Razor-wire fence rounded and rounded Phanat Nikhom Refugee Processing Camp where the days were filled with a bustling market and freshly-made ice cream, Cantonese love songs blasting off from old cassette players, and the young and old learning about American culture and language; and where the nights were taken by children gathering around a story-teller, young men courting the lovely cheek-burnt girls, and adult males joking and drinking beer to kill time as they took turns guarding the camp against a possible reprisal from their war enemy. This was the place that we were trapped inside and watched closely like law-violating prisoners. We couldn’t go past the barbed-wire fence. Thai security guards patrolled the camp’s borders like vicious dogs that bite if one went near. They wore gun-packed dark-lilac color uniforms with black helmets, and in pairs—they rumbled around the camp in their black motorcycles eying for offenders. I heard that if a boy was caught going outside of the fence, no matter how old he was, he would be beaten and sold as a slave. If a girl was caught, she would be sold as a prostitute. And then there were the others, who would be locked up for life unless their parents bailed them out with a large sum of money. These stories sent shivers down my spine and goose bumps across my skin more than the ghost stories I heard at night. I hoped I never get caught or sold as a prostitute, or worried my parents—especially worrying my parents. They would undeniably hit me if they heard I was captured. But still, my curiosity about what was beyond the fence often overcame me and drove me to sneak past the fence many times.
There weren’t many things to do inside the camp. I didn’t like school much either. I went when I felt like it and skipped when I felt like it too. No one forced me to go and no one forced me to stay. I showed up on movie days only, which we often watched a movie about an almost naked man who lost his son and daughter while trying to get rid of a glass bottle that fell from the sky. It was something different for me and I liked to see the strange fruits that the two kids gorged on so deliciously.
