While it's tempting to post a commentary on idiot celebs who flaunt their wealth by carrying around scads of cash in $5,000 purses, I'd rather tell you about an act of kindness that touched me deeply and reminded me what Christmas is supposed to be about.

As mentioned in this blog before, I'm producing videos about human trafficking in Hawaii. Our first one, which can be viewed at www.808HALT.com, focused on the sex trade and how local organizations are helping survivors rebuild their lives. The second video will be about trafficking related to Hawaii agriculture. However, it was difficult to interview actual victims for a couple of reasons: they were fearful of being deported if they went public, and many do not speak English.

Through Nora at the Pacific Gateway Center (Andy South's mother) we were able to sit down with a Thai farm worker named Samian. His tale is similar to many trafficking victims. They had a simple plan. Come to America through recruiters, make enough in the first year to pay off the fee ($15K to $20K each), then send back money to their families during the second and third year. Considering they were making less than $2K per year in Thailand or Laos or Vietnam, you can see why it seemed like a good idea on paper. But there was no way they could ever pay off the recruiters' fees and make a profit because they also had to pay for food and housing in an expensive place to live.

Samian's odyssey began over six years ago. He left behind a wife, a toddler and a young son. I'm not sure of exact ages and dates because much was lost in the translation -- even Samian had trouble recounting the details. Through Global Horizon, the company that imported these foreign laborers for farm owners, he was sent to Florida... Colorado... New York... Washington state... then he worked in California before he wound up on the Big Island. Of all the farms, he said conditions were the worst in Hawaii. He lived in a 2-room shack with eight men sharing one bathroom. They often went hungry because they weren't paid what they were promised or only given small increments.

It took years for him to be certified as a trafficking victim. But with the help of immigration attorneys and the Pacific Gateway Center, he was reunited with his two sons in Hawaii. By then, his wife had divorced him, and the boys had grown up in his absence. Can you imagine being separated from your kids for five or six years while they were so young? Yet many of these foreign laborers are willing to leave for two or three years just to provide a better life for their families. That kind of sacrifice is not unusual for them.

My cameraman and I drove up to Samian's farm on the North Shore last week. Through Nora and PGC, he was given a small loan to raise and sell fish (tilapia and giant catfish). Unfortunately, it hasn't been making much money, so he's attempting to level out the hilly farm land and intends to plant lemon trees and grow bananas. When we first arrived at the farm, Nora wasn't there to translate and we had a hard time communicating. He would gesture and speak a word or two of English, but to be truthful, I really had no idea what he was saying.

He picked up a folding table, carried it across the field he's been trying to level by hand (no tractor), then carried over four white plastic chairs to the spot. We just needed to pick up some b-roll shots of Samian and Nora walking around the farm -- background stuff. I guess he thought we were going to do another sit-down interview though, so he was trying to find a good spot for us in the shade with a nice view of the valley below. He brought over a plastic wash basin in which he had bottled water for us. I sat and waited for Nora, but she got stuck in a typical North Shore traffic jam.

After awhile, I walked over to Samian's house on the farm. It's really a shack, but he doesn't have to share it with a bunch of other men, and he has a satellite dish, plus running water and electricity -- unlike some of the other places he lived in over the past few years. I noticed he had a stalk of apple bananas propped against the front wall and a green coconut next to it. Probably tomorrow's breakfast, I thought. When I turned, I saw Samian was moving the table and chairs over to the area where I was now standing. I tried to tell him it wasn't necessary since we we didn't need the chairs or table. But he just wanted to accommodate us and make me feel comfortable while we were visiting.

Finally, Nora arrived and began translating to Samian what kind of shots we wanted to get. I asked if he had photos of his family from before he left Thailand. He went inside and rummaged around. Five minutes later, he emerged with a broken picture frame that had some photos of the boys. Nora explained to me that the oldest son (age 18) is living in town now. The 8-year-old is living with Samian on the farm, which is difficult because Samian speaks no English and the boy is trying to adapt to school here. I kept thinking to myself how hard it must be for him and his sons...

