Greg’s Words of Wisdom

Asia, Part 1: First Night in the East; Cambodian History

September 8, 2009 at 11:13 am (Uncategorized)

Disclaimer: Some Names Have Been Changed

Hey There,

So as you probably know, if you’re a friend of mine, I have moved to Asia to teach English.  Specifically, I have moved to the city of Saigon, known officially as Ho Chi Minh City, to teach English.  I have been here for a little over two weeks now: my first two weeks were spent in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.  I have only been here in Saigon for three days.

As would be expected, my first night in Cambodia was, well, a little shocking.  I had just spent over 24 hours traveling around the world: starting at 8:2o on a Friday morning, I was dropped off my parents and sister at Logan Airport in Boston.  From there, I took a 45 minute flight to JFK in New York.  I sat in JFK for about 4 hours: I started typing a  blog post in a Word Doc (which I didn’t like and won’t be publishing), I ate some really expensive, fairly crappy food, I listened to half of a podcast by Adam Carolla (one of his CarCasts, about motorcycles), and I read a decent chunk of a Chuck Klosterman book, Killing Yourself to Live.

Then I jumped on a plane for Seoul, South Korea, on Korea Air.  The next thirteen hours are something of a blur to me: I watched a few movies (Dog Day Afternoon….which I had never seen before and was awesome!  Love that Pacino…..and Cezale!; Taken, which was good, but not as good as Man on Fire [very similar movies], the new Star Trek, which I really didn’t like….I’m convinced that I’m just not a Star Trek guy, and never will be.), I played a lot of electronic backgammon, I watched some Everybody Loves Raymond, I went to the bathroom a few times, stretched my legs, ate two of the crappiest meals of my life, ate one of the tastiest pork buns of my life, tried to sleep with my hanging my head vertically forward, and also by leaning my head on my neighbor’s shoulder without him noticing, and pretty much went stir crazy and started thinking insane thoughts to myself.

Flying for 13 hours……..you haven’t lived until you’ve tried it!

After a flight that long, its almost like the whole Shawshank Redemption thing: you get used to those walls around you, and eventually, you need them.  I really didn’t even want to go out into the real world upon landing.

But I did…..and was greeted by a bunch of Koreans wearing face masks, checking my forms to see if I had been sick in the last two weeks.  They didn’t seem to care once they heard I was heading to Cambodia.

Then I walked to my gate and waited in the Seoul Airport for about 4o minutes.  I remember drinking a strawberry shake, and I remember that it was reported to be 80 degrees outside.  That’s really all I remember.

Then we boarded another Korea Air flight to Phnom Penh: 5 more hours!  I got some sleep that was really crappy, and makes you feel disjointed and groggy.  I ate another crappy meal.  I filled out my visa application.  And finally, after 5 hours……Phnom Penh!

So yah….I was pretty out of it by the time I landed.

I met two girls who were both taking the same teaching class as me, Marguerite and Kathryn.   Together we wandered into the tropical night to find our transporters, who were supposed to be at a Dairy Queen.  I couldn’t find the Dairy Queen in my state of weirdness, but eventually, we found our drivers.  Marguerite was from Alabama; we talked a little Southern Culture.

Before landing in Cambodia, I had been told by a friend to mind my P’s and Q’s, because according to her, it was “really ghetto.”  That’s all I was really thinking about as we drove in our minivan into the city, and I stared out the window at piles of trash on the sidewalks and people riding around on bikes.  I’ll be honest; it was a little unnerving.

When we got to the OK Guesthouse, it turned out I wasn’t staying there: I was living with some dude named Ron, who showed up on his motorbike and looked to be in his late fifties.  Umm….okay.

Upon arriving at Ron’s house, he gave me the tour of my bedroom, and most notably, the bathroom.  As far as I can remember, this is how the bathroom part of the tour went:

Leading me to the far side of the kitchen, near the sink, Rick opens the door.

I stare in, seeing a toilet bowl with no flush……and nothing else.

Ron: “Now…..this is an Asian toilet.  The seat comes down like this (slamming plastic toilet seat onto porcelain rim).  We don’t use toilet paper out here…..right here you got your butt cleaner (picking up a hose attached to the wall, with a controlled nozzle).  It doesn’t have a flush…….use the butt cleaner to get anything down, and if that doesn’t work (reaching down and grabbing a small purple bucket), you use the bucket.  Don’t worry……just keep giving it the bucket and hose, and eventually everything will go down.”

Me: “Umm…..okay.  Got it!”

And that was my first night in Asia.

—

But it got better.  The next day I went out with the other student living in Ron’s house, Matt.  Matt is Australian: we spent about an hour shooting the shit, or as he called it, “having a guest bag.”

We hit the streets at about 10:30 AM.  We got some really good grub for 1$ American.  We walked around.  It was sunny and hot.

