Bugs for Breakfast: One week in Cambodia

I don't usually post this often but Jesus, Cambodia was intense. I just spent a week there and i need to process.

Here's the nutshell version of this epic entry (i've given up on trying to write succinctly): i got blown away by one of the 7 wonders of the world, broke up with my friend and traveling partner E., ate fried cockroaches on a bus, got my wallet stolen, broke down in the bathroom of the museum of genocide and realized that i'm trying to crack my heart open.

Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat was actually as stunning as i hoped it might be. 25 k. of temple ruins that can only be described as magnificent. Jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring, magnificent. Worth the endless hassles, corruption, thefts (plural!), delays and scorching heat. I'm a sucker for awe. As we rounded the corner toward the main temple, I teared up in amazement. It is one of my new favourite places on earth.

Breaking Up
Remember E. from my last blog? Days before we left for Cambodia she lay on my bed talking about our upcoming trip and said she could feel herself turning me into an authority figure. The problem, she said, was that she'd become more and more helpless until it drove me crazy and ultimately alienated me completely. I was cheerfully unconcerned. I'd spent a month hanging out with her and yes, she always acted as the tag-along to plans and parties i'd arranged but it didn't bother me. I was doing what i wanted to be doing—if she came along for the ride, cool. If not, no skin off my nose. So i reassured her “But it's been fine so far!”

It took less than three days to completely unravel.

The first sign was the fact that for a week long trip she brought along a purse. As in, nothing else but a purse. Guess who was expected to provide all the things that are nice to have in (scorching hot, malarial) Cambodia—like mosquito netting, shampoo, detergent, guidebook and american dollars?

Within two days I became irritated and cold while she grew sulky and whiny. Precisely the way you'd expect things to break down when someone starts playing the role of resentful teenager—and i've reverted to my classic big sister/surrogate mom pose. i don't like the dynamic but i'll be the first to admit that it's nowhere near the first time i've been in it.

On the third day her sulkiness turned to meanness (i overheard her talking about me, a cardinal sin in my book), and i started to want out. Still i thought maybe we could talk it out. I spent some time meditating on it and hoped we'd be able to have a heart-to-heart about “how things are going” (Just like you'd expect from an annoyingly new age parent).
I started with “So um, E. it seems like this isn't really workin--
“Yeah”. She shot me a look.

oh.
Why was i expecting a 21 year old who was in the process of re-enacting every fight she'd ever had with her parents to be able to admit to and laugh about what was going wrong? Her dependency drove me nuts but i could work around it. Meanness, i would not.

With relief, I told her i'd be getting my own room and going to Phnom Penh tomorrow. I did not invite her to join me. So we broke up. She got the money she owed me, we said “see you in Bangkok” and went our separate ways.

Lesson learned in Siem Reap, Cambodia: if someone tells you that they are about to sabotage your friendship, believe them. We could have talked about how she does it and how to prevent it. how to laugh about it and not take it seriously. it's a shame as it was the end our sweet friendship.

Fried crickets taste better than cockroaches
On the hand-me-down bus to Phnom Penh I offered my seat mate some of my (delicious) sticky rice wrapped in bamboo. He declined but reciprocated by offering me a helping from his bag of fried bugs. This was the moment. if i was ever going to eat the bugs sold as snacks all over these parts, i might as well do it with this dude who could show me how to remove the inedible parts. He and the guys in the seats ahead of me found it terribly amusing to watch me ineptly pry the wings off the roach and then hesitate with a look of distaste on my face. Go on! go on! they prodded. I popped it. The little critters taste like popcorn. Even better were the crickets. When a cockroach skittered across my bed a few nights later, i thought “I ain't afraid of you. I can eat you.”

Heart of Darkness
After getting hit on by the children of Cambodia's elite at a bar called Heart of Darkness (or “the heart” as they call it), i got home to discover i no longer had a wallet. i knew it would be a “high risk” night so i left my passport and camera at home but still, I wasn't careful enough. The zipper on my purse had just broken and I just hadn't taken into account that Cambodia is much riskier than Thailand. That learned me, The next day i got to enter the special hell of of card replacement—from cambodia. Bad phone connections, long echo-ey delays, 13 hour time difference and sweaty internet cafes. Sucked.

Tuol Sleng (or S-21) and the Killing Fields
The museum of genocide is housed in a former torture prison used by the Khmer Rouge (did you know that Khmer is actually pronounced K'mai? Me neither). Before it was a prison it had been a large school in downtown Phnom Penh. But that was before schools were abolished and all the teachers killed. I would walk around PP and think about the fact that every person over the age of 29 is a survivor of a genocide. Unbelievable eh? All of them! and what happened to them during that time? i was dying to ask each one. I resisted the urge and read my books by survivors.

At Tuol Sleng, guards kept very detailed records and all new inmates were photographed on entry. A good portion of the museum are these mugshots—raw images of grief, shock, fear, sadness and resignation on the faces of people who were about to be imprisoned, starved, tortured into giving confessions and then murdered at the killing fields. The word for this place is anguish.

The wall of children's photos sent me darting to the bathroom to sob. It's completely unbearable. Terrible beyond words.

