[Phnom Penh, 10/28/23]
All roads lead to Phnom Penh’s sublime Central Market, of course. There, you can find every merchandise, fruits unknown to all scientists and faces you haven’t seen in years. Just now, you pass your long-dead aunt. Wearing a new dress of the latest fashion, she looks much younger even. Coy, she pretends not to recognize your sorry ass.
Leaving Kracheh was not easy, but my visa was winding down, so I had to take a drowsy mini bus to cosmopolitan Phnom Penh, where all problems can be solved, including securing a visa extension. Nodding off, my head nearly made a soft landing onto the young lady next to me. Though I had wanted to glimpse Skun again, I dozed right through it. There, I had bought a mess of silkworm pupae, garnished with raw scallion and chili pepper.
Since I was Cu’s best customer for nearly two weeks, he was not happy to see me leave. On my last day, I hired him twice and treated him to lunch. On a visit to tiny Mahob, we lingered at a store run by a Chinese-Cambodian family. Encountering such a freakish foreigner, the kids didn’t smile. Clearly shocked, a three year old girl stared at me for a good minute. The middle aged store owner said no foreigner had ever ventured down that dusty road. Though just eight miles from central Kracheh, I was in a different world.
Rolling by, a van laden with cheap household goods had its speaker blaring. Perched in the back was a Muslim woman, so a Cham. In rural Cambodia, their houses aren’t, like most others, elevated on posts. There are many minorities in Cambodia. A light skinned woman with angular features entered the store.
Almost every bridge in Cambodia was built by China, Vietnam or Japan, so a short span nearby had the Vietnamese flag at each end. Crossing it, I couldn’t help but blurt, “They couldn’t even bother to build such a short bridge!” Just south of Kracheh, there’s an ornate monument to a young Hun Sen as a monk, however.
Writing this just after dawn, I sit at a neon lit sidewalk café, surrounded by five other customers, all men. They’re chattering away. The grouchy old guy next door is still asleep, or maybe he’s dead. Across the street is a joint where you can get decent broken rice with grilled pork chop. Five yards away is a grimy bus station where I once saw a joyful toddler in diaper. Quitting urban life, he was headed back to the ducks, toads, chickens, peace and boredom of the impoverished countryside.
Just learning English in 1975, I was delighted by Bernie Taupin’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” as sung by Elton John. To me, “hunting the horny back toad” was pure mystery and poetry. I imagined a mini dinosaur or monster dreamt up by Taupin. Before the internet, you couldn’t google to find out. Now, you can see much more than you want or need.
As I pour myself hot tea, the man next to me shifts my glass slightly to make sure I don’t spill anything. It’s a friendly gesture that would not be welcomed many other places. To thank him, I smile.
The café’s young server wears a cheerful shirt in primary colors with Donald Ducks and Mickey Mouses. Pushing endless war, America maintains an improbable image of goofy and endearing innocence. That’s its unmatched genius.
Getting here just before 5AM, I snaked through two dark alleys. In one, a fat woman in her 50’s sat immobile on a platform of wooden planks. At 6:15, I pass again that platform, but now there’s a sleeping figure, curled up and facing the wall. Above her is a portrait of Hun Sen. If it’s the same woman, maybe she feels safer sleeping in daylight, but I’m thinking like an American here. There, murders and rapes are nearly daily occurrences in any city, and it will only worsen.
Back at my hotel, Zing, a pretty young woman exiting the elevator says something to me, and she even touches my elbow. Ordinary Cambodians don’t do that. Checking in yesterday, I noticed Chinese tourists and, this morning, I heard Vietnamese in the lobby. Maybe somebody hired her. Smiling, she shows braces. Though I can guess what she wants, I merely say, “I don’t understand,” as the elevator door closes.
Circumstances dictate behavior. Domesticated animals turn infantile, so they become cuter, weaker, and, in an evolutionary blink, unable to last a day in nature. Of course, humans are the most helpless. Preposterously pussified, they ejaculate on Unz Review. Most American soldiers are way too fat to march to the nearest KFC.
Still agile, I can last 12 rounds against my own shadow. Pecking jabs at my shredded curriculum vitae, I’ll unload a left hook to finish me off. Don’t bother counting, crooked ref. I’m well done!
I have a cousin in his 50’s who’s still unmarried. Born in the US, he’s never been to Asia. Mosey over and I’ll show you around, I finally told him. Water flows back to its source, goes a Vietnamese saying. This only makes sense if such source is the ocean. To be flushed into that infinite darkness is the ultimate terror and comfort.
Until that happens, cherish each banal moment. If you’re sick of normality, you’re tired of life. Robbed of their land and most basic rights, even Gazans managed to resurrect normality, but they can’t resist Jewish hatred forever. Bombs are shredding and pulverizing their bodies right now. Unlike that tale of decapitated Israeli babies, it’s not another Jewish lie. They can’t help but keep them coming. Those who cheer for Palestine’s destruction are already in hell.
As Jews commit, most nakedly, ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the American Senate voted 97 to 0 to back Israel. With Jewjabs and the war in Ukraine, that’s three simultaneous Jew orchestrated genocides.
On TikTok, Jews mock Palestinian suffering by dressing up as the most hideous Arabs. A keffiyeh draped Jew with a fake head wound holds an effigy of a dead baby. Enjoying her sick skit, she smiles. Another Jew wastes his tap water to taunt Palestinians’ lack of access to that resource. What do you expect, though, from a nation whose defense minister just referred to Palestinians as “human animals.”
Such nauseating racism is kosher in the West. Groveling to Jews has become a Western hallmark. That’s why their societies are beyond sick, by any measuring stick.
This muted lament by Karim Benzema, however, has drawn strong condemnation, “All our prayers for the inhabitants of Gaza who are again victims of unjust bombings which spare no women or children.” French politicians are demanding the Lyon-born soccer star be stripped of his citizenship.
At 8:22AM, I’m sitting in Zing’s lobby. There’s a party of Vietnamese that’s overly loud, but do forgive them. Judging by their excited tittering and yakking, they don’t get out much. To protect its oil supply, China has moved warships to the Middle East. When that spigot is turned off, no one will skip about to buy trinkets and snap selfies.
Should I be stuck in Phnom Penh, Vung Tau or Pakse, I’ll be fine, however. Having endured the most unspeakable for a century, Southeast Asians are as equipped as any for our next ordeal.
Into that usual sunshine, I now stroll to the Central Market. More than any landmark, each city in totality is its greatest monument. It’s what we have built together, over centuries.
Cambodians once erected the most magnificent. Long past their peak, they still have their pride, sense of beauty, grace and, most importantly, a sober maturity missing from smug savages.
Even as their house burns down, they threaten and crow.
1 comment:
The Chinese war ships were already in the area as part of the
International effort to thwart pirates off the Horn of Africa
Preying on shipping exiting and entering the Red Sea on their
way to and from the Suez canal.
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