Kanitha Heng

Blog Update: Back to the Blogging World

2010-07-01T23:44:00.003-07:00

So I know I have been M.I.A. for a long while (3 months?). For that, I apologize, BUT in good news, I have begun blogging again. If you enjoyed my blog on the time I spent in Cambodia, you may enjoy my new blog which I have named Experiments With Pharmakon. Wondering why? You can read about the genesis of this blog here. A few things about my new blog: it's not honed in on any one subject nor place as this blog is. It is a cornucopia of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and as my tag line reads, "anything in between." I invite you to read my first few posts, which include a short story I've been working on: Pare Jones. Don't forget to add this blog to your reader: http://kanithaheng.wordpress.com/!

Left in Vertigo

2010-04-02T20:42:00.003-07:00

During my last few weeks in Cambodia, I didn’t want to blog (and to the avid readers of my blog, I apologize for that). For some intangible reason, writing about the events that were happening at that time, the words that were spoken, threatened my experience. I didn’t want to intrude on the experiences or alter them by writing about them. I’m not entirely sure this makes sense, but I’ll try to articulate these feelings as best I can. During these last weeks, I wanted to live, to really live. I didn’t want to worry about writing, and when I began blogging about my experiences in December, I fell into the weekly routine of doing so at least twice or three times a week. This is the expectation I set up for myself, and I felt that it was an obligation I now had to others as well. What I mean by saying I wanted to live is perhaps best described by Oscar Wilde’s words: “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist.” Blogging during these weeks seemed to me a way of just “exist[ing]” because I would have written the bare facts, but doing so would have diminished my experience that I knew would be much more powerful than these facts that were composed of a series of events. Existing and living can be thought of as closely related words, but the latter connotes a passion that is absent in the former. I wanted to live, and then later, when the time was right, write with the intensity and passion driven by experience coupled with deep reflection and understanding.

The life of a writer involves an unveiling of the self, and it seems that the good writer exposes herself nakedly before others, keeping no secrets, and refusing to be limited (or self-limit). I’ve been thinking about writing a lot lately, and this is in large part because I have been deciding on what MFA program I want to enroll in this upcoming fall. In particular, I’ve been thinking about blogging. What is it? With my own experience in blogging and judging from reading other blogs, the nature of the writing is oftentimes casual. Now, I’m not saying that all blogs feature writing that is less probing or serious, but it is for me the kind of writing that is in the first stage of the writing process, the immediate finger to keyboard thoughts. I can’t speak for other bloggers, but I can safely assume I think, that heavy revision is not required of the blog. The blog is quick, easy to scan, easy to access. That’s the beauty of it.

Towards the end of my stay in Cambodia, I began to feel things—things that I hadn’t really felt before during my time there, things that I couldn’t pinpoint or express in words for I had yet to understand or identify them. I still have yet to identify these feelings. I guess that’s what living is—feeling. For someone who is somewhat a connoisseur of words, it seems odd to me that I can’t describe these feelings. Happy. Sad. Angry. Emphatic. Disheartened. Disillusioned. Nostalgic. Nope, none suffice.

The act of leaving a place does this; it complicates feelings and displaces you onto the brink where you’re not yet gone, but almost, and so you’re not entirely present either. You’re already thinking about the future when this place becomes another place you’ve left, the people you’ve met characters of your brief story, and slowly your tongue no longer twists to form the soft th sounds of your mother and father’s language, and you’ve lost what you had gained over these months. You fear loss.

Or, at least I do.

I am sitting now in my nicely heated room. Birds chirp. Dogs bark. No chickens squawk. I’m back in Highlands Ranch, Colorado—a suburb composed mainly of monopoly-like homes tucked discreetly into organized rows. I used to complain of this suburb as being a place that lacked character because every “thing” is seemingly so uniformly the same. Things. We always notice things. The material. The house or car or ring or phone. It’s all about these things.

Right now, these things don’t matter to me. But I fear that the longer I am here in America where I was born, these things will start to matter again. People should matter more than things. I think this is a pretty simple concept, and I think in every situation it holds true.

I’m scrambling right now to identify my feelings, and it’s not working out so well. Maybe, there’s a reason they’re unclear to me. You see, I’m sort of rambling in this post, but this is how I feel. A little bit topsy-turvy. A little bit like I’m standing on one foot. Or like I’m a quarter spinning, and about to land, splat, head on the ground.

That’s what leaving feels like. Twisting, turning, directionless, moving, and then, falling, finally, into vertigo.

I’m beginning another journey now, a separate one but very connected one to my journey in Cambodia over the past four months. My new journey is one through memory—some recent, others old, some known, others buried. This will be my last post on my trip to Cambodia for a while as I return to write and re-write the memoir I’ve been working on these past few years. I leave you with a prose poem I wrote a while back that captures this feeling of mine that I can best describe now as vertigo.

Vertigo

That final shot got me, as I lay down only to get the spins. Unleveled, I sway without moving, or is it my eyes that did the swaying? Like a child with wings spread, turning foot by foot, round and round and round, and when stopped, the world shakes for a few moments. Not knowing if I’m upside down or right side up. The ease of being out of control, for once, and not knowing when my next breath will be and what will happen when it comes. It’s nice. Slow-motion inhalations and exhalations as I watch life through foggy, little windows. Playing connect the dots. The game of tops. Quarters set in motion, with quick twists that slow to a wobble and fall. Moments pass and the ground becomes still. My body moves. Boredom sets in.

Being a Hater and a Lover: Phnom Penh Compacted

2010-03-06T01:28:00.005-07:00

The writer’s block that inspired my last post still plagues me. One of the tricks I’ve picked up from an undergraduate class with memoirist Jennifer Brice is creating lists as a step to begin writing. This is an exercise I’ve used with my students at the Nou Hach Literary Journal, a literary organization here in Phnom Penh. While some may think of doing writing exercises as a “thing” for novices, I’ve been doing exercises ever since I started writing. Plus, lists are fun. The following two lists are written in no particular order and are full of my biases. Take it with a grain of rice. Cliché remark? Absolutely. I’m totally failing as a writer today.

6 Things I Hate About Phnom Penh:

1) The Trash

A pile of smoke rises from the side of the road. From Uncle’s yard. Next to the vendor selling grilled potato cakes and bananas. Oh, no worries. It’s just trash burning. That’s the way many people eliminate their waste here. Or, it’s dumped into the river. “I don’t go one day without smelling this sweetness,” my friend Chakrya tells me sarcastically as we drive past a river of sewage. Now, let’s talk litter. Much of the city looks as if an evil magic fairy sprinkled Coke cans and scraps of banana leaves and wood confetti over the land and water. Try to sweep that shit up, Cintri.

2) The Stench

OK, so the smell of trash is an ashy-burnt-plastic kind of smell. When I speak of “the stench,” I mean the city carries with it a special scent that is vomit inducing at first, and unfortunately, after being here for nearly four months, I have now become accustomed to it. But let me go back to my first experience taking in the city’s odor. Say you were making a mixed drink. Perhaps Fear-Factor style, and you want to put in the nastiest ingredients. Piss. Gasoline. Burnt hair. Dog shit. Human shit. Exhaust. Rotten milk. Gutted fish. Days of unflushed excrement. Shake it all up in a blender, and take a whiff of that. Hellooo, Phnom Penh. OK, OK. I might be being a little unfair here because ¼ of the city doesn’t smell like this. Congrats to this lucky crowd.

3) The Night Noise

So, if you read my earlier post on “Leaving Harpswell,” you’ll find that I am ambivalent towards “the night noise.” In some ways, my earlier post suggests that I might even like it. Well, today, I must tell you that I’ve changed my mind. For troubled sleepers like myself, take heed of this advice: bring some Ambien if you’re going to visit this city. When I lived in Brooklyn, NY for a brief time, I was troubled by the late-night honking, early morning construction, police-whistles, the old-crazy-polka-dot dress lady hollering at 2 AM, the babies balling. Phnom Penh is like this, but consists of different sounds. Like roosters crowing, dogs fighting, bakers clanging, carpenters banging, hookers prowling, karaoke-all-night-long. And right now as I am tapping away at my now dirty white laptop due to the dusty city and my carelessness, all I wish for is that my neighbor sing a different song. This ShinEE one is way overplayed in my head. (For those who do not know of the pop-scene here in SEA, this Korean boy band is an obsession of the teenybopper crowd. Confession: I went to their concert at the Olympic Stadium here in Phnom Penh. Don’t judge me. I was the responsible adult of four teens.)

4) The Showers

I. Like. Hot. Showers. If you want one, and you’re going to live here, forget about it. (Unless you live in one of those uppity villas or American-like gated neighborhoods).

5) The Traffic

Phnom Penh is a relatively small city. Traffic consists of a conglomeration of cars, trucks, motos, cyclos and tuk-tuks. All mushed together like one of those nutty cheese balls. Where’s the public transportation? At one time, public transport did exist. With the current urban sprawl, the city is becoming overcrowded with people and vehicles. Public transportation could certainly alleviate this problem. Also, it is an easy city to walk, especially if one lives in a neighborhood that typically has all the services one needs. But nobody walks. Why? There are no sidewalks (except near the Independence Monument and riverside). And walking in the streets might be a recipe for disaster. “Hey, Lexus. Run me over” is the sign on your $2 T-shirt.

6) The MSG

It’s unavoidable, unless you want to be the horrid foreigner who prefers only to eat at borathiy or Westernized places. Usually when I eat out, I request that MSG not be added to my food. Whether or not this really happens, I’m not sure, but I feel better that I’ve at least tried to avoid it. Usually restaurants and vendors have pre-made broths or porridges from the morning and have already added MSG to these dishes, so I wouldn’t expect an MSG-free bowl to be made just for me. Most of these places nod to my request, and bring me out a my dish three minutes later. Some places do advertise that they are MSG-free. Be wary, however, these are the less authentic Khmer places. Saying that Khmer Kitchen is really Khmer is as if saying that Chipotle is real Mexican food (No less love to Chipotle, however).

6 Things I Love About Phnom Penh:

1) The People

I’ve never been surrounded by so many Cambodians. Go figure. I’m from Denver where the entire Cambodian community can probably fit under one rooftop. I went to Colgate University where there was one other Cambodian: Robert. I’ve never really had a Cambodian friend growing up. And now...I have over fifty. Also, they’re awesome. Most of the people I meet whether they are strangers or family members have large welcoming smiles when I see them. The people here radiate more warmth than I’ve ever felt in another place. Maybe it’s because I’m Cambodian that I feel so, but I think not. Many foreigners who I’ve met have voiced this same feeling of warmness and kindness experienced when interacting with Khmers. The big smiles and welcoming nature of Khmers is in part cultural, I think, but more so, I have a feeling that it stems from somewhere much deeper...I’ve yet to put a finger on where this is however.

2) The Local Love

If you want to buy a pair of custom made shoes, venture to the fifteen shops surrounding Tuol Sleng. They’re all neighbors selling basically the same shoes. If you want some ice, check out your neighbor’s house. He might be selling some. If you want some fish, go to your mouy, your go-to person.

In a developing country such as Cambodia, people try to make money in any way they can. This could be doing anything from selling cigarettes at the front of one’s house just as kids in America might sell lemonade, bringing in about 30,000 Riel a day (the equivalent of a little less than 8 dollars) to baking goods and setting them in a basket atop one’s head while wandering up and down market aisles for fourteen hours straight. There aren’t really mega-marts here. Just little mini-tents selling certain items. The glory of having a lot of the same businesses is that everyone here buys from local vendors.

3) Toul Tom Poung a.k.a. The Russian Market

As an admitted shopping addict, I confess that during my first two months here, I frequented this market at least twice a week. But hear me out: I’ve bought a good amount of dresses ranging from $2.50 to $5, which is a good incentive (in my skewed head) to keep shopping. Many foreigners ask me, “Where did you get that dress?” To their surprise, I say here in Cambodia, and they are shocked having found “nothing worth buying (clothes-wise).” If you are willing to Forever 21-it, and dig for the good finds, Toul Tom Poung is the way to go. And by dig, I mean dig. There are also clothes from brands like Gap, Bebe, Old Navy, Abercrombie, Hollister and the list goes on that manufacture clothing in Cambodia. I got three Gap plain T’s for five bucks. I’d say that’s quite the deal.

Toul Tom Poung also is known as the Foreigner’s market because it is the souvenir hot-spot. From silver trinkets to opium sets, you’ll find it here.

4) The Fruit

I believe I have harked on the fruit before, but indulge me. I am going through one of those moments where I miss a lot of American things. This also makes me think of how I will feel when I am back in America when I am sure I will miss Cambodian things. People aside, I think fruit might top the list. I can’t get enough of it, and many don’t exist back home. The ones that do aren’t the same. There are at least five different kinds of bananas here and five different kinds of mangos. I pick these off trees and eat them. Note to those who love me: A banana or mango tree is on my wish list for any special occasion.

5) Cheap Living

I’ve lived here for almost four months, and before I came here, I set my budget max as $2000. I don’t think I’ve reached over half this amount. And I don’t live cheaply. I indulge in daily coffees, teas, and croissants—things that add up. I buy dresses and fruit (which is relatively expensive). I ride tuk-tuks, the more expensive way of traveling that caters mostly to foreigners. Back home, I would be broke well before now.

6) Angkor Food (located near Toul Tom Poung)

Food here ranges from 3000 Riel to 7000 Riel a dish. Don’t expect a waiter with a napkin tucked into his server’s belt and spotless utensils. Angkor Food opens to the street, and many of the dishes are cooked at the make-shift kitchen on the sidewalk. Utensils are brought out soaked in a cup of hot water, and you polish your own silverware. Aside from being cheap, this food is real Khmer food with the perfect amount of lemongrass and tamarind and chili. The mee, yellow egg noodles, with some veggies is a must. Somlaw krung is also a must. Way more “finger-lickin’ good” than the overpriced KFC faux-chicken that my cousins pine for.

Living up to the Cliche: Watching the Sunset in Koh Kong

2010-02-27T21:52:00.014-07:00

During the past few days, I’ve had a dry spell—oh no, not a sexual one, that’s been here for some time now—a writing one. It’s not that I don’t have things to write about, but I know that if I wrote about these things now, they’d be uninteresting to read even though they are in actuality very interesting matters. They would be a bunch of words that aren’t written with the passion and energy behind them that I believe good writing has.

To spare you the boredom of reading a lazily written post, I want to share these photographs with you. They were taken about a week and a half ago when I was in Koh Kong, a southwestern province of Cambodia that lines the Cardamom Mountains.

I snapped these photos as I was driving across the newly built bridge that crosses over to the Thai border. These photographs remind me of when I was in Cinque Terre two years ago. I took photos of my hike along the coast of the Italian Riviera, crossing five villages lined with pastel-colored homes with a sub-par camera, no photography know-how, and a shaky hand. Somehow, every photograph was captivating. A beautiful setting makes this possible. It makes up for what’s lacking on the other end of the lens.

Saying that the sunset in Koh Kong was beautiful would be cliché. Maybe. And an aspiring writer should avoid clichés at all costs, so I’ll skip the talk, and go straight to the photos. I hope you enjoy these as much as I did when I took them.