In one mugshot, a woman who was a high ranking cadre's wife has eyes brimming with tears (internal purges were common). The second photo is of her profile. Now a tear is visible streaking down her cheek. In her lap sleeps a newborn infant about 1-2 months old. a thicket of black hair on his/her little head. There isn't much that can be said about this horribly heartbreaking image. Only 7 people survived Tuol Sleng.

The whole thing is desperately underfunded, the exhibits have no security and are often just propped up on the floor. Maybe for the same reason that Pol Pot got to live to a ripe old age in rural Cambodia, without the tiniest intervention? (?!)

The Killing Fields, it turns out, are a peaceful and beautiful orchard. The only sign that something horrendous happened there are the giant stupa filled with skulls and the grassy divets in the ground—sites of mass graves. It was such a pretty place and so hard to imagine the terror it must have struck in people's hearts as they were led to it, blindfolded and shackled. The eeriest part are the local kids who beg by hissing“moneymoneymoneymoney”. I have no idea why but they do it in packs, in perfect unison, frowning, hands outstretched, children-of-the-corn style.

“I'll be the one to break my heart”
Welcome to the “big insight” portion of this entry and thank you for staying with me to this point. I left TO when i finally had my long-awaited opportunity for travel. But it was precisely at a moment when i was in love with my life. I could have gone for a few months and come back to my apartment and my job, everything pretty much where I left it. But no. For reasons that were totally mysterious to me, I knew i wanted a clean break. I wanted to leave everything i cared about behind, as though i were in some kind of strange endurance test for the heart. I would just wing it, alone. Why?

Along the way, clues have appeared. A few weeks in, i came across this breathtaking phrase: “shatter my heart to make a new room for a limitless love.” I could feel the words sear into me—but couldn't explain why.

Recently, i noticed that I was intentionally breaking my own heart. I didn't want to shatter it perhaps, but wrench it, squeeze it, crush and stretch it. This is a painful enterprise and still, no idea why. In Cambodia, I got the answer.

Some background: I've always denied that we geminis have twin personalities but in my case i know i have a public side and private one. My public face is confident, independent, determined, capable. If you've ever had a work meeting with me, this would have been your impression of me. All bizness.

My private side is tender, kind and generous. I care passionately about intimacy, love, friendship and community. I dislike conflict. If I've ever kissed you on the cheek or listened attentively while you bare your soul, then this is side you saw (and were surprised by).

They're both fully me, one isn't more genuine. But after a lifetime of effort, I'm still uncomfortable with my feelings of affection and care. I still freeze up when my own friends tell me they love me. That's not what i want, not what I've spent all this time and effort working toward. No, I want to love more fiercely, more courageously, more tenderly. I want it the full experience.

I've found that heartbreak enlarges the heart. Makes it bigger and more compassionate. So without realizing what i was doing, i decided to break my heart by leaving all the things i absolutely adore—my friends, family, community, neighborhood, job, apartment—behind.

I would break my own heart till it cracked open.

Now I want to learn everything there is to know about love (seriously, send me your ideas) and I like that here I can practice far away from all of you. Private! Thousands of miles away! No one at home can see me telling a friend here that i love them. No one can see me being generous, open and welcoming. Or making a game out of finding nine new ways to love strangers, meditating toward compassion or thinking about this god-is-love idea. (The exception is my landlord. Ever since I had my first overnight guest, we have been engaged in a tense stand-off and have weekly sitcom-like fights in pidgin english!)

In a way, i am trying to prod myself into loving everyone, you included, more unreservedly (and how does that feel? i want to ask each of you). There's a lifetime more to learn about love. I guess I won't ever “arrive” (if I do, i'd be the Dalai Lama or Nelson Mandela, both who say they have no hate in their hearts). I'm always going to be confident, assertive and big. And I reserve my right to be difficult and selfish when the occasion requires it. That's me and I like me.

But I won't return home till...till when? When i can feel a shift in my heart. Till that other part of me is stronger and softer.

It's begun though, now that i think about it. The other night after reading “First they killed my father” about a girl's experience of the Cambodian genocide, I felt this powerful urge to call my dad and tell him how enormously important he is to me. I thought my gushing emotion seemed a bit odd and kept wondering if i was just premenstrual but now that i look at it, it is my experiment working it's magic. Success! I'm going to become the effusive and sentimental person i secretly am!
I can't wait.

I'm back in the Big Mango and had a great class today. In the last part of class, i often help students write out emails they want to send to their overseas boyfriend/financial supporter or help explain their boyfriend's emails to them. Today, i helped write a love letter and another reassuring a boyfriend that her text messages were just from customers, not other boyfriends. They especially liked my sign-off phrase:
“A thousand kisses,”

cg

Are You Happy? (or FAQ's, Round 2)

hey all,
I'm heading to Cambodia for a week to check out Angkor Wat, Phnom Penh and renew my Thai visa. Likely going with my friend E. who lives across the hall from me (a young high-femme lesbian playwright from NYC. we trade dresses and gossip. I love my life.) Anyways, so i thought i would do another little round of FAQ's—the ones my friends ask me when they call.

