1) Move to Cambodia.
2) Get Dengue Fever as soon as possible. (Dizziness, puking, no energy, metallic taste in your mouth, body covered in spots -- great substitute for exercise.)
3) Run one hour five days a week.
4) Sweat.
5) Gain some of the pounds back.
6) Run some more.
7) Go to Canada, and gain even more pounds back.
8) Do the opposite of the Super-Size Me movie -- cut out all pop, pizza, potato chips, choco -
late, ice cream, candy, hamburgers, french fries, hot dogs, and Coke. And Pepsi. And Sprite. And 7-Up. And...
9) Be patient. And forgiving.
Friday, October 29, 2004
Thursday, October 28, 2004
THOUGHTS ON TURNING (GULP) 29...
I don't know if I consider myself an adult, exactly, but considering that I'm turning twenty-nine tomorrow, I sure as hell ain't a kid anymore, and I vividly remember the day, the moment, I realized that.
Two years ago, I came to Cambodia for one week as a volunteer with a Japanese NGO called 'Children Without Borders' (www.knk.or.jp), an organization that helps teenage street-children get their lives back together by grouping them together in a house, teaching them skills (like moto-repair or hair-styling) and helping them gain some self-worth. I taught English to them, while Japanese college kids taught Japanese, and English, and Japanese calligraphy, and other cool stuff, none of which I could do, because I'm kind of a twit.
This was in Battambang, the second biggest city in the country. It's about a five hour drive north from Phnom Penh. Not much there, really, which is really code for saying that there's a lot there -- you just have to know where to find it.
Take Homeland. It's an orphanage that me and the Japanese students visited one day, and if you want to have an emotional experience, friends and neighbours, visit a Cambodian orphan-
age filled with a hundred or so HIV infected kids.
What surprised me was how energetic the kids were. (If were in Japan, they would be
suuuuugoi genki). They jumped on your arms and tugged at your shirt and smiled the smile that can only be found in Cambodia.
Except...
I was sitting down on the steps of the orphanage, taking it all in. Watching the kids play. Letting myself take a break from the heat, which is pretty much impossible in Cambodia, but still. You gotta try. And there was this one girl sitting beside me, left hand clenched against her cheek, eyes staring at the ground, head drooped low. I smiled at her and she gave me a let's-humor-the-foreigner smile back.
My first thought was: Why isn't she smiling? Why isn't she playing like the others? What's wrong with her?
And then I realized where I was. It sunk in. It hit me, slapped me, pounded me in the face.
Why should she be smiling? She's nine years old (if that), and she probably has AIDS, and she's not going nowhere, not anytime soon, thank-you very much. She's stuck there with a hundred other kids who, very possibly, could be dead within dead years. No mother, father, family. Why would she be dancing with glee, laughing with delight, doing cartwheels in the sun?
Just one moment. Just one kid's wan little smile.
But that was it. Bang. Life is harsh, and cruel, and desperately, relentlessly unfair. I knew that intellectually. Sitting next to that kid, though, whose name I never knew, whose face I still remember, made it real. And that made me say good-bye to something inside.
Not a very uplifting birthday message, I know, but the point is:
I'm thankful. I'm thankful that I'm not in an orphanage in Battambang. I'm thankful that I've made it to twenty-nine years of age. I'm thankful that I've led a pretty diverse life, and, hopefully, there'll be many more years to come.
Just thinking about what I've seen and done makes me dizzy, but here goes:
I've lived in St.Catharines and North York and Toronto and Manotick and Sagami-hara City and Phnom Penh, and I've run races (and sometimes won races, like the when I won the Junior Boys SOSSA cross-country title and my brother won the Senior Boys SOSSA title on the same day, same course, and was that ever a good day for the Spencer brothers, yes it was, one of the best, if not the best), and I've watched Spike Lee and Oliver Stone speak at the University of Toronto (same building, years apart), my high school gods come miraculously to life, and I shook their hands, and had them sign their books, and I've studied creative writing, and actually, somehow, got a freakin' degree out of it, and I met John Irving (twice), and met Norman Mailer, and met Pierre Trudeau a week before the Quebec referendum, and met Tom Hanks with my friend Eric as Forrest Gump himself strolled out of the Four Seasons hotel, and ambushed Charles Bronson in the lobby of that same hotel, and got the autographs of Michael Caine and Gene Hackman within ten minutes of each other, and sat next to Ben Johnson on a high jump mat in the track centre at York University, both of us resting, him saying nothing, me saying nothing, and I taught a student in Japan, my first student in Japan, first day, just off the plane, who performed the first pacemaker operation in Japan in the mid-sixties, and I've taught the former head of research and development of Toshiba who went and had a private meeting with the president of China, and brought me back the pictures to prove it, and I've visited the set where Akira "Seven Samurai" Kurosawa made all of his films, and seen the machines he edited them on, and walked around his private screening room, and held the slippers he wore, and held the actual model that is used in all of the Godzilla movies, and I've been to Hiroshima, and travelled around Hokkaido, ran on the beach in Shimane, been attacked in Sagami-Ono by a homeless nut with a two-by-four, and I've injured myself training for the Nagano marathon, and I've studied Japanese, in Japan and Cambodia, and taught at an orphange in Phnom Penh, a university in Phnom Penh, and I've seen my brother get married, and I gave a speech, just last month, toasting his wife and his life.
A full, rich twenty-nine years.
So, thanks to all who've played a part. (And who've made it through the above paragraph.)
Arigato.
Okun.
Here's to the next twenty-nine!
And here's to that little girl in that Battambang, Cambodia orphange.
I may not have affected her life, but she sure as hell shifted, swayed, jolted mine.
Two years ago, I came to Cambodia for one week as a volunteer with a Japanese NGO called 'Children Without Borders' (www.knk.or.jp), an organization that helps teenage street-children get their lives back together by grouping them together in a house, teaching them skills (like moto-repair or hair-styling) and helping them gain some self-worth. I taught English to them, while Japanese college kids taught Japanese, and English, and Japanese calligraphy, and other cool stuff, none of which I could do, because I'm kind of a twit.
This was in Battambang, the second biggest city in the country. It's about a five hour drive north from Phnom Penh. Not much there, really, which is really code for saying that there's a lot there -- you just have to know where to find it.
