01.27.09
Posted in Life and the happenings there of at 2:12 am by Kaihaku
Not quite but I was physically restrained and held against my will. Let me start at the beginning…
Khun Khim Leung is the agricultural extension agent for Preah S’dach district; she’s a forty-five year old woman who looks like she’s thirty, runs around like she’s twenty, and gets excited about organic agriculture like a fifteen year old talking about a school dance. I met her through PVIO as she is helping with their irrigation project this year at Kompong Th’nol. I was impressed by her energy and excitement from our first encounter. I have not met many Cambodians who preach on the virtues of organic compose or get downright giddy when talking about experimentation with different mixtures of rice. So, last Tuesday, when she invited me to her house for Chinese New Year I was reminded of my personal pledge not to miss out on opportunities to experience Cambodia during my last year here and I promised to make an appearance.
On Sunday when I arrived at the Khun home I discovered that our expectations of my involvement were far different. I thought I would visit for awhile, politely allow them to force feed me Khmer organic food though I don’t find it all that palatable, take a closer look at the family’s wide array of animals, and then be on my way about an hour before dark so I could reach Prey Veng before nightfall. They expected me to dance with them late into the night and leave the next morning. I was distressed when I learned of their expectations; they had not told me beforehand that they expected me to spend the night. There was a time when I would have given protest then yielded, sacrificing my comfort for the sake of the relationship, but this time I decided that I would not. After visiting with the family for some time I politely said goodbye, acknowledged their requests that I stay with my reasons for leaving, said that I would visit again and potentially spend the night when I was prepared for it, then I got on the moto, pulled on my helmet, and the entire family swarmed me. We were struggling over the moto, them trying to physically pull me off and pulling the moto towards the house, when the father swiped the keys from the ignition. I was stunned. They stole my keys, hid them, and would not return them. Despite my protests I was spending the night and that was that.
This loss of control, or rather loss of the illusion of control, left me feeling vulnerable and angry. I considered pushing the moto out to the nearby national road and walking to Neak Loeung about fifteen kilometers away, but I suspected that they might grapple me again. I also considered leaving the moto but I didn’t feel that I could leave MCC property unattended in their hands. They continued on as if nothing had happened, going on about how wonderful a time it was and attempting to persuade me to eat large amounts of Khmer food. Previously, I had felt obligated out of politeness to eat more than I was comfortable with but by this point I was no longer concerned with politeness and mostly ignored their attempts. Instead, I took some moments to gather my wits and send a text to Carol.
“I’ve been kidnapped. The agricultural extension agent for preah sdach invited me to her house for chinese new year. That was nice, she’s a cool person. But when I tried to leave her, her husband, her kids, and random other relatives swarmed me. I was pulling away when one of them swiped my keys out of the moto. I guess I’m staying with them tonight. This is the last time I visit a Cambodian other than Sam Ang or someone with MCC in the countryside. I’ll see you tomorrow, though depending on how tonight goes I might take most of the day off. I guess it’ll make a good story one day.”
Carol later told me that her first reaction to seeing the opening of the text was “Charles, you have not been kidnapped” but on reading the rest she was surprised to conclude that, “he really has been kidnapped!”
I did not have control over the situation but I did remain in control over my reaction to it. I did not panic. Instead, while I continued to feel vulnerable and angry, I decided to take the perspective that the whole series of events would make a good story.
The house was located in a beautiful scenic area, rice paddies and lush trees on all sides. As evening fell, stars began to appear in the clear night sky and crickets began to sing. It would have made for a lovely pastoral scene save for that, as is often the case in Cambodia, one house soon begun to blare music at an obnoxious volume. Unfortunately for me, it was the Khun family which had decided to put their 10 by 7 feet speaker bank to use. Neighbors began to arrive and I was told the virtues of “happy, happy, dancing” again and again.
In Cambodia I have intentionally made the decision to dance when possible as I dislike dancing in public and there are few better places to get over that. So, I did consent willing to dance in the beginning not because I especially enjoy that act or wanted to please my “hosts” but rather because it is one of my self-development goals.
As the Cambodian men present began to consume more and more alcohol they became insistent that I dance. It reached the point where for about an hour I could not sit down or take a break from even one song without someone grabbing me by the arm and pulling me back out onto the dance floor. I spent most of the evening, from 7:20 to 10:41 on the dance floor. In that stretch of time I was only able to sit out four or five songs. Everyone became more insistent that I dance as the night went on and their inhibitions lowered further and further. Everyone was also insistent that I be happy. I was the center of the party; I was not given much of a choice in the matter.
