Catch Me If You Can: My Battle with the Spirits

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.

And then the monk asked for my number...

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

Celled in a Photograph

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.

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