Love Finds Joy in the Mess

As published at SubStack, 11/15/23:

[Sihanoukville, 11/9/23]

To save a few bucks, I booked a room at Zing without a balcony, so denied myself one more pleasure, but it still feels great to be back in Phnom Penh. After getting off the minibus, I took the tuk-tuk for $3 to the Central Market. Seeing its dome from a distance warmed my heart.

Leaving Sihanoukville, I spotted a man wearing this T-shirt, “Apes the Planet Earth,” and this statement inside a cafe, “I’m not cute, I’m not beautiful, I’m not intelligent, but I’m not fake.” Inside the minibus, there were signs telling passengers to wear a mask, keep silent and not eat. All were more or less ignored.

Next to me was a woman in her 70’s. After chatting away with a young woman and a toddler boy, the old lady masked up then went to sleep. Suddenly, the coronavirus had invaded the minibus and her oxygen starved mind. Thus asphyxiated, it’s a miracle she didn’t die, though wheezing and hacking a few times, she sounded ready to go.

Outside, the landscape was the most pristine I had ever seen in Cambodia. Slender, bushy headed palm trees jutted from breaks in rice paddies. A toll road, it had few exits and was inaccessible to all those shops, shacks and Ganzberg beer signs, the last nearly ubiquitous across this land of Angkor. On an ordinary road, it’s not unusual to see two, three or four red, orange and yellow Ganzberg signs at a glance.

Every overpass had a commercial message in Khmer and English, thus we’re urged by an insurance company to “LEAD A HAPPY AND WORRY FREE LIFE.” Panda Commercial Bank asked, “Hey, are you flying or driving?”

Entering Phnom Penh, we were confounded by this context and logo-free statement, “THANKS PEACE.” Thankfully, the corporate crap returned to reassure us we’re still on this blighted earth in 2023. “FULFILL EVERY HAPPINESS AT A PPT STATION.” Nothing beat this, though, from American Standards, “LOVE FINDS JOY IN THE MESS.”

Again, I’m sitting at that lousy cafe I love so much. Sadly, the caffeine wallah is not wearing her Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck shirt, but maybe she’ll do it tomorrow. She can’t have that many outfits. On the way here, I passed restless roosters and a tiny woman carrying a baby. They were one black mass. There was just enough light in the covered alley for wet spots on cracked concrete to shimmer. Sunken manhole covers added jazz to my journey.

Yesterday, I checked out some shanties along the railroad tracks. I had seen so many one week ago, on my way out. It’s striking how close they were to some of Phnom Penh’s most prestigious addresses. Hovels moldered in the shadow of futuristic condos hovering in the smoggy sky. Fifteen yards away, there were also swanky showrooms selling Porsche, Maserati, Lamborghini, McLaren and Aston Martin whips. Within half a mile, any well heeled and discerning asshole could pig out on an $84 rib-eye, $48 tenderloin, $16 burger, Korean BBQ, dim sum or sushi, etc. Tired of such cheap eats, you can head to Kyō Omakase for a proper, 18 course meal, at just $278 a head.

Snooping around, I spotted several children playing on a wooden platform, so I goofed around with them. Kids generally like me, and many dogs, too. Thirsty and sweating, I ducked into a tiny shop to buy a bottle of cold water, but this wide eyed hag promptly chased me away. Looking furious, she even placed a box at her entrance to make sure I couldn’t reenter her life. Whatever, woman. Two shanties away, I was courteously served by a teenage boy who spoke good English without an accent, so I complimented him and got my water.

As in Sihanoukville, skyscrapers have sprouted in Phnom Penh, except here in the capital, all will be completed, as will Takhmao Techo Airport. When finished, it will be one of the world’s finest, and several notches above NYC’s JFK, DC’s Dulles, Chicago’s O’Hare or San Francisco International. Last time I was at JFK, the toilet flush malfunctioned, to it kept overflowing as I escaped from the stall. There was no employee nearby to alert.

It’s the new American standard. Two days ago in South Memphis, a gas station convenenience store was robbed by a mob arriving in at least 30 cars. After they had stolen hundreds of merchandises, a lone cop car showed up 25 minutes later. Perhaps the officer just needed a free jelly donut. Repeatedly robbed, the owner said he was ready to leave town, but where can he go? The entire country has become a lethal shithole.

In the West, there has been much talk about cutting down on commercial flights, with even airports shutting down, all to control humanity’s carbon footprint. There is no evidence of that in East Asia, however, so in Cambodia alone, there are also new airports in Siem Reap and Botum Sakor.

