These last two weeks we've all been hanging around HK so it's time this blog went on holiday again. Here's an account of our trip to Siem Reap in Cambodia four years ago.
Bonat and me at Preah Khan
(He'd just had his appendix out but couldn't afford not to work. Thus, as tour guides go he didn't since he didn't want to do anything but sit. We understood!)
There will be, however, very few photographs since we forgot to bring a battery charger, and so, after a day, we had to borrow a non-digital from our tour guide ...
Bonat the Reluctant!
...
and it's just too fiddly to get them out of our photo albums and onto this page. Sorry!
But you should be pleased about that as it turns out, for the most part, we were both being hideously and self-consciously arty!
And do you really want more of these?
2008 Overview
I have no idea what it's like now, but back in 2004 Siem Reap was a tiny dusty little peasant town strung out along the banks of a wide brown river. In look and feel, it was exactly like Tavua in Fiji, only was being done over by foreigners who clearly thought it was Cairns in Queensland. Like, seriously, these Outrageous Outsiders were redesigning it into All-Out Tourist Funkytown!
Can you believe it? Cambodia! Only 18 months after the death of Pol Pot! The Khmer Rouge still in control of the country! 35 years of unspeakable horror! Over 3 million brutally massacred! Every single local a witness to the most unbearable levels of Pure Evil! And here you have Foreigners Disneyfying the world around them!!!
You could tell from the level of contempt on their faces whenever they looked at the new and/or restored buildings that the locals didn't like what was happening but didn't care enough to have any input. Whenever I asked why they didn't say something, the reply was always "Why? It will all be destroyed when the war comes back."
And that was the main refrain - the war waiting in the jungle to come back - but I think I should wait to post up my letters to comment on this aspect of it. Back then it was all fresh in my mind whereas now my recollection is that I adored Siem Reap, and not just for its ancient history, and how, during our week there, we had the most hilarious interactions with locals and these encounters now rank among my most treasured memories. It was a lot like being in Levuka, in Fiji, where you're immediately included in everyone's life and become part of the fabric of whatever is happening. (I have a story about Levuka at my website, which you can find by googling Denise Murphy + Fiji)
However, until I do find those letters, here's my best advice for when you go to
Siem Reap yourself:
DO NOT GO TO MORE THAN FIVE TEMPLES PER VISIT!
Yeah, yeah, the same advice I always give! As you know, I always ignore this and it's always a mistake. Honestly, you have no idea how dire it becomes if you try for more and it's a shame to turn something so magical into a stupid "no more, please, no more" form of torture.
There's a metaphor in there someplace!And the temples you must see on your first visit are:
1)
Angkor Wat. Give this place an entire day. It's worth it. Go in the early morning when the light is golden and hits at a particular angle and it's all so spectacularly photogenic. The combination of soft golden light, wafting incense smoke, golden sandstone walls, the saffron robes of the monks and the deep streaks of shadow combine to make you feel all "Effortlessly Ansell Adams". (Oh yeah!, remember to wear something moss-green. Photos that include someone in this colour are knuckle-biting! Not kidding! We're talking mega-pop!)
Then suddenly it's midday. That's when you dash down the
naga-bridge over the moat for lunch in one of the little cafes under the banyan trees for truly awful food (although the Khmer dried fish with rice is great) and memorably silly encounters with the gloriously naughty kiddies who hang around the cafes touting the tourists.
After lunch, walk off the indigestion by checking out the remains of stuff around the moats - although a lot of the statues have their heads cut off - for sale to rich tourists it seems - although there's the death penalty if you do it these days - which just means they now sell them to even richer tourists. And then
return to the temple!
You
must do this. See, the light has changed and it's no longer "all-fairytale magical" and that's when you can really see the place and explore it properly.
It's 12
th century and amazing; all perfection of proportion and balance and composition and such amazing statues and
bas-reliefs and you just walk around going "Oh wow!" And, amazingly, considering that Pol Pot massacred thousands in here, it feels beautiful being there; like you're witnessing "The triumph of the Hobbits"!