As a side note, if you enjoy photos of sunrises or sunsets, I invite you to look at Laura Guese’s paintings. She is a painter based in Denver, Colorado and in her artist statement, she writes of sunrises and sunsets saying, “I am captivated by the few seconds when the sky becomes full of infinite color and energy. I believe that the sky is an impermanent, universal landscape, which I find extremely appealing...The sky is ever-changing and never duplicated. The feeling of insignificance is overwhelming when observing the sky. The atmosphere has the power to evoke a full spectrum of true emotion, which I find fascinating.”

Catch Me If You Can: My Battle with the Spirits

2010-02-24T00:51:00.003-07:00

I’ve devoted hundreds of pages to dead people—people I don’t know other than by name or photograph. But despite the fact that these people are dead, they still talk to me. I began to write years ago because I thought this would stop the noise. I thought that perhaps by writing these spirits would be vanquished by reason. To this day, the act of writing hasn’t vanquished anything. I suppose I have my mother to thank for that.

When I was seven, my mother told me a story that I would never forget. “Buddha was living in Pou Tea, and he kept smiling at me. Smiling. Sitting. Smiling. My eyes became stuck on a candle. I was fifteen at the time. All of a sudden, something came into my stomach like a big lump. You can feel it, rising, rising.” She touched her neck, and it made me nervous. “And I knew something was in my body, and I tried to stop it. I knew what was happening. I kept trying to block it. I tried to close my jaw. I was fighting with the spirit. Since I wouldn’t let it talk, it made me shake my head like a peh, a bad angel. I didn’t let it because I knew if a spirit beat me once, spirits would always be able to come into me.” My mother pulled the bedcovers over me, and I held on to them tightly. “It happened to me – ” she said “ – So it is real. You must believe.”

My mother vouches for these spirits, telling me that they not only exist, but also are in many ways alive. To be alive means that they can hurt you, help you, become a part of your existence. How foolish of me, it seems, to try to kill them with pen and paper. When I was in America, Cambodia was still a place that existed only in books and photographs and stories. There was a separation between me and the land, which included the spirits living there. The spirits couldn’t catch me in America where they’d perish because they had nothing to feed on. No mudfish, or ground-up shrimp. No mounkout, or sai-mai, or lamout or pinkie-sized bananas. In America, they wouldn’t have bowls of rice for every meal. Yes, in America, they’d die. My reasoning that spirits needed physical nourishment may seem peculiar, but in Cambodian culture, spirits still need physical and emotional nourishment. I was successful in ignoring the spirits’ existence for some time, but how strange it is that I’ve now run to their home here in Cambodia.

Maybe they’ve reeled me into their soil because I’ve denied their existence for so long. I think I’m starting to believe my mother about these living spirits. Or, maybe I am starting to admit that I’ve been a believer all along, but feared admitting belief in something that wasn’t accepted by the Western culture I’d always known.

I went to a Kru two days ago, which is a person who has a spirit living in them like Pou Tea, the man in my mother’s story. My aunt took me to see Kru. This Kru lived in a beautiful wooden house that was built for him by one of the people he had helped. He asked for nothing from people who came to see him, but those who he had helped reach great success repaid him with land, villas and cars. This somewhat helped his credibility in my eyes, so I thought why the hell not.

Kru wore dirty white cotton pants and an equally dirty white tank. Otherwise, he looked like a normal man. He didn’t have a strange headdress or long overflowing beard as I’d imagined a Kru might. He spoke casually as we prepared to have what might be called a seeing. I lit five incense sticks as instructed to by my aunt and looked up at the Buddha shrine before me. I closed my eyes and prayed. That’s another thing I’ve found myself doing more since I’ve come to Cambodia. Praying feels less awkward. But I still feel strange and don’t really know what to pray for. I think I end up praying for the same thing—people.

My mother who did her seeing first began asking questions. While I usually divulge her secrets, I think I’ll let her keep these ones. In the middle of asking one of the questions, Kru looked up alarmingly. He pointed to me, and in that moment, I became afraid.

“Your daughter must be careful,” he said. He closed his eyes and listened to Buddha. “Pra-ong says that she must be very careful here in Cambodia. I see a tall man chasing her. A thief in a car. Yes, you must be very careful,” he said looking at my hands. “Give me your jewelry.”

I took off my bangles, watch and ring, and handed them to him. He held them for the next hour we were there, blowing on them and blessing them, so as to keep me out of harm’s way.

“I had a dream ten years ago that my daughter would face danger in Cambodia,” my mother told Kru. “Then I had a dream a week ago and saw I man jump out of a car and try to pull her in. He held a white kerchief and tried to wrap it around her mouth. I screamed and told her to get in the house. And, the day before my daughter came to Cambodia, my husband dropped a frame with her picture in it, and it broke.”

My mother looked at me. “See, Kru sees the same thing. You must be very careful.”

I don’t know how I felt at that moment. Confused, probably. A bit scared. I’ve always thought that I’d only be in danger if I put myself in a position to be harmed, which I don’t think I do. But when Kru looked at me, I felt something. I don’t quite know how to describe it.

Kru later asked me, “Do you get headaches often?”

I thought of the killer one I had a few nights ago, and the ones that never go away. “Yes, yes I do,” I said.

“Does your body hurt?”

My ass was killing me during that moment, but in general, my body aches much more than a twenty-two year old body should I think. I nodded.

“Can you not sleep, and do you see terrible things in your dreams?”

“Yes, a lot.”

Kru closed his eyes again, and listened to Buddha for some time. “You have a peh in you.”

“What?” said my mother with wide eyes. My aunt gasped, covering her mouth.

I looked at my mother. “A what?” I asked, forgetting the meaning of peh.

“An evil spirit.”

Great. I have a fucking evil spirit in me, I thought.

“Well, can you make it leave?” I asked Kru in a slightly irritated voice.

“I can try to chase it out of you,” he said.

“Ok,” I said to Kru. “Get out of me you stupid peh,” I said to the spirit.

Kru laughed, and pulled out a black stone that I’d seen him use earlier when healing a sick child. He placed it on my head as I faced away from him. My scalp began to feel hot and heavy, and I thought Kru had replaced the stone with his hand.

“What is on my head?”

“The black stone. Is it hot?”

“Yes.”

“Is it heavy?”

“Yes.”

“Not to worry. It will get better. It feels this way because the spirit is angry it must leave you,” he said.

“Here, feel the stone,” he said, bringing my hand to touch the stone atop my head. It was cold, but I felt hot. It was light as my bangle, but felt like a book. I looked at the floor confusedly. How could this be possible?

I decided to stop being so confused for the moment, and just be there. In my head, I chanted Get out evil spirit. Get out. Get out. Get the fuck out.

Screw Disneyland, kids. How about some slots?

2010-02-21T19:36:00.004-07:00

“Look. Is it beautiful?” Uncle asked me.

I looked up at Naga—Phnom Penh’s casino catering to the Western likes of myself. Red and green lights ran across the front side of the building. A water show was placed before it, shooting spurts to the beats of that 1, 2, 3, 4 song that was overplayed months ago in the States. The building was otherwise a rectangular glass-paneled box.

I curled my lips upward, creating what I thought resembled a smile and looked at Uncle. He stood with his hands on his hips, and looked up at the building, his lower lip jutting out in approval.

“Look,”—my mother said excitedly—“It’s just like Bellagio.” She was referring to the one in Vegas, not the one on Lake Como.

I sighed. Not Vegas again, I thought.

“I shouldn’t come in here. Only neak civilie come here, like you,” Auntie said. Neak civilie are people who are distinctly un-Khmer, who are not modest, who dare to wear shirts that bear their bosoms and pants that shadow their bottoms. I straightened my V-neck dress covering anything that might be showing. Auntie meant this as a compliment, but I suddenly became aware of my un-modestness.

“Come on, Older Sister Kanitha,” piped up Sang, Uncle’s youngest daughter. She grabbed my hand excitedly, pulling me towards Naga’s doors. Uncle’s three other children trailed behind us, each in awe of the world of bright lights and lured by the ching ching ching of slot machines.

A slew of languages echoed through the lobby—mostly Japanese and Chinese. Stepping past an enormous fake flower display into one of the game rooms, I looked up to a dome sky with puffy clouds giving the allusion of day.

“Just like Caesar’s Palace,” mother said.

I rolled my eyes and stifled a groan. She shot me that Don’t you judge me look.

Uncle walked up to a table to observe a white haired fellow with a cig dangling from his lips playing some card game. His face looked distinctly Cambodian. I had heard that Naga didn’t allow Cambodians into the casino, that it was for foreigners. This man wore a gold watch and leather shoes. Maybe he was one of the wealthy Cambodians. Uncle observed the man lose five straight hands before he walked away.

“See. If you’ve got money, it doesn’t matter if you lose. It’s just a way to relax, have fun,” Uncle said.

We came to a slot machine. The kids ran their fingers over the buttons. “Find a chair,” Uncle instructed them. Mei, the twelve-year-old sat in the first chair. Sang to the right of her, and Pich at the end. Uncle pulled out his wallet, feeding each machine five bucks.

I looked over at the dealers in the little black vests. They stood watching us with their hands clasped behind their backs. This isn’t Disneyland. Uncle’s really going to get it, I thought.

“What do we press?” asked Mei.

Uncle motioned for a dealer to come over. “Tell them what to press,” he demanded.

“Wait until the numbers stop rolling, then hit this button,” the dealer said.

The kids pressed the buttons as instructed.

“Aren’t they smart?” Auntie said. “They learn so fast. I don’t even know how to play.”

Sang lost her five bucks in a matter of minutes. Next was Pich who then climbed into Mei’s chair. “No fair. Let me play, too.”

Mei was doing quite well. Fifteen minutes later, her five had turned to twenty-five. “Quit or press it again, Pa?” Everyone crowded around Mei, excited by the prospect of gold coins falling.

“Again.”

Moments later she was down to twenty. “Ok, ok, you can quit,” Uncle said. He motioned for the dealer to mark up Mei’s earnings. “Good job, Mei.” He patted Mei on the head as if she just passed an exam. “Come on, let me show you the rest.”

We walked to an open space where some Khmer girls stood on a stage dressed in Christmas costumes—red velvet and all. Apparently, Christmas runs past December.

“Very nice,”—I said—“What else is there?” We kept moving, and I thought I heard the tune of “Santa Baby” in the background.

Tall Cambodian girls stood in front of every door. I don’t know where the Naga HR office went to find these chicks, but they’re tall-tall. Think 5’11”-ish. One of these women, a slender one with a gnarly face, smiled at us when we passed Lady Bar. “This is where people go to drink,” Uncle said. “And there are girls who dance,” he added with a boyish grin across his face. “Want to go in?”

Mother shook her head. “No, no. That won’t be necessary.”

“Pa, Pa! I want to go in!” Sang piped up. “Let’s go see girls dance. Like this,” she said twisting her body. “Sexy girl,” she whispered to me.

Uncle looked amused, and half-convinced to go in. Auntie looked equally amused.

Mother shook her head again. “It’s not necessary.”

“Ooo-ahh they?” Auntie asked me as we exited Naga. I’ve never quite figured out where this phrase comes from, but I wonder if it is from what people say when they are amazed at something—like oooo and ahhh—because that’s what I think this phrase means.

“Ooo-ahh,” I said, shuddering as I passed by one of the giant chicks with long flowy hair, an elf-like nose, and crooked teeth.

My Mother's Journey: Re-Discovering Home

2010-02-15T01:11:00.005-07:00

The very first home I grew up in had mirrors that stretched from the dining room floor all the way up to the vaulted ceiling—very Alice in Wonderland-esq. These mirrors had panels of some dark wood inserted between them. They had a romantic quality to them, the same romantic quality that one might associate with an old grandfather clock or record player. Whenever I think of the place I first called home, I think of these strange mirrors that I have never seen in any home, other than my first one.

Homes tend to be places of refuge. They are usually places we run to when we are in trouble, and the place we return to when we have no where else to go. But, some people don’t have a place that they can really call home. In a conversation with a friend, she expressed that she never really had a physical or emotional “place” of refuge—a place or person or memory she could associate with as being home. For those who have had troubled childhoods, home is not this romantic place. It is a feared place, a memory that one seeks to dissolve and forget.

Before my mother arrived here in Cambodia, I always hoped that she would take me to see her old home. I didn’t know if she would want to see it, though. I didn’t know if my mother’s old home, which she grew up in would be the same place of refuge that I find in my old home in Denver. It seems to me that the refugee flees from one home to another, but is unable to fully call any place home. If for my mother, her home in Cambodia is a place she fears, then I don’t want her to see it. Something that I’ve had to come to terms with here is that my mother’s journey back to her homeland is her journey, not mine. I cannot prevent her from doing something she desires, nor can I force her to go somewhere or do something against her wishes.

During her first few minutes of being in the city she was born, Phnom Penh, my mother was jarred. “Oh my god,” she exclaimed in English, and then in Khmer, “Are there no driving laws here? How can three people fit on a moto...or four! Are there not garbage men? Do they just let these naked children walk on the street begging? Why don’t they do anything about it? Everything’s just so...so dirty!” Watching my mother react to her surroundings was a bit like re-living my first few days in Phnom Penh. For some reason, I thought that my mother wouldn’t have been as baffled at all these things as I initially was. She’d grown up here, so shouldn’t she be used to all these things?

The city of Phnom Penh was completely transformed beginning in 1975 when city dwellers were forced to leave. The refined urbanites who once inhabited the bustling city were replaced with a diverse mixture of people—a handful of wealthy and mostly corrupt politicians and loads of those struggling—shoeless and dirtied children, old men with ribs exposed and stubs for limbs, women with newborns lain on sidewalks exposed to the heat and dust. This was not the Phnom Penh that my mother grew up in. Somehow, in the past three months I’ve lived here, I have come to know Phnom Penh much better than my mother knows it. “This is not my home,” she tells me.

“Why do you keep mixing English with Khmer, Mom? Oum (Older Aunty) and Ming (Younger Aunty) can’t understand any of the words,” I ask annoyed.

She shrugs. “I don’t know. Because I’m used to it. I left for almost thirty years,” she says, again mixing the two languages. I don’t know why it irritates me, but it does. My mother clings to whatever is American in her, creating the distinction between herself and her relatives who never left Cambodia. Perhaps I am irritated because I’ve also created these levels of distinction, not only between the native-born Khmers and me, but also between my mother and myself. Between her imperfect English, and my English. Between my broken Khmer and her Khmer. Perhaps, I sense my own fear of recognizing myself as being fully Khmer, as if there is something shameful about being so.

On the second day in Phnom Penh, we began heading down Norodom near the Independence Monument. This is an area that I know fairly well, having spent a decent amount of time frequenting the cafes and little boutiques in the area. “That’s Moum’s house!” my mother shouted, slapping my leg and pointing to a home near the corner of the monument. “That means my house is around here. Isn’t it Ming? Isn’t it?” she asked her aunt.

