In the late afternoon, Thin Thin Thay's big brown eyes peer out from the half
open garage door onto the street in Jiegao, a Chinese town bordering Burma
where prostitution has followed on the back of flourishing trade.
Across this secluded street only a flimsy wire fence separates Jiegao in
southern China's Yunnan province from Burma, but at night under the hue of
garish pink lights it is a world apart.
As a quiet darkness descends across the border, this nameless street in Jiegao
turns into a bustling sex market, with groups of young women in high-heels
impatiently awaiting for itinerant Chinese and Burmese traders.
"Of course, I'm not happy here and I don't like what I do," said the thin
23-year-old sitting on a filthy sofa beneath the walls papered with posters of
women.
"But there was not much else I could do," she said.
Like most of the girls here Thin Thin Thay is a product of a nation that
despite its immense natural wealth is devastated by poverty, appalling school
standards and lack of work.
"They come here to make money and the faster they can make their money, then
the try and get home," said Oakkar Myo, a young man working on both sides of
the border in construction.
Thin Thin Thay's life is also marked by personal tragedy -- the loss of her
father and brothers four years ago in fishing accident left her mother to fend
for herself -- but her financial difficulties are all too commonly heard.
When her 68-year-old mother became seriously ill her hairdresser's salary of
30,000 kyat (USD $4) a month made it impossible to live.
"We couldn't afford food like rice, and we couldn't buy any medicine," she
said.
Her friend Tha Thi, 22, tells a similar story of the hopeless poverty and lack
of opportunity that drove her to try her luck in China, which has a much more
open prostitution scene than in Burma.
"At least I can send money to my family from here," said Tha Thi, her breath
heavy with alcohol.
It is this dead-end impoverishment that is one root cause of the nationwide
protests against the military regime that has ruled the Southeast Asian nation
formerly known as Burma in one form or another since 1962, but now often called
Myanmar by the regime.
Outraged residents began taking to the streets this month in the Southeast
Asian nation after fuel prices were doubled on August 15, prompting a violent
crackdown this week on the mass anti-government protests.
Almost all the girls here have heard of the rallies that have seen people crowd
the streets of Yangon, Burma's biggest city, and resulted in the deaths of at
least ten people.
Traders frequenting this street said that they had yet to see any signs of
unrest in northern Burma, but with business ground to a halt by the internal
strife, were worried what the future would hold.
"Nobody is buying anything," said Sai Saing Mine, 33, as he played pool in a
small bar next to Thin Thin Thay's garage.
"All of us are losing money as the currency drops in value," said Sai Saing
Mine, who is a lawyer by training but who has been forced to make a living as
an electronics and computers supplier.
Chinese guards in Jiegao said the border crossing remained normal, and there
were no signs of increased flows of people.
AFP
