This post is more of an experimental short story than a technical description or travel account. I say “experimental” because it doesn’t follow the traditional form of short fiction that has an introduction, character development, a plot, climax, and resolution. Most of my work deviates from that model anyway. But enough introduction. Here is Cambodia.
There is no Khmer word for “privacy” because the concept is foreign. Men dominate society by doing nothing. Men do everything, yet they do nothing. Driving crazy traffic down streets sometimes unpaved wrong way (if you want). Left begins on the left side, against traffic. Against convention, tradition. Get married young so you can take care of your family. The whole family, even people you don’t know are your relatives. Maybe they’re not. But all Khmer are one great family. She is your Aunt and he your Uncle. But not really. Talk to anyone as though you were best of friends, but don’t turn your back. Give to beggars or not? Pity does not equate to mercy or generosity. Nor does it have to.
Speak loudly. Yell, even. Always in Khmer, four or five conversations at once and everyone understands. Women chatter and cook chatter and cook chatter and cook. Men lie in hammocks and drink and drink and drink. Handsome though. The Khmer people are handsome. All Khmer people are handsome, even the old ones without any teeth from chewing too much betel nut (slaa – I learned on Sunday). They are handsome in their own way, but the young Khmer are most handsome. School children everywhere except in school. Around schools, on motorcycles. There are so many motorcycles everywhere, especially right in front of you when you drive. I won’t drive here because there are motorcycles right in front of you.
Religious converts are frequently more adherent than old believers. Western Buddhists, Eastern Christians. People around the world are greedy no exception. Policemen work on bribes because their salaries are so low. Low like the literacy rate. Men with guns in uniform and men in uniform with guns are everywhere, but not everywhere like motorcycles. I am a Westerner and a Khmer but more a Westerner than a Khmer. Sometimes I am neither, but always I am both: a curse and a blessing.
Women are meek and humble men loud and obnoxious but sometimes not. Grandmothers are either fun and generous or bitter and bossy. But what is different? It is not so different. Tourists wear the shirts that say “Same Same But Different,” but it is not the same, nor is it different. It just is; that is Buddhist. It is, and people stare. People stare all the time. That’s what they did when the Khmer Rouge came, and they still do. We are a timid people. We are all timid people. Timid like the naked children who play in the streets in front of thatched huts smaller than my queen-sized bed. They are not timid, but we are all timid.
Cambodia is whom you know, and you know no one but everyone knows you. One year is a long time but not nearly enough. Walk with the Khmer, talk with the Khmer, and avoid getting hit by a motorcycle. Children can do it. They can also speak with adults as peers. Some children can. Some children have nothing not even clothes until they are older. Then they marry. They all marry.
There is love here, and intimacy, but it is not a sexual people. Physical contact is frequent but rarely sexual and never in public. Men are not afraid to touch each other as they are in Western cultures but women all over the world and here included are in closer contact with each other. The king is the only homosexual in Cambodia. Everyone has a phone even people with nothing. Expensive phones that cost more than houses but not land because land is getting to be expensive. There are many smart people here, intelligence seeps across language barriers. I can see it in their eyes.
Cambodia is crying but it is laughing. It is very flat, yet unbalanced and unfair. It clings to the past while trying to let go. The future does not lie in the past. Who will save us?
