all good things...

the independence monument

this is my last night in phnom penh. i'm leaving just one day before the week-long mourning period for king norodom sihanouk, who was responsible for both cambodian independence from the french in the 50s... and the khmer rouge in the late 60s/early 70s. i just bought david chandler's book on cambodian history from 1945-1970, so next time we meet i'll be able to fill you in on all the details. just ask.

a tiny part of me is sad to miss this event, most likely the last of its kind in cambodia, and for one of their most iconic and beloved figures, but the rest of me is SO RELIEVED that i'm slipping out before the estimated 3,000,000 folks from the provinces descend on the capital. after what happened here in 2010 during the water festival, i'm sure the city is ready... but i'm quite happy to confirm that from australian news sources. no need to be on the ground.

it was a good trip, despite my initial reticence. i managed to learn a few things and meet a few people, i made a tiny bit of progress on an article. i discovered khmer cuisine and confirmed my love for cambodian music. i had a thai massage and a yogurt scrub. all good things, indeed. but next time, i'm bringing kp with me. you know what they say: phnom penh is for lovers.

looking back, looking forward

bophana center, phnom penh

i spend my mornings in the bophana audiovisual resource center. part archive, part meeting space, part training facility, one of bophana's missions is to preserve the few fragments of cambodia's cinematic past that survived the khmer rouge. and there are few - nearly every reel was destroyed and the vast majority of the cambodian film stars of the 60s and early 70s killed at the hands of pol pot. other materials there include khmer rouge propaganda films, french (colonial propaganda) films, UN-funded edutainment, taped traditional dance performances... it's a treasure box. and a pandora's box of sorts. many cambodians who lived through the khmer rouge would rather forget what happened here 40 years ago, but recent population stats estimate that 40% of the population is under 30 years old. their trauma is passed down from their parents, and is shrouded in silence. they want to understand, to learn, to avoid the mistakes of their fathers. bophana provides the space for that learning. 

it's a pretty amazing place. and on a side note, davy chou's golden slumbers (2012) is a really beautiful documentary about the cambodian film industry... and its remains. at once haunting, bewitching, and devastating - like everything in cambodia - it's not to be missed.

the center is currently running an exhibition dedicated a vann nath (1946-2011), the painter of S21, the infamous tuol sleng torture center. vann nath was arrested in rural cambodia in 1978 for "violating the moral code" of Angkar (which is khmer for "organization", which is how they referred to their communist government), and transferred to S21. he survived because the head of S21 discovered he could paint and hired him to paint portraits of pol pot. one of 7 survivors of an estimated 17,000 prisoners, vann nath spent the rest of his life painting and writing about his experiences.

the exhibition features artists inspired by nath and works honoring his:

be your side, by your hand

i was on the back of a motodop the other day on my way to school, when i caught a glimpse of the sign for some asian bank here in phnom penh. it read: "be your side, by your hand." this is not the only creative use of the english language i've seen here this month, but i find it the most entertaining (with the sushi restaurant's "enjoy your new fresh flavor" coming in a close second). of course, i don't judge. every other sentence i attempt is awkward or inappropriate or flat out wrong, so who am i to throw linguistic stones?

i'm three weeks into my crash course in beginning modern khmer, and here is a list of sentences i can say with relative confidence:

i am not hungry.
i am american but i live in australia.
my vietnamese better than my khmer.
my cat's name is bob.
i do not have any brothers or sisters.
mango is orange.
i can't swim. 
please slow down.
she is a sex worker.
i am learning khmer in order to research cambodian literature and film (this is not exactly true, but it'll be years before i can explain my research interests in khmer)
i'm tired.
maybe i have malaria.

oh yes, and how could i forget: i'm sorry. i don't understand. could you say it again?

khmer is heavily influenced by sanskrit and pali, and in contrast to vietnamese, is not written in a modified roman alphabet. there was considerably more resistance during the colonial era to french linguistic elitism in cambodia, and in addition to preserving their language, the cambodians seem to have adopted fewer words from french (although i was delighted to learn this morning that, like the vietnamese, the cambodians call a spark plug a "bougie," which is french for candle). and whereas vietnamese, lao, and thai are all tonal languages, khmer is not. of course, they have more than made up for the lack of tonal variation with their vowels, of which i count 36! this switch from tones to such vowel complexity has thrown me a bit, but i'm starting to get the hang of it. now, instead of offending people with my tonal gaffes, i do it with incorrect vowels and/or consonants: the difference between "apple" and "fart," for example, is a simple aspirated "p." and good lord knows i won't be asking anyone for help here, because "please help me" becomes "please f*ck me" with the slightest change of one teensy little vowel sound...

