July 11, 2009
10:07pm
While driving back from Kep today and seeing all walks of Cambodian life from the city to the sea, I was calmed by a deep sense that Cambodia was going to make it. Six years ago when I first stepped foot here all I took in was despair – people scraping by aimlessly, unsure of possibility. The second time around (my first Trek) I only sensed numbness and hopelessness – the dust and dirt of an unclean past. The third time was when I finally saw the rain clouds gathering – in the ready hands and perked ears of youth who believed they carried their country’s fate; they’d grown up and were ready to take the reigns. And during the fourth, fifth, and now sixth time it has been full on raining the most beautiful vibrancy of life. There is brightness and buoyancy instead of lackadaisical despair; hustle and bustle instead of We can’t. There is intense pride in nation religion king, and a thirst for a reinstated place in the world that seems nearly unquenchable.
Much of it is due to the fact that Cambodia has grown up. But I know that I have too, and the perspective gained with each passing year and each of my sojourns here only leaves me wanting the next time to come sooner.
July 12, 2009
The other.
I met an archaeologist today who is here doing research on ancient beads. When I mentioned that one of my relatives had purchased a pendant made of these ancient stones (which were likely looted from ancient graves), I got quite the look of disgust followed by a curt admonishment: “That is probably THE WORST THING anyone could do in Cambodia.”
Okay…
I agree that looting heritage pieces is a terrible thing and I even had a few admonishments of my own to share with my relative. However, the comment from the archaeologist affected me a lot and I have only today realized exactly what it was that bothered me so much.
I liken it to what some Khmers (or insert any other group) must feel like when foreigners come here and tell them what to do. They stand on morally high ground and dictate what is right and what is wrong – Don’t you know the value of this?! But I’ve been asking the same question for years: Who decides what is right and what is wrong?
What if, if I can play devil’s advocate for a minute, being dug up and sold is the destiny of the stones – to be the source of income for a poor farmer or street kid who happened upon an ancient tomb. Is there something so wrong about that? What if that was fate and not a violation of world heritage? The victor is not so clear sometimes in science vs. supernatural.
I guess what bothered me the most was the entitlement this researcher felt – that these stones be safeguarded for the sake of world heritage. I agree with her that they must be protected but something still bothers me about this legitimate looting of ancient treasures to be kept “safe” in museums and research laboratories, to become the subjects for dissertations and fortunes galore. Yes this research augments our understanding of our history and our humanity, but it does make you wonder what sacredness is violated in the process and for whom the heritage is preserved for…
July 13, 2009
“I have a son. Well, I had a son.”
I met C at RISC, an NGO that helps to reintegrate Cambodian-American deportees into Khmer society. For the last decade, Cambodian American non-citizens, including those who were granted refugee status in the early 1980s, have been deported back to Cambodia if they commit certain misdemeanors and felonies. Once they get here they face many obstacles to integration into life here and many fall back into the same cycles they were trapped in back in the US.
What struck me about what C said was the permanency of it – the undeniable certainty that he would live and die in Cambodia and that he would never set foot in the U.S. again. These returnees are asked to forget the United States, and along with it all of the bonds that tethered them to the only life they know.
***
I have run into some of the returnees at clubs and bars in Phnom Penh from time to time, still in their baggy shirts and sagging jeans. You would think they were tourists – grossly out of place but enjoying it, and you would think they would try to conform and fit in to Khmer life. Perhaps what America does to us is just done so deep that even distance and desolation cannot sever it.
July 15, 2009
Half of the time that I sit in Khmer class, I’m mad. 1. Now that I’ve been a teacher I can’t help but critiquing every decision the teacher makes, and 2. The content is infuriating. We talk about a lot of current events and our readings offer a survey of the different structures and institutions in Cambodia. With the level of corruption and mismanagement that exists in each area of governance, our conversations just generally leave me adding to the pile of rubbish that is all the things that are wrong with Cambodia. It’s hard to accept corruption as the modus operandi, but almost harder to be optimistic about change.
***
I long for the day when the opening paragraph of every article/book/pamphlet about Cambodia starts with something beautiful rather than something tragic, for the day when atrocity is no longer the hook. I wish Cambodia was known for its magic and wonder, and not solely its heartache.
July 19, 2009
4:15pm
I have been thinking a lot about Moses - he who was rejected by his people at first but turned out to be the leader for the Jewish Exodus. He was a Jew, but grew up as the prince of Egypt in the throngs of luxury, power and prestige. After murdering a fellow Egyptian (motivated by justice?) and then later threatened by Jewish witnesses (motivated by bitterness?), Moses decided to flee what he knew, to entrust himself to what he didn’t.