Take Homeland. It's an orphanage that me and the Japanese students visited one day, and if you want to have an emotional experience, friends and neighbours, visit a Cambodian orphan-
age filled with a hundred or so HIV infected kids.
What surprised me was how energetic the kids were. (If were in Japan, they would be
suuuuugoi genki). They jumped on your arms and tugged at your shirt and smiled the smile that can only be found in Cambodia.
Except...
I was sitting down on the steps of the orphanage, taking it all in. Watching the kids play. Letting myself take a break from the heat, which is pretty much impossible in Cambodia, but still. You gotta try. And there was this one girl sitting beside me, left hand clenched against her cheek, eyes staring at the ground, head drooped low. I smiled at her and she gave me a let's-humor-the-foreigner smile back.
My first thought was: Why isn't she smiling? Why isn't she playing like the others? What's wrong with her?
And then I realized where I was. It sunk in. It hit me, slapped me, pounded me in the face.
Why should she be smiling? She's nine years old (if that), and she probably has AIDS, and she's not going nowhere, not anytime soon, thank-you very much. She's stuck there with a hundred other kids who, very possibly, could be dead within dead years. No mother, father, family. Why would she be dancing with glee, laughing with delight, doing cartwheels in the sun?
Just one moment. Just one kid's wan little smile.
But that was it. Bang. Life is harsh, and cruel, and desperately, relentlessly unfair. I knew that intellectually. Sitting next to that kid, though, whose name I never knew, whose face I still remember, made it real. And that made me say good-bye to something inside.
Not a very uplifting birthday message, I know, but the point is:
I'm thankful. I'm thankful that I'm not in an orphanage in Battambang. I'm thankful that I've made it to twenty-nine years of age. I'm thankful that I've led a pretty diverse life, and, hopefully, there'll be many more years to come.
Just thinking about what I've seen and done makes me dizzy, but here goes:
I've lived in St.Catharines and North York and Toronto and Manotick and Sagami-hara City and Phnom Penh, and I've run races (and sometimes won races, like the when I won the Junior Boys SOSSA cross-country title and my brother won the Senior Boys SOSSA title on the same day, same course, and was that ever a good day for the Spencer brothers, yes it was, one of the best, if not the best), and I've watched Spike Lee and Oliver Stone speak at the University of Toronto (same building, years apart), my high school gods come miraculously to life, and I shook their hands, and had them sign their books, and I've studied creative writing, and actually, somehow, got a freakin' degree out of it, and I met John Irving (twice), and met Norman Mailer, and met Pierre Trudeau a week before the Quebec referendum, and met Tom Hanks with my friend Eric as Forrest Gump himself strolled out of the Four Seasons hotel, and ambushed Charles Bronson in the lobby of that same hotel, and got the autographs of Michael Caine and Gene Hackman within ten minutes of each other, and sat next to Ben Johnson on a high jump mat in the track centre at York University, both of us resting, him saying nothing, me saying nothing, and I taught a student in Japan, my first student in Japan, first day, just off the plane, who performed the first pacemaker operation in Japan in the mid-sixties, and I've taught the former head of research and development of Toshiba who went and had a private meeting with the president of China, and brought me back the pictures to prove it, and I've visited the set where Akira "Seven Samurai" Kurosawa made all of his films, and seen the machines he edited them on, and walked around his private screening room, and held the slippers he wore, and held the actual model that is used in all of the Godzilla movies, and I've been to Hiroshima, and travelled around Hokkaido, ran on the beach in Shimane, been attacked in Sagami-Ono by a homeless nut with a two-by-four, and I've injured myself training for the Nagano marathon, and I've studied Japanese, in Japan and Cambodia, and taught at an orphange in Phnom Penh, a university in Phnom Penh, and I've seen my brother get married, and I gave a speech, just last month, toasting his wife and his life.
A full, rich twenty-nine years.
So, thanks to all who've played a part. (And who've made it through the above paragraph.)
Arigato.
Okun.
Here's to the next twenty-nine!
And here's to that little girl in that Battambang, Cambodia orphange.
I may not have affected her life, but she sure as hell shifted, swayed, jolted mine.
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
THE SPY WHO LOVED ME
Just the other day I was sitting around, smug as a bug in a rug, content with the knowledge that Cambodia -- poor, desperate, corrupt -- was, at the very least, free from terrorists. This is a Buddhist country, after all, and as someone much smarter than me pointed out: When was the last time you saw a Tibetan suicide bomber? Buddhism is about tranquility, and acceptance, and acknowledging the fleeting, necessary, complete and absolute transitoriness of life. (I hear Kenny G just thinking about it...)
But then there was an article in the paper by some famous person writing some important study that stated, in no uncertain terms, that Cambodia could, in the very near future -- possibly by, like, Saturday -- become a haven for terrorists. I guess some famos Al-qaida higher-upper sort of dude had spent some time here recently. And probably for the very same reasons I stated above -- nobody suspects this place. It's harmless. It's weak. And it's a perfect place to hang out, chill, and plot the next jihad.
Which got me thinking (which I try to do as little as possible) about countries, and borders, and infiltration, and how we really, really are pretty naive about the how the world works.
One would think, what with the end of the Cold War, that at least the non-Islamic nations would be pretty cool with each other. Glasnost and perestroika and Yakov Smirnov appearing on Night Court -- we all get along, right?
Apparently not. Some website stated that in England recently there has actually been an increase in the number of Russian spies, so much so that the level is higher than it's been since the end of the Cold War. President Bush may have looked in to Russian president Vladamir Putin's eyes and seen his soul, as he stated, but we shouldn't forget that Putin was once a KGB man stationed in Germany -- and once a KGB, always a KGB, as my grandma used to say. (Actually, she didn't say that. She said: "Go to bed!", but that line doesn't work as well for this particular example.)
And I'm reading a book right now called KGB: THE INSIDE STORY, continuing my Russia kick, and it's actually pretty cool -- a history of deception, basically.
Which goes back to my original point -- we're naive. Right now, there are American spies in Russia and Chinese spies in Japan and Canadian spies in Europe. (Yes, yes, there are Canadian spies. Last summer, some Canadian actually tried to draft me into the Canadian C.I.A. -- but that's another story for another time.)
