Christmas in Cambodia

Someone else once spent his Christmas in Cambodia. It was John Kerry, and his holiday memories are the reason he lost the 2004 presidential election and stuck us with a bonus four years of George W. Bush:

"I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared -- seared -- in me."

This is the claim that Kerry's comrades disputed. They say his ship never entered Cambodia. Never mind that few soldiers admitted to taking part in a secret and illegal war with Cambodia. It became accepted fact that Kerry, like most Democrats, was yellow.

I spent my first Christmas in Cambodia exactly forty years after Kerry did (or didn’t, depending who you believe). Thankfully, there are no bullets flying past my head. The country is at peace, though only because its populace is willing to accept a semi-totalitarian and totally corrupt government.

Unlike its shady, 30-years-of-war-causing dealings that Kerry described, America today has an overt presence in Cambodia. And that presence comes in the form of… Stuff. At Lucky, the overpriced grocery store in the center of Phnom Penh, discarded Christmas items cover discount shelves. On one, someone had peeled back the foil on a tray of chocolate Santas, broken off the heads, and folded the foil back over. On another, there were melted giant Hershey kisses with their points caved in, victims of the long journey from who-knows-where. This is probably the farthest place Hershey ships to. It's the periphery of Western encroachment, a place where few people speak English but every waiter wears a Santa hat.

I spent the day, like a true expat, with a group of fellow foreigners--temporary orphans--filling in as one another's family for the day. We ate turkey and wondered where in this country one finds a bird with this much meat on its bones. It's probably imported.

Covering the tribunals

I have a story on Law.com’s new international page today.

I enjoyed getting the chance to write a longer piece about the tribunals and the insanity I witnessed at the post-trial press conference last week. Jacques Verges, egomaniac, thespian, and subject of last year’s documentary “Terror’s Advocate” delivered his trademark histrionics and managed to rouse victims close to violence. Among the outlandish quotes that didn’t make it into the story:


·“I do not wear the slippers of a servant.” (Jacques Verges, implying that the court has somehow belittled him.)

·“I have been trying all my life to work for my country and now things have worked out differently and I am being charged with crimes against humanity. I never understood why there are so many documents that implicate me. I asked the guards and they say it is because I have written so many books.” (Khieu Samphan, tribunal defendant and the Khmer Rouge’s former head-of-state.)

·“If there was no Pol Pot regime, I could be a lawyer or an economist like you all.” (Ly Monysak, a Khmer Rouge victim who resides in a mental institution.)

·“If things do not improve, I will call al Qaeda and ask them to come here and commit a terrorist attack.” (Monysak)

·“If I could tear him away and eat him and it wasn’t against the law, I would do so now. (Sok Chea, a Khmer Rouge victim, referring to Kheiu Samphan’s Cambodian lawyer, Sa Sovan.)

The anger exhibited at these hearings, stemming from more than 30 years of delayed justice and prodded by Verges, was both heart-wrenching and terrifying. The experience and the story hopefully helps prepare me to cover the tribunals for GlobalPost when it launches in January.

Cheering for Obama with Cambodians

I wrote a similar piece to the story below for Southeastern Globe, a magazine here in Cambodia. It chronicles my bizarre election results experience. They requested a ‘humor’ piece and I was terrified. Asking people questions, writing down what they say, and condensing it into a story is easy. Writing funny is hard, and often falls flat. Below is my stab at it:

A basketful of McCain-Palin ’08 pins sat outside the entrance of the United States presidential election results banquet at the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh on November 5. The receptionist, after directing me to sign in, pointed to the leftover shwag. “Sorry, that’s all we have left,” she apologized. Damn, I thought. Greedy, liberal hands other than my own greedy, liberal hands had already picked out all the Barack Obama buttons.

Then I remembered how campaign paraphernalia from failed presidential bids become quirky relics that impress hipster circles back home in New York City. I still needed to go inside and watch the outcome of the election, but I had a hunch McCain pins were about to become fashionable, so I slipped one in my pocket.

Inside the reception hall, red, white and blue helium balloons, American flags and a solitary Cambodian flag lined a three-story atrium. Cambodian officials in collared shirts and dress shoes mingled with white reporters and NGO workers in short sleeves and jeans. The disparate crowd made awkward attempts at conversation.

Most of the foreigners, myself included, discussed their hopes for a President Obama. The democratic candidate won a mock election at the event, garnering 72 votes to John McCain’s 25. The Cambodians seemed less enthused. A recent Gallup poll of 73 countries ranked Cambodia the third most apathetic country toward the U.S. election, after India and Pakistan. Eighty-six percent of Cambodians reported no preference toward either candidate.

