Many of you told me you were waiting and couldn’t see Part 2, so I’m taking advantage of a few free days to finally write it.
In the photo is the cardboard box I made to put my guitar in. The reason was that a younger sister warned me they definitely wouldn’t let me carry it on the airplane because the guitar is too long. I worried that if I checked it into baggage, the hard leather case might not withstand the rough handling, and God forbid, my precious guitar would break. The guitar that Huệ Như had carried across the border to help me. That journey alone is an interesting story, but I’ll save it for another occasion.
So I frantically built an extra outer casing for peace of mind, while also making room for some clothes. Besides, during my final days in Thailand, my mood was truly restless; it was hard to sit down peacefully and work on the app. Afterward, I doodled all over it in hopes that the porter hands would be a bit gentler. I wrote a few phrases on it like: “please gently with her, please love her…”
According to the regulations for illegal immigrants, with the sponsorship of the UNHCR, everyone has to spend 2 weeks in the IDC—the International Detention Center in Thailand. Before leaving, Thanh, a beloved martial arts student who had trained with me for over ten years and knew my personality too well, reminded me after our last online training session: “Whatever those guys do, Teacher, just ignore them. We’re only staying there for two weeks anyway.” I said: “Yeah, ignore them!” And at that moment, I genuinely thought so; the main thing was to get my business done, having waited so patiently for so long, enduring humiliation for two weeks was nothing.
The Thai police officer responsible for taking me to court to plead guilty before entering prison said: “I take care of you, you take care of me, ok?” I nodded and said: “Ok!” He said: “Then let’s take a bus, because taking a regular car here means by regulation you have to be handcuffed!” “Ok!” I nodded.
As for how he took care of me, let’s leave that aside for a moment to avoid dragging things out, but in short, he treated me better. After the court session, I treated him to lunch and then coffee before entering prison.
Stepping into the IDC yard means getting stripped of your clothes and sitting down to wait, wearing only shorts, cell phones sealed up with cameras blocked, so that every evening anyone who needs to must register and pay 500 baht to use their own phone for one hour. If you need to charge it or buy more time, you have to pay extra.
As soon as I stepped in, two deputy room heads and a soldier told me to hand over 500 baht. When I asked why, they said “It’s the rule, it’s written right here,” and pointed to a piece of paper taped to the wall.
Then they demanded to see the card issued to me by the UNHCR.
They led me to the back of the room, where the Vietnamese prisoners were. The room was about 160 square meters, and on the day I walked in, there were about 130 prisoners from countries like India, Pakistan, China, Burma…
I went over to greet the Vietnamese, and the long-haired deputy room head immediately snapped: “Speak quietly, and once you’re done, sit down!”
I smirked, grunted in my throat, sat down, and muttered: “Damn it, showing off authority over nothing again!”
K, whom I later found out was a guy who had just caught a signal after escaping a scam center in Myanmar, immediately said: “We’ve been so pissed off at these guys, but we didn’t have a leader, so we couldn’t do anything yet, Uncle!”
I asked why. He said this long-haired guy was very arrogant; whenever people were watching a movie, he would walk by and snap the TV off, and nobody dared to say anything, or whenever he felt like it, he would wave a broom and whip people for no reason.
Hearing that, I was already annoyed. My personality before, back when I was a freelance journalist, was that if a boss just scolded me unreasonably, I would talk right back; if they deliberately pushed it too far, I would quit the job. I thought to myself, if he whipped me for no reason, I would definitely strike back right away without thinking.
I pulled out a few thousand baht and told them to buy drinks for all the Vietnamese; at that time, there were about 25 Vietnamese in the room. Most of them had drifted to Thailand from scam centers in Cambodia and Myanmar and got arrested. The other prisoners from India, Pakistan, and Burma were unauthorized laborers or tourists who had lost their passports. The Chinese prisoners were mostly from scam centers as bosses, and their status was clearly superior to the other prisoners because they were numerous and had a lot of money.
The second deputy room head, after seeing me respond to the first guy’s arrogant scolding, walked over and asked: “Are you from camp…?” I shook my head. He said: “I know you’ve been to prison; I can tell by looking at your eyes.”
I smiled and didn’t say anything. During this time, the whole group of bosses, deputies, squad leaders… were all Pakistani. Which nationality held those positions was entirely spontaneous. Whichever group felt strong enough, had good relations with the guards, and staged an uprising to fight and force the others to submit would take charge and collect a head-tax fee.