In any event, I think we should all be thankful we come from free, democratic countries -- but we should be careful. We should be realistic. We should understand that this is a tough, tough world, and even though neighbours are neighbours and countries are friends, we still don't trust each other. We still can't trust each other.
In movies, in literature, in non-fiction, it makes for compelling stuff.
In real life, it makes me worried.
But then there was an article in the paper by some famous person writing some important study that stated, in no uncertain terms, that Cambodia could, in the very near future -- possibly by, like, Saturday -- become a haven for terrorists. I guess some famos Al-qaida higher-upper sort of dude had spent some time here recently. And probably for the very same reasons I stated above -- nobody suspects this place. It's harmless. It's weak. And it's a perfect place to hang out, chill, and plot the next jihad.
Which got me thinking (which I try to do as little as possible) about countries, and borders, and infiltration, and how we really, really are pretty naive about the how the world works.
One would think, what with the end of the Cold War, that at least the non-Islamic nations would be pretty cool with each other. Glasnost and perestroika and Yakov Smirnov appearing on Night Court -- we all get along, right?
Apparently not. Some website stated that in England recently there has actually been an increase in the number of Russian spies, so much so that the level is higher than it's been since the end of the Cold War. President Bush may have looked in to Russian president Vladamir Putin's eyes and seen his soul, as he stated, but we shouldn't forget that Putin was once a KGB man stationed in Germany -- and once a KGB, always a KGB, as my grandma used to say. (Actually, she didn't say that. She said: "Go to bed!", but that line doesn't work as well for this particular example.)
And I'm reading a book right now called KGB: THE INSIDE STORY, continuing my Russia kick, and it's actually pretty cool -- a history of deception, basically.
Which goes back to my original point -- we're naive. Right now, there are American spies in Russia and Chinese spies in Japan and Canadian spies in Europe. (Yes, yes, there are Canadian spies. Last summer, some Canadian actually tried to draft me into the Canadian C.I.A. -- but that's another story for another time.)
In any event, I think we should all be thankful we come from free, democratic countries -- but we should be careful. We should be realistic. We should understand that this is a tough, tough world, and even though neighbours are neighbours and countries are friends, we still don't trust each other. We still can't trust each other.
In movies, in literature, in non-fiction, it makes for compelling stuff.
In real life, it makes me worried.
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
CASTLES IN THE SAND
A few weeks ago I was done in Sianhoukville, Cambodia's beach-bum area. (Of course it's named after the soon-to-be-former king, as his son is taking the crown on Friday, so I guess I should be a bit more careful in how I describe it.) It's a seaside town that has beautiful beaches and open water and hills that motodrivers drive a LITTLE too fast down. (And up, too, for that matter.)
There was a kid buried up to his neck in the sand, surrounded by a series of castles made of dirt. Must have taken a good little while to construct. And while I didn't see the boy stand up, brush off the sand, dive into the water and wash himself clean, I can bet that THAT whole process took no more than five, ten seconds.
Difficult to build castles in the sand. Easy to tear them apart.
Which makes me realize, in the words of 'lateral thinking' guru Edward Debono, that it's so much easier to take apart than to build. So much easier to put out a fire than start one.
In one week there may (or may not) be a new U.S.President. (This Canadian thinks that Bush will win by a nose, but what do I know?) My worry is, should Bush, in fact, strike gold and grab the election by the throat, we'll be in for 'four more years' of negative, almost desperate criticism that will border on the apocalyptic.
Which is a good thing. Don't get me wrong. We need that. God knows, Cambodia needs it. Here, if you criticize the government, publicly, you can get shot in the face. Literally. They don't mess around. We need to hold the government accountable, and we need to speak up when we see something we don't like, because we come from places where that's possible.
But that's not enough. The problem I have with Michael Moore and all the Bush detractors (and this is coming from someone who really, really likes Michael Moore) is that their whole philosophy, it seems, is about tearing things apart. It's about demanding change. It's about rebelling against a government regime that they considered corrupt.
All well and good.
But as Robert Redford says at the end of THE CANDIDATE: "Now what do we do?"
The danger of focusing all of that negative energy on Bush is that it prevents you from sitting down and figuring out how to get out of the mess that you're in. It leads us to believe, wrongly, I think, that the protest is the point -- that the dissent is the cause. It's not. What comes AFTER the dissent is what matters.
For years and years here in Cambodia they've been trying to figure out how to have a Khmer Rouge tribunal to try Pol Pot's men for war crimes. As well they should. And yet, it's dragged on and on, and my worry is, after all the waiting, all the money spent, all the time and emotion invested, at the end of it you will have a nation that will stand up and say: "Now what do we do?"
Protest has its essential place. It's a necessary part of democracy. But it needs to coincide with plans, strategies, actions that may well prove ineffective, but hey -- you gotta start. You gotta begin.
If you spend all your time tearing down castles in the sand, after awhile you may have a hard time remembering how to build them back up again.
There was a kid buried up to his neck in the sand, surrounded by a series of castles made of dirt. Must have taken a good little while to construct. And while I didn't see the boy stand up, brush off the sand, dive into the water and wash himself clean, I can bet that THAT whole process took no more than five, ten seconds.
Difficult to build castles in the sand. Easy to tear them apart.
Which makes me realize, in the words of 'lateral thinking' guru Edward Debono, that it's so much easier to take apart than to build. So much easier to put out a fire than start one.
In one week there may (or may not) be a new U.S.President. (This Canadian thinks that Bush will win by a nose, but what do I know?) My worry is, should Bush, in fact, strike gold and grab the election by the throat, we'll be in for 'four more years' of negative, almost desperate criticism that will border on the apocalyptic.
Which is a good thing. Don't get me wrong. We need that. God knows, Cambodia needs it. Here, if you criticize the government, publicly, you can get shot in the face. Literally. They don't mess around. We need to hold the government accountable, and we need to speak up when we see something we don't like, because we come from places where that's possible.
But that's not enough. The problem I have with Michael Moore and all the Bush detractors (and this is coming from someone who really, really likes Michael Moore) is that their whole philosophy, it seems, is about tearing things apart. It's about demanding change. It's about rebelling against a government regime that they considered corrupt.
