Upon arrival in VietNam, students from the Palm Tree Orphanage (part of Cambodia’s Hope, an NGO started by the ship’s psychologist) boarded the ship to do a traditional Khmer performance for us. Khmers are the people native to Cambodia; Khmer is also the name of their language. The students ranged in age from 18-21 and they performed three dances for us. The first featured three women with gold tiered hats and gold sashes. They were incredibly beautiful and wore plumeria flowers in their hair and tossed flower petals at the audience. The center woman wore white garments while the other two wore red. The dance displayed some of the most elaborate and complex handwork I have ever witnessed. The girls were able to move their fingers in directions I never thought possible! They could also hyperextend their elbows (like my brother, only their arms weren’t broken, they were just super flexible!). The dresses and dance were beautiful! I’m assuming that they were traditionally topless (because they wore nude colored leotards), but modern social norms makes that unacceptable.
In the next dance, four guys came out holding poles with flowers dangling on the end. Then four women joined and the guys proceeded to “fish” for women. But the women would usually just turn them away. The next dance was also four guys and four girls, but this time the guys were dressed in clown attire with silly black make-up on their faces. This dance also focused on the guys trying to get girls, but the girls would usually just turn them away. According to my guide in Cambodia, women are the boss in their culture. They control the money and make decisions for the household. When a couple gets married, the man’s family pays for the wedding and the man moves in with his wife’s family to care for her and her parents. This contrast with China and many other cultures where the woman’s family must pay a dowry to the man’s family and the bride moves in with her husband’s family to care for his parents. Personally, I think the Cambodian system makes more sense. The woman is the life giver and what every man craves so I think it’s ridiculous that she should be required to pay for a wedding or to leave her family.
After the performance, I went up to talk to the students. I asked how to ask “Want to be my friend?” in Khmer, which is “Kor-nhum churng-klai chih nit ner?” So I asked if they wanted to be my friends and they said they’d love to! They were excited to hear that I was going to Cambodia and visiting their orphanage in Phnom Penh. I talked with Ben, a former SAS student who now volunteers at Palm Tree, and we hoped to meet up that night so that the students and I could hang out some more. Unfortunately, that didn’t end up working out because the students got back too late and were really tired after a long day of traveling all the way to Saigon and back. I guess I’ll just have to go back to Cambodia! Actually, I really do need to go back! The people were so amazing and I feel like I hardly got to experience their culture and everything they wanted to show me because I was on an organized SAS trip…
Two of the students, Kea and Yort, gave me a list of their siblings’ names so that I could find them when I visited Palm Tree (the dancers weren’t going to be back in time for our visit unfortunately). I tried to find them, but failed L There are around 90 children in the orphanage, so finding their siblings was difficult.
We flew into Phnom Penh, the capital and largest city in Cambodia. “Phnom Penh City takes its name from the present Wat Phnom or Hill Temple. Legend has it that in 1372, an old nun named Penh went to fetch the water in the Mekong River and found a dead Koki tree floating down the stream. Inside the hole of that dead Koki tree contained four bronze and one stone Buddha statues in it.
Daun (Grandma) Penh brought the statues ashore and ordered people to pile up earth at northeast of her house and used those Koki trunks to build a temple on that hill to house the five Buddha statues The people then named the temple after her.”
Phnom Penh became the capital of Cambodia in 1432 after the king Ponhea Yat moved the capital away from Angkor Thom. Starting in 1505, however, it was abandoned and the capital moved several times. In 1866, King Norodom I made it the permanent seat of government and the Royal Palace was built there. But in 1870, the French colonized the area and began to build French-style buildings in the city. In the early 1950’s, Cambodia became independent of French control and Phnom Penh boomed. There was a huge influx of educated architects, engineers, doctors etc and the country was well on its way to being a successful, independent nation.
Then in 1974, Pol Pot came to power and on April 17, 1975, his armies claimed Phnom Penh. Pol Pot (birth name Saloth Sar) was the leader of the Cambodian Communist Party known as the Khmer Rouge. Immediately after the fall of Phnom Penh, the Khmer Rouge worked to move the country back to “Year Zero” and forced the evacuation of all major cities under his control. He removed all monetary systems, ordered the destruction of religious figures, forced city dwellers to the countryside to form an agrarian society and ordered the execution of educated and opposing individuals. The combined effects of slave labor, malnutrition (due to a failed agrarian system), poor medical care, and executions resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1.7 to 2.5 million people, approximately 21% of the Cambodian population.