I think that's what makes it so very, very special; although built by a king for kings, and deliberately desecrated by Pol Pot, the overwhelming feeling in here is of "small dreams".
You get the sense that during the nearly-four centuries it was hidden in the jungle, simple peasant folk crept in here to pray for the little things: healthy crops, the recovery of a sick child, finding true love, getting rid of warts and pimples; small but desperately important things to the kindly souls who lived on in these environs after Thailand thundered in and destroyed the place.
And it's just so special knowing that, ultimately, the accumulation of small dreams and simple prayers outweighs the opulence of kings and the horrors inflicted by Pure Evil!
And there's other such good stuff in there too, and the best things to discover at Angkor Wat are:
a) the "Virgin-Choosing Pools" on the uppermost storey. Here still retains the feeling of decadence and opulence so you encounter history at it's purest and it's all so evocative you can really visualise the entire process. Oh, and make sure you note the room immediately next door with the large windows that look out over the land. This room is where the comfy bed once was, and where, daily, the Khmer's Shaman-King ensured the fertility of that land by ensuring those virgins were virgins no more.
b) the small "totally out-of-sync" room on the bottom floor with a wooden rosette-covered false ceiling, which Bonat said was a gift, nearly 700-years ago, from bearded white men in silver armour with a red cross on the front of their aprons.
(Mmmm, so that's what happened to at least one of those 290 "ocean going ships" that had vanished when Philip the Fat came to confiscate 'em!) Yup, all desperately "
Da Vinci Code"! However don't ask yourself if there's something hidden up there because the French took the ceiling down "for restoration" 60 years ago, so, if there was something up there, it's now well-and-truly in the hands of the Priory of
Sion!
c) the dusty back room on the ground floor that has, etched into the stone walls, a picture of the sun surrounded by orbiting nine planets. When you first spot it, you spend long minutes in bafflement, going "How did they know this? Pluto wasn't discovered until 1928! How did they know this back when this place was built?" but then you get clever with it and think "Back room! Amateur etching! Out of sync! Nope! Not logical!" Like, when you're a king surrounded by skilled stone masons and have some strange piece of knowledge, you turn it into something big and properly-done and then you foreground it
bigtime, right? That's when you decide this is just some smarty-pants foreigner's idea of a hoax.
d) the stretch of glorious friezes someone has scored over heavily with black crayon. Shocking piece of vandalism! Who would do such a thing?, you ask! I have since found out. A few months ago, I discovered a book by a famous French historian (no names) from the 1930s and in there is a photograph that shows this exact same frieze and it's already scribbled all over ... and you think "So, YOU'RE the guilty party, you hideous vandalising French git! You did it just to get the right depth of shadows for this stupid, sodding photograph"!
e) the bullet holes in the walls downstairs from when Pol Pot massacred thousands of locals. Wasps now have built nests in them. Again, it's history at its purest and very evocative!
So, those are the special things we discovered. If you discover some other very special bits for yourself, please let me know.
2)
Bayon. This place is amazing too, but for a different reason. From the distance, it looks like a big grotty pile of rubble but then you suddenly see the faces! And there are thousands of them which come at you at every angle, going in and out of focus. It's exactly like those 3-D pictures where you suddenly see the picture inside the picture. It's all just so infinitely precious and astonishing and you keep walking around just so you can see all the focal-in-and-outing.
The faces all belong to
Jayavarman VII, the 12
th century Shaman-king, only all made-over so he looks like Buddha. He chose this portrait himself so I guess having a virgin a day makes you feel like a living deity! It would be truly creepy if the results weren't so astonishing.
3)
Ta Prohm. From photographs I thought this would be my favourite temple. Not so! It feels creepy and Machiavellian and you wonder if the fig trees are strangling the buildings because they're feeding off the sinister and Byzantine plotting-and-scheming energy emitted from the place. These monks were not nice people and it's no wonder it was deserted
waayyyy before those army-carrying Thai elephants thundered over the horizon.