Around ten, the drunken men who had been hassling me were replaced by adolescent teen girls who grabbed me by the hand and pulled me off to dance with them. By this point I had switched over to passive mode but physical contact struck me as a breach of what I had been taught was Khmer culture. After a few more songs the circle of adolescent teens grew bolder. One of them asked me if I was tired, I gave her a wry smile, then she continued, “Oh Bong, Ohn could dance all night without ever being tired if it were with Bong!” That sentence is mostly translated but anyone who knows a bit about Khmer culture will understand at once why I left in the honorifics. Bong and Ohn are generally how lovers refer to each other. There were a few more interactions along those lines before her older brother, who had been dragging me around himself earlier, resurfaced and gave us double thumbs up as if to say, “Good couple!” Not caring for the situation in the slightest, I snapped out of passive mode at this and began intentionally dancing with other age groups and avoiding the adolescent teens. Several older women were thrilled by this turn of events but apparently I shattered the hearts of several young girls in the process.
Finally, I must have begun to look exhausted as Khun Khim Leung asked me if I wanted to go to bed. I responded, that yes, I would like to go to bed. So at 10:41 I was secreted away upstairs in a room all my own positioned directly over the towering set of speakers thumping away downstairs.
At last alone I was struck by the strange thought that I must be feeling something along the lines of how a kidnapped princess in a video game or movie must feel. I had been given every comfort as my “hosts” saw comfort, every honor as they saw honor, but I was ultimately a hostage to their demands. They also made me dance for them. I did not feel valued as a person but rather as a role, I was the “white foreigner.” They demanded that my presence graced their party, free will on my part be damned.
The music continued late into the morning and even when it finally grew silent I did not sleep well. Early the next morning they returned my keys to me and I was back in Prey Veng town by seven.
I will probably write a complaint about what happened and I doubt that I will ever accept an invitation to someone more than a step away from me again. Khun Khim Leung is a partner of a partner, two steps away from MCC. I expect that someone will ask if there is something I can do about what happened? I can learn from the experience and I can honestly let the Khun family know my perspective of what happened, but other than that there is little healthy that can be done. Cambodia is not a country with rule of law and even if it were I do not want to punish the Khun family for what happened. What I want is for them to understand how their actions affected me and through that choose not to treat another foreigner in that way again.
The entire experience is ripe with cultural insights, most unpleasant ones, that I have not had the time to completely process yet. I do admit if not for the lack of control, the dancing, and the blasting music it would have made for a pleasant night in the countryside. The Khun family did try to provide me with every comfort as they saw it; coconuts, bottled water, fresh fruit, soy milk, their favorite foods, a room to myself with a mosquito net… Perhaps, in their minds, even the dancing was meant to be a fun and inclusive activity. Unfortunately, the positives aspects of the night were completely overshadowed by the negative. I felt that they wanted me to be happy but more for their sake than for my own. I felt that they were making a social statement; there is a Barang here at our house for our party and look how happy he is to be here. The experience leaves me feeling vulnerable and angry but it could have been much worse. I was fortunate to learn a lesson on caution at such a low price.
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Posted in Life and the happenings there of at 2:05 am by Kaihaku
On Saturday, I traveled to Ba Phnom district to attend the wedding of the son of my language teacher and closest Cambodian friend Sam Ang. It was a typical Khmer wedding in many respects but Sam Ang buffered us expatriates from the brunt of it by putting us upstairs at our own tables. Scott, Carol, the Wiederkehrs, Sarah – an NGO worker from Australia, and several Peace Corp volunteers were also present. The evening was a pleasant one save for a certain young Khmer ma. In what is unfortunately not uncommon this young man was obsessed with the foreigners dancing. He also had no sense of personal space, volume control, or social restrain. He would come up to one of us as were having a conversation or just sitting there quietly, literally put his face into ours and nearly shout, “I want to dance with you!” He had a bit of a guttural twang to his speech which somehow made him more assaulting.
In Cambodia I have intentionally made the decision to dance when possible as I dislike dancing in public and there are few better places to get over that but I don’t appreciate being hassled. At another wedding a couple of months ago a drunken, usually civil, man was harassing us foreigners to dance by pushing and dragging us to the dance floor. The shocking thing about it is that he was touching Carol and Christa which, supposedly, is a major cultural No. Men don’t touch women here. Even husbands and wives rarely publicly touch one another. In that incidence, I attempted to run “interference” by placing myself in his path and occasionally physically dragging him off to “dance.” However, he was very insistent that everyone dance and continued leaving the dance floor to gather more foreigners to dance, because of that we ended up leaving the wedding earlier than we would have otherwise.
