Thursday, August 28, 2014

The land of the 20-somethings

I recently came across a blog post that quoted Cambodian scholar and former director of  the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, Ou Virak. He believes that a Cambodian Spring -- an uprising along the lines of the Arab Spring -- is highly unlikely.  There were many interesting points in his argument, but a set of demographic charts drove one point home very powerfully: Cambodia's population is young.

Take a second to look at these charts and think about the implications. As a 52 year-old female, I fit into the largest age demographic in the US, but I'm well on my way to obscurity here in Cambodia. The 20-24 group rules here. Simple observations tell me that most Cambodians are younger than I, but the exact proportions on the chart are astonishing. Ou Virak puts it plainly:  "Cambodia is one of the youngest countries in the world."








Many travellers come to Cambodia with an awareness of the Khmer Rouge history; they visit the Toul Sleng Prison Museum and the Choeung Ek (killing fields) Memorial.  The Flicks shows The Killing Fields -- the 1984 film -- every week at their riverside location (the tourist area), and nearly every show sells out. 

Here's what Ou Virak has to say about the relevance of this genocide to today's young Khmers:
...the majority of Cambodians were born after the Khmer Rouge fell from power. Most of the electorate has no memory of the killing fields.... This also explains the resentment most young Cambodians feel at the way their country is portrayed in the global media. Everybody in Cambodia knows of someone who died during the three years of Khmer Rouge rule, but most of the country's population has never met any of them. For most Cambodians the killing fields belong to the past that rarely seems relevant to them or to the problems the country faces today. But when the rest of the world looks at Cambodia, they see nothing but the killing fields. 
 For many years, we saw the following slogan on web sites promoting travel to Cambodia's neighbouring country:  "Vietnam:  We're a country, not a war!" And of course Cambodia is more than killing fields and Angkor Wat. It disturbs me deeply, though, that a majority of Cambodians is dismissing a horrific historical period as both an aberration and a tourist attraction. I have no idea what, if any, history is taught in schools here, but I suspect it's minimal.

If they see no connection between the rise of the Khmer Rouge in 1974 and the one-man rule in Cambodia in 2014, how can these young citizens understand the dangers of complacency?


Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Bicycle mishaps, cat mishaps

No, really -- I'm fine.  The bike is fine, and the cats are fine.  Mostly.

The Phenomenal Penguin has phenomenal potholes.  Given the torrential rains and paltry funds to maintain infrastructure, I suppose it's unsurprising.  Last week I was reading a copy of the Cambodia Daily, and there were two reports of traffic fatalities, one after the other.  In the first, a moto had swerved to avoid a pothole, and it slammed into a car.  In the second, a car had swerved to avoid a pothole, and it crashed into a moto.  (In both cases, RIP to the late moto drivers.)  

Right here on my very own Street 95, someone took it upon himself to fill the potholes with heaps of building waste -- broken chunks of cement and brick, shards of porcelain and what-all.  Each of these mounds rose about 6" above the street surface. All of us on two wheels were swerving around them and each other. "Who's the genius I can thank for this?" I fumed as I wove the bike around the "shell mounds" as if it were a barrel-racing quarter horse.

Phnom Penh:  Enjoy the thrills of off-road riding. On the roads.

There is, however, one good thing to be said for all the monstrous SUVs that ply the streets:  Within a couple of days, they'd reduced these mounds of rubble to patches of dust that were about flush with the street surface. Evidently the genius who filled the potholes has done this before and knows the amount of rubble needed for the job.  

Last Monday I cycled over to the children's hospital where I'd donated blood the week before. I needed to pick up my blood donor card.  As I was making the turn into the hospital, a moto driver sped around the corner to my left and hit me broadside.  As I watched my sandal spiralling through the air over my head, I thought, "Hmm, this might not be good."  There was a group of men gathered at the hospital gates, presumably waiting for family inside. They came out and picked me and the bamboo bike out of the street. Someone found both my shoes. I was horrified to see that the moto driver had three small children on his bike, and two of them had come off when he hit me. Not a helmet on any of 'em. Before I could hyperventilate about that, I noticed both that the driver was focused exclusively on his bike's front fender (which had a crack in it) and had scant interest in his dislodged offspring, and also that the hospital security guard was busy scolding the moto driver for his imprudent speed.  I concluded that the kids were either unhurt or that no one felt it worthwhile to fret about them.  My next thought was, oh damn. That crack may have been there for months or years, but he's going to see a foreigner and conclude that he might be able to get a new moto out of this collision.  The security guard, however, saved the day and sent the man and his kids packing.  The other men, who had been looking very intently at the moto's cracked fender and mumbling like a flock of pigeons, turned their attention to my bicycle. A flock of insurance adjusters couldn't have inspected it more thoroughly, and they burst into unanimous, astonished laughter. Thumbs up all round. There was no hint of any damage.  Let's hear it for bamboo bicycles!  

