Assorted Stories from Kampuchia
Allo!
Well, I’ve been in Vietnam for about a week now; I’m still adjusting to the huge city that is Ho Chi Minh, or Saigon. Before it becomes distant memories, I want to record my experiences in Cambodia.
Cambodia, or Kampuchia as it is known in Southeast Asia, is still essentially an undeveloped country. There are no trains, like in other countries. As one teacher of mine described it, it is pre-industrial.
For my first two weeks here in Asia, I was in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. It is the only real city in the country. It is relatively small; about 2 million people live in the city. After living there for two weeks, I definitely sensed a small town vibe.
On our first day, the Sunday after flying in, we were arranged to have a group get together with the other people studying. A Tuk-Tuk came by and picked up myself and my roomate: we were driven to a temple in the middle of the city to meet the other students, and see some sights. The first place we stopped at was a temple in the middle of the city. We had to climb a hill that was a few hundred feet: it is the highest point in the ciy.
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- A Monkey at the Temple
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- Chilllllllin…….
The monkeys you see in the pictures above run around the temple. A guy walks around selling a plant that they eat. I bought some for about 12 cents American; it was cool feeding them.
Monkeys are like little people when you see them up close; there aren’t a lot in Massachusetts, so this was a new thing for me. Its really amazing; they’re facial expresssions are very human-like. And when they grab stuff from your hands, it feels like they’re slapping you five!
The plants that we were feeding them were edible: they tasted chalky. There were a bunch of kids running around pointing to their mouths. When I gave one to a girl, I was bombarded about 15 more little kids. I threw them my leaves before I was swallowed whole by little children.
Other highlights: there was a really, really fat monkey sitting motionless. Someone said it was a pregnant girl monkey; to me, it just looked like a lazy fat monkey. Guess I’ll never know for sure.
Other assorted stories from Cambodia:
Teachers and Class:
Classes started on the Monday: it was like time-travelling back to the fourth grade: grammar lessons! I actually enjoyed them.
One of our teachers was interesting, to say the least: he is 73 years old, and claims to have lived in Asia for 56 years, since 1953. He also claims to speak six different forms of English and to have lived in over 50 countries. And he informed us all that he was deported from the U.S. in the 1970s for anti-Vietnam war activities.
When I asked him where he lived the longest, he gave me the following answer: “Well, the longest I lived anywhere was Taiwan……I was there 11 months, I had a good job, then the f**king government got all messed up…..but yah, that was a good thing there.”
So in 56 years he never stayed anywhere more than a year.
Such are the ex-pats you meet in Southeast Asia. For the most part, we learned about fairy tales in his class, and how to relate them to different cultures. Also, English phonemics, quite possibly the most boring subject in the world, aside from Paint Drying 101.
My classmates were a smorgasbord from America, with a spattering of Australians: two Chicago natives, two Wisconsin natives, and two Melbourne natives, and a couple from London. Also represented were El Paso, Texas, San Fran, Orlando, Alabama, Long Island and Conneticutt.
Eight of us were Vietnam bound; 6 Thailand bound; and three were heading to different cities throughout China.
Together we learned how to control a classroom and how to phometically break up English grammar.
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In Cambodia, the language is Khmer: it is pronounced Ka-Mai, as in “my”.
The food in Cambodia is Khmer: pronounced Ka-Meer.
The culture is Khmer, pronounced like the food.
The Khmer language looks a little bit like Arabic, or Hebrew: it is very hard to read, and there are no breaks between words. All words are connected with no spaces.
The word for Thank You in Khmer is pronounced Akun. That’s the only word I remember.
TO BE FINISHED ASAP
