56 years old, Thailand
I was born in a shack, a very small little shack. We lived on a farm in rural Thailand; I don't think I ever had any childhood like other kids. I had to help my mom; I had to help take care of my brother or sisters and I had to cook and clean. Because we were very poor we tried to do anything we could to survive. It is so different to see my kids. They have such a different life than when I was growing up. I hardly ever had new clothes. Once a year maybe I got one pair of pants or one shirt and that's all. When I went to school I got a new uniform every two years, not every year. It was always too big for me. My mom would buy the biggest size so that I could wear it for two years. I went to school only through the ninth grade. My family did not have the money to send me further to school. When I was ten I started working in the fields picking beans, peppers and other vegetables. When I started the sixth grade I also started selling vegetables. I woke up at three or four o'clock in the morning and went to the market. By 7 o'clock I was finished with my work and got ready to go to school at 8 AM. I could only do that twice during the week and every weekend. Every day was too much for me. After school I watered and weeded the vegetable plants. My mom was the one who grew the vegetables and I was the one who sold them. Sometimes I also grew vegetables. I made very little profit, and when I didn't have our own vegetables to sell I would buy them from the neighbors. I felt sorry for them. They worked so hard to grow the vegetables, and for the whole thing they would earn maybe fifty cents.
My parents owned the land we lived on, but the land was damaged and needed a lot of work. It was all woods, no mango trees, but forest. We hired a tractor to clear out the land, and my father spent all of his time working on it. I remember when I was a little kid I rode a bike to where my parents worked in the field. The land where they could grow vegetables was only about a half-acre or something like that where they could grow rice. They had to do something else in order to have enough rice for the family. Some people hired them to work so that they could make enough money to buy rice to feed us. My parents had to work very hard and yet we were always poor. One message in my head from a very early age was that I had to help my family. I have one brother and two sisters and I am the oldest. I always tried to help my family because I am the oldest daughter. In order for everybody to survive I had to help. That was my responsibility. I don't know who put this in my mind but from my earliest memory and as I grew up I knew that. When I was old enough I sold vegetables.
After I finished the ninth grade I started selling seriously. I had a vegetable stand and sold all kinds of vegetables like corn, cucumber, cabbage and lettuce. I made about fifty cents a day profit. For almost 21 years ago and for a poor person that was a lot of money. With that money we were able to hire a tractor to clear more land so that we could grow enough rice to eat. We had a real, serious rice field after that. I also took classes to become a hair cutter and to learn sewing; that is the skill I used to come to America. I could make clothes and sew just about anything. We couldn't sell anything sometimes during rainy season when it would rain all day long. So during the rainy season I took classes. That's what I did. I opened a hair cut shop after that because I went to a serious class and got a license. So I had the hair cut shop and I also sold vegetables. I still made money selling vegetables, and the family was able to save money so that we had our own little tractor. It was a small tractor we used for the vegetables I sold. I would get a motorcycle and later we had pigs. We had about seventy pigs. We tried everything, you know. I always thought that if one thing did not work maybe something else would.
When I was twenty years old I got married. I didn't plan on that; it was an arranged marriage. My parents thought that twenty was the time to marry and that if you weren't married by twenty-five it was too late. I don't think that way. You can marry when you are forty, but that is not the way they thought. They thought, "Oh, you are too old; you have to get married." So they found a guy and then, ok, I married. I only met the guy once, a year before we were married. I didn't even know what the guy’s name was and a year later we were married. He was six years older than me; he worked as an electrician. He lived in a different province but he had some relatives in my neighborhood. That is how the match was made. Somehow his parents made a connection with the relatives who lived nearby and they found out about my activities. So, they found out that I was a good person and they asked my parents about marriage. My parents said ok because they didn't think that I would ever marry if I didn't accept this guy. I had already turned down three men. I said ok, let's get it over with. I didn't talk about it very much with my parents because every time we talked about it I would get nervous and start yelling. I didn't want to give my mother and my father headaches. I was under a lot of pressure; a lot of relatives came and talked to me. One of my legs is shorter than the other and you can see that when I am walking I am limping a little; my relatives, my parents even my brothers and sisters told me to marry. They were concerned that I would never find a husband.
The arranged marriage lasted for six years. It bothers me even now. When I left Thailand my parents wanted me to stay with my ex-husband; they didn't want me to leave. But he was cheating one me; he had another woman the whole time. I was just sick and tired of it; that is the reason the relationship split. I told my parents before I left home that I was the one who would choose my husband. I told them that I would choose a better person; I would choose the best person. You know I would never make a mistake about that. My parents were mad at me but I was right. I did choose my own husband in the United States. He doesn't speak the same language that I do, but I knew how to choose a good person and my life changed. Even if I had never married it would have been much, much better for me. I would have an easier life and more freedom than I had in the six years of that arranged marriage. I had two children with him, a boy and a girl. They are with me now in the United States. I went to Thailand to get them. When I was married my luck was not good. I lost all the money I had saved from my work and then I had two children to support. I took the children with me and moved to Bangkok. My ex-husband never helped me. I know a lot of people cheated me, and I had no help.