Whoever didn’t have money to pay the fee had to wash dishes and clean up.
I must admit that Pakistani men have very imposing, Tu Hai-like appearances—bearded, dark, bushy, and big-built. When offered drinks, a few of the Vietnamese came over to introduce themselves and express their thanks.
I had brought quite a few anti-itch pills, Vitamin C, and a little money according to a younger brother’s advice. As for daily life, a group of 4 or 5 guys with a little money delegated an older guy named Nuốt to take care of washing clothes and doing odd jobs for the brothers in the corner. Nuốt was a deep-sea fisherman who had strayed into foreign waters and been captured. The last time, he was arrested in the Philippines and spent months before being released. Sơn was a drug dealer, and Hiển owned a large nightclub in Bangkok who had carelessly driven some Chinese criminals to commit a crime without knowing it, paying lawyers billions of dongs yet still unable to clear his name. He was handsome and good at everything; I lay next to him and loved listening to stories about his life.
By the second day, two Vietnamese guys got into a fight over money, and I tried to break it up to no avail. The deputy room heads came over and whipped their backs mercilessly until they stopped. I said: “Aren’t you guys stupid? Aggressive, I couldn’t stop you, hard head makes a soft ass. You had to let them whip your bodies to learn!”
Even so, minor fights still broke out occasionally. Perhaps when people’s psychological states are confined and distressed for a long time, explosions happen uncontrollably.
I had prepared beforehand, so I generously gave money to the whole group to buy extra food, soft drinks, and coffee. Anyway, I was only going to be there for a short time, while they didn’t know when they would see freedom.
There was a mentally ill prisoner in the room who had been there for all 16 years. He muttered like he was reading incantations all day long. When the room was crowded, if anyone accidentally touched him, he would leap up and curse fiercely right in people’s faces. Whoever smiled, he would curse at them too. Pretending to understand the language, with a deadpan face, I translated into Vietnamese: “Hey Sơn, I told you already, a drug dealer dying over women, obsessed with girls on TV, your dick is always standing up, blocking my path. Do you want me to smash your face? Hey Hiển, with that stuck-up face of yours, not even greeting an old man like me, you uneducated brat…” The Vietnamese laughed even louder, and the guy got even angrier without knowing that I was the culprit causing the laughter. In prison, when time drags on, any source of laughter is precious.
I had to rent a chessboard from the room head for 100 baht a day for nearly two weeks—even though buying one at an outside convenience store would cost less than 100 baht. My corner turned into a chess-playing nook, and I told myself this was the last time in my life I would allow myself to sink into a game I’ve loved since childhood. I just wanted to play until my brain was exhausted so I could sleep soundly at night. Sleeping is very difficult in here. The lights are always on, and cigarettes are smoked 24/7. Often my chest felt tight from the smoke.
The water for bathing was abundant, with a huge tank running water constantly. Vietnamese prisoners surely consider the prison here an ideal resort. I gave money to the guys in my group to buy extra boiled eggs to supplement their nutrition.
In short, there is nothing to complain about regarding the Thai authorities at the IDC. A tourism-oriented country sees people coming and going constantly—tourists losing passports, illegal workers and residents, scam criminals—and the way they handle things is quite good.
But then conflict arose between me and the deputy room heads. That day, dozens of Chinese guys were crammed into the room, bringing the total population to around 180 people. It wasn’t quite to the point of sleeping like spoons, but it was pretty cramped. The deputy room heads and squad leader shouted to herd people into spaces. Suddenly, I saw the second deputy room head punch and kick a Vietnamese guy violently. I went up and asked the guy who got beaten: “Why did he hit you?!”
He said: “I don’t know, he told me to clear some space and I was doing it, then he just hit me.”
“And you kept your mouth shut like a clam?” I asked, annoyed, especially since this guy was one of the ones who fought the other day and whom I couldn’t stop.
I walked over to the guy who had just hit him and asked: “Why did you hit him?!”
He turned around, glared, and yelled: “I f***ing care, go back to your spot and sit down!”
I glared back, telling myself not to rush, but I now had a good reason to deal with these guys.
I went back to my spot, sat down, looked over at them, and roared loud enough for the whole room to hear, thinking in my heart that earlier these guys wouldn’t let me speak loudly, now I’ll let them know what speaking loudly is: “Damn it, if you touch me, I’ll gouge your eyes out!”