Cambodians are also eating much more beef, pork, chicken and lobster, and many fewer bugs. Maybe they’re conserving crickets, grasshoppers, cockroaches and spiders to export to the USA, Germany, France and Sweden?

Here are the ingredients for a future USA school lunch, “Blatta Orientalist, Sodium Lactate, Sodium Citrate, Lactic Acid, Sorbic Acid, Reconstituted Dog Shit, Drag Queen Juice, Pfizer Whatever, Black Lives Motherfucker and Neo Wokism.”

Much of Cambodia’s recent development has been engineered and/or financed by China, and it makes perfect sense not just economically, but militarily. China needs living space, market and access to the Gulf of Thailand. Cambodia needs roads, airports, seaports, a state of the art stadium and lots of bribes. Cambodian masseurs also need blotchy or blubbery limbs to knead.

For WWIII, American bombs and missiles may just target Chinese infrastructure in Cambodia, but these people have suffered so much already for a century. Hopefully, they can enjoy life and each other for many more years. Resilient, they laugh and smile even in shanties.

[Sihanoukville, 11/12/23]

[Stoeng Chral, 11/13/23]

[Phnom Penh, 11/14/23]

[Phnom Penh, 11/14/23]

This super friendly kid sat next to me for part of the way to Phnom Penh.

Vietnamese. There was also a Vietnamese massage parlor across the street.

Hell's Best Face!

As published at SubStack, 11/11/23:

[Sihanoukville, 11/6/23]

I died last night and woke up this morning in Sihanoukville. Since there’s no trace of any god, saint, angel or cherub, this must be hell. The good news is, it’s not all that bad.

Though hot enough, there is a sea breeze, so it’s possible for your average sinner to wander around a bit without dropping from a heat stroke or dehydration. Be careful, though, of slippery patches. Horrible drainage is a hellish feature. It’s a miracle I didn’t just fall again.

Now I know Oscar Milosz, channeling Swedenborg, was spot on, “Ce sera tout à fait comme dans cette vie. La même chambre.” It will be exactly as in this life. The same room. And the same Sihanoukville, with its broken sidewalks and ten thousand eyesores. No matter which way you look, there’s ugliness. At least there’s good Chinese chow in hell.

Since it’s exactly as in this life, hygiene and grooming are still required, so I finally got a haircut. When not servicing Chinese in posh hotels and restaurants, Cambodians accommodate each other in the crudest shacks, for the rent is so high here. I entered a barbershop smaller than most American closets. Still, it had two chairs.

There were fifty styles to choose from. Though I could have become Cristian Ronaldo, David Beckham, Jackie Chan or some K-pop sissy, I opted for the most basic. Waving a hand over my head, I indicated to cut it all off. I also said, “No style!” He laughed.

Shorn, I descended dirty steps into the alley of my hotel. Paradise Cozy is a clean, well run establishment, so I had four restful days there. There’s an old American in a wheelchair I never got around to talk to. I was too busy exploring hell.

After checking out, I waited for Nate, the Aussie expat. Arriving by tuk-tuk, he came with his bright eyed 12-year-old son, Darius. So I’ll see his wife at the house, I thought.

Seventy-years-old, Nate’s a thin, short and mostly bald man with a white beard and aquiline nose. Settling into the tuk-tuk, Nate said he had lost all his front teeth, so his speech and diet had been modified. He sounded tired, but so did I.

For miles, we were driven past abandoned buildings and unfinished highrises, but near Independence Beach, we spotted a lone monkey. There had been many more. In 2019, authorities relocated most because they were “interfering with people, affecting traffic and creating disorder.” Of course, it’s us who are interfering with every other species, and exterminating them at an unprecedented pace. To make room for condos, strip malls, parking lots, golf courses, casinos and adorable babies, we had to create hell.

When did you last see a butterfly, ladybug, grasshopper or bee? At best, future generations will experience wildlife online, the way most of us enjoy every social intercourse, including sex, now.

As we moved away from the prime real estate near the ocean, the abandoned buildings became much fewer, and, with it, that miasma of misguided planning, over optimism and fortunes lost. Becoming much more ordinary, Sihanoukville ceased to be hell. As we passed busy Phsar Leu Market, I blurted, “Look at that! I feel much better.”

Mind you, there were still architectural skeletons jutting into the sky, but at street levels, rows of cheerful shops served locals. There were many more pedestrians, grandparents holding babies, itinerant sellers of food, slurpers of noodle soups and kids in school uniforms.