All well and good.
But as Robert Redford says at the end of THE CANDIDATE: "Now what do we do?"
The danger of focusing all of that negative energy on Bush is that it prevents you from sitting down and figuring out how to get out of the mess that you're in. It leads us to believe, wrongly, I think, that the protest is the point -- that the dissent is the cause. It's not. What comes AFTER the dissent is what matters.
For years and years here in Cambodia they've been trying to figure out how to have a Khmer Rouge tribunal to try Pol Pot's men for war crimes. As well they should. And yet, it's dragged on and on, and my worry is, after all the waiting, all the money spent, all the time and emotion invested, at the end of it you will have a nation that will stand up and say: "Now what do we do?"
Protest has its essential place. It's a necessary part of democracy. But it needs to coincide with plans, strategies, actions that may well prove ineffective, but hey -- you gotta start. You gotta begin.
If you spend all your time tearing down castles in the sand, after awhile you may have a hard time remembering how to build them back up again.
Monday, October 25, 2004
CAMBODIAN HEAT, TROTSKY, AND THE 'GREATNESS' OF BUSH
Someone pointed out to me the other day that it hadn't rained in awhile.
I hadn't noticed it.
That's the thing about Cambodia. After awhile, you just stop paying attention to the weather. You wake up in the morning, roll out of bed, and guess what?
It's gonna be hot.
Really hot.
That's all you need to know.
Even when it rains, it's still hot. And it had been raining a lot, because it's rainy season, which is one of the two seasons in Cambodia, the other being, um, dry season, and when it rains in rainy season it freakin' rains, bro, full on, usually for an hour in the late afternoon. I think each season is supposed to last about six months, and maybe rainy season is drawing its last breaths, because raindrops do not keep fallin' on my head anymore.
(The only exception about the weather here is when it's realllllly hot, because then you do notice it. One of my all time favorite quotes is from a book about Russia called Lenin's Tomb, by David Reminck. He quotes somebody telling a story about a fellow in Moscow who had the reputation of being " 'a real drunk'. I cannot tell you how difficult it is to be labelled 'a drunk' in Russia." Meaning, when everybody drinks like a fish, who's a drunk and who isn't? Same in Cambodia -- when it's always hot, how do you know when it's, like, reallly hot?
My only answer is: Trust me. You know...)
**********
Speaking of Russia, I'm reading this book right now about the October Revolution of 1915?16 when the masses of Russia protested and led to the dismantling of the Tzar. Written by Trotsky, this book was, who was there. What a card, that Trotsky.
And I was reading this part today about how it was basically the people, the underclass, who convinced the soldiers to turn on their own government. The soldiers had more loyalty to the downtrodden then they did the elite Tzar who ruled on high, all knowing, omnipotent -- or so he thought.
I'm trying to mesh this with the 'great man' theory of history, which basically means (I think) that historical forces are shaped by a few key leaders, individuals, rather than shapeless, ambig-
uous tides of time and events that have no beginning and no end. (Certainly Lenin and Stalin would qualify as 'great mean', 'great' meaning significant.) But what about that mob of people back in 1915? Didn't they help bring down the Tzar and give rise to the Bolshevik revolution? They were just a motley collection of ordinary folks who had had enough.
And where does Bush fit in with all of this?
I recently read Bob Woodward's book on the build-up to Bush's war, Plan of Attack. (Yes, I like alliteration.) I say 'Bush's war' because it's clear from the book that this was Bush's baby from the get-go.
My theory (not original, but here it goes) is this:
Bush, born-again Christian that he is, believes that America has been blessed by God with the means and the will to liberate those around the world who are in suffering. The people in Iraq are better off without Saddam Hussein, and I think Bush sees the new democracy that may or may not arise in Iraq as being the first step in his plan to eventually bring democracy to all of the Middle East, however long that might take. I think he would have done this whether September 11th had happened or not. I think he wants to use his presidency to implement, as much as possible, freedom around the globe.
Which is not a bad thing, necessarily. God knows, if somebody had come in and got rid of Pol Pot at the beginning of his reign of terror, Cambodia would have been saved generations of grief, despair, underdevelopment and sheer chaos. Invading another nation is not always taboo, I think, not when millions of lives can be saved, but it better be justified, and it better be planned.
The question is, as Kerry says: What was the post-plan of attack, and that's where I think Bush messed up, big time. Meaning, the preparation was too fast and too flimsy. I don't think Bush and his cronies have any true understanding of the Middle East, its history or its culture, and if you're going to go in there and rearrange the very nature of the whole geo-political sit -
uation, you better have done your homework. And I don't think Bush did. And thousands are dying because of it. And the blood is on his hands, and his alone.
So I think, in fact, that Bush will be seen as a 'great man' of history -- great meaning signifi-cant, great meaning historically crucial -- not, you know, great, as in tubular, dude or gnarly. The former owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team has changed the course of the middle east and the world in ways that Al Gore, for example, most certainly would not have done, and he's done this for motives, well, that have yet to be fully comprehended. (I don't know, deep down in his conservative Christian heart, if he really knows, for sure, what those motives are, either.) There was no mass of people demanding that Hussein be toppled. There was no political pressure to do so. This was -- with the prodding of a handful of eager neo-con colleagues -- one man's choice. And I think history will acknowledge that.
Bush has shaken the dice and let them roll, and we won't know for another thirty, forty years if he lands on lucky seven or bottoms out.
Although, if I were a betting man, I wouldn't count on that seven turning up...
I hadn't noticed it.
That's the thing about Cambodia. After awhile, you just stop paying attention to the weather. You wake up in the morning, roll out of bed, and guess what?
It's gonna be hot.
Really hot.
That's all you need to know.
Even when it rains, it's still hot. And it had been raining a lot, because it's rainy season, which is one of the two seasons in Cambodia, the other being, um, dry season, and when it rains in rainy season it freakin' rains, bro, full on, usually for an hour in the late afternoon. I think each season is supposed to last about six months, and maybe rainy season is drawing its last breaths, because raindrops do not keep fallin' on my head anymore.