We drove around, and eventually turned down Street 370. “This is it,” my mother said. “This is it.” We parked in front of the home. I remember my mother telling me once that her house had been demolished after the war, and that a new home had been built in its place.

“It’s still here,” she said to no one in particular. The house had been divided into two homes. One of the owners was outside cleaning his moto. She explained to him who she was, and he warmly invited us to look around.

We stood outside gazing upward at the house. “We’ve kept everything the same,” said the man. “We haven’t had money to restore it.” The house was white with square grid-panes along the patio. Large trees shaded the left side of the home, poking into the patio on the second-floor. There was something romantic about the house despite the wornness of it all. There were traces of my mother’s child-self running through it.

“That’s my room,” my mother said, pointing to the room on the second floor, which opens to a balcony. She stared it at it with a loving familiarity, and I turned away. I didn’t want to disrupt her special moment, and I gave her some privacy that I know is so hard to find sometimes, especially in moments when it is really needed.

I stood on the tile of the upstairs patio. “Is it the same floor?” I asked my mother. She said it was. I loved this tile—for its rusted maroon and dirty-whiteness, for its little cracks and scratches. This is my mother’s home, I thought, and snapped a photo, keeping it in my memory.

Leaving Harpswell

2010-02-11T19:55:00.008-07:00

I am lying on my bed listening for the night noise that I once despised so much, but there is none. The old man next door is not coughing, or washing, or pissing. The dogs are not at each other’s throats and yelping. Nat, whose bunk is above mine, is sleeping soundly, having remembered for once to turn her radio off. Channa is not up late, hovering under her desk lamp reviewing for a test. Menghoun is passed out, legs sprawled with a book collapsed on her chest. Children are not being spanked. Akon is not blaring. It is quiet tonight, which is rare.

Having complained so long about sleepless nights due to Phnom Penh’s restlessness, I should not complain that tonight’s silence is also keeping me from sleeping. The absence of these sounds, however, reminds me of the many other things that I will miss when I leave the Harpswell dormitory tomorrow. The things that I once found foreign, strange, and at times, uncomfortable.

I’ve gotten very close to the Harpswell girls within the course of the past three months. I remember the first day I introduced myself to them. They insisted that I speak Khmer. I could barely get ten words out. Overtime, my Khmer rapidly improved as the girls conversed with me at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, or gossiped during the day. They drew out in me a language that I’d forgotten in my childhood, but it had never really left me. The words were still there. My voice still retained Khmer intonations. Something that I’d thought I’d forgotten, re-emerged. It seems that we so often think we’ve forgotten something, or someone, but it’s only because we haven’t tried to salvage the language, the practice, the knowledge, the memory, the relationship.

I don’t want to forget these girls who are not only incredibly intelligent, but have the kindest hearts and warmest smiles. They care for each other as if they are family. They care for each other in ways that I know I fail to do in certain moments for my own family and friends. What I’ve found here is a selflessness that I hope I can embody one day. A few days ago, my friend bought a silver necklace that she loved. She looked at me later that day, at my silver bangles and rings and earrings. “Silver looks beautiful on you,” she said, taking off the necklace and clasping it around my neck. I tried to refuse, but I also knew it made her happy to give the necklace to me. I’ve never been around so many people whose source of happiness is making others happy.

While I taught the girls English and writing skills, they taught me life ones, and for that, I will always be grateful to them. The things I once rejected about Cambodian culture—the traditional rules of behavior, the modest dress, the need for silence in certain moments—are things that I understand better now and respect.

I’ve learned a lot about respect, respect for one’s parents especially and oneself. It’s always been easy for me to lash out at my parents, for they are the ones closest to me. I never quite minded my manners. After all they would never stop loving me. But here, children do not dare utter a word against their parents. This in part may be out of fear, but moreso, it is out of reverence for the people who gave them life, and for that, they will always show thanks. As my parents get older, I want to make sure I respect them, and I want to start by learning to be silent in certain moments and holding my tongue. As a fully-grown twenty-two year old, when I go home, I want to do my parents’ laundry, wash their dishes, give them a home-cooked meal. These are things that they’ve done since I was born, and have gotten so used to that I still expect it. In Cambodia, children grow up doing all these things to help their parents, so as to make things easier for them, not harder. I want to begin doing this.

Respecting myself is something else I want to work on. In Cambodia, it is looked down upon if a person has had two, maybe three or more boyfriends or girlfriends. These people are said to be sa-vah, fickle when it comes to relationships. Well, I suppose by Cambodian standards I am super sa-vah. Relationships here aren’t all about the moment, the thrill, the sex. It’s about finding someone you care for deeply, and who cares for you. Most Cambodians have one boyfriend or girlfriend, and this is the person they eventually marry. I don’t necessarily agree with the one partner per lifetime rule, but I value the thinking behind it. The physical part of a relationship doesn’t come into play until much later, oftentimes not until marriage. American hook-up culture doesn’t exist. One-night stands are unheard of. Kissing is not just kissing. Now, I’m not saying I’m going to come back to America with a chastity belt strapped on, but I’ve begun to re-evaluate what I want out of my interactions with people. I hope that every guy who reads this doesn’t think I’m going to try to reel him into a relationship then marriage if I show some faint interest in him, though.

I guess the greatest lesson I’ve learned so far is to maintain and foster relationships with whomever it may be, a parent, grandparent, sibling, old friend, new friend. It would be easy for me to leave Cambodia and go back to America and tell these girls that I will always be their friend, that I will never forget them. But being a friend isn’t a passive activity. It’s often easy to forget those who are far away from you, try 8,000 miles. Even if you feel close to them at the moment, it is the remembering part that takes effort. These girls have taught me about friendship, and that is what I want to give them.

To see photos of the Harpswell girls, click here.

Arranging My Marriage

2010-02-10T07:59:00.005-07:00

It is the second, maybe third time I have met the family. Actually, I should say my family because they are my mother’s cousins and aunts and uncles. I sit on the wooden lounging table that is about the size of two large beds put together. These tables are common in Cambodian households, as are stiff matching wooden chairs. While some may opt for comfort over style, the opposite seems to hold here. Or, maybe Cambodians prefer harder surfaces to softer ones. Now that I think about it, the bed I sleep on feels a little better than a plush yoga mat, so it must be the latter.

The man who sits to the left of me has a soft worn face. He resembles Popeye a bit with his chubby cheeks and wrinkled forehead. He is in his mid-thirties, but has aged ungracefully as teenage acne still plagues him, and his hair has receded so much that he has only a small wisp left to comb over. He holds his thick fingers in his lap and looks almost admiringly at them as he talks.

His wife is also in her thirties and is beautiful with dark brown wavy hair and an oblong face and gentle eyes. She is simple, wearing capris and a loose button up. No jewelry or makeup. I begin to wonder how such an unfortunate looking man ended up with this woman. My first guess is that it is because he’s got money. I want to slap myself once or twice for not thinking it is because he has a good heart. This woman smiles looking at me for a long time, and I don’t know what it is she is looking at exactly. I shift uncomfortably on this wooden contraption, and come off my hind feet and sit bowlegged—the man’s way. My mother turns to me and shakes her head disapprovingly. I shrug.

My mother continues to have small talk with this man as I move around restlessly, still unable to find a comfortable position to relax. The woman’s eyes remain stuck on me, and I am beginning to get tired of curling my lips into this sheepish grin. My mother indulges the man as he explains the various woods of the house. The entertainment center being composed of the most expensive kind. The intricately carved pots are from some Excellency. The small wooden statuette in the middle of the room is “no good” he says, waving his hands in front of him showing disgust. He will rid of it immediately.

I yawn and begin to daydream about the wavy-haired Frenchman who I had a one-minute romance via moto to moto earlier in the day. He pulled up next to my friend who was driving me, and we had a short exchange of words before my friend turned off onto the street we were headed. “Menghoun!” I said jokingly angry, “I just fell in love!”

The room became silent for I’m not sure how long, but it was definitely too long. Each person fidgeted in their own awkward way—my mother admiring her ostentatious ring as she waved her hand back and forth in the sunlight, the man with a tight la-dee-da look on his face as he looked at his beloved wooden belongings, the wife still smiling at me with the same if not greater intensity than before, and me raising my eyebrows and glancing nervously around the room.

“So,” – the man says, breaking the silence and clasping his hands together, “I have something to ask you.” He looks seriously and nervously at my mother.

“Yes?” she says. My mother is not very keen on giving favors. This man’s request better be a small one.

“I’ve heard that many people can go to the US if they marry someone there. Do you remember seeing my younger brother yesterday?”

My mother hesitated for a moment. “Uh huh,” she said, nodding her head assuredly. I knew she was lying because whenever she nods like this she actually has no clue what is going on.

I recall seeing a boy yesterday who looked similar to this man, by no means dashing and younger. He also had one of those Captain Hook mustaches. But still, he was very Popeye-ish, potbelly and all. Yes, it must’ve been him.

“Well, he really wants to go to the US,” the man says. “I know people who have gone over there by marrying an American. Some are real marriages, some fake. But, rich people here” – he says, referring to the likes of himself – “will give good money to anyone who will marry.”

“Uh huh, I know people who’ve done that –” my mother begins.

“Do you know of anyone?”

“Anyone what?”

“Who would help my brother.”

“Oh, no I don’t think – ”

“How much will it cost?”

“Oh, I don’t know maybe $20,000.”

“Done,” he says smiling. “How long – ”

“I don’t know anyone,” my mother repeats with a tinge of annoyance in her voice.

“See, one time, we found someone, and they took our money, $10,000, and disappeared. We need someone we can trust. Like family.”

I interrupt in my broken Khmer, “It’s not that easy these days. People are getting caught and authorities are catching onto these fake marriages. People are deported to their home countries and citizens face major charges.” I don’t know if I am out of place to speak out, but no one is scowling at me, so I take that as a good sign.

“Why doesn’t he visit and find someone he really likes in America that he could possibly marry rather than paying a stranger?” my mom asks.

He shakes his head at the idea and waves his hands in the air disapprovingly.

The wife nudges me playfully, “How about you? You’re perfect, just the right age. And you’re beautiful,” she says batting her eyelashes, almost wooing me for her brother-in-law.

I tried my best to maintain my composure, but I think I went bug-eyed with my eyebrows stretched up on my forehead. “Um, no, no, no,” I stutter. “It’s just not something I would do. Ever.”

Sensing my fear, she says, “Oh, I’m just kidding around.” She sways her body into me, and I shy away. “When he saw you yesterday, he did say that you were pretty. You also look like his ex-girlfriend who he is madly in love with.”

Well, that’s sure convincing me. I think of all the terrible things that could happen. Also, I want to marry someone I actually care for, am in love with, all those marriage requirements. And, someone who I am not related to in any way. And, I don’t want a fake anything, especially a fake husband!

“But, why not?” she prods.

“Don’t be silly,” my mom smartly interrupts, knowing that my next utterance will most likely be improper and rude.

The wife manages to maintain a weak smile.

The husband says, “Think about it.”

Like hell I will. I retire to the bedroom and continue my daydream about the Frenchman. Wavy hair. Not related to me. Tall. No bribery. Marriage material? Not quite, but much more so than my second-uncle’s younger brother.

Getting Coined

2010-02-08T17:07:00.009-07:00

I am one of those people who foolishly take pride in their hardness and feign a tough exterior. I hate it when people see me cry, and so, I avoid doing so at all costs. I fear vulnerability, and I feel that crying exposes a part of me that I like to keep hidden. This past weekend, I was stripped and left shirtless and swollen-faced, spilling enough tears to fill the Tonle Sap. My god was I embarrassed.

It all started when my mother’s side of the family left for Siem Riep. Six people took my Uncle’s beloved Lexus SUV, and the other 12 piled into the rented van. Because I am a guest to this country, I was reserved a seat in the SUV. When I first stepped in, I thought that I was lucky to have gotten a seat in the air-conditioned and leather-seated car. Little did I know, my uncle would barrel his way down the bumpy unpaved roads for six hours to Siem Riep. I am approximating that his hand was on the horn for at least 1/3 of the way there—that’s two hours. I don’t think I am exaggerating. Now, I’d heard about people who drive luxury cars and don’t mind the rules of the road, but I’d never been a passenger of one of these drivers.

“Put your seatbelt on,” my mother whispered to me, as she snapped hers into place. For once, I obeyed her. The road is intended to work just as many roads do: one lane per direction. Our car was always on the opposite side of the road, heading towards on-coming traffic. But we were not in the wrong for we were in the Lexus, and so all other vehicles must navigate their way around us. If you’re on a moto or a bicycle, forget it, you’re doomed. Maybe if you’re in a military car or a newer, shinier, and more intimidating Lexus, then we’ll sway back to our respective lane. I kept silent, recalling my own experience driving and my biggest pet peeve: a backseat driver. I closed my eyes and tried my best not to look at the little motos and carts and ratty cars that might fly into us at any minute.

Along the way, we picked up some food sold by street vendors: ping-peang (tarantula-looking fried insects), ripe mangos with salt and chili dip, sticky rice with black beans stuffed into bamboo stalks, and other freshly made or caught snack foods. The ping-peang had long legs and large heads—quite unappetizing looking things. Oh they’re so good! remarked my 15-year-old cousin. Everyone in the car reached for a handful of these finger-long insects except for me. I learned my lesson with the last insect I ate, chunrut. I had a few slices of mango, skipped the chili and salt dip, and had a little bite of the sticky rice. So far, I wasn’t leaking any unwanted fluids.

When we made it to Siem Riep, we stopped at Banteay Srey Restaurant, a venue that we would frequent for the remainder of our meals during our three-day stay. The food there was decent, not good enough to be the restaurant of choice for every meal of the day for
the entire trip, but alas, I had to be the polite guest who minded her manners.

The next day we went to Phnom Kulen, which required driving up mountainous dirt roads and falling in and out of potholes. I don’t think the Lexus is intended for such driving, and neither is a lead foot. Speed on such roads only lead to bruised heads and arms as bodies crashed into one another and the roof of the car.

After about ten minutes hiking up the steps of Phnom Kulen, I regretted, for the very first time, donning my cowboy boots. They’re just not meant to trek up and down rocky hills. Tripping on a rock and flying face forward, a woman sneered, Som mouk hai, meaning it serves me right. I stumbled around the mountain for about two hours, praying at various Buddha statues and pagodas. The biggest attraction here is a Buddha that was carved from a large stone in the mountain. What caught my attention most were the beggars who lined the steps of the mountain. Most of these people were women, children and cripples. There are many money-exchange kiosks along the way whose sole purpose is to exchange large bills for smaller ones to give to beggars. Siem Riep is a city that is completely geared towards tourists. I exchanged a twenty for two bundles of 100 Riel notes, and walked up and down the steps giving out the bills. Still, I ran short.

By the time we got back to our hotel, I was feeling slightly woozy. We didn’t have time for dinner, so my uncle picked up some street food, consisting of rice, salted eggs, and various meats—including tripe, intestine, and the Cambodian delight, liver. I was a bit starved, so I foolishly indulged in everything.

The stomach pains began. Forgive me if this is too much information, but that night, I might as well have slept in the bathroom with my bum glued to the pot. My body clearly had yet to adapt to Khmer street food.