On Saturday at Sam Ang’s request, I had already danced to several songs when the young man in question first reared his ugly head. From that point on, Scott, Chris – the Peace Corp volunteer stationed in Ba Phnom, and I were constantly interrupted and dragged off to dance by this obnoxious fellow. I managed to avoid him several times, slipping off to talk to the cooks, returning upstairs, and sitting at random tables but he eventually interrupted what I was doing. Very frustratingly he interrupted a good conversation I was having with Sam Ang’s son-in-law who is the head of the Laos Branch of ACLEDA Bank. ACLEDA to date is the only Cambodian company I know of which has expanded operations into another country. I’ve been very interested in their progress but, unfortunately, just as the conversation was getting to an interesting point that obnoxious young man stumbled up, grabbed me, shouted in my face “I want to dance with you”, and then proceeded to start physically dragging me towards the dance floor. I could tell that certain Cambodians were uncomfortable with this young man’s actions but social stature, “saving face”, is a key element of Khmer culture and it would be very disrespectful for them to directly intervene. Since we foreigners didn’t want to create a scene either or upset the wedding for Sam Ang’s family, we also only resisted so far. I could have, at any point, visibly gone off at him and that would have shamed Sam Ang’s family. I eventually escaped upstairs again but he reappeared and began hassling Carol so I ran “interference” again. After I had physically dragged him off to dance, the others fortunately decided they had had enough and decided to leave. I say fortunately but really it was unfortunate that what could have been a pleasant evening was so disrupted.
During one point when Sarah was dancing, me positioned between her and a fellow who had been dancing far closer than is appropriate, another man walked up ignoring the dance altogether and blatantly began taking pictures of her with his phone for several minutes. Sam Ang is probably the closest and best of Khmer friends. I was disappointed not to get to spend more time with his family during the festive occasion because of a handful of Khmer men obsessed with the spectacle of foreigners.
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01.16.09
Posted in Ponderings and Incomplete Thoughts at 11:05 pm by Kaihaku
While verifying a few facts for an upcoming post I stumbled across a similarity between myself and an individual who I respect a great deal.
While his handwriting was far superior, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s notes bare more than a passing resemblence to my own. I’m not quite as embarrassed by my strange sloppy style of taking notes.
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01.15.09
Posted in Life and the happenings there of at 4:55 pm by Kaihaku
Last night I had the good fortune to attend a free “New Year’s Concert” at the Imperial Garden Villa and Hotel in Phnom Penh. I have been to a few concerts in Phnom Penh and I have enjoyed all of them but this one was of significantly higher quality than the others. This year I’ve seen some gifted youngsters and the upper tier of amateur performances but this concert was by professional musicians. There was Mark Kosower on the Cello and Jee-Won Oh, his wife, on the Piano.
This was the first time I’ve been to a Cello and Piano performance and I was very impressed by the range of music that the Cello can produce. It is a far more versatile instrument than I expected.
Sonata in G Major, BMV 1027 – Johann Seastian Bach (1685 – 1750)
- Adagio
- Allegro ma non tanto
- Andante
- Allegro Moderato
Songs and Dances, Opus 84 – Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977)
- Georgian Song
- Tartar Dance
- Russian Song
- Kazakh Dance
Sonate 1948 – Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
Cavatine. Tres calme – Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
- Ballabile. Tres anime et gai
- Finale. Largo, tres librement – Presto subito – Largo
Meditation sur le premier prelude de J.S. Bach – Charles Gounod (1818-1893)
Prayer from Jewish Life No. 1 – Ernst Bloch (1885-177)
Roumanian Folk Dances (trans. Silva) – Bela Bartok (1881-1945)
- Joc cu Bata
- Braul
- Pe Loc
- Buciumeana
- Poarca Romaneasca
- Maruntel
Vocalise, Opus 34 No. 14 – Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
Serenade, Opus 54 No. 2 – David Popper (1843-1913)
Nocturno, Opus 22 – David Popper (1843-1913)
Dance of the Elves, Opus 39 – David Popper (1843-1913)
Following their amazing performance, the two artists recieved a lengthy ovation. Unforunately, they had to catch a plane that night so they only had time for one encore piece!
Le Canaval dex Animaux – Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921)
It was a wonderful ending to a wonderful performance.