(The only exception about the weather here is when it's realllllly hot, because then you do notice it. One of my all time favorite quotes is from a book about Russia called Lenin's Tomb, by David Reminck. He quotes somebody telling a story about a fellow in Moscow who had the reputation of being " 'a real drunk'. I cannot tell you how difficult it is to be labelled 'a drunk' in Russia." Meaning, when everybody drinks like a fish, who's a drunk and who isn't? Same in Cambodia -- when it's always hot, how do you know when it's, like, reallly hot?
My only answer is: Trust me. You know...)
**********
Speaking of Russia, I'm reading this book right now about the October Revolution of 1915?16 when the masses of Russia protested and led to the dismantling of the Tzar. Written by Trotsky, this book was, who was there. What a card, that Trotsky.
And I was reading this part today about how it was basically the people, the underclass, who convinced the soldiers to turn on their own government. The soldiers had more loyalty to the downtrodden then they did the elite Tzar who ruled on high, all knowing, omnipotent -- or so he thought.
I'm trying to mesh this with the 'great man' theory of history, which basically means (I think) that historical forces are shaped by a few key leaders, individuals, rather than shapeless, ambig-
uous tides of time and events that have no beginning and no end. (Certainly Lenin and Stalin would qualify as 'great mean', 'great' meaning significant.) But what about that mob of people back in 1915? Didn't they help bring down the Tzar and give rise to the Bolshevik revolution? They were just a motley collection of ordinary folks who had had enough.
And where does Bush fit in with all of this?
I recently read Bob Woodward's book on the build-up to Bush's war, Plan of Attack. (Yes, I like alliteration.) I say 'Bush's war' because it's clear from the book that this was Bush's baby from the get-go.
My theory (not original, but here it goes) is this:
Bush, born-again Christian that he is, believes that America has been blessed by God with the means and the will to liberate those around the world who are in suffering. The people in Iraq are better off without Saddam Hussein, and I think Bush sees the new democracy that may or may not arise in Iraq as being the first step in his plan to eventually bring democracy to all of the Middle East, however long that might take. I think he would have done this whether September 11th had happened or not. I think he wants to use his presidency to implement, as much as possible, freedom around the globe.
Which is not a bad thing, necessarily. God knows, if somebody had come in and got rid of Pol Pot at the beginning of his reign of terror, Cambodia would have been saved generations of grief, despair, underdevelopment and sheer chaos. Invading another nation is not always taboo, I think, not when millions of lives can be saved, but it better be justified, and it better be planned.
The question is, as Kerry says: What was the post-plan of attack, and that's where I think Bush messed up, big time. Meaning, the preparation was too fast and too flimsy. I don't think Bush and his cronies have any true understanding of the Middle East, its history or its culture, and if you're going to go in there and rearrange the very nature of the whole geo-political sit -
uation, you better have done your homework. And I don't think Bush did. And thousands are dying because of it. And the blood is on his hands, and his alone.
So I think, in fact, that Bush will be seen as a 'great man' of history -- great meaning signifi-cant, great meaning historically crucial -- not, you know, great, as in tubular, dude or gnarly. The former owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team has changed the course of the middle east and the world in ways that Al Gore, for example, most certainly would not have done, and he's done this for motives, well, that have yet to be fully comprehended. (I don't know, deep down in his conservative Christian heart, if he really knows, for sure, what those motives are, either.) There was no mass of people demanding that Hussein be toppled. There was no political pressure to do so. This was -- with the prodding of a handful of eager neo-con colleagues -- one man's choice. And I think history will acknowledge that.
Bush has shaken the dice and let them roll, and we won't know for another thirty, forty years if he lands on lucky seven or bottoms out.
Although, if I were a betting man, I wouldn't count on that seven turning up...
Sunday, October 24, 2004
LUCKY AND HOOTIE AND THE ORIGINAL DUKE BOYS
When I drove by LUCKY BURGER (Cambodia's answer to McDonald's) on the back of a moto today, I realized, with one of those double-takes that I used to think were only found in the movies but now realize happen on an almost daily basis, that it was gone.
Well, the building was there, yes, but it was demolished, cracked open, a haven of soot and dust. (As are most buildings in Cambodia, come to think of it, but this time I noticed it.) It may be coming back in some way, shape or form, but for now, LUCKY BURGER, Cambodia's at least the one on Sihanouk road, is a memory. (At least there's another down the road a ways...)
Same thing happened to me in Japan. I went home for a two week break, came back to my apartment, went out to the variety store across the street, only to discover that there was no variety store across the street. The whole building had vanished. A parking lot was being put in its place. Only in Japan, I thought, can buildings go up and down like Lego blocks.
Now I realize that I was wrong. What happens in Japan, where pop stars come and go on a literally weekly basis, where most of the the longest running t.v. shows last six months, tops, is what happens everywhere else. More concentrated in Nippon, sure, but Japan is simply further ahead of everybody in almost everything, so why shouldn't they have the same approach to time and change? What's here today is gone tomorrow. Get used to, boys and girls.
Time is change and change is time. I don't know if time moves forward or backward or in some kind of mysterious loop; Stephen Hawking's been working on that for awhile, I think, so look to him for advice. Maybe there are multiple universes able to be accessed through black holes; maybe everytime we make a decision, another, parallel universe opens up, one in which we didn't make that decision, as some quantum physicists believe. I'm not sure.
But as a kid I resisted change, and now I realize that change is the only constant. When Bo and Luke were replaced by their cousins Coy and Vance on that old Dukes of Hazzard t.v. show(due to a contract dispute, I believe), I thought it was a travesty. (On a side note, what were their jobs, anyway? I realized recently that my childhood heroes were two thirty year old Southern boys who spent most of their time hanging out with their Uncle Jesse, drinking moonshine, running from the local sherriff and ogling their scantily dressed cousin. No wonder I turned out the way I did...) When the original Duke boys came back a year later, I remember being ecstatic, over-the-moon, as fulfilled as any six year old can be. The natural order of the universe had been restored. All was right with the world, can you say amen. The original Dukes had lived to see another day.
Ah, but the sad fact of life is, the original Duke boys don't always come back. Sometimes they head for the hills and the moonshine and are never to be seen again. Change is for good, for real, most of the time. If you try and fight it, you're going to whacked in the head, repeatedly, until the end of your dying days. Buildings go up and come down. People come and they go. Life goes on, until it doesn't, as Sydney Pollack said in Eyes Wide Shut.