the other night kp asked if i was learning to write, and i wanted to reach through the computer and smack him (sorry babe, but it's true). i am almost 37 years old, and i have just taken on my 4th language. this entire venture is a exercise in appreciating the limits of one's own abilities. i am barely hanging on here with my wild phonetic transcriptions of the simple sentences above. i have a book for writing, and i'd like to learn the basics... someday... but i think i'm at capacity.

salonpas: this is what happens in america

i saw this commercial for pain relief patches on tv the other night. you don't have to understand khmer (and i sure don't, honestly i'm not even 100% sure it is khmer) to get the message: send your daughters and girlfriends to study in the u.s., and they'll come back 50 lbs heavier! is there a corner of this world left that doesn't know our culture of excess?

hybrid forms

i rallied yesterday afternoon and made it out to the cambodian national museum, which was built in 1919, following the vision and architectural design of author, historian, and curator, george groslier. groslier was born in cambodia in 1887, and in 1928 published le retour à l'argile, a novel that not only questioned the validity of the french civilizing mission in southeast asia, but suggested that it was perhaps the french who should be learning from the khmer. spend an afternoon contemplating angkor wat, the early 12th-century temple and mausoleum built by king suryavarman II in the then capital of the khmer empire, and you might too. it certainly puts the louvre into perspective. interesting tidbit: the structure is today regarded as exemplary of khmer architecture, but according to the museum website, it's actually an exaggerated version of traditional temple prototypes interpreted through colonial eyes and designed to fit european museum dimensions.

the museum boasts an impressive collection of khmer statues in bronze, wood, and stone, and a number of ceramic pieces dating back to the neolithic period. and there was a strange and fascinating animation video put together by some australian researchers depicting life at angkor wat in the 12th century.

after the museum, i headed over to the silk boutique, which was was lame. but on my way there, i discovered a spa that offers 90-minute thai massages for $24, so it was totally worth the trip! now i know what i'll be doing next saturday.

the highlight of the day, however - aside from the impromptu 'gangnam style' rendition i witnessed in the market yesterday morning... that was special - was the contemporary dance performance i went to last night. i'd read about it on some dude's blog (everybody's got a blog these days), and ventured over to see what contemporary khmer dance looks like. it was a work-in-progress style performance, very casual, and very hybrid. more than worth the $2 ticket price. the dances were all very personal in nature, each meant to illustrate some aspect of the dancer's life, but i found there were ways to read recent cambodian history into the movement too - volatility, lifelines, forward progression... that kind of thing.

it was a pretty good day in the end.

monivong's revenge

well, it was only a matter of time before monivong, montezuma's cambodian cousin, found a weak spot in my otherwise iron constitution... twice. i'll spare you the details. you're welcome.

sisowath monivong 

king of cambodia from 1927 to 1941

(and wreaker of havoc on my digestive system)

i went to the market this morning with my friend mai, and sat there watching while she ate noodle soup with banana flowers and morning glory. i just couldn't do it. i didn't touch a thing the whole time we were there - no fruits, no rice cakes, no noodles, no sweet gloopy drinks (and you may recall that there is little i love more than sweet gloop). in fact, i haven't eaten in the market or on the street once since i got here, and that was practically all i did in hanoi. here, i buy my fruit (and petits écoliers!) at the supermarket around the corner. i eat in tourist restaurants. later today i'm going to go check out some swanky boutique that sells silk wares for foreigners... and i'll probably buy something!

worse, i'm having a hard time engaging. i keep telling myself i need to go to the killing fields, and i keep putting it off. i haven't visited a single wat. i haven't been to the river. i haven't even been to the national museum yet (though if monivong agrees, i might squeeze that in this afternoon as well).

i didn't expect all my cambodia posts to be such "poor me, why am i here?" downers, but it is what it is. for now, anyway.

