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Yodchai Saelor

"Thank you, everyone, for helping me to do what I love to do most! Best wishes to you!

"Sa-was-dee-krab. I'm Yodchai Saelor, or 'Jo.' I'm from the hill tribes. My people were the Lisu, and I was born in 1981 in northern Thailand.

"When I was just a little boy, I lived in the forest with my grandparents, my mother and my two sisters. We all respected the spirits as our religion. We worshipped our ghosts who remain in some object, and we place the object on an overhead shelf we inherited from our great grandparents.

"My father is a man from town. He separated from my mother when I was just a baby and I saw him only once. But I never talked with him, because the first time I saw him I felt afraid and ran into the forest. When I came back, I found that he had already gone. That was the only time he came to visit us.

"My house in the forest was just somewhere to sleep. There was no running water or electricity. We used water from a small rivulet nearby and our income was obtained from growing opium. It took half a day to reach the Lisu tribe's village. Every two or three months when we needed consumer goods, we'd go to the village and then take a car to town.

"When I was about eight or nine years old, my grandpa died and we moved to the Lisu village. He was seriously sick for a long time, and finally one night he was gone. After that, my uncle had to receive my grandpa's spirit and take care of the spirit of our family. Our ancient ones said that only the sons can take care of our spirits after the death of the family head.

"My mother remarried when I was about 12 or 13. My stepfather is also a man from town, and my mother, my youngest sister and I moved into his house. By then, my grandmother had died and my older sister had left home for the city. My stepfather was a good man and gave me the chance to go to school. He wasn't a rich man, but he bought me a second-hand bicycle to ride to school. That was a very happy time for me. I had friends my age who lived with monks in the temple near my stepfather's house. Sometimes I stayed with them and learned Buddhist doctrines. I respect the Buddhist philosophy that makes me feel safe and calm.

"After primary school, my older sister came to visit and I went with her to study in a city school. On weekends, she sent me to learn Arabic at the Muslim temple because they gave free classes for everyone interested in the language.

"The first time I went to the Muslim temple, a man asked me to take off my Buddha lockets and I did so out of respect for this sacred place. Every weekend I went there to study the language and they also taught me about their religion. They gave me a scholarship to continue my studies in southern Thailand and I eventually became a Muslim. After three years, they awarded me a scholarship to study abroad in an Arab country. That's very far away, so I decided to return to my sister's home in 2002. She and her husband are Christians and I changed my religion for the third time.

"I help my sister selling wood products, which we make ourselves. We craft items such as local musical instruments. I also love to make new things from my own imagination. In 2003, I married a hill tribe girl I didn't know. The first time I spoke to her was on our wedding day. My sister knew her and recommended I marry her because she wanted someone to help her work. My wife is a good girl, just as my sister said, but sometime she's very quiet when she gets angry and I don't know what she is thinking. I think it's normal because we had no time to get to know one another before we married. But we have to adjust to each other. I will grow to love her more and more because she is my wife for as long as I live."