Time is what it is. Best to accept it and get used to and use it to your own advantage.
"Tomorrow's just another day," sang Hootie, "and I don't believe in time."
Well, the building was there, yes, but it was demolished, cracked open, a haven of soot and dust. (As are most buildings in Cambodia, come to think of it, but this time I noticed it.) It may be coming back in some way, shape or form, but for now, LUCKY BURGER, Cambodia's at least the one on Sihanouk road, is a memory. (At least there's another down the road a ways...)
Same thing happened to me in Japan. I went home for a two week break, came back to my apartment, went out to the variety store across the street, only to discover that there was no variety store across the street. The whole building had vanished. A parking lot was being put in its place. Only in Japan, I thought, can buildings go up and down like Lego blocks.
Now I realize that I was wrong. What happens in Japan, where pop stars come and go on a literally weekly basis, where most of the the longest running t.v. shows last six months, tops, is what happens everywhere else. More concentrated in Nippon, sure, but Japan is simply further ahead of everybody in almost everything, so why shouldn't they have the same approach to time and change? What's here today is gone tomorrow. Get used to, boys and girls.
Time is change and change is time. I don't know if time moves forward or backward or in some kind of mysterious loop; Stephen Hawking's been working on that for awhile, I think, so look to him for advice. Maybe there are multiple universes able to be accessed through black holes; maybe everytime we make a decision, another, parallel universe opens up, one in which we didn't make that decision, as some quantum physicists believe. I'm not sure.
But as a kid I resisted change, and now I realize that change is the only constant. When Bo and Luke were replaced by their cousins Coy and Vance on that old Dukes of Hazzard t.v. show(due to a contract dispute, I believe), I thought it was a travesty. (On a side note, what were their jobs, anyway? I realized recently that my childhood heroes were two thirty year old Southern boys who spent most of their time hanging out with their Uncle Jesse, drinking moonshine, running from the local sherriff and ogling their scantily dressed cousin. No wonder I turned out the way I did...) When the original Duke boys came back a year later, I remember being ecstatic, over-the-moon, as fulfilled as any six year old can be. The natural order of the universe had been restored. All was right with the world, can you say amen. The original Dukes had lived to see another day.
Ah, but the sad fact of life is, the original Duke boys don't always come back. Sometimes they head for the hills and the moonshine and are never to be seen again. Change is for good, for real, most of the time. If you try and fight it, you're going to whacked in the head, repeatedly, until the end of your dying days. Buildings go up and come down. People come and they go. Life goes on, until it doesn't, as Sydney Pollack said in Eyes Wide Shut.
Time is what it is. Best to accept it and get used to and use it to your own advantage.
"Tomorrow's just another day," sang Hootie, "and I don't believe in time."
Saturday, October 23, 2004
A NORTH KOREAN NIGHT OUT
I just read on the net that Colin Powell rejected North Korea's demand for any kind of 'rewards' in return for greater cooperation, but I've done MY part for North Korean-Canadian relations simply by having dinner at my North Korean student's restaurant here in Phnom Penh.
How the heck did I end up with a (former) student who is North Korean in Cambodia? Cambodia has always had this weird, pseudo-friendly relationship with the world's most closed-off, Stalinist state; the King has a vacation house there, for God's sakes. Two semesters ago, teaching at the university, I had an eighteen year old North Korean kid in my class, who I assumed was SOUTH Korean, but then I learned, by accident, that he spent most of his life growing up in Burkina Faso Africa, where his father taught Tae Kwan Do to the corrupt Communist government regime. Mama mia. He was a good student, a smart student, but the only book I every saw him carry was a biography, in Korean, of Kim Jong's father. And he once wrote a paper for me denouncing the United States, reiterating his dream of joining the North Korean army, and stating that 'my mother always told me that anyone who doesn't love their country is like sperm in the streets.' I don't know about you, but my mom told me to eat my vegetables...
What I like about living here is that you see all these huge international issues played out on a daily, small-scale restaurant. I go to this North Korean restaurant with a couple of friends tonight, and the food is really good, and the waitresses -- dressed in flowing white robes with blue trim -- periodically interrupt their serving duties to take center stage at the front of the restaurant to dance and sing old Korean songs. It's bloody surreal, and it's bizarre, and yet, there it is. They live at the back of the restaurant, and they can't leave without an escort, and at the end of the night I go up and shoot the breeze with my former student, who is a nice, smart kid brainwashed by an utterly corrupt regime, and so it goes.
There are fifty million North Koreans basically held hostage by their corrupt leader. There is a movie out back home called TEAM AMERICA where Kim Jong is the villian, and he is a puppet, and it is a comedy. But these people are real, and their plight is real, and this is a world where women are forced to work and perform in a restaurant in Phnom Penh, and to have it as part of my normal, daily routine, well, it's a trip. A real, real trip.
This convergence of politics and the personal is what makes living here so fascinating. Back home I can read about Colin Powell negotiating with the North Koreans. Here, I can have a warm, friendly conversation with my old North Korean student, and it is genuine, and it is real, and it is a reminder that all of these global, complex issues you see played out on the news every night have a true, human component than is always more fascinating, always more humane than you could ever image. (Or this St.Catharines boy could imagine, anyways.)
How the heck did I end up with a (former) student who is North Korean in Cambodia? Cambodia has always had this weird, pseudo-friendly relationship with the world's most closed-off, Stalinist state; the King has a vacation house there, for God's sakes. Two semesters ago, teaching at the university, I had an eighteen year old North Korean kid in my class, who I assumed was SOUTH Korean, but then I learned, by accident, that he spent most of his life growing up in Burkina Faso Africa, where his father taught Tae Kwan Do to the corrupt Communist government regime. Mama mia. He was a good student, a smart student, but the only book I every saw him carry was a biography, in Korean, of Kim Jong's father. And he once wrote a paper for me denouncing the United States, reiterating his dream of joining the North Korean army, and stating that 'my mother always told me that anyone who doesn't love their country is like sperm in the streets.' I don't know about you, but my mom told me to eat my vegetables...
