In A Wave of
Destruction, Erich Krauss conveys compelling stories of four Thai families
from Nam Khem, a fishing village in Thailand that went under the horrific
tsunami on December 26, 2004. The book
shows graphically the families’ struggle to survive the successive waves and aftermath
that included finding the bodies of loved ones, treating their injuries in
hospitals stretched beyond their limit, and how some heinous people took
advantage of the tragedy to line their pockets through looting and corruption. The stories of Wichien and Nang, Wimon, Puek
and Lek, and Dang made this book personable and the complexity of the Thai
culture aided in bringing understanding to some issues some of us don’t ever
think about.
The book is written in four parts:
Part One: Nam Khem
Part Two: The Wave
Part Three: The Hunt
for the Missing
Part Four: The Road
to Recovery.
The first part of the book describes how these four families
came to Nam Khem, in which most came out of desperation. Living in a more developed country such as
the United States, the struggles of those living in less developed countries are
often ‘invisible’ to us. Krauss
demonstrated that each of the families had lost a family member through
starvation or some other horrible circumstances. Money was scarce and there was nowhere for
them to live. Working for less than a
dollar a day, many of them slaved in tin mines and took jobs with abusive
bosses. Often times, these families had
to resort to stealing in order to feed their families and survive. After years of struggling, we slowly start to
see most of the families get back on their feet. These families had just found peace in their
lives; then the tsunami hit.
Krauss did a great job painting a picture through the
stories of these families. On the
morning of the day the tsunami hit, everything was completely normal. Some gathered their fishing gear and treated
the day as if it were any other day. These
families had no accessibility to media coverage and relied on one another for
safety. To imagine hearing the news that
a tsunami is coming from a neighbor minutes before it reaches my house is just
mind blowing. I can’t imagine the fear
these people felt, especially Puek, who was blind, and Wimon’s wife—she had
hurt her leg. All these issues tied together
made it worse when dealing with the aftermath of the disaster.
Reading Part Three of the book was very difficult. Krauss helped convey the aftermath of the
tsunami in a way that I couldn’t put the book down even if I wanted to. The emotional connections I felt disregarded
the social disparities I felt I had with the Thai. Dang, one of the
women in the book, spent days looking for the body of her daughter and hung
onto the hope she had when a neighbor mentioned he saw her running from the
wave. And even through the worst of times,
people took advantage of the tragedy in hopes to benefit themselves with land,
money, and bare necessities.
I appreciate Krauss in this regard, that he didn’t exclude
the underlying issues. He didn’t sugar
coat a story and end things on a happy note to sell a book. His writing drew in emotional connections,
thoughtful diction, and beautifully narrated real stories of real people in the
worst of times. The differences in MDC’s
and LDC’s could not be more prominent here.
Those interested in Asian cultures and who want to challenge themselves
to see a world through the lens of someone truly brave need to read this
book. I am forever changed.
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