Are you happy?
yes, very. I have a fantastic life in Bangkok. The longer i'm here the more fun, easy and relaxed it gets. I would live and work here again in a heartbeat.

Friends?
Yeah, really great ones. I've developed a few intensely loving friendships actually.

Romance?
Mmm, not unless you call the occasional debauched hook up, “romance”. And I don’t. The eeriest thing? I kind of don’t care about sex right now. Last night a friend tried everything to talk me into have a threesome with this really cute thai guy but i was tired and indifferent (been there, done that) so i just offered to watch. Instead I have fallen in crazy friend-love with a few of the kindred spirits i’ve met here. I am seriously passionate about these friends. I’m totally psyched about getting a (romantic) crush again someday but it might be a long while and that’s cool.

How come you decided to stop in Bangkok? i thought you were gonna travel around more?
Because i wanted to work with Empower and because i kind of hate “Tourism”.

What do you do all day?
Essentially i'm learning and having fun while leading a fairly pampered life.
Let me explain: Bangkok has enormous wealth disparities. A maid in Bangkok gets paid about $100/month (and has no labour rights whatsoever including a minimum wage) but if you need a new Valentino gown, you can just head downtown to one of the many luxurious Bangkok malls.

It's precisely this (totally gross, unjust and unecessary) disparity which allows me to live a comfortable life on just my savings. The huge working class are the reason for $1 noodle soups and fifteen cent bus fare (like i ever take the bus anymore) and the wealthy are why i can get imported chocolate at my overpriced grocery store and exercise in a well-equipped three-floor gym.

Like many westerners, i take a class leap in Bangkok. Most travellers get queasy when a Thai person describes them as “rich”. Like me, many scrimped and saved while working more than one job to get here, but once we're in Thailand, we are among the upper middle class, and we get to live large by Thai standards. We can blow $5 like it's nothing—and that's likely 5% of the monthly salary of the woman who did your laundry.

So once i got a handle on how to get around, it became a pretty easy life. And here's what i did with it today: i worked out at my fancy gym, got groceries at the overpriced store that has a salad bar (!!), gossiped with E. about our escapades last night, tried running errands but got stuck in traffic that was so bad, i had to give up, bail out of the cab and take the skytrain back home so i could be here in time for a scheduled telephone interview with with a few women who work at Can-Do Bar. That's the sex work bar owned and run collectively by members of Empower. I'm writing an article about Empower and the Can-Do for $pread magazine.

Later tonight i'm going to meet up with my friend V. at the city's hippest gay bar, conveniently located a few streets down from me. If it's a typical Bangkok night, plans will change every 45 minutes, i'll meet new people, get drinks at the 7-11 to avoid high drink costs and have fun till i hit the sack at about 4 or 5am.
(post script: yep, that’s what happened. Plus gay karaoke, street-side noodles at 2 am and a threesome. Very Bangkok.)

I write everyday, see friends, run errands, do a bit of work, ask a lot of questions, eat thai food. Easy.

What's Bangkok like?
True story: Bangkok is the kind of place where a queer girl can be lying on a stretcher about to get a colonoscopy and have a beautiful nurse in a precisely starched cap quickly and furtively hit on her while the doctor is out.
Nurse: So why are you in Bangkok?
Friend on stretcher: Oh well, to meet people and...
Nurse: Oh? (leans in and touches her hair) You're very beautiful. Do you like thai boys or girls?
Friend: uh, what...i, the doctor...?
(doctor comes in. Nurse quickly straightens and changes subject)

Oh Bangkok, so lovably unpredictable! Messy, fun, chaotic, open-hearted, smoggy, delicious, steaming hot, cheap and free-wheeling. From limbless beggars to office workers crowding the ad-hoc noodle-stalls at lunch. From noisy bars full of “sexpats” to robed monks shopping for electronics. The vibe of thailand is evidenced by its most famous phrase: “my pen rai”. No worries.

The three omnipresent sacred cows: nation, monarchy and religion. Flags, His Majesty the King on every building, buddhist amulets around every neck. Oh, and don’t search for art that is critical or irreverant toward the buddhism or the monarchy. You won't find it—it's illegal.

Informally though, the twin bangkok obsessions are eating and shopping. It's actually kind of a nightmare to be surrounded by cheap cute shoes, none of which i can wear (they stop at size 9. i'm a 10.)

Finally, a word on safety. Theft is an issue for but physical safety is not. I walk at night with less fear than I would in TO. Homophobia isn't an issue either.

What next?
Here in Thailand till early June when i head to Brisbane Australia. Probably 3 months there.

When are you coming home?
oh yeah, that. Well, remember how i said i'd be back in 6-12 months? That’s not going to happen. Don't fret—i'm coming home at some point, but i love this life and it's a big world. I'm thinking i will probably return sometime in 2009. ish.
That's why i so encourage folks to come visit me because i won't be in your parts of the world for a while.

(And then i'm going on a road trip through the southern states, focused on the history of the civil rights movement. But that's another story.)

ok, that's all for now. Love you, miss you. i'll let you know what Angkor Wat is like and all about the now-privatized Killing Fields (ewwww).

xo
cg