The next day, I decided to be a trooper and continue exploring Siem Riep. I went to the market and got a fish massage against my will. My little cousins insisted that the feeling of fish eating the soles of your feet is sensational. When I put my feet into the pool of water where ten other people also had soaked their feet, the fish swarmed mine. It was terrifying at first, and when the grey little things bit my feet, it didn’t hurt, but tickled. These fish crowded my feet and left everyone else’s unmassaged, though I wished it were the other way around. My cousins asked, “Why are the fish eating only your feet?” I told them that it was because my feet were the sweetest. My mother countered, “Because her feet are the dirtiest.”

During the next two days, we visited Angkor Wat, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and the Cambodian Cultural Center. Now, I know Angkor Wat is supposed to be one of the most astonishing places one can visit, but I was too busy running from squat toilet to squat toilet to pay proper attention to my surroundings. Luckily, I’ll be headed back in March to explore it in good health, I hope. The Cambodian Cultural Center features wax figures and a plethora of shows from different Cambodian cultural groups in staged mini-arenas. I mostly found these to be kitschy and artificial. I don’t recommend it.

My seventy-year-old great aunt visited all these places with a big smile on her face and cane-less. My legs increasingly felt like jello, and I sniffed Tiger balm every ten minutes, trying to liven myself up.

When we went to Banteay Srey for dinner after the five hours we spent at the Cultural Center, my first instinct was to hurl. I finished my business in the restroom, and sat down at the table. Exhausted, dizzy, and feeling like someone had punched me in the stomach, I propped my head on my fist. Then the tears started. I don’t know where they came from. Honestly, I was surprised myself and a bit pissed. But they kept coming. The food hadn’t arrived yet, the waiters were freaked out, and the children at the neighboring table looked like they wanted to give me a hug. There I was 22, nearly 23 balling like a little child.

My hungry family shoveled food in their mouths as I sniffled with my eyes shut during dinner and compiled a nice hill of tissues on my plate. When we got back to the hotel, it was coining time. I had no choice in the matter. My three aunts and their maid laid me down on the bed, took off my dress, pulled out their Tiger balm, and began rubbing the thin end of a coin up and down my back. This lasted about an hour until I had dark streaky bruises covering my back, arms, and chest. I imagine I looked like a warrior of sorts. Or maybe this is what an exorcism might feel like. But I actually did feel better. My aunt tells me that coining is an old traditional way of healing that works much faster than medicine. It immediately releases toxins from your body, and so once you are coined, you feel relieved. I think being coined helped me not necessarily physically, but emotionally, which I think is equally important for one’s healing. It’s like having a good cry, and it hurts for a while, but then you feel better.

That is, until the next day when I still felt like shit. I didn’t feel like crying anymore, but my body hurt like hell. I was pining for the medicine I’d brought over from America that I’d foolishly left in Phnom Penh because I thought I was invincible from illnesses. I slept for the remainder of the car ride home in the big van instead of the jet-setting SUV. I popped my American-made pills when I got home, and slept for another fourteen hours.

Today, three days after my coining, a waiter at The Living Room, a cafe I’ve taken a liking to, pointed to the warrior streaks peeking out of my tank top and asked, “Oh, you get coin too?” I thought the bruises would have disappeared by now. Later, one of the Harpswell girls said to me with a big grin on her face, “Older Sister, the mosquitoes have eaten your legs and now they’re full of scars, and now your body is full of bruises. How will you ever find a songsah (boyfriend)?” Fml. I was just thinking the same thing.

Telling On My Mother

2010-01-27T09:00:00.008-07:00

An old saying in Cambodian culture is, “Kom yeh daem khey,” meaning, don’t talk behind other people’s backs, especially if they are your mother or father. When I began writing my memoir, my mother infiltrated every chapter, paragraph and word of my work. It was as if I was watching her life and mine play on a screen that only I could see. During the time I was writing and when I lay in bed at night staring at the shadows above me, these were the only images I saw. Still, I write of her and have been writing of her during the past months I’ve been in Cambodia. And if I don’t write about her, if I prevent myself from doing so, it is as if she lingers daring me to write her name. Perhaps I am weak because I have not limited myself. I haven’t the strength not to write of her, and so I’ve filled over a hundred pages with her name and face and stories. She has never read any of these pages. I hide them like I would hide birth control pills or pot, stashed underneath desks and wedged between old books. Even though I hide them, her spirit watches me. She is a living ghost, tugging at my pages, chiding me for talking behind her back.

My mother will join me in 36 hours here in Phnom Penh, her homeland.

As I was messaging with my brother on the Internet today, he asked me, “Are you excited to see Mom?”

“Kind of,” I replied, thinking it was a normal and fairly accurate answer.

“Why wouldn’t you be excited?” he said. I stared at the computer screen, not knowing what to say. I thought for a few moments, and still, I couldn’t pin down any reason as to why I wouldn’t be excited for my mother’s arrival. I hadn’t seen her since I left home in early December. I missed Christmas, and New Year’s, and will miss her birthday, for god’s sake. Why wouldn’t I be excited?

I lied, still confusedly staring at my Gmail box, “I don’t know. She’ll probably want to see me all the time, and I need to work, get stuff done.” I knew it was a matter bigger than my mother wanting to spend quality time with me.

My mother was born in Phnom Penh in 1959. But from what I’ve overheard, it might’ve been 1957. She insists that it is the former, making her 51 years old as of tomorrow, January 28^th. She is aboard a plane from Denver to LA, and will fly from LA to Taipei, making her way to Phnom Penh. My mother didn’t leave this country; she fled it. I wonder if she ran on foot, or laid in the carriages of the big oxcarts that I see in the streets used to transport wood and water basins from the countryside. Did she step on bloated bodies? Trip over misplaced arms and legs? When she tells me she was lucky during the civil war because harm was never committed against her, did she lie, thinking that she was protecting me?

I am an expert liar, a trait that perhaps I’ve inherited from my mother. “Do you love me?” asks a boy. “Yes,” I say with confidence, not knowing what love, or like for that matter, even is. My mother is a traditional Cambodian woman that divulges little. Having a quiet tongue, she knows when to speak and when to keep silent. Most of the time, she is silent. Sometimes, I feel like I cannot fully know my mother. Can anyone ever fully know anyone or themselves for that matter?

Cambodians might call me nyak chong dung, a nosy person who pries into others’ affairs. Am I prying if it is my own mother’s life? My mother is a part of me, as much as I am a part of her. I am not prying. I want to know my mother’s history. I want to see the house she grew up in, but since it was torn down after the civil war, I want to see the land and stand on it. I want to visit where my grandparents died, and might be buried. I want to light incense sticks and kneel on the dirt and pray for them. I want to see where my mother went to school and where she went to the market. I want to share fried bananas with her. I want to roam voung with her, and bend my hands backwards and step gracefully to the soft beats as she does.

What if she doesn’t want to visit her old home? What if she hates the heat because she has grown to love the Colorado cold? What if she is disgusted by the market stalls, the clouds of flies, the stench of sewage and burning trash? What if she hates the cold showers and can’t bear sitting on floors to dine? I suppose these what-if questions are always pointless and circuitous.

Maybe ten years ago, my mother’s youngest brother Phourin came to visit Cambodia. It was his first trip back to the country since he’d left in 1980. When he arrived here, he had a heart attack. He died. I thought my mother would never want to go back to her home country after Uncle Phourin’s death. I thought she blamed the country for all the bad memories it stirred up in her brother and for sucking him back after he managed to escape. Surely, she believed it was the shock of being in his homeland that killed him. But maybe she thought differently. Maybe she doesn’t believe that Phourin’s death was due to trauma. Maybe it was due to things like high blood pressure and cholesterol levels—physical things. Or maybe, one set off the other.

My mother’s family has a history of heart disease. My mother’s medicine cabinet looks like a pharmacy. She frequently complains of body aches, headaches, numbness, and heart palpitations. Sometimes, I accuse her of being a hypochondriac. And then, I feel these same symptoms, and can’t help but think that she is cursed, and so I must be, too. She was unharmed thirty years ago, but the Khmer Rouge cadres followed her to America, making sure she got her share.

Am I excited to see my mother? Yes, but I’m also fucking scared as I’m sure she is. I should not be scared of how she might react. I should not be afraid that she will shed tears. She should shed tears. I should not be afraid that I will not know what to say at the right moments. I should know when to speak and when to keep silent. I should not be afraid of many things for my own sake, and yet, I am. It is my human weakness.

I wrote this poem about my mother a while ago. I am not a good traditional Cambodian girl. I cannot shut up and keep silent.

Mother

I fear when your silence might cease:

The tap tap tap of your Singer sewing machine,

The flickering of the television screen,

The whoosh of the washing machine,

The clink clank of china and glass,

Soft slippers like velvet on floors,

The smell of Gucci Red and Gaultier:

Luxurious, strong, and rich,

Moth balls seeping into St. John suits:

Royal blue, red, and turquoise,

Shiny Ruby rings and Sapphire pendants,

Emerald things, like Egyptian ornaments,

Your body milk and honey bubble baths,

And cold drafts blowing through cracked doors,

And fans twirling like helicopter wings,

The drone of a blender,

Night sleep walking and screaming.

The heel-toe trickle of pointy-toed pumps,

Over-baked chicken, tough on the tongue,

Mint leaves and ginger, liver, heart, lung.

Cham Girl

2010-01-25T21:13:00.008-07:00

Men in white turbans and loose fitting shirts and slacks sat cross-legged before me. Their faces were dark, their lips sharp, their eyes full of secrets. These men eyed me suspiciously. Is this a Khmer girl? Is she one of us? I smiled shyly, not knowing the correct etiquette when interacting with village elders. If they are like monks, I certainly should not make eye contact with or come near them. (But if you read my last post, then you would know that I don’t exactly follow what I should do). One of these men dressed in a grey button up shirt and dark slacks smiled back warmly and invitingly.

“Khmer mean they?” he said in a way that made this question sound more like a statement.

“Cha, Mah, Pa cyom kait nuh sok neah,” I replied, telling him that my parents were born here. He nodded approvingly, and his eyes brightened.

Before this day, I’d never known much about Cham people. The two things I knew were that they are Muslim-Khmers, and they wrap scarves around their heads in a turban-like way. I knew this because the Harpswell girls and even my mother call me Cham girl when I take silk scarves that are meant to be draped across the shoulders during special ceremonies and tie them across my forehead.

When I got on the van this morning with twelve other people, most of whom are on the board of the Harpswell Foundation, I thought that this would be a tourist kind of day. I snapped photos as we passed by Oudong, Cambodia’s former royal capital until 1866 when King Norodom moved the capital to Phnom Penh. I was with a group of white Americans and one Canadian, and we were transplanted into the rural villages of Kandal province. Donning big sun hats and hefty Nikon-cameras, we stopped in Sala Lek Prahm for oranges that we would later bring to children in Tramung Chrum, a Cham village.

This is the first time I’d ventured outside the city of Phnom Penh. Instead of hearing endless honking, there was the sound of people living. Children shrieked and ran around the marketplace. Chickens squawked. Women called out Vegetables! Just picked Vegetables! These women are tiny in stature, but balance hula-hoop-sized straw baskets atop their heads as they walk with ease through the streets, weaving between men with wheelbarrows and hungry villagers headed towards their favorite market stall for some praboh (porridge) or cathew (noodles) or numpang (french bread).

I was greeted with smiles, not glares. Their faces and voices had a sincerity that seemed to be missing in Phnom Penh. They didn’t triple the price of goods (at least I don’t think they did), to rip off us Westerners. I looked through the lens of my camera, observing this foreign place. I snapped shots of stalls and people and stray dogs and chickens beginning their morning. As I captured theses images, I felt that I distanced myself from everything around me. Through my actions, I said, You are strange to me. I am different than you. Sometimes when I take pictures, I feel as if I’m not really seeing what I am capturing on film. I don’t understand the images, or cannot identify why I find them interesting. Sometimes, I don’t put thought into taking a picture. My fingers point, click, rotate, zoom. It’s all a series of motions. But is this what photography is? Is it rooted in instincts and emotions? Or is it about precision and technical know-how?

After wandering the market and using a moto shop’s squat toilet (a first for me), I boarded the van, and we headed towards Tramung Chrum. I was thirsty, but decided to limit my water intake as I didn’t know what the restroom situation would be at the next village. “Nothin’ in, nothin’ out. That’s my policy and it’s worked since I was in Thailand,” said a woman on the van. I adopted it for the day. Having gotten little sleep the night before, I tried to nap the rest of the way, but it was a futile effort. The road’s rockiness did not foster any sort of resting atmosphere.

As we approached the village, we passed by wooden homes held up by stilts. Some homes were held up by stilts that towered over the land. Many were held up by measly short-legged stilts that look like they would snap should a strong gust of wind come by. Speaking to the driver, one woman asked, “What happens during rainy season? Do the homes that are not high enough just flood?” In a nonchalant tone, the driver simply replied, “Yes.” Imagine if your house existed one day, and the next it was gone. Imagine if this happened every single year. What would you do with all your possessions? What would you do if you had no possessions?

I guess it would be easier then. That’s one of the things I’ve noticed here: people don’t have much. When I moved to the Teok Thla dormitory from Beoung Trabek, I had a suitcase that I could probably fit in and three additional carry-ons. The girls unhung their clothes, and packed them into one or two backpacks, brought their bags of books, and were ready to go in a matter of minutes. “If that’s a three month's worth of clothes Older Sister, how many bags would you need if you stayed here a year?” asked one of the first years. I opted not to divulge that I’d shipped thirteen boxes (each half the size of a refrigerator) from Denver to Hamilton, NY the summer before my freshman year of college. I am excessive. I knew this before, but seeing how Cambodians live here has shown me the extent of my excessiveness.

We parked at the Tramung Chrum School, which is also one of Harpswell’s projects. Many of the children who attend this school are Cham. The Cham people are a minority group in Cambodia, descending from the Champa. There are only a few thousand Chams left in South East Asia. They’ve survived persecution and genocide under the Khmer Rouge regime, and still speak their own language and practice the religion of their ancestors.

When Alan Lightman, the founder of Harpswell, and his daughter Elyse, first visited Cambodia, they were deeply touched by a man in Tramung Chrum who approached them and asked, “Can you please help us build a school here?” These people lacked food and water and basic necessities, and yet their one request was for a school. They believed in the power of education.

The students’ faces lit up when they heard we’d brought them krouch, oranges. We then gave them paper and crayons to draw their oranges before they devoured them, licking their lips and fingertips. This was quite the treat. “I want to take one home,” Sandy, a new friend of mine, said referring to the children. “Oh, and that one looks just like you. Look, she has your face-shape and nose and mouth.” I stared at the little girl, trying to find myself in her. She stared back at me with serious eyes. I pulled out my camera, deciding that I would figure out if she resembled me later.

In that moment, I let my camera do my thinking for me, replacing my own power of memory with this tool. I can remember this little girl’s face through a picture, but I will soon forget her, I’m sure. Had I talked to her, then maybe I would never forget her. Maybe she had a story that has yet to be told. I regretted my decision to snap a photo instead of make a connection.

