![]() What is The Queens of Dragon Town about?
In the fall of 2013, American Norm Schriever is traveling in Southeast Asia when Super Typhoon Haiyan strikes the region – the largest recorded storm ever to make landfall. Stranded on an island far out to sea, Schriever is unable to evacuate and has to hunker down to endure the storm along with the rest of the islanders. Though the heart of the typhoon just misses the island, Schriever’s blogs and videos of the devastation land on Good Morning America, CNN’s Anderson Cooper, and media all around the world. But in the storm’s aftermath, he finds himself cut off from his bank account, without his passport, and unable to leave the island. Luckily, Schriever is taken in by the most improbable and humble of islanders, in a place called Dragon Town – where good people often have to do bad things just to survive. Combining everything he saw and experienced in Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and The Philippines, The Queens of Dragon Town is the true story of a simple island girl, sent to the city in the wake of the typhoon to find the only work she can get as a bar girl, making the ultimate sacrifice to honor her elderly mother. This visceral exposé bares its fangs at the cruel dynamics of wealth, power, and the dangers of unchecked greed so prevalent in Asia – and throughout the world – as well as the hopelessness of poverty that is the hardest of all to overcome. |