Later in the day the whole gang got together: we got to know one another while seeing some of the touristy sites, such as a temple with a lot of monkeys running around (and one fat monkey sitting motionless) and the palace where the king lives.  We were told by one of the teachers with us that the king spends some time living at the palace, some time living in the South of France, and some time living at the palace of Kim Jong Il in North Korea.  Apparently Cambodia and North Korea are pretty good friends.

Later on that evening, we all ate dinner at a sort of fancy restaurant on the river.  All of the teachers were there.  It was at this dinner that I learned the following from Steve, one of the teachers, who hails from Ireland: Cambodians really enjoy automatic weapons, and carry them around in public; there is a shooting range near the airport where one can throw live grenades at live chickens, or purchase a cow and blow it up with a rocket launchers, or simply shoot M-16s and AK-47s.  According to Steve, Cambodia is “the wild west.”

But the thing about Cambodia is……everyone is incredibly friendly.  Guys try to sell you stuff on the street, but when you turn them down, they smile and laugh.  This is in part due to the insanely terrible past Cambodia has endured: in the 1800s, they were colonized by the French, along with Vietnam and Laos.  In the 1950s, they became an independent country when the French decided to abandon them and fight for Vietnam and Laos instead.  In the 1960s, over 500,000 tons of bombs were dropped on them by American planes, and fighting spilled over the border often.  In April 1975, as the Vietnam War was ending, the city of Phnom Penh was invaded by the Khmer Rouge, a radical Communist political party lead by Pol Pot, who had been living in exile in Hanoi to avoid being persecuted for his political beliefs.  Announcing over loudspeakers that American bombers were attacking the city, they evacuated everyone to the countryside.  Once everyone was out of the city, they were put to work on rice farms in order to “provide for the people.”

The Khmer Rouge probably had the sickest, most twisted view of Communism imaginable.  People were supposed to essentially become robots: anyone with any kind of education or independent thought was killed.  All government officials were the first to be killed: they were brought to S21, a high school in the city converted into a torture and death chamber.  They were interrogated and tortured, and encouraged to produce more “enemies of the people.”

Eventually, it stopped mattering entirely how fickle the excuse was: if you were different at all, you were killed.  All Vietnamese or Vietnamese sympathizers were killed.  Anyone with eyeglasses were killed, because they were seen as educated.  In the sickest of ironies, Pol Pot, along with the official who ran S21, were former high school teachers.  And they were killing anyone who was educated, or looked to be educated.

The Khmer Rouge ruled the country for three years.  During that time over 2 million were killed.  The entire city of Phnom Penh was emptied.  The people working on the rice paddies worked 14-16 hour days, and often died from horrible living conditions, too little food and water, or the brutality of the work.

The Khmer Rouge was at war with Vietnam for this entire time; when they invaded the Mekong Delta area and killed Vietnamese villagers, Vietnam invaded Cambodia and ousted the Khmer Rouge from power.  Pol Pot, along with others, fled to the jungle.  In a sad twist to this story, most of the Khmer Rouge officials who oversaw the killings never saw justice.  Pol Pot lived until 1998.  Today, the Prime Minister of Cambodia is one of the former Khmer Rouge head officials.

The Khmer Rouge was ousted in 1979, but the trouble didn’t end: people were still fleeing the country, mainly to Thailand, for a better life, ultimately in America or Canada.  The refugee camps were awful places, and often times were run by the Khmer Rouge, who were still active.

Throughout the 1980s, civil war tore the country apart.  Land mines were laid throughout the entire countryside, mainly on the border with Thailand, to keep people from escaping.  Today, there are still more than 6 million active land mines in Cambodia.  It is a serious problem in the northern part of the country: there is no good way to deactivate land mines in the jungle, and the people there have trouble living a sustainable life because of it.

Cambodia was still a very dangerous place through the 1990s; the war was officially over, but there was no real order, and violence was still rampant.  It really wasn’t until 2000 that the country started to pick itself up, and they’ve been slowly climbing ever since.

With all this in mind, it is amazing that it is such an optimistic country.  But optimistic is the only word that fits.  In the city of Phnom Penh, Tuk-Tuk drivers (the local taxis, attached to motorbikes) will flag you down for a ride; when you turn them down, they smile and laugh.  The people love love the fact that people from the Western world are visiting their country.  For a long, long time, it wasn’t even possible.

With all of this in mind, Cambodia is really a ‘new country’, re-born in 2000.  It is still very young, and trying to find itself.  There aren’t a lot of rules, but the people like that: they do not want any kind of strong government telling them what to do, understandably.  Its a great place to visit, and hopefully, in the years to come, it will continue to grow and mature.

—

On the Monday after arriving in Cambodia, we started classes.  At this point, jet lag and stomach problems were a main concern in my life: having English grammar classes could be hard to digest when either battling hallucination-enducing fatigue or explosively evil bowel movements.  But somehow….my notes turned out okay.

To Be Continued…..And Enhanced With Photos and Maybe Even Videos!

Until Next Time,

Greg