Wrestling helps Burmese refugee transition to life in Syracuse

Syracuse.com

The left toe of Tial Thang’s wrestling shoe is held together by several sweeps of white athletic tape. The soles are so worn down, they are bald and discolored. Socks peek through the black shoe material around his toes.

Thang said he’d get new wrestling shoes except for one thing — he doesn’t deserve them.

When Thang wins a wrestling tournament, he said, then he’ll be shoe worthy.

It’s a small window into the uber-competitiveness and drive of Thang, a refugee from Burma and a junior at the Institute of Technology at Syracuse Central. He is also a member of the combined wrestling team for the Syracuse city schools. Thang is The Post-Standard’s honor athlete of the week.

Thang, whose name is pronounced tee-EL tung, wrestles at 152 pounds and is 11-4 this season. He hopes to win a Section III championship and wrestle in the state tournament. Two of Thang’s losses came in overtime. He avenged an early season loss by winning a rematch. In a victory last week against Fayetteville-Manlius, Thang wrestled up and defeated an opponent weighing 170 pounds.

Thang’s homeland of Burma, also called Myanmar, is a military-ruled country of 56 million people. It has been consistently criticized for human rights violations by the United Nations and other rights organizations. The Washington Post called it “one of the most isolated and repressive regimes in the world — a government responsible for killing thousands in a quest to silence dissent.”

Thang and his family fled their Burmese home of Chin Hakha and spent two years in Malaysia before coming to Syracuse in June 2007. Gone was a life of growing corn and rice and raising livestock. Thang’s duties had been tending the family’s five cows.

With the army cracking down on personal and religious freedoms, the family made the most difficult of choices.

Thang’s father (Tawk Cem) escaped first to Malaysia. It took five more years before Thang, his mother (Mang Si) and sister (Holy Sung) could follow. The family reunited in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, and lived there for two years.

“I don’t want to remember,” Thang said of his time in Burma. “It makes me sad.”

After applying through the United Nations for refugee status, the family was resettled in Syracuse, a city that has taken in about 1,500 Burmese refugees, according to Stone Saw, a case worker and interpreter at InterFaith Works of Central New York. Thang said he regularly sees the casualties of the Burmese civil war in Syracuse, the ones without arms, legs, eyes or ears.

“It’s sad. I don’t want to be refugee,” he said.

While learning to deal with Central New York snow and the English language, Thang found comfort in a new athletic endeavor — wrestling. He was a seventh-grader at H.W. Smith School when he was encouraged to give the sport a try. From the first day, he said, he was hooked.

Syracuse city wrestling coach Matt Cosgrove said Thang was pulled up to the junior varsity team and started as a ninth-grader. As a freshman, Thang wrestled with the varsity and finished fifth in the Section III tournament.

A back injury suffered during the Empire State Games in 2010 sidelined him for all of last season. It was a devastating setback. Thang is back, though not particularly happy because he’s got four losses. He is a team captain and continues to work through back pain and occasional confidence issues.

“Every time when I hurt my back, I cried,” he said. “But my father told me, you have to heal it by your heart, not by the doctor or anybody. There’s nobody going to heal up for you. You have to do it by yourself. And I did it.”

Rick Spicer is the athletic director at ITC and calls Thang “a solid student” and one of the school’s nicest kids. Spicer sometimes wishes Thang would be a little less nice in some of his wrestling matches

Thang, who dabbles in muay thai and mixed martial arts, used to bow before matches as a show of respect to his opponent. But he said he’s out there on the mat to take his opponent’s head off because he loathes losing.

That doesn’t happen often. He sends text messages about the outcomes of his matches to relatives around the world, from Norway to Malaysia, Texas and Indianapolis.

Cosgrove said Thang has a unique style. He uses more throws, which comes from the Burmese style of wrestling Thang called “paih.” And at times, Cosgrove said, Thang incorporates movements that “aren’t just pure wrestling movements. When kids wrestle him, it’s a little difficult for them.”

Thang said life has changed since his arrival in Syracuse. He has friends. He has a car. He likes his school. And he has “found something he likes to do,” which is wrestling.

But when his wrestling career ends and he graduates from school, Thang hopes to return to Burma. He doesn’t know when, but he feels the pull of his country and wants to be part of change.

“They need help,” he said. “Maybe I can help somebody down there.”

That’s all down the road. For now, Thang is eyeing the team’s next big meet — the Richard New Memorial Tournament in Canastota on Jan. 7. Who knows, Thang might treat himself to new wrestling shoes if things work out.

“I don’t see myself losing again until the states,” Thang said. “I don’t see myself losing again. That’s my goal, from the first day of wrestling, I want to be the champ.”

Donnie Webb can be reached at 470-2149 or dwebb@syracuse.com. 