4)
Preah Khan. This place feels joyous and looks Roman. It is also where they found the buried collection of Roman coins so it's totally "
Mmmmm!" Dates are wrong, however, so don't make something of it. It was built in the late 12
th century as a tomb for
Jayavarman VII - yup, same guy as on
Bayon - who's son refused to see him as a god and therefore bow to him, so this tomb was designed with a great many increasingly low doors, so, by the time
Jayavarman VIII reached the tomb to pay the traditional annual respects, he was practically prostate.
It's funny and cute, yes?, but does make you wonder why this story got to Andy Warhol in such a big way that he immediately donated millions to have it restored. (which wasn't done, by the way, so it illustrates you don't have dealings with Khmer Rouge sorts!)
5) I'm leaving this one blank. There's sure to be something you're particularly interested in, so you can decide on this one for yourself.
Me? I'm truly an idiot so I saw heaps and heaps more. But I had a reason! See, reading up on the place before we arrived, I got caught up in the story about a thousand years of Shaman-Kings having a virgin every sunset to ensure the on-going fertility of the land. That's when I got to wondering
HOW he had sex! Under what conditions! Like, did he have music? Was the court around him? His wife? Dancing girls? Was food served? Drink? I reckoned that the expectations for how it was done had to have altered often during the millennium, so I put together a chronologically ordered tour of all the various dedicated "King-Sex" temples ... and, boy, did I discover amazing stuff about the historic sociology of the process!
However, since I'd like to turn this into a documentary one day, I'm not telling you anything more about it here!
And to conclude this overview, here's my favourite ever photograph of Keith. Doesn't he look all "Heart of Darkness" and "Apocalypse Now"? And don't you just love that light!
Keith at Preah Khan That's the end of this posting for now. If you come back in a day or so, I'll have found the letters and you'll be able to read them too.
Found some:
LETTERS FROM 2004:
FIRST LETTER FROM CAMBODIA
I regret to say I found Cambodia incredibly moving. I was determined not to because it was just such an obvious, crassly bourgeois response - so Angelina Jolie, darling! - but couldn't help myself. I think no one can. Not even Angelina Jolie.
From the very first Khmer you see at the airport you find yourself giving a damn and longer you're there and the more Khmer people you see and meet and talk to the caring deepens and you feel yourself so wanting to get involved and do something, ANYTHING, to make their lives better.
I think it's more than the fact that they're so damn dignified, proud and noble. It's that they do this despite their fear. And you can feel their fear; the fact it isn't just in their eyes but is actually visceral, in their gut, in their muscles, built into their bones and shaping their posture, fuelling that strange hyper-vigilent alertness, so entrenched it's like it's the only thing holding them together.
And who can blame them. Look at their past 35 years: bombed by the Americans, invaded by the Vietnamese, then the sheer brutal awfulness of the Pol Pot Holocaust, followed by the Thai/Vietnamese invasion, followed by the war, followed by the Civil War and now 6 years of peace, only with Pol Pot still alive, till 18 months ago, and still hiding in the jungle, protected by a Khmer Rouge government, their prime minister a known war-criminal with the blood of hundreds personally on his hands, rife corruption in high places and over six million yet-to-be-discovered landmines all through the jungles and rice fields and the bravest farmers - those determined to return to normality - all losing limbs. Hideous situation.
Yes, I tried to resist a soppy sentimental reaction but from the first moment they made me bleed; the fact that everyone has been to hell and back ... only you can tell by their eyes that they aren't back! And they tell you that. When you say something crass like "Life will get good for you now." everyone replies "No. It won't. The war is there, in the jungle, waiting to return." so no matter how much building goes on around them, no matter how much aid comes in, no matter how many tourists arrive and how many dollars go into their pockets, they don't dare to let themselves feel hope and that's something that wrenches your heart and makes you want to ... I don't know ... instantly sign up to sponsor a Cambodian child through World Vision.