Moses’ story parallels the experience of second-generation children of immigrants and refugees like myself, who, having grown up swaddled in the privileges that growing up in the US bestows (for the most part), will likely have to come and wrestle with perplexities of identity and purpose. In my travels here in Cambodia I always feel like an outsider and wonder if, in the long run, it really is a good idea to try and live and work here. Won’t I just be rejected? Won’t I just be looked at as the American? Could my efforts ever be received as genuine, as from one within?
As the story goes, God calls Moses clearly and equips him adequately to make the journey to Egypt to lead his people out of bondage. Moses’ bi-culturality is not a curse but a gift, and what was once his demise becomes his treasure.
I am waiting for my burning bush.
***
When I talk to Khmer people here, the same thing always happens – initially it is friendly banter in Khmer, and everyone is so excited that I can speak Khmer so well – “Wow your teacher in Japan must be really good!” Once I reveal that my parents are from Cambodia and I grew up speaking Cambodian, the tenor of the conversation shifts instantaneously from friendly banter about my size and small eyes to ok-now-we’re-talkin’-for-real. They will inevitably tell me how hard it is to live in Cambodia, how little money they make, how corrupt things are, how I am so lucky, how I am so blessed, how they could find a wife for me if I wanted. I certainly enjoy the realness and trust that the kinship of language cultivates, but sometimes it seems to only lead me to feeling more guilty and to them feeling even more misfortunate. Sometimes silence seems like the better exchange.
Further thoughts from the end of July to mid-August
On Language
Language is the key to unlocking the heart, mind, and soul of a culture. The more you learn, the more you realize what you don’t know about a people or a place or a culture. It’s amazing that cultures come up with language to express so many different common human emotions. My main purpose here in Cambodia this summer has been to learn Khmer language at a more advanced level. I’m proud to say that my proficiency has increased by leaps and bounds. Now I’ll just need some people in the Bay to talk to in order to keep improving!
Lack of Inspiration
In general, it has been hard to write because aside from schoolwork, I don’t have many experiences with the Cambodia I know. I generally just go to class, do all of our program activities, and study at night. Note to self: be in/go to/look for/ create the experiences that inspire. (And I fear grad school may not be one of them…)
August Travels
Bad Neighbor
Vietnam has always been both a boon and a bother to Cambodia. With a history of entanglement that goes back thousands of years, and contemporary relations that are too close for comfort (to some), Cambodia and Vietnam are still figuring out how they can be good neighbors to each other.
Reconciliation may come when they realize that their stories are inextricably linked.
We visited the War Remnants Museum in Saigon, dedicated to bringing American war crimes during the Vietnam War to light. It is a sobering place, where truth comes distorted in a way we Americans are not used to. As I walked through the galleries and exhibit halls of Agent Orange victims, of village massacres and maps blackened with dots that indicated heavy shelling, I could not help but think that the fates of Cambodia and Vietnam intertwined. What happened in Vietnam was a harbinger for what was to happen in Cambodia, and how Vietnam is developing now hints at how Cambodia could look in the next decade.
Cambodians may think that Vietnam is the “bad neighbor” they’d rather not meddle with, but I hope that they can come to see that their histories and fates are enmeshed in each other’s in way that makes their prejudices and fears seem petty.
August 24, 2009
11:59am
Last Night In Phnom Penh
I walked everywhere today, thinking it would be the most romantic means for a long goodbye. I know I won’t be able to return to Cambodia next summer, so who knows when I’ll get to see her again. I am anxious for our next adventure already – a wanderlust to the core.
In a year’s time she’ll be all grown up – with lights and life that will mystify me yet again. She’ll smell different and look bolder, assured in her growth and promise. She will pulse with the pangs of youth; her heart beating to a new yet undefined rhythm. She will be a pearl again, and I will be sad to miss it.
***
One of my last memories will be of a boy, about 11 or 12 years old, rummaging through a heap of trash alone in front of the Central Market, looking for food to eat. I think back to one of my earliest reflections, to how my feet were so clean – to how my experience this summer rarely had me confront the face of poverty and powerlessness. I chose to keep walking. And now this boy remains but a shadow, shrouded by the emptiness of the city at night, and the sound of Styrofoam and plastic tossed aside.
***
***
Four waterways converge in Phnom Penh at Chaktomuk, and the confluence of muddy waters with muddier ones results in a natural phenomenon every year, when the rush of the Mekong River, surging with Tibetan ice melt, changes the direction of the Tonle Sap River’s flow. The Tonle Sap River, who had been for most of the year emptying out the great Tonle Sap Lake and meandering down towards the Mekong Delta, for a few months instead flows back into the lake, enlarging it to four times its normal size.
It is this confluence that for now captures my thoughts and reflections and yearnings. I’m a mix of experiences and wanderings, of dreams and hesitations, of grand plans and simple ones – and the confluence of them, though muddy and swirling and unclear as it may be, at least assures me that I am headed somewhere good and necessary.
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