"Moahm nah!"  [Very strong!]

I felt blessed to have come out of it with nothing more than scrapes and bruises, shattered nerves, torn trousers and a scuffed helmet.  "Your blood is normal," the lab tech told me when I finally went in to collect my card. I mooched a little soap and iodine and was back on my way again.

When I cycled in the US, it was important to carry a spare inner tube and know how to change it in the event of a flat tire in the middle of nowhere. This is not the case in the Phenomenal Penguin, because you needn't go far to find a jiang pah -- a fellow who does all manner of tire-fixing. These fellows hang out on street corners with their compressed air tanks every few blocks.  I visited the one on the corner of my street when I just needed more air in the tires. I learned a whole bunch of tire-related vocabulary and rode off on two perfectly inflated tires for the lordly sum of $.15.  On Monday, though, I was near the Russian Market when the rear tire went totally flat. I walked the bike a couple of blocks and found this wiry older fellow, blind in one eye. It took him about 30 seconds to pull the tube from the tire (without removing the wheel from the bike).  He inflated the tube and ran it slowly through his pan of water to find the leak. The hiss of bubbles showed us exactly where the puncture was.


Rough streets? Yup. It's a living.

He got out his shears and cut a patch of rubber and applied it with some black tar, then smoothed the patched area with a fine file.


Who knows how many tubes he's repaired, but this was his first on a bamboo bike.

He then clamped the tube under a metal canister containing some burning substance. I suppose the heat melded the patch. He seemed to know exactly how long it would take without melting the whole tube. Seeing my raised eyebrows, a middle-aged fellow who was hanging about told me that this jiang pah is very skillful. That I don't doubt; it's just that his equipment looks a wee bit primitive.


Please, Lord, don't let him incinerate my bike.

Within 15 minutes I was on my way, and three days later, the tire is still solidly inflated. I'm a happy customer, and the half-blind jiang pah is $.75 richer.  (I've been told he cheated me -- the going rate for a tube repair is $.50, but I can live with this level of larceny.)

And then we have the Phenomenal Penguin cat news.  There is a new Film Feline at The Flicks -- meet Elvis.  My friend Malcolm mentioned to the staff that he'd spilled some popcorn, and the fellow replied, "Oh, no worries! We'll send the cat in to eat it." As we were on our way down the stairs I said to Malcolm, "He's delusional. What cat eats popcorn?"  Answer:  Elvis.  I came another evening and ordered a glass of white wine. I was fumbling in my wallet for the correct change when I heard slurping.  Elvis was drinking my chardonnay.  "Oh look, he likes wine, too!" one staff member exclaimed to the other. "I thought he only drank beer." (She did then top up my glass, bless her.)  I no longer doubt that he Hoovers up whatever people spill in the theatre.


"Say, are you planning to eat that whole quesedilla?"

As you may remember from an earlier post, The Flicks already had a resident cine-cat, Piri-Piri. Elvis is half of Piri-Piri's size, yet he manages to terrorise the ginger moggie. While Elvis was sitting atop the bar with his face in my wine glass, Piri-Piri cowered miserably on a bar stool.



"Pour me a double. Whatever he's having."

Meanwhile, at Bling Bling, Nareth has adopted a third cat from his brother's farm in Kampot.  Somehow this tri-coloured kitten had got badly burnt, and Nareth's brother was about to put her out of her misery. Instead, Nareth brought her back to Phnom Penh and took her to Agrovet for some first aid. Now of course he can't bear to send her back to the farm, so meet little Kampot.  Her burns are healing very well.


Kampot has decided the city life ain't half bad.

With the addition of Kampot to the household, PePe seems to have concluded that he now has a harem and is entitled to comport himself like a sultan.  Here is the last image of Sultan PePe before his trip to the clinic, from which he returned a eunuch.

Hasta la vista, PePe.
In one final bit of cat news, I, too, have been at Agrovet of late. On Friday night, I realised that Crumpet hadn't eaten at all that day. She was lethargic, reclusive and, when I approached her, aggressive. She simply wasn't herself, and I know that radical changes in behaviour usually indicate a medical problem.  When she refused her favourite treats on Saturday morning, I rang up Seyha the tuktuk driver, and we set off for Agrovet. 