One child! Hell, those children are so glorious I wanted to sponsor every single one I saw. They are all so beautiful and so clever yet none of them will go to High School. Most will not even go to Primary School. None of them will really have a future. That is so wrong.
No, I'll go further than that. It isn't just wrong, it's CRIMINAL!!!
Let me explain precisely why!
In a nutshell, Khmer children display more intelligence than any other children I've ever come across.
Like, the group I got to know best left me slack-jawed with wonder. I could have watched them for hours they were so compelling. These are the ones who hustle the tourists outside Angkor Wat. Not one of them is old enough to go to Primary School - the oldest was, like, six - and they were unlike other Khmer in that they were bright-eyed, naughty little scamps; joyous rather than fearful with none of the heavily-burdened, adult-like gravity that every other child in
Siem Reap has.
And, yes, I talked to them heaps and they were all very heavily burdened; all supporting their families. Sole breadwinners. Like, five years old and supporting a land-mined crippled father, a mother and three younger siblings - that was the usual story - yet none of them felt hard-done-by or complained. In fact, they all said they LIKED being able to support their families. Most of them had made little silk-scarves - not very well done, but, hell, they were only, like, four years old - or straw handicrafts or hand-made musical instruments - and they were selling them to tourists ...
... but it isn't this that got to me ...
The thing that made my jaw drop was they way they were able to switch between languages. They'd shout out in English to a passing tourist "Where you from?" and if the tourist replied, say, "Paris", they'd all do their sales pitch in French; say "Madrid" and they'd do it in Spanish; say "Toyko" and they'd get Japanese.
But it wasn't just an astonishing faculty for languages, but it was also their knowledge of geography. And also their knowledge of racial stereotypes: say "Australia" and they'd all go "G'day Mate!", say "England" and they'd switch to formal "Good afternoon, Madam! May I interest you in ..."
When Keith said "Auckland", they all giggled and said "Baaaa!" And one of them said "You speak sheep because your country has more sheep then people!" Keith growled at them, but, heck, I found it hilarious.
It shows how childish I am because was proud I was able to stump them with "Fiji". But within minutes I was approached by a little darling called Peos who gave me a flower and said "Please tell me the story of your country?", so I gave her the briefest account ... and within ten minutes, everywhere I went, every single one of those naughty little scamps was shouting out "Ni Sa Bula, Marama!" when I passed, and "Your country produces gold and sugar!" and "You live on 360 islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean!" and "Your population is less than a million!"
ALL THIS AND THEY WERE PRACTICALLY TODDLERS!!!
Keith and I have to go out now, so I'll have to leave it here, but can I leave you with a single thought?:
www.worldvision.com
Do you want to drop by their website and just look at how much it will cost you? One child? Five would be nicer? Can you afford a dozen? I'm currently trying to figure out how many I can afford.
I mean, how can you not! If you have five year olds with no education and no money who speak six languages and who can effortlessly mock the citizens of a thousand countries, what can they NOT accomplish with an education and a little "general unburdening".
This is not over, you realise! More to come.
You will be convinced!!!2008 - Below are excepts from letters. A couple I intend to one day develop into real stories, so NO! you may not quote them.
THE BEST CAMBODIAN MOMENTS
STORY ONE:
This is a vingette rather than a story, but it's one moment of my life I'll always recall with great fondness. See if you can visualise it:Sunset and I'm sitting in "Dead Fish Tower" - a strange and interesting little cafe down an alleyway off the main street of Siem Reap - eating wonderful Kymer smoked fish in shaved green mango sauce and drinking absolutely the worst cup of tea I've ever had (lukewarm Liptons with sweetened condensed milk).
Mr Peter, a blind Khmer musician, sings and plays an organ nearby, doing numbers from the Bee Gees catalogue. Srosretti, a waitress, lights the hundreds of red chinese lanterns the cafe uses for illumination. Mr Soshitty, our stalker, is out scouring the streets looking for Keith in the C.D. shops to tell him where I am (I paid him a US$1 to do it mainly so he got something out of spending whole days following us.) The table is a cable spool. The ashtray is a housebrick with a hole gouged out of the middle. Beside my head there's a sign in English reading "It is a crime to have sex with children in Cambodia. The penalty is death.", while in the distance Mahouts wash their elephants.