We headed towards a mosque that was also one of the Harpswell Foundation’s projects. During the Khmer Rouge regime, 132 mosques were destroyed (http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/chams.htm). In 1988, only six mosques were still standing in Phnom Penh (http://www.exploitz.com/Cambodia-Islam-cg.php). It is incredible that the Cham have maintained their culture up to this point. During the Khmer Rouge regime, many of their religious leaders, known as Mullahs, were killed. The Mullahs could read Sanskrit, and thus, passed on the words of the Koran orally by translating into Cham. Now, the Cham face the challenge of maintaining their culture and religion by passing it on to the children because of a lack of teachers and schools.

“We could use the mosque space as a school space,” said the mullah of the Tramung Chrum mosque. There were about thirty village elders sitting on the floor before us discussing possible plans to bring higher education to Tramung Chrum. I tried to understand the discussion, but realized that they weren’t speaking Khmer.

The mullah patted the space next to him, indicating that I was to sit there. “Help translate this for me,” he said. “We need a school, and we can use this mosque space. Or, we can bring teachers to the current Tramung Chrum school, but we need teachers. People from outside villages are moving to our village because we have a mosque and a school. But it’s not enough.” I translated this as best I could to Jean Lightman, Alan’s wife. The mullah continued to have me translate, and I was proud for a moment, realizing how much my Khmer has improved from the day I first got here. Then, I could barely form full sentences. Now, although my pronunciation isn’t the best and my words aren’t always used correctly, I can communicate in Khmer.

After speaking with him for a long time about why I am in Cambodia, the mullah called me koun, child. “You are welcome here anytime, and I take you as my own,” he said. I handed my camera to someone and asked her to photograph the two of us. This was both a moment and photograph that I will never forget.

To read more about the school in Tramung Chrum, visit the Harpswell Foundation’s site.

And then the monk asked for my number...

2010-01-20T22:00:00.012-07:00

Photo Courtesy of Jodi Hilton

When I was five or six years old, my mother told me, “Cover up. Lok cannot see your skin.” I wore a skirt that covered my toes and a white long sleeved top. I longed for the silk scarves the older women wore draped delicately across one shoulder. Pinks, blues, turquoises, olives. Gold and silver patterns woven through them. Some fringed, some with sequins. It was nyay boun, a holy day, and we were getting ready to go to the temple in Broomfield. I always dozed off during these rides, which to my kid self felt like an eternity, but really was, at most, an hour-long.

The “temple” is a ranch-styled house with a red barn to the left of it. Back then, it could have been mistaken for any old farmhouse. Today, it features intricately detailed, giant-sized concrete statues that tell the story of Buddha in the yard area. At first, I thought these statues had an artificial Disneyland-esq quality to them. Some of them have fake eyelashes that I’m sure are eventually blown away by the wind (only to be replaced by another pair of feathery lashes). Others have diamond gems for pupils. But having now been to Cambodia, it seems that what we in America deem as cheap and tasteless is often considered beautiful in Cambodian society. Gold paint. Fluorescent colors. Gems. Glitter. Doll-like make-up. Being overdone rather than underdone.

There are some informal rules I always follow at the temple:

1) Always bend over when walking so that your head is low, especially when walking by older people as a sign of respect for them.

2) Women should never show skin, especially cleavage. Ever.

3) Women should not make eye contact with a monk.

4) Don’t fall asleep while the monk is chanting.

5) Bring the monks offerings to receive their blessings.

6) Never touch a monk if you are a woman. Ever.

I should probably elaborate on number six. It is a bap, best translated as a sin, to touch a monk. Not only are you sinning, but also you are passing the sin on to the monk who is trying his best to keep holy. Avoid doing so at all costs.

Oops. Well I didn’t touch a monk, but in a way, I feel like I might as well have. It began like this. My friend Jodi and I were on our way to the National Museum two days ago. We passed by a wat on the way, and thought we’d check it out.

“The temple is closed,” said a woman near the entrance. She was fifty, maybe sixty, wearing linen high waters, a safari hat, and fuchsia lips. Perhaps a Parisian tourist.

We continued to wander about the temple yard. A group of monks were standing atop the remains of where a building once stood. They hacked away at the foundation. As we approached, they stopped working.

Photo Courtesy of Jodi Hilton

“Is she Cambodian like us?” one of the monks said.

“Yes, she’s definitely Khmer,” said another.

I stared at the dirt. Head down. Don’t look at the monks, I told myself.

“No, maybe she’s Japanese.”

I made sure my scarf was covering any cleavage that might be going on. “Cha,” I said in a meek voice, no longer able to pretend that I did not know what was going on.

“Ah ha! I knew it!” said a monk with a round belly, large smile and burnt gold robe.

Jodi went over and climbed up onto the pile of crumbled stones where the monks were standing. Oh shit! I thought. We can’t talk to monks. Women aren’t really supposed to approach men in Cambodia, let alone holy men. We’re really in for it. She began chatting with them, and they seemed to take a strong liking to her.

“It’s okay,” – said the round-bellied one – “You can come up here.”

With big sheepish grins on their faces, they asked for my story. You know when you meet a guy and he asks about your interests, what you do etc., and the guy really “digs” what you tell him, and gets all excited because he’s into all the same things? Well, I started to feel like some of the monks were really "digging" my story. They stared at me with these strangely fascinated eyes. I began to get creeped out for a second, but then I thought Maybe they’re just intrigued that I am American-Khmer, and I speak Khmer.

One of the monks wearing a short-sleeved robe with perfect biceps and a sharp chiseled face (bad, I know) nodded saying, “Yes, yes, the snow seems very nice. I would like to see snow.” We were within an arms-reach apart. He unfolded his arms and paused a moment before--Jesus, no, not kissing me-- asking, “So, do you have a phone number?”

I hope my eyes didn’t bulge out. But I think they did. “No, no I don’t have a phone,” I said, thinking if my phone rings, I’m fucked. The good-looking monk laughed, and I ran away, just as I often do from attractive nice men, but in this case, I think it is a good thing I did so.

I walked towards Jodi and another monk who “opened” the doors of the temple, which according to the woman we’d met earlier, was “closed.” The monk explained the story of Buddha, which is painted on the walls and ceilings. He also explained that he was 24, studying hotel management and hospitality, and didn’t know what his future plans were.

“Will you continue to be a monk?” I asked.

He shrugged and replied with these honest eyes, “I don’t know.”

I’ve been thinking more and more about monks and their situations. The monk who is studying hotel management has been a monk since he was fourteen years old. He is from a poor province, and he wanted to attain a higher education, so he came to Phnom Penh. Men are allowed to live in temples free of charge. At Wat Botum, there are over 700 men living there, 500 of whom are students. Most of them are monks.

“They’re men, too,” Jodi said. These young men have needs and wants—sexual and material. They aren’t born to be monks. They must learn the way of monkhood. Siddhartha was a young boy who led a lavish life, fell in love, and married before he reached enlightenment. How can these boys and young men who are monks be judged for desiring a life that many people lead? Many of these men enter monasteries not because of religious motivations, but because they want to live in Phnom Penh—the only place they can attend university.

I'd heard a while back that many parents send their gangsters sons to join monasteries, hoping to correct their bad behavior. Many of these young men who are forced to join, rebel. They get drunk, gamble, and sleep with women at the temple. I would not want to get blessed by one of these monks.

Jodi, the monk, and I sat under a pagoda chatting before we left. We were brought chilled Fanta-like orange and green sodas to drink. I felt strange accepting these, but knew it would be rude to refuse them. We were the ones who were supposed to give the monks offerings, not the other way around. The monk sat closely, and if I moved my right foot, it would probably touch his. I sat very carefully. I did not want to bap for both my sake and the monk’s. As Jodi and I rose to leave, the monk asked that we exchange emails. He pulled out a bill that looked like fake money.

“Is that a dollar?” Jodi asked.

He picked up the bill and shook it in the air laughing. “No, it’s a gift for when you go play. They gave it to me.”

I looked at the bill more closely, and it said, “Play to win. $10.00 certificate.” Ah, this one’s a gambler.

Photo Courtesy of Jodi Hilton

Kidney for a Cold

2010-01-18T05:07:00.002-07:00

I ran from shower to tuk-tuk this morning, sopping wet and blurry-eyed (from not having put in my contacts). Channa laid across the laps of two of her friends who held her hands as we moved in stop and go traffic. “I’ve never felt anything like this,” Channa said, fighting back tears. Channa is a girl who has toiled on her parents’ farm since birth. Her hands and feet are calloused. She wasn’t being a hypochondriac or pansy. She was really hurting. When we arrived at the hospital, we had to move Channa from the tuk-tuk to an abandoned wheelchair (found behind a crowd of off-duty nurses and moto men). Lifting Channa’s limp body was no easy task, but the next few hours proved to be a series of even more difficult tasks. If you’re not a patient, then you’re on the staff.

We entered the ER and walked to the front, passing by rows of patients on cots—some groaning, some writhing, some completely still.

“What do you want?” asked a man in a soiled white coat behind the rusted metal desk. I wasn’t buying coffee or cigarettes. I wasn’t ordering fries and a burger at a drive through. I was at Calmet Hospital speaking to a doctor.

Reasmey, one of the girls spoke up: “Lok Kru, I want you to help my friend.” The doctor eyed Channa who lay quivering on the rolling cot. She whimpered softly.

“If you’ve got money, I’ll fix her,” the doctor said. I didn’t know if he was serious or joking, but from the girls’ meek smiles at this asshole’s glib comment, I reasoned it was the former. We handed the man Channa’s health card, and explained that we were from Harpswell. This meant that we had money to pay for treatment costs. Little did we know, we would pay for unnecessary treatments.

“Get her a bed,” the doctor barked. A nurse rolled one in our direction. The three of us girls struggled to move Channa from wheelchair to bed. These rolling beds are old, rusted, and stained with former patients’ blood and markings. There wasn’t another option, though. We were lucky enough to have wrestled a bed from these money-mongering doctors.

The doctor walked to the front side of the desk, and leaned against it, clipboard in hand. “What’s her major?” he asked.

“She’s studying at the Red Cross Hospital,” Reasmey answered.

“Why, then, she should know what sickness she has. Let’s ask her, and see if she’s a good medical student.” He chuckled holding his dirty pen to his lips. He proceeded to ask her questions regarding her symptoms. He decided she needed an ultra-sound. But we would have to go find the radiologist ourselves. Proceeding to the radiology quarters, we took Channa’s IV in hand and rolled her cot to another building hoping that it was the right one. Thank god, it was.

She might have an ovarian cyst. She might have a blood clot. Or, she might be pregnant. These were the three diagnoses we were given. We rolled Channa back to the ER, and gave the lab tests to the doctor. He was busily telling someone that he was a very good doctor. I work until six tonight, he said. I haven’t even eaten my breakfast, and I am working. We don’t close. This hospital never closes. After the doctor was done bragging about his work ethic, he handed me—the Westerner in cowboy boots, who most likely was paying for the treatment—the prescription to take to the pharmacy. In order to administer the tests Channa needed, it was our responsibility to secure them.

At the pharmacy, I was told that the pharmacist who was in charge of selling one particular test—a pregnancy test—hadn’t arrived yet. The test was in plain view sitting on a shelf behind the counter. Perhaps the current pharmacists on staff had some moral objection to selling it. I went to another building hoping the people there could help me. They charged me for the test, took my money, then refused to give me the test because the doctor failed to fill out the form with the patient’s information. I went back to the ER, explained the problem to the doctor, who fussed over his oversight. Why did he have to write down patients’ information? He was an upstanding man. A doctor! He ranted to himself, and finally, I got the test. But, it turned out that Channa didn’t need it.

Channa has never had sex. Ot they, cyom out mean they, she cried, insisting that it was impossible that she was pregnant. To say that Channa may be pregnant is the equivalent of calling her a whore. At least that’s the way Channa understood it. These girls have an 8 o’clock curfew. They’re good girls, and, yes, some of them have boyfriends, but the extent of their physical affection for each other is handholding.

No to pregnancy. That leaves a blood clot and ovarian cyst—neither of which she had. But, she definitely needed surgery according to one doctor. Chakrya, the dorm manager, brought her friend who is a doctor from the US to see Channa. After examining her against the wishes of the Calmet doctors who cursed both him and Chakrya, he determined that Channa had a UTI (urinary tract infection). Channa never needed an ultrasound—but, she received two. She needed her pelvis region examined in the very beginning; it never was. She needed a few pills as treatment; she nearly had her stomach cut open.

Another one of the Harpswell girls was brought to the same hospital today. She was determined to possibly have swine flu. She was put in the hallway of the ER because the ER room was too full. I was in the ER with ten patients, all of whom had different illnesses. At one point, I heard a very loud beeping. Looking over to the opposite end of the room, a man’s heart had stopped beating. I watched his hands curl around the metal grip of his cot and release.

This hospital shouldn’t be in operation. But what is the alternative? No hospital at all? The people who are treated feel lucky to receive care from the doctors. Wear lots of gold and jewelry to the hospital. Dress up. Look like you have money. This is what I’m told will guarantee treatment. And don’t expect good treatment. That’s asking too much.

I was told of a story of a girl who came to the hospital because she had a respiratory condition. While she was unconscious, one of her kidneys was taken out. After harvesting other organs, the doctors sewed her back up. She died later that evening.

Today, I looked around the room witnessing medical professionals acting more like Khmer Rouge cadres than doctors. Cups of urine tests lined empty tabletops. Patients breathed in the same bacteria-filled air. I wore a measly mask, hoping that none of the bacteria would transfer to me. Fresh blood was smeared on floors and cots. Used needles were left on trays.

I was telling my mother today that I might want to live here in Cambodia for a few years. I explained to her all the things I love about the country. The difference in lifestyle. The family and community values. The affordability. The richness in culture. The language. But am I willing to give up things like receiving proper medical attention? Do I dare put my health in jeopardy to be here?

Celled in a Photograph

2010-01-12T00:59:00.011-07:00

Someone’s face looked at me through the paned glass—eyes bulged in anger, a mouth ready to bite. Perhaps this boy was the son of doctor or government official. His mother was a city girl who stayed at home, tending to her seven children. Or perhaps, she owned a small jewelry boutique like my mother’s mother. His father was a Professor of Khmer Literature at the Royal University of Phnom Penh. The boy’s parents fled their homes when the Rouge arrived, sewing jewels into their undergarments. They were sent to their graves, their pockets full of riches, their bodies rotting under the sun. Or perhaps, the boy was from Kampong Thom, the same province my father grew up in. Maybe he was an orphan. Maybe, it was his unlucky day, and he was mistaken for a city boy.

Somehow, the boy was taken to Tuol Sleng, a high school turned torture prison. The Khmer Rouge called it S-21. In Building B, there are mug shots of men and women, young and old, even infants all peering out from glass windows. Though thousands of faces were before me, some stayed with me more than others. These unsettled spirits unsettle me.