“The Khmer Rouge leadership boasted over the state-controlled radio that only one or two million people were needed to build the new agrarian communist utopia. As for the others, as their proverb put it, "To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss.”
Hundreds of thousands of the new people, and later the depositees, were taken out in shackles to dig their own mass graves. Then the Khmer Rouge soldiers beat them to death with iron bars and hoes or buried them alive. A Khmer Rouge extermination prison directive ordered, "Bullets are not to be wasted."
The Khmer Rouge also targeted religious and ethnic groups. They banned all religion and dispersed minority groups, forbidding them to speak their languages or to practice their customs. They especially targeted Buddhist monks, Muslims, Western-educated intellectuals, educated people in general, people who had contact with Western countries or with Vietnam, disabled people, and the ethnic Chinese, Laotians and Vietnamese. Some were put in the S-21 camp [now the Tsol Sleng Genocide Museum] for interrogation involving torture in cases where a confession was useful to the government. Many others were summarily executed. Confessions forced at S-21 were extracted from prisoners through such methods as raising prisoners by their arms tied behind and dislocating shoulders, removing toenails with pliers, suffocating a prisoner repeatedly, and skinning a person while alive.”
The destruction initiated by Pol Pot and carried out by the Khmer Rouge is too disturbing for words. Pol Pot was eventually kicked out by the Vietnamese, the opposing socialist power in Southeast Asia. However, the US and other UN nations opposed the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia. There is a long history of conflict between the Khmer and Vietnamese, and despite how bad control in the hands of the Khmer Rouge was, it was believed that control in the hands of the Vietnamese would be much worse. Fighting with the Vietnamese continued until they withdrew from the country in 1989. At the point, Pol Pot returned and the Cambodian Civil War continued. Fighting didn’t cease until 1998 when Pol Pot died and the remaining leaders of the Khmer Rouge apologized for the 1970s genocide. Ever since the 1990s, Cambodia has gradually recovered from the atrocities. Today, the country is lead by a democratic democracy under a constitutional monarchy (i.e., they have an elected government but are also still ruled by a king). The population is about 14 million (2 million in Phnom Penh) and half of the people are under 22. Religious practice and agriculture are incredibly important to the Khmer people. 95% of the population is Theravada Buddhist and 88% are farmers, growing mostly rice.
Our first stop in Phnom Penh was the National Museum. It was a beautiful red building built in a style that is unique to Cambodia, with tiered towers and sharp angles. The museum houses over 14,000 items from prehistoric times as well as artifacts and statues from the ancient temples of the Khmer empire, including those at Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Da Prohm and many others. The museum was built between 1917-1924 in order to conserve and protect the artifacts collected throughout the country. Looting of these artifacts from the temples was a big problem, so the museum was to act as a safehold. However, looting and illegal sale of Khmer treasures (even from the museum iteself) remains a concern.
“The turmoil of recent decades—especially the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime of 1975-79—devastated all aspects of Cambodian life including the cultural realm. During the years of Khmer Rouge control, the Museum, along with the rest of Phnom Penh, was evacuated and abandoned. The Museum, closed between 1975 and 1979, suffered from neglect and after the liberation of Phnom Penh on January 7, 1979, was found in disrepair, its roof rotten and home to a vast colony of bats, the garden overgrown, and the collection in disarray, many objects damaged or stolen. The Museum was quickly tidied up and reopened to the public on April 13, 1979. However, many of the Museum's employees had lost their lives during the Khmer Rouge regime. The resulting loss of expertise, combined with the deterioration of the Museum building and its collection, have made rehabilitation of the Museum a daunting task.”
We observed many Hindu and Buddhist sculptures including ones of Siva (the Destroyer), Vishnu (the protector) and Bramha (the Creator) as well as a beautiful painting of the Khmer rendition of the epic tale Ramayana (known is Khmer as the Reamker). The statues of female dieties are voluptuous and beautiful; the female form is clearly embraced and admired rather than viewed as sinful (as it is in many western religions). The inner garden is remarkably beautiful and peaceful! There were several Buddhist monks enjoying the garden as well. Funny thing, I saw one texting on his cell phone! I guess even the “traditional” monks are modernizing.