After we finished filming, I was about to get in my car and Samian waved at me. He picked up the banana stalk and coconut to give them to me. There had to be at least fifty tiny green and yellow apple bananas on that stalk, and I don't know how to crack open a green coconut. But I couldn't say no to his act of generosity. I'm not sure if he had intended to give them to me from the start, or if it was just a spontaneous gesture.

When I got home, I shared the bananas with my neighbors and told them they came from a farmer in Kahuku. They have no idea how many miles that man has traveled, how many hours he's toiled in fields all over the U.S., or how many years he was separated from his children, relatives and friends in a faraway country. Yet he wanted to give me something of his for no other reason than kindness.

It made me think about how fortunate I am. It is a gift I will always remember.

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If you know someone with a used or old tractor they might want to donate or sell cheap to Samian, please call me at 262-5073.

For daily viewing times of my Career Changers TV show, please visit our website or check out videos from past and current episodes on the CCTV YouTube Channel. Mahalo for watching!

Last week, the newly-formed 808HALT coalition launched its campaign to educate the public about human trafficking in Hawaii. Through my Career Changers TV program, I was brought on board to produce a series of videos about the subject. You can view it on the www.808halt.com site or CCTV YouTube Channel (links at bottom of post).

It's a sobering contrast to our current October CCTV show, which has a fun Halloween theme. But the real life stories I heard from sex trafficking survivors are truly scary. We've altered their voices and concealed their identities in the videos because the pimps who beat them and threatened to harm their families, are still walking around Honolulu free. In part, it's because government budget cuts result in some cases just being put aside.

Although the sex trade is probably the most visible aspect of human trafficking, it's also happening in other areas. The Aloun Farms case brought attention to bigger agricultural operations. But it's happening on small farms too. Again, due to lack of funds, less inspections are being carried out so it's hard to say how widespread the problem is here. I also have heard that it's happening in local restaurants, where dishwashers and cooks are brought to Hawaii under false promises of long-term visas and good paying jobs.

One occupation I didn't associate with trafficking are those kids who go door-to-door selling magazine subscriptions. Turns out many of them were coerced and physically threatened after being told they could earn money while traveling around the country. I remember seeing ads for those jobs years ago when I was fresh out of college, looking for opportunities to see the world. I even went to a seedy hotel room in Times Square to interview with a shady character named "Mr. Venus" for one of those magazine sales jobs. Hard to believe that stuff is still going on.

During the interviews we filmed for the first HALT video, Kathy Xian, the director of the Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery, noted that prostitution has been referred to as "the oldest profession." She said it should be called "the oldest oppression" and refers to survivors as "prostituted persons" instead of labeling them as prostitutes, which implies they voluntarily chose to sell themselves. In most cases, she says the women were forced into working in brothels, massage parlors or put out on the streets. With APEC coming to town next month, expect to see a major influx of women brought in by pimps.

To find out more about the HALT project, please visit the website by clicking here. You can also view a larger version of the video on the CCTV YouTube Channel (click here).

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The premiere of the October Halloween episode last Thursday was preempted by high school volleyball, which pushed back the starting time about 15 minutes. If you recorded it and missed the second half of the show, which included segments on two costume shops and an interesting piece about Argosy University's Marriage & Family Therapy program, you can tune in this Thursday night at 8:30 PM to see the rest of the show. For other viewing times, you can check our schedule at www.CareerChangers.TV.

While out on shoots the past week, it occurred to me that it's starting to seem like Halloween every day. Case in point, the photo above was taken at the Hawaii Entertainment Expo Experience (HEXXP) last Friday and Saturday at the Blaisdell. That's Kira Cowles and Selina Sonoda, both 20-year-olds from Kailua, who came as characters from an anime they're into. We'll be running a segment on that event in our November show. Lots of cool stuff to tell you about!

