Now meet Sensovesai (with a short guest appearance by Vutha). There is an interesting misunderstanding that takes place near the end of the video, in which I think they are saying men when really they are saying monks. Seems painfully obvious now, but maybe it will help you understand my ridiculous reaction.
Anyways, enjoy! And ignore my increasingly strange-sounding English! Onegaishimasu!
Soksopheakdey laughing...
Vutha told me that Cambodian monks, like most in southeast Asia, followed Theravada, "The Way of the Elders," the oldest surviving school of Buddhism. At 25 years old, Vutha has been studying Pali, the ancient language of the Theravada's canon, for 8 years. As a monk, he serves his community by presiding over religious ceremonies and providing instruction in basic Buddhist morality and teachings. As a scholar, he dedicates his life to his studies, both religious and secular. He hopes to someday become a teacher of Khmer Literature, and studies both English and Japanese as well.
Vutha also introduced me to another young monk with impeccable English named Sensovesai. His name, he told me, means "I meet you, I am lucky. You meet me, you are lucky." At 21, he has been a monk for 5 years, and is dedicated to studying English and Japanese, despite the fact that he hopes to someday become a singer. "My friends tell me I dance like Micheal Jackson!" He laughed.
Micheal Jackson? That I had to see! Only one problem. As a monk, Sensovesai can't dance, and he can't sing. He isin't even supposed to listen to music.
Monks vow to undertake 10 Precepts, abstaining from: 1) harming or taking life, 2) taking what is not given, 3) sexual misconduct, 4) false speech, 5) using intoxicants, 6) eating after midday, 7) dancing, singing, music, or any kind of entertainment, 8) using garlands, perfumes, unguents and adornments, 9) using luxurious beds or seats, and 10) accepting or holding money.
But whatever the idealized, romantic preconceptions of monks may be, they are just people like you and me. In Cambodia, becoming a monk is sometimes the only way to get an education, fill your stomach and relieve the burden of your family. Very few young men (boys can usually enter the monkhood at the age of 13) become monks with the hopes of living a monastic life forever. There is no stigma attached to leaving the monkhood, and even in House No. 39, a young ex-monk and fellow aspiring singer continued to live just as he always had, among the monks in the monastery. Being ordained as a monk, even for a short time, is thought to be very virtuous. Just taking the vows, regardless of whether or not you keep them, is a virtue.
Vutha brings in the laymen's laundry, as Vesai paruses my trusty travel companion, the JET Diary.
Worried I was imposing on people too polite to tell me to leave, I asked if perhaps I should go so that they could prepare for their next round of classes. "No, no, no, don't worry! Aren't you hungry? You should have something to eat!" Vutha insisted.
By this time, the two young women, (Vutha's sister, and a cusin), had finished preparing the final meal of the day. The monks began to lay mats and gather infront of the buddah shrine, and the venerable emerged from his room carrying a small, low table. "Would you like to eat here?" Vutha asked.
"I would love to, but I don't want to eat all your food! There won't be enough for everyone! That food is for the monks..."
"Oh, there's more than enough. Now, we have to eat. You can't eat with us, but you can wait. And then afterwards you can eat with them (the girls). It is like a blessing for you!"
My western educated mind reeled for a moment. Oh yeah. How blessed! I get to sit and watch you eat, and then, when your finished you will allow us second class citizens to partake of your leftovers. This all shot through my mind in an instant, almost too quickly for me to realize I had thought it. It disappointed me. I would rather believe it was something I was programmed to think than consider it an original thought of my own. The truth is, I did feel greatly blessed: Blessed to have been able to come back to Cambodia, to have met Vutha, to have been welcomed into his home and treated so kindly, and to be invited to eat with them, observing their lifestytle, learning about their culture and taking part in their customs.
"Today the food is very delicious," the Venerable added (translated by Vesai). "You should stay and eat."
Good food? A personal invitation from the Venerable? How could I argue with that?
The girls and I enjoyed our meal, trying to communicate in my non-existent Cambodian, gestures, and smiles. I'm not sure what we we were eating, but it involved fish and was delicious.
Vutha heads off to class.
After lunch Vutha rushed off to bathe before his next round of classes at 1PM. Vesai, who was finished for the day, offered to show me around the temple grounds and accompany me to the National Museum after Vutha left.
As Vutha left for class he asked me to come again when I returned (the next day I planned to head back to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat) and blessed me, wishing me health, happiness and good luck. Vesai headed upstairs to put on his formal robes and we headed out into the temple grounds for my personal tour.
Vesai and I wait out the rain beneath the shelter of a colorful temple pavillion.
We headed back through the muted maze of monk dwellings and out onto noisy (in comparison) streets towards the National Museum. In order to keep the lay people from criticizing him, Vesai asked me to walk behind him until we were in the museum. I understood, and kept my distance, even after entering the museum grounds. " Are you sure its OK for you to talk to me out here?" I asked, concerned I was about to horribly offend the entire Cambodia capital. "No, its ok. In here there are only foreigners. They don't care, I'm sure."