To the right is a giant sandstone Buddha head, about six feet tall. To the left, Mr Charlie feeds his pet crocodiles. Up in the rafters there's a monkey eating my hat. At my feet, a tiny baby spider monkey called Peanut sucks off my nail polish. And there's a young waitress called Chillie rubbing "Oil of a Thousand Horses" into my hair because she thinks it looks too dry.
I briefly freezeframe the moment and realise it's absolute perfection and the exact reason why people should travel and why Starbucks and McDonalds, despite their excellent toilets, should stop trying to be International. Because they displace places like this. And that's just
wrong.STORY TWO
The Annual Mother Washing Festival is about to begin - only days away - and all town people set up for it. Pot-makers have been busy and young men pull hand carts, heavily laden with giant pots, all over town, dropping them off at different houses.
The pots are wonderful; glazed giant pots in gorgeous colours, two per house, one tall enough to reach my chest and a wider one to my hips.
After two days of watching and craving my own set of Mother Washing Pots, I see yet another delivery close-to-hand and race over to check out the pots in close-up.
They're wonderful, sure, but I notice the top of the taller pot is too small to fit anything but the slenderest of mothers. "How do you get your mother inside?" I ask the young delivery boys. "You'd have to grease her with goosefat and push down hard to get her into that hole."
The two boys look at each other and their eyes widen, and then they start to shake. They try to stay polite but can't hold back and burst into laughter. And it gets louder and sillier by the second. Eventually, they are so gone they're not able to talk and I walk off, totally huffy and very put out. I mean, I thought I'd made a very valid point.
Anyway, I now know what it feels like to be a laughing-stock. All over town the story spread and everyone points at me and there's loud, raucous, side-slapping laughter as I pass. And I have no idea why.
It isn't until the 7th day we're there, a very nice - albeit giggling - market woman calls me over to show me a drawing she's done of the Mother Washing Ceremony - "Here's one I prepared earlier!" - and explains to me, through mime, that Mother stands in the wide pot as her children ladle the water out of the tall pot to pour over her.
Yup, I felt a right fool. But, as Keith said, "You do realise you're about to feature as "Stupid Tourist" in a future Cambodian Urban Legend." and how can I object to that? I mean, Karen Blixen says in "Out of Africa" "I have a song of Africa but does Africa have a song of me?" Well, thanks to being a complete idiot, I can now truly say "Africa, no, but Cambodia, yes, has a song of me! It's called The Idiot Tourist, and they all sing it!"
STORY THREE
Sros Sroi. Waitress at Papier Tiger Cafe on the main street. If you ever meet her say hi to her from me. She's a very special lady. A true Somebody!
What happened?
We're in town looking for a place to lunch and chance on Papier Tiger Cafe. It has tables outside and there's a cool breeze from the river so we go in. An instant through the door and a young waitress points at me and shrieks "That's it! That the one!" Not yet the town's laughing stock, I'm startled and back away as the waitresses swarm me. Then I realise it's not me they're after but my small black leather Dolce and Gabbana satchel! It's all "oohs!" and "ahhs!" and "Look, it says D&G. It's the same bag!" and "Can I touch it?" then the first waitress asks "May I try it on?"
I let her, sure, but not before positioning myself between her and the door so I can trip her if she makes a run for it. But no need; she puts it on her back and dances around, striking poses and going "Look at me! I'm rich Japanese!" then she takes it off and, after stroking it and saying "By the end of this year, you will be mine!", she returns it to me.
