Thansu: nèng Thanoru:k, Heaven and Hell In Cambodia
Both angels and demons must be very busy here in Cambodia, once well-known as the Gentle Land of Smiling People. Both must have lots of notes to record about the lives of Cambodians living in a country full of contrasting scenes. The angels take notes on the virtues of those leading devoting their lives on traditional and religious holy norms; and the demons are engrossed in counting the sins of those indulging themselves in permissive, hedonistic and deplorable lives.
Staying one-day in this perplexing country is enough for one to witness many contrasting scenes. Luxurious cars (Camry, Land Cruiser, Lexus) are as rampant as old cyclos and motodops frequenting the streets. The government official driving a Land Cruiser must have either carefully saved his US.$ 30/ month salary for 40 years, without spending even a single penny of it, or easily made money from illegal businesses (illegal logging, drug trading, human trafficking, corruption, etc). And the fruit-selling girl riding an old shaky bicycle must work 12 hours a day to let her come home with a few thousand riels, enough to buy some food for the family to survive another day. Failing to do this, the little girl may end up with being cursed or beaten by her father, who may still have the impact of the barbarian life style he experienced during the bloody evil Khmer Rouge revolution.
It is such an interfering society that one does not seem to have privacy in the country. This may be a legacy of previous regime of Khmer Rouge (1975 to 1979), led by Pol Pot, during which everything was arranged collectively, including meals, work and even marriages. One had no right to do what he wanted, to say what he thought, or to plan how he would live his life. No one had the right to privacy or to do something independently. Failing to obey this meant torture to death. “To keep you, no gain; to kill you, no loose,” the Khmer Rouge would say.
More contrasting scenes in the Cambodian communities are obvious after a longer stay and contact with them. One is the contrasting strong attachment of part of the people to their cultural heritages on one hand, and the loss of cultural values and traditional Khmer identity among the other part of the people on the other.
This morning I was having my breakfast in a Khmer style food stall where numpang is served. It is a kind of sandwich, served with herbal leaves, tomatoes, canned fish, and slices of sour banana. There are some food stalls like this in the neighborhood, but this one is my favorite. The numpang doesn’t taste any better here than in other food stalls, but the seller, a Khmer girl of about 19, is one of the rare food sellers who can speak English. When preparing the meal, I always remind her not to put ingredients containing pork into my dish. Once I had my breakfast in a different food stall and I found it difficult to say the same thing to the lady in Khmer language, though she understood me at last. When she is not busy with her work, she comes to my table and chats with me, practicing her English, as she did this morning.
“I will miss you when I have finished my work here and come back to Indonesia,” I said to her, while having the numpang she served me. To my surprise, she was very surprised (or shocked?) instead of being glad with what I said. “How come you will miss me?” she asked me, still showing her surprise, her face turning red, feeling embarrassed. I then learnt that the word “miss” has a very strong meaning for girls here. She could not even understand me when I said that I would also miss the family where I am currently staying. In Indonesia I can easily say to my friends that I miss them, even to a friend whom I have known only in online chat.
Most girls seem to be untouchable here. A girl will be really shocked and embarrassed if a man shakes her hands when greeting. Instead of shaking hands, women and men greet with sampeah, pressing own hands together in prayer and bowing, while saying chumriepsuor. Nowhere to be seen in a public place, not even in modern plazas, a girl and a boy walk down hand in hand. Inviting a girl for a dinner or movie in a cinema may mean inviting all the members of the family.
Once my Indonesian colleague invited two nice Khmer girls for dinner that he got to know during his staying here. With me, there should be four people altogether. But it turned out to be a dinner with seven people of which 3 were strangers to us. The two girls invited them without even telling this to my friend. What a strange tradition! They said it is not socially acceptable for two women to have dinner in a restaurant with two men.
This very strict segregated socio-cultural values appear to be like the sky and the earth when confronted with the rampant practice of prostitution all over the country. The “untouchable girls” are like the other side of the world compared to the very cheap underage prostitutes available only for about ten minutes drive wherever one stays in the country. In a city like Phnom Penh, sex service is available in every place of about twenty minutes walk.
A survey by the Future of Southeast Asia in 2001 suggests that 80% of Cambodian men have their first sex with prostitutes, and Chantol Oung, the Executive Director of Cambodian Woman Crisis Center wrote that “it is considered acceptable in Cambodian society for men to have sex with prostitutes.” Another survey by Population Services International Organization in 2003 stated that 35% of female high school students and 60% of male university students knew others who engaged in bauk, a local term for gang rapes usually targeting prostitutes.
Life is full of contradictions and mysteries. Heaven and Hell is only a matter of choice, and ways to go to either of them are always available. But the contradictions presented by the life in Cambodian society are so plain, visible and confusing that they cannot be easily explicated. It will take me more time to understand this unique society.***