So together we explored the amazing collection of Khmer carving and craftsmanship. Vesai patiently explained the symbolism and context of each of the beautifully carven statues and stellas, and even tried the ancient inscriptions written in a flowing form of Pali. Knowing the Vesai was eager to practice his Japanese, I secretly scoped the scene for a large Asian tour group, straining my ears to hear the languages being spoken all around me. There were many Koreans and Chinese tourists, who traveled in pairs or small groups, but it took awhile before a true Japanese your came through, fluent Japanese guide, flag and all.
I approached them apologetically (as is the custom-- sumimasen!) and began to ask them where they were from. Amazed that I could speak Japanese, they were thrilled to talk to me and try to understand how that could be. Knowing the tour had to be short on time, I introduced Vesai and told them that he,too, was studying Japanese. A chorus of "Eeee! Sugoi!" echoed through the lofty rooms as they tried to converse with the young monk. When it proved more difficult than they had hoped, they turned their attention back to me. The tour guide was a bit kibishii (strict) and urged the group to move along. I offered to take a quick picture, remembering that Vesai had once told me that since he could not travel, it was nice to think at least his picture could.Everyone smiled and shot up the peace sign, except for Vesai, who put on his serious monk face and stood with his hands at his side.
Time was running short for us as well. Vesai asked me to visit when I returned from Angkor, and I promised I would. He headed back towards House No. 39, far ahead of me, and I, overwhelmed by the awesomeness of the day and a creeping sense of sadness that it had to end, turned back to the riverside, where it had all begun.
It makes sense that since I had been blessed with the hook-up to a river view room, I would magically wake up every morning, just before dawn, in time to watch the sun rise slowly over the pagoda-peaked, palm-treed horizon.
The ever-changing kaliedescope of colors and light, as the dark cool shades of night melted away.
No one can accuse me of vanity after posting this! Sleepy-eyed and cheese-faced, from the balcony of my most excellent, albeit impermanent, abode.
The day was young and full of possibilities. I had no idea where it was about to lead me, no expectations of what I would do or see, no place I "had" to go, no schedules, no shackles. I was completely free, and that is always a good thing. (^_<)
I lazily stumbled down the steps from my 4th floor room, through a lobby full of friendly faces, out onto the street. With every step I took I was greated with a chorus of traditional, city-style greetings: "Madame, moto? Moto Madame? Madame, Cylco? Cyclo, madame? " Smiling and shaking my head "no," I skipped across the street, through the trickle of traffic begining to flood the riverfront, and sat down in the sun, soaking it in, the sounds of fishermen speaking Vietnamese floating on the wind.
I waited patiently for the day to reveal itself to me. A brilliant stream of billowing saffron caught my gaze, slowly flowing towards me. The early light of morning, caught in citrus colored, umbrellas glowed in the distance, spilling over onto saffron colored robes like streams of sunlight pouring through stained glass. An ethereal glow seemed to radiate from the round, shaved heads shaded beneath them, like an aura of pure energy. Their bronze-toned, sun-kissed skin was wrapped in robes that echoed the many shades of sunrise still ethched in my mind: golden, crimson, saffron, and tangerine. I watched in awe at the unworldly quality of the scene before me, unable even to fumble for my camera to try to capture it.
I sat there, alone, contemplating how so much beauty can exist in such a cruel and troubled world. "The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater."Lost in thought, I began to wander the streets, coming to life with the colors and flavors of Cambodia's capital city.
Have you ever seen so many banannas before? Bunch by bunch, handed down from the truck to the cyclo, hopefully on its way to becoming one of the many delicious fruit smoothies I consumed in a day. Yumm...
A small girl on the side of the road, all alone. She just stood there, looking around, watching people pass her by without a second glance. She didnt beg. She had nothing to sell. She was just there. Alone.
So beautiful. I sat and watched the bananaman for awhile, hoping someone would come and take her hand, and lead her away smiling and skipping down the street. I wish I could've brought her home with me!
Eventually I began to wander again, and that's when I met this guy. Meet Mr.Cyclo. Amount of English spoken: .007 %.
Did I need a cyclo? No. But he needed a passanger, and maybe a bit of breakfast. I tried to explain to him that I didn't need a ride; that I was happy walking around and getting lost. The language barrier, however, was not on my side, and a constant smile does little to discourage the desperate. So I decided to give him a break. "Ok!" I laughed. "Me, cylco! You, here!" I pointed from him to the carriage. He jumped down off his seat grinning. "Ok?" He said, pointing at my legs. "Ok!" I assured him, ushering him to his seat. To the amazement of everyone within viewing distance, I hopped up on the cyclo, ready to speed off, when he hopped out of the seat and ran behind me. I was afraid he had reconsidered allowing a foreigner to drive his precious chariot, at the risk of both his personal saftey and my own, but he simply ran behind me, tapped me on the shoulder, showed me how to release the break, and then gleefully hopped back into his seat. And off we went...
To be Continued....
A nameless victim of the Cambodian genocide. Few Americans know that close to two million people died, that none of the perpetrators have been brought to justice and that the United States helped bring about the crisis that lead to the Khmer Rouge takeover.
