The razor-wire fence curled around Phanat Nikhom Refugee Processing Camp in long, rusting loops, enclosing a world that somehow managed to be both crowded with life and cut off from it. During the day, the camp buzzed with the sounds of a small town: vendors calling out from makeshift stalls, children chasing one another through dusty paths, freshly made ice cream melting almost as quickly as it was scooped, and Cantonese love songs spilling from old cassette players with voices softened by worn-out tape. In classrooms, young and old practiced English and learned bits of American culture, preparing themselves for a country most of us knew only through stories, photographs, and the occasional television screen.
At night, the camp took on another rhythm. Children gathered around storytellers whose voices rose and fell beneath the darkness, carrying folktales from one generation to the next. Young men lingered near the paths, laughing shyly as they courted girls with flushed cheeks. Older men sat together drinking beer, their laughter occasionally bursting above the hum of the camp as they took turns standing guard against the possibility of a reprisal from the enemy we had left behind. Beyond the huts, the night stretched toward the Thai countryside, but we remained inside our circle of wire.