Turning into an alley, we stopped at a modest house that, even from the outside, clearly lacked that nest building instinct common to women, notwithstanding the many pigs among them. Over the next two days, I would hear much about Nate’s unusual philosophy and life, so that now, near the end, he’s trying his best to keep his body and mind from wheezing out, not just for Darius’ sake, but to witness humanity’s disastrous next chapter. Our apeshitness has just begun.

Nate, “Everything is coming to this pusy head. All this poison they’ve pumped into our bodies and psyche, so we’re beyond lost, not just to each other, but to ourselves. It’s a spiritual crisis. This blistering boil will get lanced. When it explodes, more millions will die, then a lull will come, so the survivors will think everything is back to normal, until the next wave of fear, panic and outright internecine violence. It has all happened before. There is nothing new under the sun.”

Weakened and often in pain, Nate spends most of his waking hours sitting at a cluttered table in the semi dark. There’s no TV, so it’s always quiet. Darius is either at school or playing with other boys in the alley. Daily, Nate’s 16-year-old daughter drops by to ask for money and wash a few dishes. She lives with a boyfriend.

Five or six scrawny cats also live there. Kittens sleep beneath my bed. For an hour this morning, one wailed for its mom, who took her time showing up. On my hands and knees, I looked into the darkness but only saw an assortment of forgotten objects.

Before leaving, Nate’s wife used their house, a plot of land and his motorbike as collaterals to borrow money for gambling. Nate’s lucky to still have a home. Like the children, she asks for money often.

Long before Nate got married, he realized his wife hadn’t been born yet, then he saw her, a factory worker, standing by the side of a road.

“Life is about having experiences. That’s why I’ve had all these jobs. I worked on a fishing boat, in an office and at a mine, though not as a miner. I was a copy boy and picture framer. I installed telephone exchange equipment. I assembled air conditioners and refrigeration for trucks and buses. I’ve never had trouble picking up skills. I became a nurse because I wanted to know what it’s like to wipe old asses,” Nate laughed, “before I become old myself. There’s a Thai expression, ‘He hasn’t seen his own shit yet!’”

Following his intuition, Nate has emerged from darkness into light, and he’s still there, he said.

“Listen, Nate, do you worry about disappearing before Darius can take care of himself?”

“No, my father lived until he was 96.”

“Yeah, but anything can happen to you!”

“Anything can happen to anybody! Darius is a smart kid. He’ll be fine.” Then, “We’re not in charge of anything. All we can do it follow the path that’s set out for each of us.”

My path will lead back to Phnom Penh, then Vietnam in a month. I just got my visa. Very generously, Nate said I could stay at his house for as long as I want. Darius even suggested I move in permanently. We joke around. The kid likes me.

I write this at Burger Cafe, which is just a stall, with only one table from a sewing machine. Surrounded by human activities, I’m content.

Across 104 Street is a tailor, tattoo parlor, barber and karaoke bar. A skinny 13-year-old girl carries brooms for sale. Selling pork buns from a sidecar, a woman pauses for a customer. Jangling his bell, an ice cream man rides by. Blasting music from two large speakers, here comes one peddling long, chewy sweets with peanuts. This ceaseless street drama is constantly changing. It’s what Southeast Asia is all about. Nate agrees. In Australia, everything was opaque or blocked off.

In 19th century Philadelphia, they kept prisoners in solitary confinement so they could reflect and be closer to God, I told Nate. When Dickens visited this prison, he found its inmates had gone mad.

“Have you noticed, Nate, this rapid increase in nastiness or even sadism? Americans are getting off on being assholes!”

“Australians, too. That’s why I left.”

“Being in solitary confinement for so long, they’ve lost it!”

Forty-four-years old, the Burger Cafe’s owner has four houses, with two rented out. The one he lives in is dubbed Dream House. It says so on the facade. When Chinese flooded in, he could rent it for ten times his previous rate, so $3,500 a month, but that boom is over.

Also over, mostly, are the street crimes that so much money attracted. Even Chinese robbed each other. It got so bad, many natives had to flee.

Here nine years, Nate is not fleeing anywhere. He misses nothing about Australia, not even some dishes from his childhood. Though there are some English speakers around, they’re not the type to have in depth conversations with, so Nate has learnt to forego such a need.

Having me around has given his brain an outlet, so he’s sleeping better and longer, with even the pains in his legs less intense.

[Sihanoukville, 11/10/23]

[Sihanoukville, 11/10/23]

[Sihanoukville, 11/10/23]

[Kracheh, Cambodia on 10/10/23]

3:09 at Burger Cafe on 104 Street in Sihanoukville, Cambodia on 11/11/23

[Phsar Leu Market]

[Phsar Leu Market]