Asian dogs

Women's bodies and religious wars

Ring tones as social capital

The color of male infidelity

'Lola' and child survival

Sitting on the moon

"Med-dah" is a Thai word borrowed from the Sanskrit mehta, a Buddhist concept that is often translated into "mercy" but actually comes closer to "loving kindness." It is the caring that one is supposed to extend, even in the worst of adverse situations, to all people, including those who have wronged you.

"Med-dah" is the title of a Thai film that I was fortunate to catch during a recent conference. At that showing, the producers -- Jeanne Hallacy, Lawan Jirasuradoj and Jamlong Saiyot -- talked about how they produced this touching film.

The film starts out with Luk Nam, an 11-year-old girl, blowing bubbles with two younger girls: her bedridden sister Nam Fon and another girl Poi. As the film unfolds, we learn that the two younger girls have AIDS. We hear Luk Nam's voice as she reads from a diary she's kept for some time now.

Earlier, Luk Nam had lost her mother to AIDS, the mother having been infected by Luk Nam's stepfather. The mother became pregnant with Nam Fon, who was born already with the virus. Luk Nam herself is not infected, having been born before the mother had acquired the virus.

It is a typical story, says Father Joe, an American Catholic priest who manages the hospice where the film was shot. The man picks up the virus in casual or commercial sex, passes it on to his wife who becomes pregnant and transmits the virus on to the fetus. We have similar cases in the Philippines. Last year I attended a funeral for a male overseas worker who had been infected while abroad. His widow sat quietly at the wake, herself quite ill with AIDS.

Most of the films and media stories about AIDS -- whether in the United States, the Philippines or Thailand -- are really more of morality plays, focusing on the sex worker, a "bad girl" who gets infected and infects others, or the promiscuous male. We forget that in the real world, many women who are absolutely faithful to one man still get infected. And because the infection can be "silent" (i.e., without symptoms) for many years, she can inadvertently pass on HIV during a pregnancy.

"Med-dah" doesn't go into all these details. Instead, it focuses on the way people care for each other, without conditions, amid this tragedy of AIDS. The film does not idealize this loving kindness, showing the caregivers grappling with their feelings. Luk Nam is the most troubled, having to deal with repeated losses -- first her mother, then Nam Fon, then Poi.

The makers of "Med-dah" said that Luk Nam clearly had problems opening up during interviews when they began filming. When they discovered she had been keeping a diary, with very descriptive and moving passages, they had her read from her journal instead of having to talk to the camera.

The result is a powerful narrative, Luk Nam becoming a young and articulate spokesperson for humanity, with all the dilemmas we face in life. We learn of her yearning for her mother and her stepfather, even if those memories include seeing that stepfather turning violent with the mother.

We learn of how cruel children can be as Luk Nam narrates how she is taunted in school, as the girl from an AIDS family. There are scenes showing her with many classmates, but you can see she is feeling terribly alone. The irony is that within the hospice, amid the shadow of AIDS, Luk Nam had found friendship, only to lose those friends one by one.

Having mentioned how cruel children can be, I have to qualify that adults may be worse, with their polite silence. The filmmakers talked about how difficult it had been for them to get "Med-dah" on Thai television, and how it had been turned down from a Bangkok Film Festival. There were all kinds of excuses, of course, but they all boil down to AIDS being something many Thais still refuse to talk about, despite the fact that there are at least 600,000 and maybe as many as a million people living with HIV in that country.

Without films like "Med-dah," many Thais will continue to think of the disease as a distant threat, affecting "only" sex workers, until, rather belatedly, HIV strikes a friend or relative. This tragedy could not have been made more real than in the production of the film itself. During the symposium, Jamlong Saiyot, the young associate producer, talked about growing up in the countryside in an impoverished community. AIDS was something remote, until he lost his mother to the epidemic. The mother also acquired the infection from her husband.

Jamlong is more fortunate than Luk Nam in terms of his prospects for the future. He's older, and is now in college, with a possible career in filmmaking. In contrast, Luk Nam is all alone, living in a Catholic Church shelter.

In her journal, Luk Nam talks about wanting to be a bird, soaring to "the end of the sky" to look for her mother and her sister, and flying on to sit on the moon and watch the stars. She pauses, perhaps aware it's all wistful thinking, and yet drawing comfort from her imaginary flights: "Right now, I'm alive."

"Med-dah" speaks of human tenacity, but there are other messages we need to pick up, the main one being this: For each of the 42 million people now estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS, we have to remember there are millions more affected without knowing they have the virus: someone's son or daughter, someone's brother or sister. In denying the need to face up to the epidemic and the need for sex education, we gamble with the lives of these children.