I entered expecting to see clothes strewn in dried blood, and bones on the iron beds. I entered thinking I would be immediately cast back in time. It only seems normal that the place had been sanitized and made proper for viewing, seeing as it now serves as a national memorial and museum. “Well they’re not going to leave the bodies and blood there,” a friend said to me. There is this tremendous need for the sanitization of everything as a way to fictionalize reality so that it is appropriate, so that we can handle it. So that we are less shocked, less apt to cry, less likely to have our memories marred by what we see. Shielded from what is really real. What would happen if viewers could observe the former prison at its rawest—without the googly-eyed signs indicating that one cannot smile at the site, without the straw brooms in the corner of every room waiting to sweep up dust tracked in by tourists, sweeping away the past along with them.

Perhaps I say these words with a lack of sensitivity for those who endured the strife of the war thirty years past. Those who might re-visit the place where their mothers, sisters, fathers, brothers, friends, and enemies lost their lives. For these people, maybe they need the sanitization of the museum. Maybe they need a purer reality so as to not be further scarred by scents, stains, the scuff of a shoe on the floor. Perhaps, the memories of those lost are enough to produce enough tears for a lifetime. Maybe there is a need for the plexi-glass encasing objects and photographs of the past, serving as a wall of separation between what was then and what is now.

A book on Buddhism I’d started reading a few days ago states that all emotions are rooted in pain. A true Buddhist must believe this, and accept it. The suffering of the estimated 20,000 people killed at this detention and torture center is physical and mental pain. It is a pain that transcends time, moving from the past into the present into the future. It becomes pain that is felt in moments of love, times of celebration, and in lost-ness.

I moved from room to room at S-21 and building to building. I began in Building A. Each room is a former classroom and later a cell. Some still have Khmer script on the chalkboard. The discolored yellow walls have etches in them. Whether these were from museum visitors or the people held captive, I’m not sure. One reads Pol Pot=Saloth Sar, the name of the former Khmer Rouge leader, carved in incisive letters. All emotion is pain. Twin-sized iron beds are also found in most rooms. On these beds or next to them is a long rod with an opening that was used to secure the prisoner to the bed during torture and sleep. The only other object in the room is a 9 X 5 iron box—the toilet. I said a prayer in each of these rooms before I left. I felt like I made up for the past tens years I’d stopped praying.

I wonder if the spirits are still trapped in these rooms—no longer by iron shackles, but by today’s visitors of their graves? Because of this disturbance, they are still unable to sleep. What if they feel like they have to re-live their worst moments forever?

Stepping into Building B, I met the mugshots of everyone who went through the detention center. Long rooms are lined with 12 X 12 portraits. Just faces. Each one with its own story, its own expression, its own pained emotion. I came across the faces of women whose features I share: almond eyes, large lips, and a small nose. Under the KR, no one should look strikingly beautiful. The goal was to fit in. Women wore their hair short and cropped at the neck. Each woman met me with strangely familiar eyes, as if they could’ve been my aunts, or cousins, neighbors or classmates. They looked at me with somber faces, telling me I could’ve been one of them.

I came across some cheerful faces and wondered how anyone could find anything to smile about while imprisoned. Their eyes were bright, their smiles unfeigned. I reasoned that maybe they had been tortured into a state of complete delirium. And so, they placed themselves in another place and time where they could find happiness and smiled.

“They smiled because they were tricked. Pol Pot was a master of rhetoric,” a friend said when I asked her about the smiling faces. “They were told they were about to be freed. They thought the torture and interrogation part was over. That’s why.” Their spirits must have thought How foolish I was to have believed them. These joyful faces are frightening—eager eyes and wide smiles and believing hearts until the very end.

I close my eyes and think of a photograph I hold in my memory of my mother’s mother. Her hair is tucked neatly behind her ears. Her back is straight. Her hands hang loosely and delicately by her sides. She wears a plain sarong and white blouse. Her face is thlay thnouw, exuding grace, sophistication, and femininity. I think back to the catalogued faces in Tuol Sleng, the women peering out from glass cases. If their faces are trapped there, what about their spirits? There is the Cambodian belief that a photograph is not just a snapshot or an image on paper. A photograph contains one’s essence and spirit. Looking into the glass cases, I hope that there are not spirits bound by photographs of their faces, still fighting after their deaths to get out.

For more pictures, click here.

Leaving Mudfish for Oatmeal

2010-01-08T18:12:00.005-07:00

I have thin slices of finger-sized bananas covering my face and neck. I am told this will help the skin-irritations I’ve had from the heat and water. I can’t lie down because I will get banana goop all over my pillow. As I peer out of this sticky, puke-yellow colored mask, I can’t help but think of food. So for the next thirty minutes, let’s talk cockroaches, fried fish, and rotten tofu...among other things.

I don’t exactly have a penchant for rice, but rice is a main staple in Cambodian cuisine. Even if Cambodians have finished a big meal, they are not satisfied until they have one or two hefty bowls of rice. When I dine with the Harpswell girls or my uncle’s family, they look at my cup-sized portion of rice and scowl as if I’m crazy or have an eating disorder. I assure them I don’t, but I just don’t need two large plates of rice with every meal to satiate my hunger! Cambodians I have met eat voraciously, but are stick-thin. Most people also don’t exercise, let alone walk anywhere. (Sun = UV rays. UV Rays = Tan. Tan = Dark. Dark = Ugly Cambodian). Once I find the secret to how people stay thin here despite their generous appetites, I’ll be sure to share it.

I like to think I am quite adventurous when it comes to trying new foods. In the States, I’m all over jellyfish, eel, crocodile, maybe even some Rocky Mountain oysters. I’ve come to realize in these past few weeks, however, that I’ve got nothing on Andrew Zimmerman. I don’t dare to touch many foods because of the preparation. At street stalls and markets, it is common to see a cloud of black flies swarming vegetables and floppy fish. With the wave of a hand, a vendor sends the flies away for a brief thirty seconds before they return to feast on fish guts. Even as I eat at the dormitory with the girls, flies whizz by and crawl on the mats we sit on as we eat. I ward them off by covering my bowl with one hand and waving the other in front of me. I don’t consider myself a germaphobe by any means, but I’d rather dine with human companions.

A few weeks ago, one of the girls came skipping happily through the gates of the dormitory with a ziplock full of fried chunrut, mini-cockroach looking insects. She munched happily on the insect as if she were popping Pringles one by one in her mouth. She held the plastic baggy up to me. I hesitated before searching for one with the least noticeable legs sticking out. I closed my eyes, opened my mouth, and crunched down on the protein-filled little body. Not bad, I thought. A little bit like barbecue chips with the similar crunch, a little spice and not insect-y at all (minus the antennae). I spent the next morning bent over the toilet, hurling the one insect out as well as everything else I’d eaten in the past 24 hours. Apparently, my body has yet to fully adapt to Cambodian cuisine.

Most non-insect foods, however, have not caused any abnormal bodily reactions. Food from the market, which is sometimes considered as “dangerous” for foreigners, is actually quite good. I’ve been much more satisfied with market food than with the food I’ve had at most restaurants that seem to charge more for the service than the quality of the food. Market food has the authenticity that many look for in cultural foods. Having grown up in Denver, I love authentic Mexican foods that are usually found in hole-in-the-wall family joints as opposed to Chipotle. (No offense to Chipotle because their burritos are the best phony-Mexican burritos.) I’ve been to a few moderately nice Khmer restaurants, and I must say, market food is a quarter of the price (think 75 cents for a bowl of noodles) and in the least, comparable in taste. A little forewarning however: MSG is almost as big of a staple as rice because “It [food] doesn’t taste right without,” says a woman at the market fixing me a bowl of num pang chok (a traditional Khmer rice noodle dish consisting of ginger, ground-up fish, banana leaves, mint, basil, bean sprouts, and a lime zest topping). I do my best to request food without flavor-enhancing, chemical altering MSG, and although vendors and servers respond, “Yes. Okay, Okay,” whether they really fulfill my request is unknown to me.

One of my favorite things to get at the market is thuk kalok, a smoothie. The vendors mix the freshest in-season fruits with ice for 4000 riel, just a little under a dollar. My favorite vendor is at Phsar Tuol Tom Poung, also known to foreigners as The Russian Market. I walked there two days ago from the new dormitory in Teok Thla with a friend who estimated the walk would take twenty minutes. An hour later, I showed up in the already stuffy market in my sweat-drenched robe (the term people use for dress), and in a state of dehydrated delirium. I headed straight to my thuk kalok vendor, and she saved me with her all-natural fruit smoothie, which was a mixture of thoup barang (a deep green fruit with milky flesh inside), jackfruit, and sweet mangos. Definitely worth the hour walk under the scorching sun. Plus, I got a nice tan to the dismay of Cambodians here.

And then there are the fried bananas. Jeak chien is one of those foods you know is clogging your artery as you savor the goodness on your tongue, but oh it is so good. I try not to eat one, because if I have one, then I will have another and another. These bananas are battered, producing a thick semi-crispy exterior. I love biting into one and feeling the juxtaposition of textures. There’s the initial crunch and then the smooth creaminess within. The Russian Market is famous for having the best jeak chien in the city.

I’ve yet to try street food, although I’ve stolen a bite or two from others. A lot of street food vendors cook their noodles, make their sandwiches and grill their meats on busy roads where motos, tuk-tuks, and cars practically pump exhaust and kick up dirt into the food. I have no desire to eat dirt. Many residences also employ their front yards as mini-restaurants. They serve whatever food the homeowners have cooked for the day, and some offer a small selection of goods like candy, soda, and laundry detergent.

My friend stopped in one of these homes the other day and had poung thea koun, duck egg with the developing embryo inside. This is considered to be somewhat of a delicacy, as is eating monkey brains. When I was growing up, I used to love poung thea koun. I remember begging my mother to buy these eggs whenever I saw them stacked above the heaps of bok choy and water lilies at the Asian grocery mart. I would lightly tap the narrow tip of the egg with a spoon several times until it cracked. I then peeled back the top of the eggshell, and poured in a spoonful of limejuice, coarse black pepper and salt. Once this was mixed in with the juices of the egg, I would slurp out all the liquid, leaving the solid part of the egg consisting of the baby duck and the yolk. I loved the yolk, but in order to access it, I had to dig through the rest of the solid stuff. If I was unlucky, I found the baby duck before the yolk. I never could eat the little guy with feathers and a beak. I closed my eyes and asked my father to dig out the bird, so I could have the yolk. Now, I can’t bring myself to eat poung thea koun. I probably couldn’t even get myself to tap the eggshell.

So, I have a confession to make: I bought some oatmeal. The title of my first blog post is “Leaving Oatmeal for Mudfish.” Hence, I’m supposed to leave oatmeal in America. I tried my best to stick to a strictly Cambodian diet, but my body began to feel different—not good different. Much food is cooked on a wok, meaning it is fried, and so, generous amounts of oil are used. When I use oil to cook, I am careful to use only a small amount. Meat is also eaten for every meal, including breakfast. Pork is the most common meat that is eaten. I’m not a vegetarian by any means, but I also don’t need meat for every meal. Before I came, I made a goal to eat only local cuisine—no Western food. Fail. But hey, a little cheating isn’t always bad...

What Would Buddha Do?

2010-01-02T05:53:00.002-07:00

Last Friday, I sat down to have lunch at Boddhi Tree, a little cafe across from the former torture center of Tuol Sleng. My friend Neary and I were seated outside at a table shaded by palm trees. Neary sat across from me, and the discreet gray walls of Tuol Sleng rose from behind her. If it were not for the postcard stands, and moto men who were ready to shuttle people to and from the museum, the building could be mistaken for any old school. Thirty years ago men were having their hands dipped in acid and fingers cut off. I sat sipping an iced lime tea in a wicker chair with a breeze fanning me as I munched on green leaves and mangos. How quickly history can be erased it seems, or rather ignored.

Neary began to tell me a story that has stayed with me, haunting me during the night. There is a recent story of a family from the province, a quite unfortunate story. The daughter who was about sixteen or seventeen complained to her parents that her head hurt. Her parents decided that they would take her to the doctor—a good thing. But then her brother, her stupid brother, said to them, ‘Why are you taking her to the doctor? There is a very good healer who cures many illnesses like the one Sister has.’ The parents agreed, and the next day, they took her to this healer. The man told the parents that they must leave their daughter with him. They said, ‘OK.’ The parents then went back home. A few days later, the parents went to visit their daughter, which is also good. When they saw her, she had clumps of hair missing, and in place of hair, she now had burn marks from lit incense sticks that were pushed into her scalp. The daughter said to her parents when she saw them, ‘Mother, Father, I am very scared. Please, take me home.’ The parents pitied their daughter, but the healer said to the parents, ‘She must suffer to get better. You must leave her with me.’ The stupid parents believed the healer and left their daughter with this man. They believed so much in the power of healers, in Buddha, that they left their daughter even though she was very much in pain. The brother said to the parents, ‘Don’t worry, Sister will be fine in a few days. The healer is very good.’ The following week, the parents went to see the daughter again. The parents saw with their own eyes what this man was doing to their daughter. He fed her dog piss and shit. He made her eat it, and when she vomited, he beat her. Her parents saw this, and still, still they left. The parents began to worry about their daughter’s condition. A few days later, they decided they would bring her home and take her to a doctor. As they were leaving to get their daughter, a neighbor asked, ‘Where are you going?’ ‘To get our daughter,’ they replied. ‘Your daughter is dead,’ the neighbor told them. The parents cried and cried. The man apparently raped the daughter and made her do all kinds of sexual things until she died. She was basically tortured to death by a ‘healer.’

Neary’s face was serious; mine was stunned. Stunned at the gray building that was used for torture thirty-some-years ago rising from behind her. Stunned that today, the same kind of torture practiced during a time of genocide still persists. How easy it is to believe in fate, in Buddha. How easy it is to ignore the principles of rationality. Here, especially in the provinces, believing in Buddha and fate completely is the guiding principle in people’s lives. But then again, these people who fully place their lives in the hands of a higher being, have grown up with the cultural belief that one’s fate is beyond one’s control. Having been raised with Western beliefs, I refuse to replace matters of science with religion, at least not completely.

There are two parts to every human being: the physical body and the mind. I believe in the physical maintenance of one’s body. Oftentimes, this requires the examination of one’s physical organs etc. I also believe in taking care of one’s mind, and for many, this happens through spirituality and religion. I believe that one’s body can be healed, but if one’s spirit is not taken care of, the body cannot fully heal. Likewise, I think that one’s spiritual well being can be cared for, but if one’s physical health is neglected, one also remains unwell. It is somewhat easy and idealistic for me to make these suggestions.

I am troubled by my assertions because even though, I am strong in my beliefs, I don’t think I can impose these beliefs on other people. But, what if the parents in Neary’s story had been forced to bring their daughter to the doctor? Their daughter would probably still be alive. How can you tell someone what to believe in or not to believe in? Can you impose your beliefs on someone else? Can you only do so when it begins to harm the well being of another person? I’m not sure. This is a question that I’ve long struggled to answer.