(beach) holiday in cambodia

last weekend, i spent 8 hours in the back seat of a ford ranger with three other women, eating sweets, lamenting my numbed limbs, and watching my life flash before my eyes... i think it may have been my last southeast asian road trip. 

don't get me wrong, it was a nice trip, and a lovely invitation on the part of my khmer teacher. the company was fantastic, and i'm happy to have seen sihanoukville, cambodia's premier beach destination, and from what i understand, its seediest, most crime-ridden city. i can't say i was all that impressed with the beach itself (this is what happens when you live in australia - you become a beach snob), but it was a fine place to relax for a few hours. 

it's just that the destination hardly justified the trip... i don't know if you processed this when i mentioned it above, but i was sharing the back seat of a ford ranger with three other women. AND! i was riding bitch. sharing it, actually, with my new friend, mai. i couldn't feel my backside after 15 minutes. it didn't matter really, as we were all happily noshing on rambutan and mangosteen, two super sweet, crazy delicious seasian fruits. about an hour or so in, we stopped at a cambodian truck stop for coffee with sweetened condensed milk. i didn't really want any, but desperately wanting to feel my feet again, i went with. and i took some in the end, since i'm crap at asserting myself with asian women. it's a strange phenomenon - they tell me i need something, and i immediately acquiesce. i wisely declined any ice in mine, however, as i've read that while the water in phnom penh is award-winningly safe, such is definitely not the case outside the city limits. but i realized that without ice, which cuts the milk as it melts, i couldn't finish it. too bloody sweet. so i ended up holding it in my lap for the next hour, until we stopped for more fruit and i could sneak out and dump it. but just as i'd rid myself of the coffee, they stuck a piece of candied pineapple in my hand: "yes, eat it, older sister." i don't normally consume this much sugar in a week or more! but i took two bites to be polite, wrapped the rest in a napkin, and spent the rest of the trip wondering about diabetes.

mai

well, wondering about diabetes, white knuckling the passenger seat in front of me, and praying i didn't become a road statistic. the national highway between phnom penh and sihanouk is well paved, which meant our driver (and every other driver on the road) could travel at faster speeds. the speed poses a problem only because it's a two-lane highway serving motorbikes, tuk-tuks, dogs,  pedestrians, "vip" buses, mini-buses, trucks, both big and small, cows, and fancy new cars driven by men who may or may not have been drinking beer at lunch, and if our driver can be taken as an example, who are checking their text messages and listening to their ipods while driving. and the cambodians, not unlike the vietnamese, drive like maniacs. i stopped counting the number of times we played chicken with an oncoming car (to say nothing of the poor motorbikes) shortly after leaving the city. we were, ourselves, run onto the shoulder two or three times as others misjudged the distance needed to pass slower moving vehicle. there aren't many statistics on road accidents available here, but one asian news source i found quotes 1,591 deaths recorded between january and october, 2012. 

with all the cars here now, and the relative lack of driver education or traffic laws (by my count, 1 in 10 motorbikes is driving without headlights at night, and no one seems to care), it's just not worth it to me anymore.

what can't you buy?

a karaoke bar on my street - it's staffed by some rather skimpily clad young women

i'm sorry to report that cambodia truly does attract the skeeviest bunch of western men you'll ever see. so far i've discerned two basic types within this general category:

1) subcategory a: the old, haggard, burnt-out hippy. this guy has long scraggly hair and a definite vd-look about him. he speaks some khmer, has probably been here awhile, and can often be seen with a young khmer woman in a short skirt and ridiculous heels.