Myanmar refugees indulge in traditional fare during Christmas

thestar online

WHILE many celebrate Christmas with turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, fruitcake and pudding, it is not the same at the Myanmar refugee community in Kepong.

For the Yuletide season, their traditional delicacy comprises boiled wild boar, stir-fried potatoes, diced cucumber and wild boar soup.

To some, it may sound repulsive but this is what brings the Zo people of Myanmar together.

David Mung, 31, is the head teacher at Zo Children’s School, a day school for Myanmar refugee children, in Taman Wangsa Permai.

“Boiled wild boar is a delicacy in Myanmar during the holiday season. There is nothing fancy in cooking it. It is just boiled with some salt and pepper and we eat it with rice. For us, it is important that we preserve our culinary heritage despite being in a foreign country,” said Mung.

“In Malaysia, you have many different cultures, not to mention the wide array of local and international cuisines. We cannot afford to splurge on food. This is what unites us as it is a reminder of what we had back home,” added Mung, who fled Myanmar in 2008 with his mother and sister because of religious persecution and the economic crisis. He has been living in Malaysia ever since.

The Zos form a group of Tibeto-Burman people inhabiting the Chin Hills in Myanmar.

“Our people who are good at hunting will be in charge of catching the wild boars in the Chin jungles during Christmas. It was fun for us as a community to take home the wild boar, cook it and eat it together.”

Mung’s mother, Mary, 55, was the one in charge of preparing the home-cooked delicacies.

“It is not easy to cook the wild boar. The meat has to be boiled overnight so it will be tender,” she said.

Before the meal, the children sang along to We Are The World — not the 80’s version but the latest one produced in 2010, via YouTube.

“It’s my way to teach English in a fun way. I also teach them songs from Boney M and Abba, which are my favourite bands,” said Mung.

The tiny Christmas tree at the school, situated on the first floor of a shophouse, was decked with mini-twinkle lights.

“We cannot afford a big, new Christmas tree so ours was donated,” said Mung last Saturday during their annual Christmas party.

Used toys comprising stuffed animals, cars and other items were laid on the floor where each had a number.

“Just like previous Christmas parties, we will include a lucky draw for the children to win some toys, donated by the public.”

There is no air-conditioning at the school which is no bigger than 900sq ft, but that doesn’t stop the festivities from taking place.

While many of us list high-tech gadgets and smartphones on our Christmas wishlist, the Zo children are over the moon to receive any toy, even though wrapped in recycled magazine pages.

Grace, 21, also from the Zo tribe, who works as a waitress at a nearby restaurant, volunteers her time at the school to help Mung.

“I’ve been in Malaysia for the past one year. Being at the school is like being at home for me,” she said.

The setting up the school was not an easy task for Mung.

“It was challenging because we didn’t have any money to buy books and basic school supplies. F,urthermore the parents questioned my qualifications as a teacher.

“But eventually they began to trust me with their children. Many of the parents are uneducated and work as odd-job workers. They needed someone like me to provide their children with the basic education,” said Mung, who runs the school with seven other teachers and volunteers.

The children, aged between three and 14, are taught Bahasa Malaysia, English, Science and Mathematics as well as music from 9am to 1pm. After they go home for lunch, they return in the afternoon to the school for computer lessons.

So far, the school has about 50 children. Mung is also a musician and learned his skills at a church in Myanmar.

“We cannot afford to buy new musical instruments so most of what we have like guitars and keyboards are donated,” Mung said.

Three years have gone by and Mung feels happy and tired at the same time.

“I stuck through the odds and hardships. As the head teacher, I feel it is important to teach the children good values. I look forward to many more happy Christmas occasions like these in future,” he added.

States in revolt on refugee burden

THE NATIONAL AFFAIRS

JULIA Gillard's plan to move thousands of asylum-seekers out of detention centres and into the community has triggered a war with the two largest states, as the NSW and Victorian governments attacked the policy as a blatant exercise in burden shifting that would stretch police resources and threaten social cohesion.

NSW Police Minister Mike Gallacher yesterday savaged the government's proposal to issue bridging visas to boatpeople, saying it had been undertaken without any consultation with the states, which would be expected to provide many of the services asylum-seekers would need.

In remarks Immigration Minister Chris Bowen described as a "pathetic scare campaign" by two Liberal state governments, Mr Gallacher said the policy compromised the welfare of asylum-seekers, who risked being dumped in the community without adequate support.

"No one picked up the phone; no one wrote to me," Mr Gallacher told The Weekend Australian.

"Some of these people, just simply by being released here, could find themselves either being the victims of crime, or indeed coming to police attention themselves. There's simply been no discussion between the state government and the federal government in terms of our preparedness to handle these matters."

The comments came as briefing papers obtained by The Weekend Australian revealed the breadth of those concerns.