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01.08.09
Posted in Current Events at 2:23 am by Kaihaku
5:00 PM Monday Afternoon, the Phnom Penh municipal court ruled that the fifty-year lease on the Hotel Renakse given to the husband of Kem Chantha was null and void due to “neglect” of the historical French Colonial buildings that make up the hotel. Early the next morning, fifty police appeared at the hotel and evicted the manager, staff, ten guests, and the staff of a UN Development Project Office located in the hotel. On Wednesday, the Police began stripping the Hotel of it’s fixtures. “Justice” is rarely so swift in Cambodia. The hotel was sold, prior to the court order, to Alexon Inc by the ruling CPP for the sum of 3.9 million dollars. The nephew of the presiding Judge who ruled on the case Monday is married to the owner of Alexon. Yes, I think it is an extremely appropriate commemoration of thirty years of CPP rule.
I do not feel much sympathy, I’m afraid, for the manager Kem Chantha whose husband had close ties to Chea Sim. The now discarded fifty-year lease and the wealth of the family all came from CPP ties that have since withered. I do, however, feel for Cambodia.
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01.07.09
Posted in Current Events at 1:00 am by Kaihaku
Today marks the 30th anniversary of the retaking of Phnom Penh from Khmer Rogue forces in 1979. In my understanding it was both a liberation and, unfortunately, the beginning of the political domination of Cambodia by the Vietnamese. Thus it is a bittersweet holiday, the ending of so much evil but the beginning of the injustices which have plagued Cambodia for the last thrity years. I find it strangely fitting that Khmer youth in Prey Veng celebrate the holiday at Barei Undei, a shrine island outside of town, which is also known as the “place of angry remembrance”.
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01.05.09
Posted in Life and the happenings there of at 2:13 am by Kaihaku
In December, Carrie, an MCC volunteer in Phnom Penh asked me to help one of her partners, Rehab Crafts, with some computer issues. I spent two afternoons at their office resolving some networking issues, doing some standard maintenance, and outlining some suggestions to improve computer performance. During one of the afternoons, while Carrie was downstairs with the organization’s director looking over a shipment for Ten Thousand Villages, I was asked by another of the organization’s staff to correct and offered suggestions for a thank you letter he was writing for a shipment of wheelchairs from an international NGO. It was a brief interaction of about five minutes as I explained my corrections to his English and offer some suggestions on what else to include in a thank you letter. That incident was remarkable in that it marks the first time since I have come to Cambodia that I feel that I have done what I came here to do; help empower someone who is doing good things and who wants that help in order to improve their ability to do those good things. Furthermore, in that act I was personally thanked, I felt personally appreciated by a Cambodian who I was trying to help, for the first time. There was none of pomp or circumstance with strings attached that I encounter so often in Prey Veng, it was a simple heartfelt thanks for a simple act but it meant a lot. I felt that I was not, for once, a stepping stone, an obstacle to be dealt with, on the path to monetary aid but rather that my personal help was valued. My joy shifted quickly into sorrow and, honestly, envy as I realized the implications of that interaction, the ease of which contrasted sharply, unfavorably, with the struggles, frustrations, and failures I have faced in Prey Veng over the last two years.
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01.02.09
Posted in Life and the happenings there of at 2:32 am by Kaihaku
Perhaps, one day, I’ll post pictures and a narrative of the trip here as I have done on Facebook. For now, lectio brevior scribendi potior.
I had been, for nigh on three months, been attempting to arrange a visit to one of the floating villages on the Sap lake. Since this is my last year in Cambodia, I’m keen on seeing the famous, or relatively famous, sights of the country. The logistics of the trip were, from the beginning, a mess because I, instead of building the trip around a few people, had given an open invitation to all of MCC Cambodia. Sparing you the mess, after countless headaches and rescheduling I ended up leaving to visit the village on Christmas Day with Carol and the MCC regional directors who were in desperate need of a vacation.
It was a laid back trip but one that I enjoyed quite a bit. We had an excellent hotel, visited the floating village, a village of pottery makers, and Oudong. All in all, a good time and an excellent “Escape from Christmas.”
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Posted in Life and the happenings there of, Ponderings and Incomplete Thoughts at 1:33 am by Kaihaku
Last month, I gave up my daily iced coffee. I feel the opposite of the standard coffee devotee, I love the taste of Coffee and hate what it does to my head. In fact, until I came to Cambodia, I could count the number of cups of coffee I had had in my life on one hand. But then coming to a land where “good” coffee is plentiful, I spent a few months enduring headaches until my body adjusted to the increased caffine intake. Well, enjoyment of that “good” coffee has now been laid to rest with the aim of lowering my food budget to a dollar a meal. After having some iced coffee again in Phnom Penh, after a few weeks of no coffee, I have to add health back into the rationale. My body has shifted back to low tolerance already. Heart-racing, head-pounding, and then no sleep… Caffeine, how I hate thee…
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