The dullness reverberating through the room that Wednesday morning reflected this attitude. It resembled a trade convention for a boring industry. For the amount of attention paid to the two giant screens projecting CNN, they could’ve depicted a PowerPoint presentation on insurance statistics. More attendees focused on the food than the screens, scooping scrambled eggs from steaming silver trays and nibbling tuna finger sandwiches.

In 20 years, members of my generation will reflect on where they stood when Barack Obama won the presidency. I can tell my children: “I was leaning against a buffet table, eating a bran muffin, letting the crumbs fall onto a saucer below my chin, and talking to an official about the decline in traffic violations.”

It wasn’t until I walked back over to the screens that I saw the flashing “Obama elected president of the United States” banner. The audience had made no audible reaction. The muffled murmur of chatting voices and the strums of a six-piece string orchestra silenced the broadcasters’ voices. The orchestra continued playing as McCain gave his concession speech. A few minutes later, the screens showed Obama stepping onstage in Chicago. The orchestra played on until an Embassy employee stopped them.

“We invited the people who would be directly affected by the outcome of this election,” U.S. Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission Piper Campbell told me.

One of the officials I met, Legal Aid of Cambodia’s executive director Peung Yok Hiep, disagreed that it made much of a difference to her. Little of her organization’s funding comes from America, she said. She asked me how many candidates were in the running and whether Barack Obama’s wife was Spanish.

I longed to be surrounded by partisan Americans. I wanted jubilation, cheering, a high-five. Cambodians are more cautious. They doubt leaders can change their day-to-day lives. More than anything, they appreciate a free buffet. The air of pragmatism wafting through the room that morning killed my Obama buzz.

As I walked out, I chatted with Sarith Moun, a freshman at Pannasastra University of Cambodia. His professor selected 10 students from a political science class to attend. Sarith enjoyed watching the results, he explained, and liked Obama. Even better, he added—he got to miss class.

Touring Angkor

Travels, story deadlines, and editing work in Bangkok consumed the past month. Suddenly it’s early December and I’m approaching my three-month mark in Cambodia. I live here now, but still feel like there is so much to learn--like an entire language outside greetings, directions, and the numbers one through 20.

At home in Buffalo a month before my departure, my mom, brother and I sat flipping through TV channels. We stopped on the Travel channel, where a group of Canadian men in tank tops were in the midst of traveling the "exotic" lands of Cambodia. They actually used the term several times. I learned the 10,000 reasons to never use the word—-or consider new people or places—-exotic by second semester freshman year. It's step one in avoiding the ignorant expat moniker. One guy proceeded to introduce the concept of curly hair to the natives by pointing to his head, and shouting incessantly, "curly hair!"

He walked through Angkor Wat with a Lonely Planet guide in hand, a land mine pictured on the cover. Inside Ta Prohm, the famous temple where giant tree roots sprout from the ruins, he ran into that very man, bent at the waist, still shuffling along with his cane. The Canadian is star struck. He asked for the (illiterate) man's autograph. The old man looked at him, bewildered.

Sure, these guys are caricatures of the bad traveler. But someone decided to give them a TV show and, until I can find a way to scrub off my pasty white skin and all the assumptions that come with it, I'm just like them.

In the first weeks of October, my friend Julia flew out to visit, and we traveled northwest to Angkor Wat. While most trekked destinations fail to live up to the hype, this one exceeded my expectations. Enormous teak and bayon trees line the temple park. They seem almost as old as the buildings themselves. Outside the enormous, crumbling structures, limbless men and women and small children beg for change. It struck me that an ancient city built on the backs of slaves leaves out the poor today. A private company somehow owns the national treasure, and the $20 per day park entrance fee goes toward the profits of a firm called Sokimex.

The trip involved ignoring a lot of unpleasantries. It also involved climbing over loose stones and learning about the buildings' carvings. Apsaras—celestial nymphs—adorn many of the buildings, especially Banteay Srei, or “citadel of the women,” because, as our guide explained, the temple is modest in size but the craftsmanship exceeds all the others. They assume women built it. Plus, it’s covered in Apsaras and made of pink sandstone. We visited it in the pouring rain (the angry, multi-directional kind mentioned above) and even that failed to diminish the temple’s beauty.

On the way back to Phnom Penh, we took a boat from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, down the Tonle Sap, the only river in the world that flows two ways, depending on the season. Whole fishing villages float on tires and empty barrels, hundreds of feet from either shore on this wide river that starts out as a lake. As commonly happens here, the government is trying to push these people out of their homes.