In one document provided to the NSW Liberal government at the end of last month, the NSW Community Relations Commission warned that concerns had been expressed that some of the unaccompanied "minors" released into the community appeared to be "significantly older" than their declared age of 16 or 17.
"In some cases these students appear to be in their 20s," the commission reported.

The commission went on to note that schools had a duty of care to their students and that it "may not be appropriate for numbers of 20-something adults to be in the same classroom with younger children".
"It is essential that (the Immigration Department) take steps to more accurately determine the age of these students," the commission warned.

The commission also said it was likely the program would result in increased costs for health, translation services and transport, and warned of the added burden on police.

Mr Bowen's spokesman said the office was unaware of any claims that adults were attending NSW schools and would investigate any such claims brought to its attention.

In October Mr Bowen announced he would issue a minimum of 100 bridging visas a month to boatpeople whose refugee claims had not been finalised.

But the figure is expected to be higher as it will depend on the rate of boat arrivals, which have escalated rapidly since the failure of the major parties to strike a deal on offshore processing.
Most asylum-seekers will settle in Sydney and Melbourne.

The decision to release boatpeople followed the High Court ruling scuppering the government's refugee swap with Malaysia and the opposition's refusal to support laws circumventing the ruling. However, the decision was also a response to chronic overcrowding and disorder in Australia's detention centres and a recognition that the network simply could not cope with any more boat arrivals.

So far only 27 visas have been issued to asylum-seekers, although that figure does not include those already in the community as part of a longstanding policy to release vulnerable new arrivals into society.

Victorian Minister for Multicultural Affairs and Citizenship Nicholas Kotsiras said he was concerned that settling asylum-seekers in the community without additional funding for mental health, education, and housing services "may greatly disadvantage asylum-seekers by dumping them into communities without adequate support and without any concern for their welfare".

"Without providing additional support, the federal government will be working against the better interests of asylum-seekers themselves, the communities they will be placed in and social cohesion in Victoria," Mr Kotsiras told The Weekend Australian.

NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell yesterday backed his Police Minister, saying he was "distressed" at the lack of consultation and the extra pressure it would place on state community services.

Mr O'Farrell said his objections had "nothing to do" with immigration generally, which he supported. "It has everything to do with a federal government that, even in this area, is prepared to shift the cost of its incompetent decisions on to the states," Mr O'Farrell said.

The attack drew an angry response from Mr Bowen's office, with a spokesman dismissing the criticisms as a political attack on Labor and accusing the O'Farrell and Baillieu governments of deliberately misleading voters.

The spokesman said the states had been told they would not incur any additional costs, with the Immigration Department funding basic assistance programs.

"These claims are misleading and a cynical political ploy typical of the Coalition," the spokesman said. He said there were 9000 people already on bridging visas, although he acknowledged that figure included other migrants, such as visa overstayers, and was spread across the country.

The policy has generated concern among the NSW and Victorian Coalition governments about the flow-on effects of housing thousands of asylum-seekers in the community.

None of the state government officials contacted by The Weekend Australian expressed any concern about taking more migrants. But they are angry at the manner in which the federal government's new policy has been implemented.

Life in Limbo for Chin Refugees in India

INDIA INK

Biathleng and his family with members of the Chin community at their single-room home in Budella, Delhi.

Thirty-year-old Biathleng fled Myanmar’s Chin State for Delhi in June, with three children and a teenage wife. “I have an appointment for my refugee card,” he says carefully, when asked about his new life.
Like many other Chins, one of Myanmar’s largest ethnic minorities, his family walked for two days until they crossed the border into India, he says. They then shared a vehicle from Mizoram to Guwahati, Assam, and caught a train to the Indian capital, fleeing persecution and impoverishment in their heavily militarized homeland.

An estimated 86,000 Chins have come to India since 1988, 10,000 of them to Delhi. The majority arrived in the last five years. For many, including Biathleng and his family, their problems have only grown since his arrival.

A lack of clean drinking water left the family with jaundice, diarrhea and dysentery. Usually ill, they rarely leave their single room (shared by nine, for the equivalent of $38 a month) in a chawl – a building containing several tenements – in Budella, Vikaspuri, the largest of several dusty neighbourhoods in west Delhi that shelter beleaguered Chin refugees. Except for church on Sunday and sometimes a little ethnic community school for the older boy, they avoid going outside because of the pollution. Language is a barrier, as they are not fluent in Hindi or English primarily spoken in the capital. In any case, they feel they must stay home to guard what little they own.

Citizenship is not an option, though when the United Nations High Commission for Refugees issues Biathleng’s card, he will at least be eligible for medical reimbursement and offered U.N.H.C.R. protection from potential deportation. Nearly half the roughly 22,000 refugees and asylum seekers under the U.N.H.C.R.’s mandate in India are from Myanmar, and a large majority of them are Chin.

Why do Chins continue to try to squeeze into the world’s most populous democracy, where hundreds of millions already live below the international poverty line?