It's all very strange, right, so when she brings out our order I say "What's the story of you and this bag?" and she tells us "Three years ago, Japanese girl comes in here wearing this bag. I think it is the most beautiful bag I ever see and I ask can touch it. She says "No! This bag is precious! It's not for the likes of you!" and I think "Who is this girl to say what is for the likes of me? It is my place to say what is my likes." So I oathed to save every spare money to buy this bag for me. So far, I have US$17.00 and on New Year
(it was only April) I will have $20.00 and then I will go to Bangkok and I will find this bag and I will buy it. And then, then, I will be somebody!"
Saving up very spare cent for for three years and only having $17.00? Taking eight months to save another three? How could this not get to you! But then there was the fact that she thought she'd only have to pay $20.00 - obviously a sum beyond her wildest dreams - for a D&G bag that was another twist in the screw. But was the line "then I will be somebody" that totally wrenched at my heart.
I thought she was too young to have witnessed the Pol Pot Holocaust, so, because she intrigued me, I asked for her story:
She told it all so matter-of-factly: her name was Sros Sroi and she was born in Phnom Penh. At five years old, she saw her parents shot (she was older than she looked, dammit!) and has no idea why nor why the soldiers didn't shoot her too. For about a year she lived on the streets of Phnom Penh, eating food off the rubbish dump with the other street orphans. Then she remembered her mother's family had a farm in Siem Reap, and so, only six years old, she walked 300+ kilometers to get there.
In Siem Reap, she was given instant and unquestioning welcome at the farm and for years knew nothing but warmth and kindness from the entire family. Then Aunty married a very nice man and Sros was adopted as their official eldest daughter. It was, she said, the best moment of her life.
For six years, it was all joy and happiness until Uncle stood on a landmine. He was killed outright and Aunty's legs were blown off and she went catatonic shock and, after more than ten years, is still in a non-functioning daze. Since there was no one to look after their five kids, Sros stepped in to take over. And was pleased to step in too! "How else do I thank for such kindness?" she said.
"It must be hard for you," I said "to be so young and have so much responsibility!"
Sros flared up. "Hard! NO! It is my joy. Aunty is my joy. The children is my joy! It is not hard! Never hard! Never!"
She talked about her children's beauty and how clever they all were and how much joy they brought daily into her life. "I will do anything for them." she says "They will all have a good future. They will all finish school. I will make this happen!"
"How much will this cost you?" I ask.
She gives me the annual sum. I work it out and it's less than US$20.00 a year for all five. I offer to help.
"No need! No need!" she says "Japan is to open many schools in Siem Reap soon. They give scholarships to the most cleverest children. Don't worry about us! My children will all get one. There is no one clever like my children."
That's when new customers arrive, so, with a smile and a "thank you", Sros returned to her life.
It was only then that it struck me then how wrong it was that Sros should see her life as so matter-of-fact and ordinary, and how much more wrong it is that, there in Cambodia, she is right. You know, we could have gone into any restaurant in Siem Reap and every waitress could have told us her own remarkable similar story. It's so wrong, isn't it! Now that I have names and faces to attach to these erstwhile "news stories" I keep asking how we in the rest of the world let it happen. Why did we never tell ourselves how deeply, deeply wrong it is that anything like what Cambodia has gone through was allowed to happen? Why didn't we insist it was stopped. Why aren't we all saying, as loud as we can, NOT ON MY WATCH, BUSTER!!!
And why should we need names and faces to attach to a story before we ever give a damn!
2008 update.
It was, I think, her joy in her situation that made me determine that here was someone I wanted to help. So, as soon as we got back to HK, I went down to Mong Kok Ladies Market and bought a good quality Dolce & Gabbana satchel identical to my own. Fake, sure, but I'm not rich enough to grant this dream for real. I stuck a US$20.00 in a side-pocket and posted it to her: Sros Sroi, Papier Tiger Cafe, Siem Reap, Cambodia, just in case her children didn't get those scholarships. I also put a note inside with my e-mail address and asked that she let me know if she received it. Not a word for over six months and then I got an e-mail to say it had just arrived. She said it had been opened at customs and, since there was no mention of money, I guess Cambodian customs is as corrupt as everywhere else in that country.