My mother is a great believer in fate and Buddha. And, I’m not a disbeliever, but like my father, I believe in my own capabilities, especially that of my mind. I believe that human beings are able to think for a reason, and therefore, it would be foolish to ignore this ability. I cannot tell my mother that she cannot rely on Buddha for all matters. I cannot tell her that I think her belief in Buddha is oftentimes misleading. Doing so, I would essentially be telling her that what gives her life meaning doesn’t exist.

True Buddhism doesn’t involve the idolatry embraced by many practicing Buddhists today. It doesn’t involve burning paper money for the gods or offering them shots of Hennessey and cigarettes. It doesn’t require one to go to the temple, bearing gifts for monks to receive a sprinkling of holy water on one’s head. Buddhism, at its root, requires one to find peace and happiness with oneself and the world by engaging one’s mind. Material things have no value. We, as human beings, are inherently materialistic, and so, materialism infiltrates every aspect of our lives, even our faith. That was a bit of an offshoot from my original point, but I think that according to Buddhist principles, the parents in Neary’s story would have taken their daughter to a doctor to give her the physical healing she needed. Neary’s story is not an isolated case. What is the resolution? I don’t know.

The "O" Show and Christmas

2009-12-29T08:15:00.004-07:00

Some people go to mass on Christmas. If I were a good Catholic girl, perhaps, I would have gone too. Some of my Jewish friends pay a visit to Joe’s Shanghai in Queens for some delicious soup dumplings. Often, Christmas evenings are filled with stuffing one’s face with an absurd amount of turkey, Beef Wellington, lobster dipped in hot butter, eggnog crème brulee, apple pie and the awful brown brick we call fruit cake. I was not gluttonous this Christmas, but perhaps, I was unholy (but only by association).

My favorite Tuk-Tuk driver, Rinda, shuttled me, two girl friends, and Tuckerman at about 10 p.m. to Rock, a club on Monivong (the main road I live off of). This is past the hour of decency for women to venture into the dark, but I’ve come to terms with my supposed indecency.

A girl who is fourteen going on twenty-four wears red knee-high socks, chunky platforms, a midriff top, and Santa hat. She straddles her boyfriend who thrusts his pelvis in the air, perhaps trying to outline imaginary clouds in the sky with his mini-erection. He sticks his tongue out like a lizard, air caressing the girl’s thighs and more. Thank you, Jesus, for her Elf underwear. The two are one of the five couples who joined a competition on stage, in which each couple must produce the big “O” sound, and afterwards, have a sexy dance on stage. I don’t know what was more irksome—the noises or the dancing. The girls were shy when it came to making the “O,” but when it came to the dancing part of the competition, they had no problem getting down. Literally.

This Christmas, I’d hoped for a little dancing to some Jay-Z. Maybe some Akon. Instead, I found myself staring down at my Jack and Coke, watching the brown liquid disappear all too quickly through my straw. Jack could not drown out the noises or take my mind off the sexy-time dancing by the teenagers on stage (many of which are the spoiled kids of politicians and uppity city folk).

Or, maybe I should’ve just stayed at home with the girls. Earlier that evening, I had a holiday party at the dormitory. Originally, my plan was to cook spaghetti and bake a cake and cookies. As Christmas approached and I was still planning the party, the idea of cooking for sixty some people became less and less appealing. My cooking skills are somewhat limited to omelets and fruit salad. For fear of disappointing sixty hungry people, I had the party catered. Yes, I took the easy way out, but maybe this was for the better.

The girls thoroughly enjoyed themselves, finishing what Chakrya, friend and manager of the dormitory, described as a “mountain of spaghetti.” Truly, it was. The girls indulged in Khmer dancing, and also taught me the dances. There are different ones that correspond to certain kinds of music. For example, there’s the Madison, which is a faster, electric-slide-esq dance, and then there’s Roum Voung, which is full of delicate hand gestures and slow stepping. Although I usually lack grace and coordination, my bellydancing years at Colgate proved quite useful (Thank you, Ursula Embers).

The girls not only love dancing (Khmer dancing, not sexy-time dancing), but they also love singing. Limheang fearlessly belts out both Khmer and English songs. At the party, she led the group in singing Old MacDonald and the chicken-dance song, among other ones. These girls are full of vitality and vigor, and it’s contagious. It is impossible not to smile around them. They often say to me, “Older Sister, you smile too much. Doing so will give you wrinkles.” I tell them that it’s okay, and I’d rather have wrinkles later and be happy now. They laugh in their light voices. The sense of humor here is interesting. It’s kind of like a spoken stichomythia, in which one person has to outwit the other.

The girls call me thevada, angel, because I eat so much fruit and so little rice (Rice is a staple. No matter how much you eat for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, you’re still starving if you haven’t eaten rice yet). On Christmas, each of the girls fed me a bite of cake, trying to fatten me up. Here, being plump is a sign that you are healthy and well fed. Being thin is a sign of being underfed, perhaps, because you are the daughter of a farmer. By the end of the party, I felt like I had eaten an entire sheet of cake. As full as I was, I didn’t want to be rude and refuse a bite from any of the girls because giving me a bite of their food was their way of giving me a blessing. Never refuse blessings. Naturally, I did not feel like a thevada afterwards, but rather like what I imagine Santa might feel like after eating millions of cookies on Christmas Eve. A correction to what I said earlier: Never refuse blessings or cookies. Also, second correction: I guess I was gluttonous on Christmas.

So, Christmas in Cambodia was full of surprises—some good, others unexpected. The girls told me that this was their first Christmas celebration at the dormitory. For once, I didn’t feel guilty for asking for some extravagant gift on Christmas, followed by momentary happiness. These girls reminded me of the true spirit of Christmas. My little extravaganza at Rock reminded me that there are other girls who aren’t complete saints in this city of Phnom Penh. Maybe fate brought me to Rock, and Buddha, God, baby Jesus, whomever was sending me a message saying, “It’s okay, Kanitha. Chill out and enjoy yourself.”

I Believe in Saying I Love You...

2009-12-25T22:45:00.004-07:00

All too often, it seems that we are afraid to say the three words: “I love you.” Perhaps, fear is only attached to the romantic usage of the phrase, but it seems that we are also stingy with these words in non-romantic usages as well.

I don’t think that using these words de-values the words, nor the depth behind them. There are words and phrases we use far too often that are crass and vulgar. Why not use words that are empowering and stir up good feelings in others and in you? What is the harm in overusing these words?

In Milan Kundera’s must-read novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, he writes: “Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass. The second tear says: How nice to be moved together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch.” I have come to the realization that I have a great fear of kitsch, and abstract words describing emotions, such as the word love, often can be kitsch. Kitsch is inherently tied to sentimentality, which perhaps is a writer's greatest fear.

While it is one thing to be wary of being sentimental in writing, why do I fear being sentimental in every day life? This is a question I’ve long asked myself and been asked. Why don’t I like the words date or sweetheart or cuddle? Why don’t I indulge in some hand holding or god-forbid a public kiss? For fear of being kitsch.

As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, the girls at Harpswell always say, “I love you.” Whether it is through an email or during breakfast or just in passing. And you know what? It feels really good.

So, for this Christmas, I want to say I love you. I love you Mom, Dad, and brother. I love you girlfriends and boyfriends. I love you to all the girls I’ve met here. I love you America. I love you to the land I’ve come to know here in Cambodia. I love you watermelon, kiwi, and rambuttan. I love you cold Colorado air. I love you ex-boyfriend, and ex-ex boyfriend. I love you boots. I love you rain. I love you puppies, really cute adorable puppies. I love you kitsch (maybe).

Love,

Kanitha

Gargle. Gargle. Spit.

2009-12-23T19:47:00.003-07:00

I awake to a deep hacking sound. Another hack follows—a big mucousy one. I open my eyes and see the dark begin to disappear. My body tells me it’s not quite six o’clock. Time here is measured not by my watch or clock, but my body in sync with that around me. The vendors who clang pots and pans advertising bowls of steamy cathew. The sounds of dogs barking at motos whizzing by. An old Khmer song playing on someone’s radio. My neighbors running water, washing themselves, all twelve of them. A rooster crowing. The hacking old man whose room is separated from mine by a mere alleyway, perhaps an arms distance away.

A few nights ago, I closed my eyes attempting to fall asleep. I was physically and mentally exhausted having taught for several hours and worked at the literary journal as well. A boy next door began to gag himself. Perhaps he had the flu, or was drunk, or had eaten rotten food. This gagging sound is one of those sounds that invoke the same instinct in you. It’s kind of like when someone yawns, and you yawn. I hoped that the boy would finally throw up so that he would stop gagging. Who knew such an awful sound could lull you to sleep?

There is no such thing as privacy here. Your most private moments—bathing, talking, urinating, sleeping, crying, lovemaking—become public. They are always shared, just as I’ve learned to share everything I have here with the girls. If I have a bundle of jeak pong moun, finger-sized bananas, which I absolutely love, I take one, and give the rest to the girls. I’ve learned to live in a shared place where nothing is my own. What I believed to be areas of close proximity in America, for example homes in the booming suburbs of Highlands Ranch, Colorado, is luxurious in comparison to here. Here, you breathe the same air your neighbors breathe, you smell their dinner, you hear them spanking their crying child. Here, you know the comings and goings of your neighbors who are strangers only by face, but their secrets are yours though you’ll never dare to speak them. Your secrets are also theirs, and fearing that they can hear you, you live self-consciously.

I’ve become semi-used to living in a shared space—hearing the screech of a chair dragged across the floor, the opening of a wooden desk drawer, the clink of spoons being put away. But, living in close quarters also invites others to judge your habits as you judge theirs.

I failed to mention earlier that some of my neighbors are prostitutes (according to what the girls have told me). I don’t talk to these neighbors, and I probably unconsciously look at them with scorn when I see them. But, I’ve also felt that they look at me in the same way, as if I am in someway a loose woman.

I have a friend here who I see quite often since I don’t have many friends as I’ve been here for only about two weeks. We sometimes grab a coffee, go to lunch or dinner, hang out. Normal, right? If only, let’s call him Tuckerman, was a girl. Tuckerman is from America. He’s tall with dirty-blonde hair and hazel eyes. He picks me up on his dirt-bike that roars, making coming and going discreetly impossible. I don’t know if it is me being self-conscious, or if the neighbors truly think that I am a loose girl. It is improper here for a girl to go out with a man alone. Even when the sun is shining brightly. Even when you sit at opposite ends of the table, hands folded nicely in your lap. How I have come to hate the word proper. Since I teach a class from seven o’clock in the evening to eight o’clock, I sometimes leave afterwards to unwind from a long day. Proper girls don’t leave the house past eight. When I return around eleven or so, the neighbors can hear the roar of my arrival through the wooden shades of their windows. The security guard awakes from his slumber to let me in. Bad American girl, he thinks. Or is it, Bad Cambodian girl? If people associate me more as a foreigner than a Cambodian, then I feel a bit more at ease.

I went through a little crisis, thinking that I should perhaps quarantine myself in the dorm and follow proper rules of Cambodian etiquette. For now, I’ve made a compromise, and have a self-imposed curfew at eleven-thirty. I won’t galavant around the city until four in the morning as I might do in America, but I will still allow myself the pleasure of enjoying this new city.

It’s nice to find familiar things in foreign places. But not all familiar things are nice. K.F.C. is one of those places in America I refuse to set foot in. I will not swallow that greasy, oil-drenched, deliciously-crunchy, artery-clogging, piece of chicken. Somehow, the smiling, adoring faces of these girls drew me into K.F.C. here for dinner. I treated the girls to dinner, and for these girls who have very little, this was quite the treat. I felt their excitement as they ordered a family bucket of fried chicken. Sreyhak, who did the ordering, was especially particular about the quality of the food. A thom cheang nung, she told the server, indicating that she wanted bigger pieces of chicken thighs. The girls savored the chicken, sucking all the meat off the bones, leaving empty trays and satisfied bellies, smiles all around. This was a special time for the girls, and I was happy to share this time with them, even if the chicken I had eaten clogged my arteries. Afterwards, we got some doughnuts and chatted about boys and movie stars. When I began to clear the trays, Sreyhak stopped me, taking the containers and placing them in a plastic bag. She rinsed off our utensils telling me we can use these again. I looked at the empty paper cup I had crushed in my hands. Soumthouh, I said, apologizing to her. I suddenly became aware of my own excessive nature. The girls come from farming villages where everything is used and re-used, where things are never wasted, and each object can serve some kind of purpose. Although I advocate recycling and being energy-efficient, I am far more wasteful than these girls who use everything they have to the fullest potential.

When we came back to the dormitory after dinner, Menghoun who stayed home to prepare dinner for other girls asked Sreyhak, “How was dinner?” Sreyhak smiled, holding up a plastic K.F.C. takeaway bag full of empty containers, “Nam ay chyang thoultha lut dai.” Finger-lickin’ good, she said.

On Teaching and Things

2009-12-18T21:21:00.005-07:00

I am barely 22 years old. My students are 17-21. I live with them, eat with them, and sleep with them. They call me Older Sister Kanitha. (Side note: I’ve finally begun to pronounce my name the proper way, which is much prettier than the butchered American pronunciation of my name. Here, I am Kahn-ni-tah, pronounced with soft syllables and grace).

I should first explain my role as a resident leader. The place I live is called the Leadership Center for Women. It is a dormitory in Phnom Penh and houses 57 students. These girls are from the countryside, and were chosen to live here on scholarship because of their promise as potential future leaders. Many girls in the countryside are unable to attain a higher education because they lack housing in the city (where the universities are located) and lack funds (most come from farming families). Boys from the countryside are allowed to live in temples, but women are not. This is one example of gender inequality that exists in this society. There was an interesting article in the New York Times recently that discusses gender inequality and religion. The article suggests that whether women are deemed inferior or equal to men in society is determined not by what a religious text says, but rather by the interpreter of this text. Most of the time, the interpreter is male (i.e. priest or monk). According to the article then, more women from the countryside would have the opportunity to go to college if monks allowed them to live in the temples. This would then result in an overall rise in the level of education here. I read somewhere that only 27 of 1000 Cambodians will finish high school today in 2009. That is truly absurd to me. Come on, monks. Anyways, sorry that was a bit of a digression...

The girls who live at this center are smart, motivated, and passionate learners and people. In fact, they work much harder than university students in the US do (at least me, and I worked pretty hard). Many wake early (think 4 am), cook, clean, and then go to classes, leaving before 8 o’clock. There’s an incredible sense of community here, in which the girls think of themselves as sisters. Not in the way that a sorority house functions as sisters. I think it’s safe to say that throwing 40 girls in a house together is bound to brew some rivalries, cattiness, etc. In all honesty, there is none of that here. In part, I think it is a cultural thing, in which Cambodian etiquette requires what we in America may think of as being too doleful and caring. When the girls are not in school, they devote their time to studying more. I have individual tutoring lessons with many of the girls who want to improve their language skills and writing abilities. The first year girls attend an extra class with me every evening in addition to their regular course-load. Their curfew is 8’o clock, and they usually don’t get out of classes until 6. When offered a later curfew on weekends, the girls refused, saying that they wanted to keep the 8’o clock curfew to focus on their studies. Imagine that. Riots would break out across college campuses in the US.