Many say they have too much to lose not to leave home. Chin State has been ravaged by military rule since 1962 in Myanmar, also known as Burma. Ethnic minorities like the Christian Chins and Kayans, Kachins, Arakan and Mon have suffered extrajudicial killings, forced labor and worse at the hands of “Burmanization” and are finally being driven out by famine, says the Chin Refugee Committee (C.R.C.), a small Delhi-based organization established in 1996 to offer advocacy and help to fellow Chins. India, just over the border, is the closest sanctuary.

An estimated 70 percent of the 500,000 Chins in Chin State live below the poverty line, according to the C.R.C., and they are discriminated against by potential employers as Christians and members of an ethnic minority.

Humanitarian aid has pulled out, the C.R.C. adds, due to restrictions placed on international groups, including United Nations organizations, by the military.

Myanmar’s first civilian president, Thein Sien, who visited Delhi in October to strengthen ties with India, has been pledging liberalization since he was elected in March. The world’s eyes are on his country today, as Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Myanmar in the decades since the military gained power. Her trip involves fact-finding about reported political reform. But Chins in west Delhi are not convinced the country has changed.

“Until the Constitution is changed, the military can always take over,” says Bonai, a 25-year-old political science student who is president of the C.R.C. “We can’t go back; we demonstrated against the regime, so if we go back we will be arrested.”

Not that things are much better for them here. According to a report released by the C.R.C. last month, only half of Delhi’s Chins are recognized as refugees by the U.N.H.C.R. A mere 20 percent are employed, and, as the report chronicles in 35 case studies, they are vulnerable to ill health, sexual harassment, violence, police indifference and exploitative employers and landlords.

“We are minority people, we are different,” Bonai says. “The police cannot solve this.”

Impoverished Indians are sometimes resentful and begrudge Chins’ basic communal rights, according to Rinengi Varte, an Indian C.R.C. volunteer who hails from Mizoram across the border. When the neighborhood’s water supply arrives, some Chins tell her, they are made to wait until the local Indians have gotten theirs. Rickshaw drivers often assume she, too, is Chin when she visits, and treat her contemptuously as a result, she adds.

Sunita Tyagi, a businesswoman who runs a shop in Budella and rents 20 rooms to Chins, feels the problem is different. “On their own, anyone can be bad or good, I have no problem with the Burmese people, I like many of them,’’ she said. “We cannot always speak to each other, since they don’t speak Hindi, so sometimes there are misunderstandings. And sometimes they drink and pick fights, the young men. In one month, we have had three big fights.”

“Some young people drink out of depression and worry, and perhaps take drugs,” agrees a Chin social worker and former C.R.C. president, Steven Tluang.

Bonai says many Chins work as cleaners in the Janakpuri district center shopping complex or in illegal garment factory or electronic repair jobs, where they receive the equivalent of $28 to $38 a month. Local residents earn 25 to 50 percent more, he says. Yet there are few other options. Biathleng hopes to join his three brothers, who hold low-paying factory jobs, when his health improves. For now, when his child cries out, “I’m hungry!” his face is blank.

Many Chins wait until day’s end to scavenge in the market, competing with dogs for the leftovers of India’s leftovers. Out late at night, they risk muggings and sexual assault.

“We are aware of the many challenges that refugees, including Chin refugees face,” Montserrat Feixas Vihe, chief of mission for the U.N.H.C.R. in India said. “We are trying to focus on prevention and have an ongoing awareness raising campaign on how to be more careful in a large city like Delhi. In addition, we work with the local police and neighbourhood associations to ensure a more protective environment. ”

India’s Ministry of External Affairs did not respond to several requests for comment.

In Budella and four nearby neighborhoods (Hastsal Village and Jeevan Park in Uttam Nagar, Asalatpur village in Janakpuri and Dabri in Sitapuri), many Chins linger for years, waiting for the chance to attain official refugee status and its modest advantages.

In the meanwhile, the community finds occasional charity in non-governmental organizations and a little help from three U.N.H.C.R.-recognized organizations, but not much more.

The C.R.C., with a small office of 25 volunteers in Janakpuri , is funded by the Euro-Burma Office and offers some support. It sometimes works with Burmese Women Delhi, a crisis center in Budella with a staff of three, dealing with rape, assault and gender discrimination.

Many of the women who run it are victims themselves. One 36-year-old worker says she fled her hometown, Falam, after a soldier raped her. She never saw her children again and her husband married his employer’s daughter, she recounts.

In her previous life, she had a home, two children and a husband; in this one, she has one pink room, a grimy teddy bear and the friendship of fellow exiles who unite in Christian faith. A feeling of anonymity prevails; Chins are often mistaken here for Nepalis or northeastern Indians. “We are here, but no one knows,’’ she says. “We want people to know.”