The Crumps liked the aquarium full of fish in the waiting area
but was less keen on the adolescent golden retriever.
Agrovet is the best clinic in town, run by European vets (who charge European prices). There are a couple of local clinics recently opened by Khmer vets who trained at Agrovet, and I think they're acceptable for most things, but I was apprehensive about their diagnostic capabilities -- I didn't know if they have either the skill or the equipment to figure out what is wrong with a cat, given a vague list of symptoms by a neurotic human. 

Dr. Emma concurred that such aberrant behaviour suggests some malaise, but what, exactly? Crumpet had no fever, no vomiting or diarrhea. Her ears and mouth looked normal. The doc ran her fingers down the length of the cat's back, and that did the trick. Crumpet snarled and howled when the fingers pressed against her lower spine.  Oh no, I thought, kidney failure?  The lab assistant took her off to the back room to draw the blood for a kidney function check.  (They draw the blood from the jugular, and I've heard it's extremely painful, so sensible vets send the cats out of the humans' sight to do this.)  I was enormously relieved to learn that her kidneys are working normally. Dr. Emma concluded that the cat had somehow hurt her back -- maybe a fall? Given that Crumpet is a tad graceless, this is certainly in the realm of possibility. She withstood one more needle jab for an anti-inflammatory injection, the receptionist alleviated the inflammation in my wallet by $50, and we came home again. As soon as we got home, the Crumps devoured a massive serving of brunch. 

Now, on this Tuesday night, I listen to to the light rain and to Yee, the landlady, swinging in the creaky metal swing in the front courtyard. Crumpet is next to me, cleaning her face. Editing jobs are starting to flow in regularly over the internet. Life continues to be quite marvellous. 




Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Vocabulary

One of my favourite things about learning a new language is what the vocabulary teaches me about the culture. We all know the story about the Inuits and their hundreds of words for snow. Well, the Khmers have at least that many pertaining to rain.

There's probably a single word for pedalling a cyclo
in the rain, but I haven't come across it yet.

As I learn to read Khmer, Meng introduces words which use certain letters or diacritical marks. Some of these words are obscure -- he chose them for their illustrative value -- but they are charming and evocative, nonetheless. Khmer has single words to express all of the following:

  • to slip on a wet surface and fall flat, face-up
  • wind-blown rain coming into the house
  • the sound of footsteps walking in rain
  • the sound of a falling raindrop

I'm sure there are many more rainy words, but these are the only ones I've encountered so far.

Khmer makes great use of onomatopoeia, or words that sound like what they represent.

Here, or over there?  Ort, ort, ort, ort....

ort - a hen looking for a place to lay an egg

ngek-nguk - childish  (reminds me of Curly in The Three Stooges)

ngeet-ngort - opening or closing a door (the sound of a creaky hinge)

nyeh-nyawh or meh-mawh - friendly teasing

ngeh-ngawh - to sound unwell  (go ahead, say it! Your sinuses will instantly sound clogged.)

go'awk - to cough


Most of all, though, I love the words that express something about the culture. It may be one word to express a complex idea -- something that would require a paragraph in English -- or it may simply be an endearing usage that expresses something unique about the Khmer lifestyle and values.


Saeng:  to carry a heavy object suspended from a pole which is carried by two people. 



lo-laa or vwaok-vwiak - to speak too loudly in public. It's so frowned upon that they have two words for it.
kooik - when applied to an inanimate object, like a moto or a computer, it means broken or not working. When applied to people, it means dead:  "My grandmother is not working today -- she's broken."
baing-jaik - this means both to organise, and to be wise, which suggests that the path to wisdom is an orderly one.
kong - refers to property that has gained value through years of good care, but it's also an invitation to a monk to sit inside your gates while you go to fetch rice and food for him. Is there a connection between the two definitions? Good maintenance and monks' blessings will increase your home's property value?  I don't know, but again, I love that one short word conveys so much.



Monday, August 4, 2014

Now THAT'S a phenomenal penguin!

Newcomers to this blog who haven't gone back to the initial post may be wondering about the bizarre blog name. The idea came from my Lenovo smart phone, which (whimsically, in my opinion) automatically corrects "Phnom Penh" to "phenomenal penguin". The blog indeed has nothing to do with flightless aquatic birds.

Well, until today.

I saw this article about a recently unearthed prehistoric penguin in The Guardian this morning.  Pretty darned phenomenal, I'd say.



Saturday, August 2, 2014

Bling Bling

Not long after arriving in the Phenomenal Penguin, I discovered a newly-opened café a few streets away called Bling Bling Coffee & Wine.  I am fond of a good glass of wine, and I'm a confessed, unrecoverable caffeine addict, but seriously... Bling Bling? Are they serving their espresso and sauvignon blanc in Waterford crystal?