They turned around and looked at me. I narrowed my eyes, still speaking in Vietnamese so the Vietnamese people knew what was happening: “You’re three times his size, why did you hit him like that, and for no reason at all!”
Then I said clearly: “Whoever considers themselves Vietnamese in this room, when I stand up, you must stand up; if you see me strike, you must rush in and hit them. If you let him get beaten for no reason once, he’ll just keep doing it!”
The two deputy room heads walked over. I stood up, and instantly all the Vietnamese guys around me stood up too. The other guys hesitated, and then the second deputy room head shouted loudly: “Pakistanis, stand up!” So the Pakistanis rushed over from the other side to the back of the room where we were standing.
I pointed at him and shouted loudly, this time in English: “You’re 3 times his size, yet you kicked him in the back like that? Do you treat us like animals that you can just beat whenever you want?”
The room head, rumored to have committed murder and spent a full decade in various Thai prisons, suddenly appeared and hurriedly waved his hands to intervene. An Indian guy—who called me father because I frequently gave him cigarettes and coffee, and who was the only one who spoke English to cure my boredom—also intervened: “Please don’t fight!” But the room head snapped: “Shut up!” The other guy instantly shut his mouth and went back to his spot.
In short, he said: “When there are many people, everyone has to endure a little. Now please sit down so we can arrange space for the Chinese and I’ll deal with the issue later.”
We sat down, and I praised Nuốt: “I like your attitude. Giving them that glare just now was good. Human beings must protest against injustice. Keeping your mouth shut and swallowing your humiliation is worse than being an animal.”
A few minutes later, the two deputy room heads walked near the middle of the room, and the first deputy pointed at me and said: “I’m going to deal with you!” I said: “Anytime!”
I understood “dealing with me” meant he was going to mess with me, but nature gifted me with a personality that doesn’t know fear. In this life, everything has a price; living true to my nature means even taking a heavy beating is fine.
K, the ranking guy from the scam center back in Myanmar, said that from now on whenever I go to the restroom, I should make sure to have them go with me. If I went in there without cameras, he would beat me. But nothing ever happened in the end. Perhaps seeing the solidarity of the Vietnamese made them weigh the pros and cons. If they acted as orderlies and couldn’t keep things under control, the guards would chew them out. Besides, we were only protesting the unwarranted beating of Vietnamese people; we had no intention of contesting their control or fee-collecting racket.
But one night, quite late—past 11 PM—I forgot the rule about not showering late. When I went in to splash water on myself, the first deputy shouted at me. I apologized properly, saying I didn’t know the rule, and slipped on my shorts. Belonging to the older generation, I was still a bit self-conscious, so I turned my back to put my pants on. He walked over, struck my back hard, and said: “Remember that!”
I turned around, glared, and said: “Are you joking or serious?! If you’re joking, don’t do that, or your jaw will drop off from my reflex!” Having said that, I slammed my hand hard against the restroom wall with a loud bang. He nodded, smiled, and said: “Ok, ok, I know!”
From that day on, whenever it got too hot at night, I had to secretly carry a bucket of water into the restroom to splash myself cool, pouring it very slowly to avoid making any noise.
From then on, I just stood up to do physical workouts and jumping jacks, ignoring the gazes of all the prisoners, thinking to myself: “You guys can just think of me as the third crazy guy in the room, so what?”
Then I pulled out two Hmong guys who had escaped from a scam center in Cambodia and taught them a bit of striking. The guards just ignored it. When I played chess and mealtime rolled around, instead of shouting, they would walk over and tap my hand gently as a reminder.
Then the two weeks were up. On the morning of my final health checkup as required by the UNHCR, I scrambled to exchange money, getting some crisp new 100-baht bills, and before being loaded onto the prison van with nearly 20 other people, I gave lucky money notes to the Vietnamese group as my last few bucks.
About 45 minutes after the New Year countdown, the plane took off to take me back to a snow-filled land. That was the night of February 17/2026. Master Grok read my horoscope a second time and predicted February 18, so it was only off by one day. Throughout the entire journey from the moment I received the summons until now, there seemed to be a deliberate arrangement and support from the Sacred Higher Beings. Your servant bows his head in profound gratitude to You! I vow to spend my entire life only doing good deeds and righteous work to help make Your world a better place.
—
ĐBC 8/8/2026