I wanted to enjoy the museum longer, but I had to get back on the bus. I was late because I was busy taking in the garden and I hate being rushed. C’est la vie…
Next we went for a river boat ride on the Mekong River, the largest river in Cambodia. Crops were grown right along the riverbank, including corn and tomatoes. On the boat ride, I observed local fishermen collecting their catch and heading home to cook dinner for their families. There were hundreds of riverboat homes along the banks. Each was small and modest, with several people living inside. Strangely, each one contained a TV! It would be easy to judge these homes as unlivable, and many people on the boat were saddened by the conditions. But I thought the conditions seemed pleasant. The air is warm and the people are surrounded by a beautiful natural environment. No heating is necessary and a simple fan is enough to keep one comfortable. I could hear the sounds of children laughing and see them jumping from house to house playing some sort of game. Sure, the living quarters are close, but I think that’s a good thing. It creates a closer community and promotes a social environment, but I guess I just don’t desire the same personal space as many others. Also, the dwellers can just take their boats out during the day to catch fish, grown crops on the fertile riverbanks to complement the fish and visit with their friends and family without ever needing to travel far from home. Regardless of how the other students felt about the conditions, there’s no arguing that this is a more sustainable lifestyle than any of the ones we chose to live.
So we watched the sun set while we basked in the warm sun. When we disembarked, there was a group of locals doing aerobics on the shore and a few of us joined in before being rushed onto the bus yet again.
Next stop: Palm Tree Orphanage. We walked down a small back alley to get there and passed a make-shift movie theater. About 15 locals gathered around a small TV to watch a film from the comfort of their metal folding chairs. I noticed several of these in Phnom Penh, Siam Reap and around the Mekong Delta in VietNam as well.
The children were all so excited to greet us! This young boy named Edward grabbed my hand and took me around the main area. He was so sweet! I wrapped a purple scarf around his neck and gave him hug. The scarf was made by the knitting with a purpose group (I made a scarf for them earlier that went to an orphanage in China) and Jenny attached a blessing to each, hoping that the receiver will find peace in his/her life.
Edward and I played soccer together with a flat ball (the only one in the orphanage. I’d love to find a way to send them a new ball, but I think they need school supplies more). This young woman, Sueymom, joined in. She’s 14-years old and we developed quite a bond in a very short time. Her and a young man named Maradv showed me around their classes and bedrooms. The girls and boys sleep in separate buildings. Each building has two large rooms where the children sleep together on the wooden floor. They each have their own cubby to keep their school uniform and supplies, but other than that they have little personal space. The classrooms are simple yet suitable, with a desk for each child and two large chalkboards on which to write lessons.
The students mostly learn English as well as basic arithmetic and some geography. They can also learn how to cook, clean, sew, dance and play music. The orphanage has a couple communal instruments, including a drum and a guitar, which the students can use. A large, open room below the boy’s dormitory serves as the performance space. The children are well fed by the two resident cooks who prepare three meals a day and also teach cooking skills.
Despite everything the children have gone through and how little they have, they were remarkably happy. They were all very grateful for Mr. Toad, the man who runs the orphanage, and for the opportunity the school provides for taking them off the street and helping them work towards obtaining jobs (mostly in hospitality- I’m not sure how I feel about this, but at least they are finding work instead of begging on the streets). The school tries to keep siblings together so that some of their family is still retained.
After showing me around, Sueymom, Maradv and I went to join the others for a game. Everyone stood around in a circle and people would jump in the middle one or two at a time. At first, it was the orphans that hoped in, but then the SASers started to join, often accompanied by an orphan. The motions were similar to “head shoulders knees and toes” followed by a unique dance of whatever the individual liked at the end. The rest of the group would clap their hands and chant for those in the middle. Sueymom was shy and nervous, but I convinced her to enter the circle with me. We were both laughing so hard! We shared in a deep embrace and kissed once another on the cheek in between the smiles and laughter. She then ran up to her room and brought back a photo for me. It was of herself, looking very beautiful. This meant so much to me! I can’t imagine she has much access to photos, so the fact that she shared one with me was very touching. I use it as my bookmark now. I also bought a backpack from her. She and some of the other orphans sew together old rice sacks into bags and backpacks to raise money for the school.
Then, sadly, it was time to go. We exchanged emails and hugged one another several more times (it turned into a group hug as others joined in, too) before I realized that everyone else was gone and it was time to head to the bus before they left without me. Hopefully we will keep in touch through email and I would love to return to Cambodia again to visit her and my other friends from the performance that morning.
Then we had a delicious dinner and went back to the hotel to rest.
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