Ice Harvest By Looksorn

“I grew up surrounded by migrant workers since my family runs an ice factory in Thailand. All of them are legal workers with work permit from nearby countries, but majority of them are from Myanmar (or formerly Burma). December 2010, I moved to the United States. I have an opportunity to observe Thailand as an outsider with an insider’s perspective. Looking back to when my parents started the ice business, I noticed that Thailand has difficulty to control massive number of migrant workers: there were a lot and still large amount of migrant workers who don’t have the work permit. That leads to why police would go after every migrant and extort money from them and they threaten to send them back to their home countries. My parents have been unwillingly paying the local police to keep them away from the workers at the ice factory even though they have the valid work permits. Ice Harvest observes the discrimination of working class and bribe culture in Thailand.”