Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Map
- Introduction: The Disappearing Frontier?
- 1 Where Nothing Is as It Seems: Between Southeast China and Mainland Southeast Asia in the “Post-Socialist” Era
- 2 The Southern Chinese Borders in History
- 3 Ecology Without Borders
- 4 Negotiating Central, Provincial, and County Policies: Border Trading in South China
- 5 The Hmong of the Southeast Asia Massif: Their Recent History of Migration
- 6 Regional Trade in Northwestern Laos: An Initial Assessment of the Economic Quadrangle
- 7 Lue across Borders: Pilgrimage and the Muang Sing Reliquary in Northern Laos
- 8 Transformation of Jinghong, Xishuangbanna, PRC
- 9 The Hell of Good Intentions: Some Preliminary Thoughts on Opium in the Political Ecology of the Trade in Girls and Women
- 10 Cross-Border Mobility and Social Networks: Akha Caravan Traders
- 11 Cross-Border Links between Muslims in Yunnan and Northern Thailand: Identity and Economic Networks
- 12 Trade Activities of the Hoa along the Sino-Vietnamese Border
- 13 Cross-Border Categories: Ethnic Chinese and the Sino-Vietnamese Border at Mong Cai
- 14 Regional Development and Cross-Border Cultural Linkage: The Case of a Vietnamese Community in Guangxi, China
- 15 Women and Social Change along the Vietnam-Guangxi Border
- Index
9 - The Hell of Good Intentions: Some Preliminary Thoughts on Opium in the Political Ecology of the Trade in Girls and Women
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2015
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Map
- Introduction: The Disappearing Frontier?
- 1 Where Nothing Is as It Seems: Between Southeast China and Mainland Southeast Asia in the “Post-Socialist” Era
- 2 The Southern Chinese Borders in History
- 3 Ecology Without Borders
- 4 Negotiating Central, Provincial, and County Policies: Border Trading in South China
- 5 The Hmong of the Southeast Asia Massif: Their Recent History of Migration
- 6 Regional Trade in Northwestern Laos: An Initial Assessment of the Economic Quadrangle
- 7 Lue across Borders: Pilgrimage and the Muang Sing Reliquary in Northern Laos
- 8 Transformation of Jinghong, Xishuangbanna, PRC
- 9 The Hell of Good Intentions: Some Preliminary Thoughts on Opium in the Political Ecology of the Trade in Girls and Women
- 10 Cross-Border Mobility and Social Networks: Akha Caravan Traders
- 11 Cross-Border Links between Muslims in Yunnan and Northern Thailand: Identity and Economic Networks
- 12 Trade Activities of the Hoa along the Sino-Vietnamese Border
- 13 Cross-Border Categories: Ethnic Chinese and the Sino-Vietnamese Border at Mong Cai
- 14 Regional Development and Cross-Border Cultural Linkage: The Case of a Vietnamese Community in Guangxi, China
- 15 Women and Social Change along the Vietnam-Guangxi Border
- Index
Summary
Silver (money) grows in the “virgin room”.
— Brothel ownerIf I can sell her virginity twice, I double my investment.
— Brothel ownerSometimes, I have to teach them with the stick.
— Woman owner of “sex coffee shop”We think: if she's young, she's clean — no AIDS.
— Customer in a massage parlourU.S. anti-drug assistance to the Burmese government has failed …
— Robert S. Gelbard,U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
The road to hell is paved with good intentions … and it's the best paved road in Bangkok.
— AnonymousThis chapter is a preliminary attempt to share some thoughts on two topics that have compelled attention — public or private — in most human societies: sex and drugs. Or more precisely, the relationship between sex and drugs; not as conjectured (or remembered) by the worried parents of teenage daughters, but as commodities in international trade. In the specific case of mainland Southeast Asia and China, what is the relationship through time of opiate production to the production of sexual services?
The mythic narrative of narcotics and sexual degradation (and like many mythic narratives, it embodies elements of “reality”) can be read in newspapers, quoted from non-governmental organization (NGO) reports, or seen on TV:
Miba, innocent and simple hill tribe girl from the “colorful” Akha tribe, is rescued from a brothel (often by the BBC, CH-4, ABC, or “60 Minutes” film crew). She has been sold by her father, who is an unrepentant heroin addict. Desperate for money to feed his vile habit (but not, the implication goes, desperate enough to work for it), he (supposedly) sees his daughters as a crop to be harvested when they are ripe.
There frequently follows a learned interview that calls for the reform of patriarchal societies and explains that “Asian Cultures” (all of them!) have always devalued daughters, which was why Miba was sold in the first place.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Where China Meets Southeast AsiaSocial and Cultural Change in the Border Regions, pp. 183 - 203Publisher: ISEAS–Yusof Ishak InstitutePrint publication year: 2000