I stopped in for a cuppa and met the owner. His name is Nareth; he is Cambodian, but he fled to the US during the Pol Pot era. His English is fluent, and like me, he spent years working in the I/T industry -- in his case, in database management. Nareth lived in Boston for many years, then followed his partner, a PhD in Linguistics, to Storrs, Connecticut, home to the University of Connecticut.  Nareth and I have a startling amount in common, between our professions and our geography.

We're both mad about cats, for example. The restaurant, he told me, was named after one of his beloved felines, Bling Bling, who is still living with Nareth's ex in the States.  A couple of months ago, he picked up a pair of tiny kittens on the street.  They surely wouldn't have lasted much longer where they were, and now they're leading the lives of Reilly.

This is Bling Bling II.  Her brother, PePe, is almost identical.

I'm not coddled! Am I?


Like many of the restaurant owners in Phnom Penh, Nareth has hired young staff who would otherwise have fairly dismal prospects. He sends them to English classes, and he teaches them the skills they need to run the café. He helps his cooks prepare some western dishes, and they send him shopping for the ingredients to make the Khmer ones. Then Nareth takes out his camera, and I see posts like this on Facebook.  Within a day or two, I'm invariably  pedalling down Street 456 to Bling Bling.



Add a $3 glass of Argentine chardonnay,  and I'm ecstatic.

Now that he has cats again, Nareth has been even more interested in my BARF-making adventures. I've come to realise that making and selling raw cat food as a cottage industry is simply not economically viable, and I'm not interested in doing it on an industrial scale. Last week, though, I brought a zip-lock bag of frozen BARF cubes as a gift for Bling Bling and PePe.  Nareth sent me the photo below at just past midnight, as Bling Bling was diving into her first serving.  PePe was a bit more cautious, but he's now another certified BARF-hound, so Nareth is asking if he can buy it from me. Sure! Why not? We can just pass the same money round and round as I deliver raw cat food and then eat more meals in his restaurant.


Fine dining, feline style


One of my biggest concerns about moving to the Phenomenal Penguin was the fear of living in an expat bubble -- socialising only with English-speaking foreigners like myself. That's one of the reasons I'm so driven to learn Khmer.  I have a long way to go before my language skills move beyond the merely functional level; I'm quite some way from building friendships in Khmer.  In the meantime, though, people like Nareth are a godsend.  He's re-learning his mother tongue after returning from so many years in America. His spoken Khmer is coming back very quickly (he was a teen-ager when he left and is in his early 50s now), but he and I are at about the same level with the written language. Most of his staff speak English at the same level as my Khmer. Whenever I come to Bling Bling, it's not long before Nareth pours himself a glass of wine and sits down at my table.

We talk about the US and the technology sector, but we also talk about life in Cambodia, and his perspective is fascinating. If the restaurant's not too busy, one or more of the staff may join us, and then we start the real language exchange... "How do you say 'avocado' in Khmer?" "How do you say 'tro-sak-sraw' in English?"

As I sat with my pad thai the other night, Nareth intoduced me to a middle-aged Khmer man who was sitting at the next table.  He was Nareth's brother, Nara, who never left Cambodia. He survived Pol Pot's madness and is now running a farm in Kampot.  "He's had a hard life," Nareth told me, quite unnecessarily. Nara speaks no English (although he does speak Thai and Vietnamese, which impresses me to no end. Vietnamese is a related language to Khmer, but Thai is not.)  When Nareth went out onto the veranda to smooth the ruffled feathers of a vegan who found egg in his dish (oops!), I was left to shoot the Khmer breeze with Nara. I learned that he grows a wide range of fruits and vegetables on his farm, but no durian, for which Kampot is well-known. He doesn't like the smell of durian, and he was surprised that I do. Nareth is teaching him about organic farming. He has an apartment here in Phnom Penh, and he stays in it when he drives here in his car, so I gather his farm is doing rather well. He's 53 years old, and he was pleased to point out that his hair is much thicker than his brother's.  ("I heard that!" called Nareth from the kitchen.) I pointed out that my hair is white, while theirs is still black. Nara shook his head and said that my hair is not white, it's bpra-peh.  "Grey," Nareth translated, "and we both colour ours."  They guffawed.

I know, this is conversation at the level of a toddler -- it's not at all interesting, certainly not profound, but it provides practice that I desperately need. It was exhilarating for me to listen to someone from one of the more distant provinces and understand nearly all of what he said. I do wish Nara would grow durian, though.

One of these days, I'll take a photo of Nareth and update this post.  Meanwhile, I just give thanks every day for Bling Bling.