On April 17, 1975, "The Day of Anger", as it is remembered, thousands of Phnom Penh residents celebrated in the streets as Khmer Rouge troops victoriously entered the capitol. This joyous celebration of the end of the five-year civil war was an expression of hope that Cambodia would finally be at peace.
Hope quickly turned to fear as the Khmer Rouge troops, embittered and toughened by years of brutal civil war and American bombing, marched the boulevards of Phnom Penh ordering people to abandon their homes and evaquate the city. When the residents questioned their orders, the Khmer Rouge claimed they wanted to save as many people as possible from the imminent attack of the Americans, who would soon be bombing the city. Residents would only be gone a few days, they were told, so there was no need to take personal belongings or much food. 2 million people were forced from the city to the countryside, on foot. The wounded were forced out of hospitals to make the trek; some of them were wheeled out on hospital beds. Many died along the way.
There were no American plans to attack the city, as the Khmer Rouge well knew. Cities, they believed, were living, breathing capitalist tools, and Phnom Phen was "the great prostitute of the Mekong." In an ideal communist society, all people would have to live and work in the countryside as peasants, the Khmer Rouge communist ideal. 'Old people', as they called them, were simple, uneducated, hard-working, and almost incapable of exploiting others. Though their way of life had not changed for centuries, they always managed to survive. City dwellers, or 'new people', were the root of all capitalist evil whether they were teachers, tailors, civil servants or monks, and instantly became the new enemies of Angka, "The Organization".
As was often said by the Khmer Rouge, 2000 years of Cambodian history had now come to an end; April 17 was the beginning of Year Zero for the new Cambodia: Democratic Kampuchea. Religion, money and private ownership were all banned; communications with the outside world elimated; family relationships dismantled. The Khmer Rouge regime arrested, tortured and eventually executed anyone suspected of connections with the former or foreign governments, professionals, intellectuals and any Khmer person who broke their rules. Ethnic Vietnamese, Cambodian Christians, Muslims and the Buddhist monkhood were also targets of persecution. If a person knew a foreign language, had worked for the French or Americans, or dared to express feelings of love to their husband or wife, they were killed. Almost 2 million Cambodians would die, 30% of the Cambodian population during that time. Cambodians began to refer to their country as the killing fields, a land of skulls and bones with rivers of blood.
Little was known of the leader of the Khmer Rouge, a Paris-educated communist named Saloth Sar, who went by the nom de guerre “Pol Pot.” Often compared with the regimes of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong, the Khmer Rouge was probably the most lethal regime of the 20th century, in terms of the number of people killed relative to the population. Nevertheless, only three of the Khmer Rouge leaders have been imprisoned since their rule ended, one on unrelated charges.
As hundreds of thousands of Cambodians slowly starved in the rice fields, a select number of political prisoners and their families met a terrible fate inside Khmer Rouge interrogation centers. The most infamous of these centers, codenamed S-21, was located in the abandoned suburban Phnom Penh high school of Tuol Sleng, "hill of the poison tree." To workers assigned by the Khmer Rouge to the Tuol Sleng neighborhood, S-21 was known simply as konlaenh choul min dael chenh - "the place where people go in but never come out." Tuol Sleng's reputation was brutally accurate: the sole purpose of S-21 was to extract confessions from political prisoners before they were taken away for execution near the farming village of Choeung Ek. Of the 20,000 people known to have entered Tuol Sleng, only six are known to have survived.
Thousands of confession files, including 5,000 photographs, survive to this day, giving us a grim look at the activities that occured inside Tuol Sleng. The Yale Cambodian Genocide Center has spent many years examining these records, but thousands of the people sent to S-21 have yet to be identified. We may never know who they were or why they were sent there; only their portraits remain to serve as affirmations of their lives - and deaths - at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. When I asked why they had bothered to photograph all their victims, leaving proof of their crimes, my guide told me they wanted to prove to Angka that they were doing their job.
Our guide through Tuol Sleng and Cheong Ek, Mr. Ran, refelcted in a glass case containing the skulls of victims unearthed on school grounds. Hundreds of Cambodians now make a living by guiding visitors through the killing fields, many sharing their harrowing personal stories of how they survived the Khmer Rouge.
The Killing Fields at Choeung Ek. This mass grave, discovered in 1980, was one of the first proofs to the outside world of what had occurred during Pol Pot's regime.
The sight of the skulls stuns visitors into silence. Cambodians will tell you that their genocide is worse than any other because it was carried out on Cambodians, by Cambodians.
Children from the surrounding farms greet visitors to the killing fields, begging for money.
Nine miles from Phnom Penh, the "killing fields" of Choeung Ek are a few of thousands of other such sites around the country where the Khmer Rouge committed genocide during the late 1970s. Water buffalo graze in the surrounding farmland as human bones are unearthed after heavy rains. As i walked through the feilds, I struggled not to step on bones pooking through the dirt paths, discovered by the monsoon rain. Along the path, small barrels were filling with the remains of the thousands of victims massacred here.