But at least she got her dream bag and has the opportunity to think she
is somebody!
I'm now not game to send anything through the post so, whenever I know someone is going to Siem Reap, I give them US$20.00 and ask them to track her down and deliver it. They always, on every single occasion, come back saying "Sorry, didn't have time." and return the money, no idea how important it is that she gets it.
Every Christmas Sros sends me a card telling me how well they are all doing, but never anything about scholarships so I still worry.
So, when you're in Siem Reap yourself, please look her up - Sros Sroi, Papier Tiger - and find out how she is. Then, please, let me know. And if you give her US$20.00 in my name, tell her to e-mail me about it and I'll refund it to you.STORY FOUR
Mr Soshitty. Our stalker. Let's ignore the fact he has the worst name on the planet as he's the sweetest and gentlest old man imaginable. In his mid-eighties, he is also the only non-monk/nun (who all escaped to Thailand for the duration) elderly person we saw the entire week. And from the moment he first saw us, he followed us. For days, he was always there, just in the distance, watching. But it was a benign watch. Thoughtful too.
I talked to him several times, just getting the sketchiest possible account of his story - god forbid I should get details - but mainly to say "Mr Soshitty, don't you have anything better to do?" He'd just shake his head and grin. So, after a few days, I formally made him the boss of keeping an eye on where Keith was and paid him a US dollar every time I wanted to give Keith a message. It wasn't necessary as he would have done it willingly for free but I felt, since Mr Soshitty was so obviously going to keep stalking us this way, it may as well be remunerative for him.
I should explain that Keith and I have very different traveling styles. He likes to dash around and listen to local music and talk to musicians or people who know about local music and then buy local C.D.s, whereas I like to talk to locals or to sit back and just watch and feel their energy and try to understand. This means we usually go to some place together then split up.
Siem Reap is a small town, so we were never too far apart. And Mr Soshitty always stood someplace where he could watch both of us at the same time. It was useful because, even before I started to pay him, when I came out of one shop he would point to the shop Keith was in, and vice versa, so we never really lost each other.
Mr Soshitty. Small, wiry thin, grey-haired, healthy-looking but with that strange skeletal-level hyper-vigiliant alertness all of Siem Reap has. He got to me. I think it was that benign sweetness and big hearted kindness. I kept thinking that, since no one in Siem Reap appeared to bear him a grudge - were, in fact, exceptionally kind and gentle with him - that he obviously never sided with the Khmer Rouge; wasn't ever one of the bad guys; betrayed no one; never behaved badly. The fact that he was there when no one else was left alive was sheer miraculous luck. I didn't want to know details and the big picture I could see for myself:
Mr Soshitty survived the Killing Fields. Probably the only person in the entire region. He had to have seen it, heard it, known it, because it happened all around him. The torturing. The killing. Two generations of Siem Reap, absolutely everyone he knew - friends, family, the local grocer, tailor, butcher, doctor, all his teachers - everyone brutally massacred around him. Yes, he was there; a witness to the most unimaginable unspeakable horrors. And yet he remained a good person!
Late evening of the 6th day, I had to know. "Mr Soshitty, why are you always following us?" "Because you funny!" OK, I'd been the laughing stock of the town for over a day so I was instantly all-akimbo and snitty. "Thank you very much!" I snarled. "No" he says "Not funny bad. Funny good." And when he saw my face soften, he said "If everyone in the world was like you, there'd be no trouble." and he tried to laugh ...
... but it didn't happen. Yes, he tried but it all went awry. The easiest way to describe it is to say that Mr Soshitty suddenly fell apart. But it was so much more than that.
The start of the laugh turned into a shudder. Then the shudder spread and got bigger. I first thought it was an epileptic fit but then I realised it was nothing I'd seen before; wave after wave of shuddering coming up from his feet through his body, and then the shuddering turned into contortions and he began to retch, and then vomit, but not food. It was the most wretched, hideous, angonised, broken scream and it went on and on.