But first, you gotta watch our special Halloween episode, which premieres Thursday night, Oct. 6, at 8:30 PM on OC16. The lead-off segment on Eric West, a.k.a. Professor Pandemonium, will have you shaking your head in disbelief when you see his sideshow feats of wonder, which are likely to make you go ewwww.... Good fun. He's more of a performance artist really, and his loft reflects his commitment to helping promote other creative types in Chinatown as well.

Then there's the segments on Yvette LaFontaine's Costume Closet shop in Kaimuki, where we did the segment intros with host Theresa Tilley, news about Goodwill's big costume contest, and a fun piece on Kharolina's costume business. Some of her outfits (and one of her friends) appeared in the Hawaii Five-O episode that involved a guy dressed up as a superhero at a costume ball or something. To be honest, like most of the forgettable 5-0 plots, I can't recall what that episode was about.

If you DVR the show Thursday night, don't fast forward through the Diversified Exterminators commercials! I added some special sound effects  to fit the Halloween theme.

You can find daily viewing times at www.CareerChangers.tv or get a sneak peek at segments from the new show by visiting the CCTV YouTube Channel (click here). You'll also see new videos posted for the www.808HALT.com project on human trafficking in Hawaii that I'm producing videos for. It's sobering stuff, which I'll be writing more about next week.

Although the Aloun Farms case has been dismissed, it raised the issue of human trafficking in Hawaii, which has been largely overlooked. In part, that's because victims are working in jobs that are removed from the public eye. Immigrants are lured here (allegedly) to toil in fields, do low-paying service jobs in hotels/restaurants or the garment industry, and forced into prostitution... or are they?

Even the Aloun case divided the Laotian community here. The Alou brothers, who immigrated from Laos, had many friends and supporters that saw them as being a success story -- the epitome of the American Dream. Others believed they were exploiting Thai workers for personal profit. All I know is farming is a tough business, and this particular problem has been going on for decades in the U.S. When I was a rookie reporter way back in 1979, I did a story about migrant workers in rural North Jersey, where I saw the barracks-style housing they lived in. They were mostly Hispanic. The farmers said it came down to simple economics: if Americans want to eat cheap, the farm owners had no choice but to hire the cheapest labor they could find.

Trafficking happens in other lines of work, including the sex trade. Last week, I interviewed three former prostitutes as part of a public awareness project I'm involved with. I'll be producing video segments and Public Service Announcement spots about human trafficking, and resources available to victims -- or for people who know possible victims, and want to help them get out of those situations. It's challenging though because as one of the women told us, some prostitutes are doing it by choice. She admitted that she wasn't totally naive when she was brought to Hawaii on a "vacation trip" by her pimp. When she tried to leave him, he held her over a lanai railing 20-some floors above the ground, then beat her severely.

What's amazing is how resilient these women are. Each had terrible, sickening stories about the fear they lived in. It makes you angry and sad that anyone can be so cruel. It made me ashamed to be a man. Yet another former streetwalker said a lot of johns didn't want sex -- they just wanted to talk to her. That's sad too... there's so many lonely people out there, who want any kind of human connection they can get. Even if they have to pay for it. I honestly don't know what the answer is to dealing with prostitution. But if a woman wants to get out of the business, then the law and society should do all it can to protect her from pimps.

I'll be working with the Pacific Gateway Center, along with four other non-profits and Communications Pacific, which will be handling the print materials part of the public awareness campaign. We're talking to professionals who deal with trafficking victims on a daily basis. But if you know someone who survived such a situation and would like to share their story, please contact me. We will maintain their anonymity if they prefer and can alter their voices/image so no one will recognize them on the videos. Although we have access to videos and photos from the federal agency that is overseeing this project, we believe the most effective stories we can share are from local survivors who can tell what happened in their native language. This will truly be a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic effort we're putting together.

You can email leads to me: richfigel@gmail.com

Or call me at 262-5073. All information will remain confidential. Also, if you have suggestions as to how to best raise awareness about trafficking and resources available to victims,  please feel free to post them in the comments section below.

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For daily viewing times and other useful job-related links, please visit www.CareerChangers.TV. You can also watch video segments from past and current episodes on the CCTV YouTube Channel. Mahalo!