2) subcategory b: the young dude here to compensate what can only be understood as his inadequate manhood. this guy roars around town on a dirt bike, making way too much noise. and that's saying a lot here. this guy likely does the same thing back home (in a monster truck or motorcycle), but here he can also shoot AK-47s, eat fried tarantulas, and sleep with very young women for a couple of dollars.

both types are disgusting, and i find it remarkably difficult to hide my contempt when i see one saunter or haul ass by. it only drives home the extent to which the west (starting with the french colonizers, continuing with the UN peacekeeping forces who arrived post-pol pot, and leading straight into the current tourist market for sex and violence) has always been complicit with, if not directly responsible for, the perversion of cambodian society. this is a major generalization that i will not back up with any stats or research, not yet anyway, and this is not at all to say that the cambodians are innocent in all this... it's just to point out an observation. maybe i'll have more to say later.

but for now, i should really get back to studying. this language isn't going to butcher itself!

loose threads: broken watches, etc.

phsaa thmei - central market

i'm just back from a weekend at the beach. and as to be expected with any road trip in southeast asia, it was exhausting. so exhausting that i can't even describe it yet. all i can muster for today are a couple of random observations and a few shots taken at phnom penh's central market, where i bought my $3 watch that did not work until i broke it. truly mysterious. i bought two different batteries for this thing, and neither lasted more than two or three hours. so on day 3 i ripped the face off in a classic lb fit of frustration (accompanied by some f-bombs and a few "this is unacceptable"s, of course), and replaced it with a little piece of paper that said "ceci n'est pas une montre." i thought it was sort of clever. but the next morning when i went to put on my new œuvre d'art i discovered that the hands on the face, which i'd left on my desk, were actually moving, and actually telling accurate time. it's broken - i can't set it anymore, so to change the hour i have to take it apart, but it totally works now. 

anyway, i bought it at this market, which has a dome ceiling and is wonderfully cool inside. 

the dome at phsaa thmei

a few other mysteries/observations for you:

1) phnom penh boasts an inordinate amount of dental clinics. why is this? no one knows. (and by that i mean that i googled it and found nothing)

2) there are dogs everywhere but they don't appear to be as rabid as i'd feared. yay.

3) the cambodians are a more reserved bunch than the vietnamese. it's unsettling. more on that later, perhaps.

it hasn't been long, so it seems

                                 

greetings from phnom penh, where i've been for a week tomorrow. i'm here for one month to do some archival research and learn a bit of beginning khmer - if i can utter one phrase without stuttering or crazy long pauses or jacked up vowels by the end of this, i will count this trip as a smashing success, but more on those good times later.

arriving in phnom penh felt strange. i felt like i was coming back to a long lost friend, even though i'd only spent 1 day here before this trip. there was something uncannily familiar about it, even as i looked out of the taxi onto language i could not read, cultural institutions i did not know - signs of varying sorts i could not decipher. it was not like my two months in vietnam in 2008, the trip that saw the birth of fravina, this glorified diary. it was somehow closer to those first few moments in hanoi in march of 2000, when i stood on one side of a small street at 5pm on a tuesday, needing to cross to the other and having not one idea how to proceed. this long lost friend, i realize, is less related to place than it is to sensation, and specifically, the "what on earth was i thinking when i dreamed this shit up?" sensation.

i immediately felt overwhelmed. immediately. like before i even got out of the taxi, immediately. and sick. i felt sick (i figure it was some physiological response happening, as if my body was like, "alright, you want to be in southeast asia? we'll see about that. i hope you splurged for a hotel with a decent toilet").

i'm feeling a bit more settled a week in, though the sensation has not entirely left me. it would probably be less pronounced were i not getting my ass handed to me by this language (though i can at least order fried rice, negotiate a motorbike taxi, and ask for a toilet now)... and if the filmmaker i'm writing about hadn't recently flipped me the virtual bird... and if i would actually *go* to the archives i'm researching... it would probably be less if the streets were not numbered according to a logic that does not, as far as i can tell, respect the rules of continuity or ascending/descending order. and if i could get on one motorbike with a driver who knew where he was going (i suspect these two last issues are intimately related)... 

and you know what? i'm not 24 or single anymore. suddenly i'm worried about helmets and rabies and sun damage (i know, most normal people would be worried about these things, regardless of age, but i was blissfully flippant 12 years ago). i'm at every moment walking a razor thin line between exhilaration and exhaustion, and i think i feel too old for that particular liminal space.