What I like about living here is that you see all these huge international issues played out on a daily, small-scale restaurant. I go to this North Korean restaurant with a couple of friends tonight, and the food is really good, and the waitresses -- dressed in flowing white robes with blue trim -- periodically interrupt their serving duties to take center stage at the front of the restaurant to dance and sing old Korean songs. It's bloody surreal, and it's bizarre, and yet, there it is. They live at the back of the restaurant, and they can't leave without an escort, and at the end of the night I go up and shoot the breeze with my former student, who is a nice, smart kid brainwashed by an utterly corrupt regime, and so it goes.
There are fifty million North Koreans basically held hostage by their corrupt leader. There is a movie out back home called TEAM AMERICA where Kim Jong is the villian, and he is a puppet, and it is a comedy. But these people are real, and their plight is real, and this is a world where women are forced to work and perform in a restaurant in Phnom Penh, and to have it as part of my normal, daily routine, well, it's a trip. A real, real trip.
This convergence of politics and the personal is what makes living here so fascinating. Back home I can read about Colin Powell negotiating with the North Koreans. Here, I can have a warm, friendly conversation with my old North Korean student, and it is genuine, and it is real, and it is a reminder that all of these global, complex issues you see played out on the news every night have a true, human component than is always more fascinating, always more humane than you could ever image. (Or this St.Catharines boy could imagine, anyways.)
Canadian politics, Cambodian politics
My brother's friend, Paul Kemp, wrote a book called DOES YOUR VOTE COUNT?, in which he examines whether or not an individual Canadian's turn at the polls actually MEANS anything. By interviewing various Canadian politicians, he exposes a lot of the gaps and loopholes inherent in our political system.
In Cambodia, it's easy to get smug and high-falutin' about our own political systems back home, if only because this place's network of higher governing is so supremely, even galactically, messed up.
Average government workers here, the low-level ones, get paid, on average, 20$ U.S. a month. (Of course, there's a whole network of higher-ups that are makin' the big, BIG coin, but that's for another post.)
That's right. Twenty dollars. What that means is that everybody has to get a second job to help support their family -- tailor, restauranteur, whatever. What that mean is that everyone is one the take, and the only thing that matters is how much money you have in your pocket. The reason why it is so hard to implement new, innovative ways of governing and alleviating the poverty is simply: Who has the time? Who has the know-how? If you're making twenty bucks a month, are you willing to TAKE the time to LEARN the know-how? You don't HAVE the time. You don't HAVE the energy. It's easier to pass the buck and take the bucks. The system is rotten from within. Anyone who wonders why developing countries don't develop, well, do the math.
And yet...
The ideals that countries like Cambodia are trying (in theory) to achieve, the ideals that a country like Canada supposedly represent -- are they, in fact, always put in practice? Canada has had its own share of political, financial scandals. And don't get me wrong -- the Cambodian system has many, many decades until it will be able to successfully emulate what makes Canada so fantastic.
But the democracy we take for granted in Canada has its price, and that price is apathy. Americans get into a frenzy around election time, but Canadians are too often willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it's precisely because we're so slack in our political allegiances that the Canadian government has been able to get away with so much. The centralized power that DOES YOUR VOTE COUNT? cautions against, the relative LACK of power that most members of parliament wield, indicates that we have a long way to go before our own political system represents the ideal that the Cambodian people strive to attain.
In Cambodia, it's easy to get smug and high-falutin' about our own political systems back home, if only because this place's network of higher governing is so supremely, even galactically, messed up.
Average government workers here, the low-level ones, get paid, on average, 20$ U.S. a month. (Of course, there's a whole network of higher-ups that are makin' the big, BIG coin, but that's for another post.)
That's right. Twenty dollars. What that means is that everybody has to get a second job to help support their family -- tailor, restauranteur, whatever. What that mean is that everyone is one the take, and the only thing that matters is how much money you have in your pocket. The reason why it is so hard to implement new, innovative ways of governing and alleviating the poverty is simply: Who has the time? Who has the know-how? If you're making twenty bucks a month, are you willing to TAKE the time to LEARN the know-how? You don't HAVE the time. You don't HAVE the energy. It's easier to pass the buck and take the bucks. The system is rotten from within. Anyone who wonders why developing countries don't develop, well, do the math.
And yet...
The ideals that countries like Cambodia are trying (in theory) to achieve, the ideals that a country like Canada supposedly represent -- are they, in fact, always put in practice? Canada has had its own share of political, financial scandals. And don't get me wrong -- the Cambodian system has many, many decades until it will be able to successfully emulate what makes Canada so fantastic.
But the democracy we take for granted in Canada has its price, and that price is apathy. Americans get into a frenzy around election time, but Canadians are too often willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it's precisely because we're so slack in our political allegiances that the Canadian government has been able to get away with so much. The centralized power that DOES YOUR VOTE COUNT? cautions against, the relative LACK of power that most members of parliament wield, indicates that we have a long way to go before our own political system represents the ideal that the Cambodian people strive to attain.
Friday, October 22, 2004
'LUCKY SUPER' and MATT DILLON'S CAMBODIA
If you live in Phnom Penh, you've been to 'Lucky'.
Everything here is 'lucky'. There are 'lucky' supermarkets, hairstylists, motoshops, restaurants. The second most popular name, next to 'lucky', is 'lucky-lucky'.
Outside of 'Lucy Supermarket' (which is right next door to 'Lucky Burger'), there are always two or three girls (and sometimes boys) waiting to sell you the latest edition of THE PHNOM PENH POST (which is weekly) or THE CAMBODIA DAILY (which is, um, daily). You hop off the moto and head towards the entrance and are bombarded by the sound of: 'Suh! 'Suh! DAILY? PHNOM PENH POST?' DAILY? Suh!' They are always dressed in drab, semi-dirty clothes, and they are persistent without being pushy.
After awhile (in my case, sixteen months), you get to know them by face, and they know you by face, which means, after saying that you don't want a paper, they will smile shyly and say: 'Ice cream, suh? Coca?' (Meaning, if you can't buy me a paper, the least you can do is get me a lousy chocolate cone or a can of Coke.)
Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't. You feel guilty if you don't, because it means you're a cheap son of a gun, and you feel guilty if you do, because it means you're a liberal do-gooder condescending to provide a bit of momentary relief for helpless kids.
Living here gives you a weird kind of power. Meaning, even if you don't have much money, you sure as hell have more money than these people do. You know it. They know it. You feel it every day, and simply by shopping, you feel like you're flaunting it, too. But what can you do? You live your life and they live their lives.
I go home at night. I'm not sure where the kids outside 'Lucky' go, nor their begging mothers that drift around the entrance, babies wrapped around their necks like shawls. But they're back, almost every day, almost all of them, the regulars, trying to sell, trying to beg, and I don't if that's a little bit sad or a little bit hopeful.
Matt Dillon always looks like he just got out of bed. Or, you know when you see your friend on the street, and you sneak up behind him, and you whack him on the back of the neck, and he turns around and gives you a look that says: "Who the @#!?" (Doesn't anybody else do that? No? Oh...)
Well, that's what Matt Dillon looks like. All the time. In every scene of every movie he's ever been in.
But it works for CITY OF GHOSTS, which he co-wrote and directed, and which is about Phnom Penh and all the seedy lowlifes that inhabit its environs. (Present company absolutely included.)
Actually, it's not really ABOUT Phnom Penh, or Cambodia; it's a crime thriller that could have been set in any Southeast Asian country, I think, but Dillon nails the feel of the city and the country pretty well, I think. Maybe he overdramatizes the seedy part. (Then again, maybe not.) In any event, it's atmospheric and moody and the cinematic equivalent of Matt Dillon's face. And there's lots of little in-jokes for people who know Cambodia.
And over the end credits plays what is, probably, the only Khmer language version of that Joni Mitchell song titled, I think, 'Both sides now'. (You know, the one that has the line "I don't know love at all...") And it's performed by a band called DENGUE FEVER, which is an illness that I got last year in Phnom Penh, and it's really, really terrible, and it did not make me feel like singing Joni Mitchell songs at ALL, especially not in Cambodian, but hey. Different strokes, and all that...
Everything here is 'lucky'. There are 'lucky' supermarkets, hairstylists, motoshops, restaurants. The second most popular name, next to 'lucky', is 'lucky-lucky'.
Outside of 'Lucy Supermarket' (which is right next door to 'Lucky Burger'), there are always two or three girls (and sometimes boys) waiting to sell you the latest edition of THE PHNOM PENH POST (which is weekly) or THE CAMBODIA DAILY (which is, um, daily). You hop off the moto and head towards the entrance and are bombarded by the sound of: 'Suh! 'Suh! DAILY? PHNOM PENH POST?' DAILY? Suh!' They are always dressed in drab, semi-dirty clothes, and they are persistent without being pushy.
After awhile (in my case, sixteen months), you get to know them by face, and they know you by face, which means, after saying that you don't want a paper, they will smile shyly and say: 'Ice cream, suh? Coca?' (Meaning, if you can't buy me a paper, the least you can do is get me a lousy chocolate cone or a can of Coke.)
Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't. You feel guilty if you don't, because it means you're a cheap son of a gun, and you feel guilty if you do, because it means you're a liberal do-gooder condescending to provide a bit of momentary relief for helpless kids.
Living here gives you a weird kind of power. Meaning, even if you don't have much money, you sure as hell have more money than these people do. You know it. They know it. You feel it every day, and simply by shopping, you feel like you're flaunting it, too. But what can you do? You live your life and they live their lives.
I go home at night. I'm not sure where the kids outside 'Lucky' go, nor their begging mothers that drift around the entrance, babies wrapped around their necks like shawls. But they're back, almost every day, almost all of them, the regulars, trying to sell, trying to beg, and I don't if that's a little bit sad or a little bit hopeful.
Matt Dillon always looks like he just got out of bed. Or, you know when you see your friend on the street, and you sneak up behind him, and you whack him on the back of the neck, and he turns around and gives you a look that says: "Who the @#!?" (Doesn't anybody else do that? No? Oh...)
Well, that's what Matt Dillon looks like. All the time. In every scene of every movie he's ever been in.
But it works for CITY OF GHOSTS, which he co-wrote and directed, and which is about Phnom Penh and all the seedy lowlifes that inhabit its environs. (Present company absolutely included.)
Actually, it's not really ABOUT Phnom Penh, or Cambodia; it's a crime thriller that could have been set in any Southeast Asian country, I think, but Dillon nails the feel of the city and the country pretty well, I think. Maybe he overdramatizes the seedy part. (Then again, maybe not.) In any event, it's atmospheric and moody and the cinematic equivalent of Matt Dillon's face. And there's lots of little in-jokes for people who know Cambodia.
And over the end credits plays what is, probably, the only Khmer language version of that Joni Mitchell song titled, I think, 'Both sides now'. (You know, the one that has the line "I don't know love at all...") And it's performed by a band called DENGUE FEVER, which is an illness that I got last year in Phnom Penh, and it's really, really terrible, and it did not make me feel like singing Joni Mitchell songs at ALL, especially not in Cambodian, but hey. Different strokes, and all that...
It begins...
Welcome!!!
This is brand-spanking new, first edition of a blog that will contain...
Um...
Okay, that hasn't been figured out yet.
However, inspired by an old friend of mine from Tokyo, Japan, who has her very own triumphant blog, I decided to enter the deep end of blogdom and report on what it's like to be a twenty-eight (almost twenty-nine) year old Canadian male wandering around Asia.
I spent four years in Tokyo, Japan teaching, and I've been in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, for the past sixteen months, working and wandering and dreaming.
Stay tuned for more random thoughts on life, death, Canada, Asia, politics, and everything in between...
This is brand-spanking new, first edition of a blog that will contain...
Um...
Okay, that hasn't been figured out yet.
However, inspired by an old friend of mine from Tokyo, Japan, who has her very own triumphant blog, I decided to enter the deep end of blogdom and report on what it's like to be a twenty-eight (almost twenty-nine) year old Canadian male wandering around Asia.
I spent four years in Tokyo, Japan teaching, and I've been in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, for the past sixteen months, working and wandering and dreaming.
Stay tuned for more random thoughts on life, death, Canada, Asia, politics, and everything in between...
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