services, an American NGO which supported health and development projects in Thailand and provided comprehensive primary health care services for over 30,000 Khmer refugees living in camps along the Thai-Cambodia border.

As Office Manager, and later as the Acting Country Representative, I controlled an annual budget of US$ five million, managed 120 employees in five offices nationwide, partnered with Government, NGOs and other international agencies, and ultimately negotiated major revisions to the CRS Country Program strategy to move from a welfare and emergency relief profile towards longer-term, sustainable social and economic development.

Joining friends from work, weekends in the nearby province Kanchanaburi provided a refreshing break from Bangkok’s notorious traffic snarls and choking air pollution. We stayed in floating bungalows on the River Kwai, and would cool off in the river before heading into town each night for some good food and drink.

At home in Bangkok, lazy weekends were spent lounging by the pool feasting on ripe, sweet mangoes with sticky rice and coconut cream.

Life was pretty easy living the high life in Thailand’s cosmopolitan capital city, with a luxury apartment and pool, an air-con office, a lovely girlfriend and a growing circle of friends all sharing the fat and happy expat lifestyle in our version of ‘The Modern Raj.’

A Chiang Rai Reunion

When I returned to northern Thailand the following year for a visit, the rains had begun. So I kicked off my shoes, donned my swim trunks and made my way barefoot, slipping, sliding and sweating the thirteen kilometers to Thoed Thai Highland Health Center.

The mountain air was fresh and still. I felt absolutely high upon returning to Thailand’s northern frontier — unique and still mostly untouched, with the distant sound of cowbells, a few birds singing, and the full chorus of frogs and insects at night — and a cascade of emotions and memories from those exhilarating times living in the hills.

Breathing in the cool, fresh country air, I enjoyed a swim in our local spring-fed reservoir, hiked to a few nearby hill tribe villages and received a warm welcome from all.

But the wind was shifting and the time had come to set a new course. I would have to leave my friends and give up this extraordinary ‘expat lifestyle’ — after nearly a decade overseas — and return to America to begin my graduate studies in Hawaii, USA. 

Stay tuned for more stories, coming soon!

You can read more about Jim’s backstory,  here and here.

Note: An expatriate (or ‘expat’) is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country other than that of the person’s upbringing. The term is often used in the context of professionals or skilled workers sent abroad by their companies, rather than for most ‘immigrants’ or ‘migrant workers.’