I had no idea what to do. I kept thinking "My god, I've killed Mr Soshitty! He survived the Pol Pot Holocaust, but he hasn't survived ME!" and felt like the worst person who has ever lived. I kept waving to locals, trying to get help, but they all ran off fast, like they wanted no part of it.
And then his body went limp and he started to wail. It was like the classic Greek Tragic Wail only he didn't fall to his knees and wail up to the heavens. He just rocked backwards and forwards and wailed with his eyes shut. And that's when the men who'd run away came back bringing womenfolk, and the women gently him away.
I was worried, yes, but the next day there was a young man watching us from Mr Soshitty's spot in the distance. "Where's Mr Soshitty?" I asked him. "Is he well?" "Yes" said the young Khmer, "He is wash by his family today. This is his wish. He ask me to stay with you today. He will not be coming."
2008 - When you're in Siem Reap yourself, please try to discover if he's still around and still OK. And please let me know. I promise you, you'll spot him. He'll be the only grey-head who isn't also wearing saffron. And, equally, I promise you'll have no trouble remembering his name.ANOTHER LETTER
From what I saw, the Khmer are a proud, intelligent, dignified people who desperately need to heal and who aren't being given the opportunity. It was sad to see that - with all this rebuilding going on, money going into their pockets, aid coming in, the whole world wanting to help - they are refusing to connect with this promised future. They obviously have no faith in all this razzamataz hooha and think the world is wasting its time; it is all going to be taken away from them again so why bother!
This really interested me and I kept watching them and wondering "What do they need?" and "What has to happen first before any of this matters?"
I sincerely wanted to know and tried to find out but it was such a tricky subject. I didn't think it my place to probe - all that pain and personal demons! - God forbid they should ever tell me! It would be too much! - so I had to skirt around subjects and see what THEY wanted to talk about.
Taking as my starting point the sure knowledge that people have an instinct for self-healing, I thought they'd already subconsciously know what was needed so they just had to be encouraged to talk about what was uppermost on their minds, so I did lots of that.
And what they all wanted to talk about the Annual Mother Washing Ceremony. Interesting, huh!
It was coming up to the Festival of Mother Washing - 14th April - where families gather to bathe Mummy - so, sure, it was on their minds, but what I found fascinating was the way they were telling me. I kept feeling this Jungian tingle that they felt they were talking about something very, very important so I thought "The answer is in there someplace."
Do you see what I see here? Overly simplistic maybe but surely "Mother Washing Ceremony" is symbolic-speak for "I want to see my country cleansed." These people are Buddhist so their fundamental belief is in "right thinking, right action" yet they are still being ruled by corrupt Khmer Rouge - the very people who drove the Pol Pot Holocaust - with a prime minister who is as dirty as they come. They can't heal because they are still living within this filth. They need something symbolic to happen to switch them over from war-mode to peace-mode and to make them believe in the future again.
So what they are actually saying, you agree, is they need a huge Motherland Cleansing Ceremony?
But what would be an appropriate Motherland Cleansing Ceremony? That's when I started to think about the about-to-start Khmer War-Crimes Trials. Would they provide it?
I brought up the topic of the war trials with a number of locals but they were totally indifferent. The usual reply was an indifferent shrug and a sneering"Crocodiles judging crocodiles!" Obviously no one had the slightest faith that they'd be anything more than a whitewash. And who can blame them?
(2008 - I was so wrong about all of this. The trials didn't start and still haven't. What they did instead was crown a new king! A ballet dancer from Paris! Haven't heard what's happened since!)
Nope. Wrong again. Seems this week HKers are most in a panic about sharks. Some killer types have been sighted in the waters around our 260 islands and one was caught in a shark net on HK island itself, so it appears everyone is in a right state about this.
Nope! Lost again. This week, according to HK Magazine, HK is in a panic about Genetically Modified Foods! Apparently, Korea and Japan are in an uproar about it and it's featuring large in the Chinese language newspapers.
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