this has little to do with phnom penh itself, i think, which i dig. it's remarkably similar to hanoi or hcmc in terms of sensory experience: the noise (in addition to the traffic and dogs yapping, there is a bit of a korean-funded construction boom happening here), the odors (that distinct mix of incense, sewage, and grilled meats); the heat (though i'm here in "winter" so it's not really that bad), the activity spilling so far out onto the sidewalk that pedestrians use the streets, the chaos of transportation (motorbikes, bicycles, tuk-tuks, and more land cruisers and lexus suvs than i've seen since leaving texas!)... none of this really poses a problem for me, not on a conscious level anyway. and in fact, once i figured out how to cross that hanoi street 12 years ago, i found that i actually love the moment of entering into and navigating the stream of traffic. some of my favorite moments involve stepping out in front of a crazy wall of traffic - there's something communal and very right-brain about it that i find almost... i don't know, zen-like.

this fatigue, this wariness, it's not phnom penh, it's me. it's a new project, a new culture, a new tradition. being here has implications, expectations, weight. maybe even consequences. it not only connects me to a past, but also projects years into the future, a future that has no form yet, a future ostensibly mine to shape. a future i started shaping when i got out of the taxi last week. the problem is this: starting a new project is like stepping out into the street at 5pm, but i haven't yet figured out how to find zen in the chaos.

christmas in july, part 3

"working on the night moves"

two days after christmas kp and i celebrated the 10th anniversary of the holiday party that changed everything. after a full day of telling each other how lucky we felt to have found each other, we went for sushi downtown:

the plan was to come home and play with the sparklers we'd bought for christmas (which they sell in the grocery store alongside the boxed christmas pudding!), but after stuffing ourselves with the chef's taster menu and then running a block or so in flip flops to catch the city cat, all i wanted was to drink an alka seltzer and sit on the couch.

so we saved the sparklers for new years' eve, and it was so much fun. we experimented a bit with the shutter speed, and took these somewhere between 2.5 and 4 seconds. i love that you can see the moon and even some clouds is in the background, but maybe next time we'll try for total darkness.

 "bob"

 "love"

it was a pretty awesome start to 2013.

christmas in july, part 2

"the great outdoors"

traded the christmas mobile for this beauty

another semi-epic road trip under our belts (our poor kitty), kp, bob, and i arrived in brisbane with just a few hours to spare before christmas. long enough for lb to make a chocolate icebox pie (that we later had to give away - delicious but too rich. bleh) and for santa to score his favorite tango dancer a new pair of shoes!

we had a lovely christmas eve dinner with some of kp's colleagues. she's french and he's from san fran... and now they live in australia... under this towering tree (see above). i stared at it from the patio where we ate until the sun finally disappeared. and i could stare at this picture another couple of hours. on the menu was a repas à la provençale: boiled lobster, potato, green beans... and homemade aioli. it would have been perfect were it not followed by the christmas pudding, which is very british (and so still a big part of the aussie christmas) and which i personally find to be an abomination. my apologies to the queen, and to all the pudding fans out there, but i object. fortunately, there was champagne aplenty! 

santa found us, even at the antipodes!

so, a sweaty christmas... this was a new experience for us. even in hanoi it's cold at christmas. i'm sure we've had an unexpected texas heatwave or two in december, but it was 85 degrees at 8am... nothing left to do after the presents were opened but to head to the beach! we went back to byron bay, to see what she was like under the sun, and were NOT disappointed. there was plenty of room despite the fact that we were certainly not the only ones to head for water to celebrate. and the water was perfect, absolutely perfect. 

 

 this year's holiday grog

then, a few days after christmas, we went sailing, finally taking advantage of an unexpected perk of my job - colleagues with boats! they took us swimming and for a boat barbecue of german sausages. too bad the scenery was so awful:

 our swim spot

the afternoon storm rolling in

fortunately for us, it waited to rain until we'd just stepped off the boat.

and the day after that, we went to the lone pine koala sanctuary in brisbane, where we fed the kangas, saw the dreaded australian taipan, which is the most venomous snake in the world, listened as kp did his best tasmanian devil impression, and discovered that koalas are indeed the cutest freaking animals you've ever seen.

 so fierce! (actually he's yawning here)

i realized mid-way through the christmas week that we were actually truly and fully on holiday. lounging around, reading for pleasure (what's that?), and taking in all sorts of loveliness the greater brisbane area has to offer. note to self: take more holidays (of the full-on, don't check email AT ALL, beer in the afternoon, shower only if you feel like it variety!)