The girls look up to me, kind of like I’m some magical fairy sent over from America. It’s a lot to live up to, and I fear that I’m going to disappoint them somehow. It somewhat makes me nervous that many of them are as smart as they are. I sometimes feel more like their peer than their teacher. But I think that’s also what good teaching is—teaching without that hierarchal bullshit. A professor of mine once told me, “Good students pull good things out of their teachers.” The girls here have challenged me to expand my knowledge beyond poetry and essays, to engage with subjects I am unfamiliar with, to speak Khmer correctly, and to test my own English language skills. I found myself bewildered by the perfect and conditional tenses of verbs, forgetting which is which because I’d grown up knowing the correct verb to use without knowing why. I think back to the time I first took Spanish or Italian classes. Knowing the tenses was necessary to grasping the languages. Teaching requires that I re-learn what I have been taught. I think all teachers, if they are good ones, never stop learning.

I’m finally getting into a routine, which is nice. My first years are reading a Khmer folktale called "The Clever Little Hare." We’ve been working on it for the past three classes, learning vocabulary-in-context as well as practicing the pronunciation of words. The t, d, th, and f sounds are particularly hard for some of the girls. During yesterday’s class, some pronounced the word trunk as drunk, and when I explained the meanings of the two words, they could not stop laughing. We’re still working on that one...

The older students want to focus mainly on writing since their English speaking skills are pretty good. For the first assignment, I had them write an autobiography—not a typical one that spews facts such as one’s hometown, age, school, major, etc. Rather, it requires them to reach for a moment, a place, or a person—some memory that resonates with them. This memory is the vehicle they use to tell the story of who they have become. They must then reduce this story to one paragraph, which draws out the most important aspects of the longer story. Finally, they must reduce this to one word that epitomizes their autobiographical story. Reducing the essay to one word is the hardest part of the assignment, naturally I think. This assignment challenges the girls because it requires a kind of writing that is different from the formal academic style of writing that they’ve been always been taught to use. Menghoun, who I share a room with, tells me that Creative Writing does not exist here in Cambodia. None of the universities offer creative writing courses. Menghoun says that most people would not even know exactly what creative writing is. This is because it is not common for people to read books, and there are few Cambodian authors who write books. I’ve always thought of literature as one of the primary means of transmitting culture. If literature doesn’t exist in a country, how is a country’s history recorded? If it is through academic texts, such as history books, do these texts offer everything that literature offers? Or, is something lost? I am inclined to think it’s the latter, and it worries me. While the girls here are studying law, economics, and politics, they’ve never been taught to write their own stories. As education is slowly improving, if the art of writing never rises here, how will Cambodians transmit their culture? Writing is the most important means of communication, and it seems not only here, but also everywhere, that people are unable to write in an effective way, and thus, unable to communicate effectively.

I am meeting with Kho Tararith on Monday who runs the Nou Hach Literary Journal, Cambodia’s only literary journal. I’ll have to get his thoughts on this. I’m off to a holiday party featuring a turkey, Christmas tree, and the whole deal...

Until then...go read.

Love (Everyone signs their emails here love. Always. Business emails, friend emails, stranger emails.),

Kahn-ni-tah

These boots are made for walking...?

2009-12-15T23:24:00.006-07:00

“Muh spek chung moh kowt,” snickers the sales lady who hands me five packets of Nestle instant coffee. I hand her a 1000 riel note (the equivalent of 25 cents). I might be getting ripped off, but I’m not sure. She continues speaking to some men sitting in low plastic chairs. “Mouw preah nah neang neah?” I keep silent, hiding the fact that I understand Khmer. I shuffle my feet from right to left, feeling a little self-conscious from the eyes not so much admiring but observing my favorite boots. These cowboy boots are perfectly broken in and tanned to a milk chocolate shade. They’ve trekked through Cinque Terre in Italy and the cobblestones of Florence and slipped around the hills of my college campus in Hamilton, New York. And the heat and dust of the roads in Phnom Penh, Cambodia? Questionable.

I don’t look like the typical Cambodian girl from Phnom Penh, which is to some extent expected because I am from America; however, I’ve begun to wonder if I am consciously separating myself from them, the Cambodian-born girls. My love for my cowboy boots, boots in general really, isn’t the main issue. There is something to be said about being in a place that isn’t one’s home and becoming a part of it by adapting to the culture—the food, the dress, and the customs. This also brings me to the question of what is home? Is it a physical place? The place one is born? Is it inherently tied to one’s identity? A place one feels one belongs? Is it both physical and mental? In my memoir, I struggle to answer this question and flounder. One of the main reasons I came to Cambodia is to mine the questions that I failed to answer in my memoir. I thought I couldn’t answer these questions because of my disconnection with the land. Coming here, I thought, would bring me clarity, not confusion. Writing, I thought, would also bring me clarity, not confusion. Neither seems to have worked.

If Cambodia is my home or a place I consider somewhat as home, I haven’t made the best effort to become a part of it. I wear airy little dresses daily. For one, I’m not so sure how socially acceptable these dresses are, but as you can imagine, I am doused in sweat pretty much all day long. And it’s not that sexy kind of sweat, boys. It’s downright stinky, sticky, soak through your clothes puddles of sweat. My boots, as you can probably guess, scream Westerner. On a side note, I visited a few custom boot shops yesterday in the Tuol Sleng area thinking that I’d be in shoe heaven. Custom boots for under forty bucks? Surely, that’s a steal! Ok, now think not so much Salvatore Ferragamo custom made shoes, but more Dansko-esq shoes. This actually only applies to women’s shoes. Men’s are quite appealing with a good variety of styles, textures etc. Alas, the last thing I need is another pair of boots.

There are other degrees of separation that transgress the material. As opposed to being a pretty tan person in America, I am very light-skinned here. What I find strange, but not exactly surprising is that people are obsessed with being white here. The counters in markets and malls are filled with skin-whitening products. I remember watching my mother apply these same products in America when I was a child. I thought this was odd because I loved being tan, and still do now. Skin color here is associated with class. Darker people are the laborers and farmers, while lighter skinned people are typically considered city dwellers. Also, lighter people are more likely to be mixed-blood, for example, Chinese-Cambodian. It seems that it is better to be a mixed rather than full-blooded Cambodian. This is a pre-war mentality, but I think it stills exists to this day despite the post-war migration into the city. What is so bad about being a full-blooded Cambodian? Is being Cambodian, being dark, associated with being of a lower class? Do Cambodians think of their country as inferior in relation to other countries?

Cambodian culture is far more conservative than what I am used to. Actually, I fully know what is expected of me as a Cambodian girl, and I know how I ought to act. Even-tempered and well-mannered. Polite with a soft-spoken tongue. Modest in dress. My mother tried to instill these traditional qualities in me as a young girl, and it didn’t work then, just as it probably won’t work now. Best put, here, I am improper. I can be loud and assertive. I like wearing hippie headbands and cowboy boots and chipped nails. I lack grace and fall up and down stairs. I like boys and wine and vodka. This is a place where I resemble the people physically, but otherwise am of another land, another people.

I’m trying to find a happy medium between being the me in America and the person I would be had I grown up here. And to be honest, it’s not easy. I don’t want to be the ignorant person that defies the customs of a foreign land, and says, “fuck it I am who I am.” Coming to a place that is so different from one’s own requires a level of cultural sensitivity and understanding. Because my parents are Cambodian, I already should have a degree of understanding that is greater than that of non-Cambodian people who come here. There is the expectation that I know how to act, eat, and dress.

What does all this mean? Maybe it’s time to give the cowboy boots a rest until I make it back home. Maybe I need to get over my hate for pants, and learn to wear them when riding a moto instead of dresses that tend to billow out beneath me. (Yes, I rode a moto! And not to worry, as a passenger...) I’m only different if I see myself as different, if I ensure that differences exist. I don’t want to be the Cambodian who self-discriminates, finding something inferior in my Cambodian-ness.

Lost Baggage: No Surprise

2009-12-13T21:25:00.009-07:00

I am in Cambodia; my bags are in LA. I’ve taken three showers today, and still am very, very sticky. It is 30 degrees Celsius here; it was -5 Fahrenheit when I left Denver. The beaten path, it seems, defines my journey. When I left Phnom Penh Airport in my Uncle’s Camry, I expected a somewhat smooth ride, seeing as he found my driving in America to be veck-vuh, best translated as swervey. If my driving is veck-vuh, then the only way I can describe the driving here is fucking insane. The unpaved roads are packed with lots of beater cars, a few luxury cars, motos (motorcycles), cyclos (Vespa-like things), bicycles, and pedestrians. The only rule is: there is no rule. One-way street, two-way, it doesn’t matter. Motos fly horizontally. Rice vendors on cyclos weave between us and another moto carrying a 13-year-old boy and an infant who is getting his first lesson in driving. A SUV with an ostentatious Lexus decal stretched across its side asserts its authority on the road laying it on the horn. A boy on a cyclo carrying a steel vat of rice clangs it on the hood of our car as he whizzes by. A Chum Kout, my uncle says. Mother Fucker, indeed.

In the US, many prefer to live further away from busy streets. The opposite holds here in Cambodia. Homes also operate as businesses, and so the homes that are on a main road are the most profitable. These businesses range from cellular phone shops to pastry vendors to t-shirt stands endorsing Lady Gaga and Kanye West. Teenagers love American music and mimic the tunes, saying the words but often without knowledge of what they mean.

My uncle turns down a narrow road. I feel as if I am going to run into a bunch of thugs. “Pou, mek chung mouw kang neah?” I ask in my broken Khmer. He tells me his house is on this street. A sign indicates this is street No. 355. One of the first things I’ve learned is that streets are labeled as numbers, not names. I’ve also learned that nobody knows a street by its designated number. This is a place of landmarks. Turn right where Om Keang has her lychee stand. But what about the other 15 lychee stands I just saw? What if Om Keang isn’t there one day? That would be an unlucky day.

The homes of the middle class (like my uncle) are typically three stories and open aired. Guests are received on the first floor in a living room type area. This opens to a garage-like space. To the rear is the bedroom of neak chnoul, literally rented person, or maid. Next to this room is the eating area, and the backyard serves as the kitchen, which is equipped with a stovetop and faucet. The second floor is composed of a family room, bedrooms, and bathroom. It has taken me a while to maneuver around the bathroom, but I think I’ve finally gotten the hang of it. There is a showerhead that hangs on the wall next to the toilet and a spray nozzle that is connected to the toilet. I’ve yet to use that and don’t really plan to, but the cold showers aren’t so bad (especially since I am sweltering hot for most hours of the day).

Last night I attended a dinner hosted by Alan Lightman (the founder of the Harpswell Foundation that I am working for) at the Khmer Surin restaurant. The other seventeen people who attended are all affiliated with the Harpswell Foundation as well. One person runs a motorcycle repair shop and teaches people from the village of Tramung Chum the trade. Another woman is working on the Great Hall of Women project for the newly built leadership center that I am moving to in January. A couple from Jerusalem is volunteering for the first month of their honeymoon. (What a honeymoon!) The managers of the leadership facilities and UN advisors also attended. It is an amazing feeling to be surrounded by so many people from all parts of the world who are doing so much good. It often seems that there is much talk concerning all the bad things that are happening around the world, and so we tend to forget all the good things that take place every month, day, minute, second. There are not many things that I can say for sure that I believe in, but I do believe that each individual has the capacity to be good and the desire to be good. Being here has reaffirmed this belief. Being here has made me want to be better, to do good.

Leaving Oatmeal for Mudfish

2009-12-09T13:42:00.008-07:00

I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous for this trip to my parents' homeland--Cambodia. The months leading up to my departure have filled my parents with worry. How could this 22-year-old American girl live in our old third world country? They worry that I will not be able to adjust to the living conditions in Cambodia. Will there be running water everywhere I go? Will my tongue adjust to the tastes of lemongrass, tamarind, and coconut? Of prahoc (mudfish) and krapeek (ground up shrimp)? Will the sun brown my skin to the same color as that of Cambodians in Cambodia? Or will my skin become discolored with sunspots, reacting badly to the Cambodian heat and air? My mother foresees that the latter will occur. You are an American she tells me.

The truth is: I don't know. I don't know if I will like the food, or if the linens will be as clean as I am used to finding here in America. I don't know if I will enjoy Cambodian food every single day. At home, I have Cambodian cuisine once or twice a week. Cathew Phnom Penh (a traditional noodle-dish with clear broth topped with mixed veggies and meat) or oxtail soup. But most days, my diet consists of oatmeal, hummus, turkey, whole grains and eggs--foods I surely won't find on a Cambodian menu. I take a strange comfort in this sense of bewilderment before I depart, in not knowing what physical and emotional reactions my trip will draw from me. In Michael Chabon's memoir Manhood For Amateurs, he writes that he, as a man, is an expert at pretending to know that which he hasn't a clue about. I don't want to pretend that I know I will be fine in Cambodia and everything will go according to plan. Actually, I don't even know what the "plan" really is. Perhaps, unlike men, women are more comfortable admitting that we don't know everything and we never will. Maybe women are a tad-bit less prideful...

Speaking of things not going according to plan, my father got an unexpected call last night as we were having our farewell dinner. It was Uncle Thoeun, my father's younger brother. My father answered the phone between bites of skewered kobe beef. Yes, the name is K-A-N-I-T-H-A H-E-N-G. Right, Flight 861 from Taipei, China Airlines. My father ended the call, and said to me, "He must be really excited to see you. He's so nervous he keeps checking your flight information. He's scared he won't be able to find you or something." I turned the kobe beef over the grille on the center of the table. It might be the only beef I would be eating for awhile since I'd heard that cows were considered sacred in Cambodia. My dad's phone rang again. My father answered and began laughing, deep down from his belly--a loud and lovely laugh. The waitress raised her eyebrows at him, wondering what this man could possibly find so funny, as did my brother, mother and I. Apparently, Uncle Thoeun was at the airport, thinking that I had already arrived in Phnom Penh. It was Uncle Thoeun, his wife, their five children, my father's cousins Som Bath and Som Nang, their kids, the newborn baby--all of whom were waiting eagerly to meet this relative from America bearing many, many gifts. Oh my god. I was still in America.

As I write now in the Denver Airport staring at the Rockies and clear skies and snow-glazed runways, I take a picture in my memory and miss it already. There's something about Colorado I will always love. Everyone has a special place that is forever kept in one's memory. It is the place we think of when we are in a not-so-great place. It is the place we always want to return to at one point or another, the place we never want to forget. Colorado is this place for me, and I will miss it and think of it. But I will be back, and until then, there are so many incredible places to see and experience--Cambodia being one of them.

I foresee that the next four months will challenge me in many ways--in my ability to adapt to a new geographic land, to immerse in a non-Western culture, to meet family I've never known I've had, to be a teacher and a mentor, to set foot on the land my parents fled and grandparents are buried. These experiences won't be easy. I know this. And they shouldn't. I've found that I learn and grow from that which doesn't come easy, from the experiences that make me question who I am: my values, what I'm doing, and who I want to be. I think of Oscar Wilde's words: "To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist." I will be 8,000 miles away from home in 20 some hours, living.