Something struck me the other day while I continued to read Erik Erikson's psychoanalytic study of Gandhi entitled Gandhi's Truth: On The Origins of Militant Nonviolence. It was a red ball, tiny but powerful, soft but potent, thrown by an adolescent child with stupendous force and intent.
(That was, um, a joke, and probably one I've used before. Sorry about that. Won't happen again.)
This is kind of a neat little book, the type of which I don't usually read, written by someone I haven't even thought of much since university. (Where, truth be told, I didn't think much about him then, either, but I pretended I did. What is university but a four-year jaunt where one pretends to learn and learns to pretend?) We tend to think of those humans we've classified as saints -- Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Pauly Shore -- as somehow being above the rest of humanity. And here comes Erikson saying no, no, these are people, and people have motives, and they do things for psychological reasons based on their past histories, so let's study them a little bit. I'm not saying I agree with psychonalysis as a practice or even know much about it, but it makes for compelling reading. And Erikson's actually a pretty good stylist.
Here's the quote:
...For membership in a nation, in a class, or in a caste is one of those elements of an individual's identity which at the very minimum comprise what one is never not, as does membership in one of the two sexes or a given race. What one is never not establishes the life space within which one may hope to become uniquely and affirmatively what one is -- and then to transcend their uniqueness by way of a more inclusive humanity.
Wow. Deep. The kind of quote that I could write two, three blog entries about, but I won't. (I can hear you all through cyberspace collectively muttering "Jesus Christ, thank God for that" under your breath. Sentiments I second.)
Deciding what we are not is surely part of the path to determining who we are. The experience of living abroad is, if anything, an ongoing exploration of what one absolutely isn't. You are not part of the race, the culture, or the language. You share no genetic history with anyone; you haven't even shared a pizza with anyone. You don't know what you're supposed to be doing or how you're supposed to be doing it. You no longer have any favorite TV shows, music stations, bookstores or restaurants to turn to. You are, devoid of all your previous connections, perhaps for the first time, authentically and undeniably yourself. It this disassociation, as the quote implies, particularly in the last sentence, that then links you more concretely to humanity as a whole. You realize that, on the surface, you are not of them. Which leads you to search for something in common. Being an alien forces you to look for those similarities amongst your fellow creatures that link you to a more collective sense of brotherhood.
I'm thinking right now of Bruce Wayne at the start of Batman Begins. (Aren't you? No?) Here is a young man who, as a boy, watched his parents be blown to bits by a desperate thief in a grungy alley; the only reason they found themselves in such a predicament in the first place was because young Bruce was scared of the opera that reminded him of a rather unfortunate encounter with bats that occurred months earlier, so off they went into the night, abandoning that spooky old theatre for their own unfortunate rendezvous with death. Bruce, as a university student, confronts a mob boss who killed said thief before he could plea bargain his way out of prison in exchange for information that would have implicated the mobster. The mobster tells Bruce, essentially: "You think you know the dark side of life because your parents were killed? Well, boo-hoo, rich boy. You don't know shit about the real world."
So Bruce Wayne spends the next seven years immersed in the criminal underworld of Asia, surviving on his own, being trained in the ancient martial arts by a secretive, elite criminal organization that he then, in turn, rejects. Why? Because he discovers who he is, and it is not a killer. He wants justice, yes, and vengeance, certainly, but on his own terms.
I love the opening hour of that flick, and not just because it's about time that the Batman mythos was given the respect it deserves on the silver screen, detailing for the first time just what, exactly, would drive a man to dress up as a bat and fight crime in the streets of his hometown. I love it because it shows the despair and the discipline and desire that transformed a spoiled rich kid into a warrior of the night. I love the seriousness with which it treats exile, with which it treats the concept of a world unhinged by violence and despair. I love the philosophical edginess it, if not endorses, at least illustrates so damn well. After watching this flick, it makes sense. He had to find out what he was not before he could accept who he was -- which is, apparently, a driven, tormented dude who wishes to avenge his parents murder and wear tights while he was doing so. (Hey, to each his own, right?)
And I love it because it's linked to that quote about Gahndi. (In my mind, anyways.) Bruce Wayne pushes himself and tests himself until he comes up against his own limit, which is murder. He allows the world to teach him what it needs to before deciding to return home and use what he has learned to make the world a better place.
And for me, who's been abroad almost as long, six years to Batman's seven, I can identify. (Granted, I'm not a wealthy orphan with a mansion and a butler resembling Michael Caine awaiting my return, and my parents weren't murdered, and I haven't been trained by a secretive, sequestered group of black-clad ninjas -- but other than those minor discrepancies, me and Christian Bale are ideological twins.) I have a feeling that I've been given a glimpse into a real world out here in Cambodia, one that has no bearing or allegiance to freshly cut lawns and newly scrubbed windows, to classrooms full of computers and plazas full of Burger Kings. There is a rawness and a truthfulness here that has added depth to my life and perspective to my goals. I have seen things I do not care to remember and met people I long to embrace. I have not become part of this society but by being in this society I have recognized more clearly what I am not, what western society is not, and at some point, perhaps soon, perhaps later, I hope to return home and, like Batman, only minus the cape, cowl and Katie Holmes, put what I've learned to good use.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
ANOTHER NEW LIFE
A whiteboard behind me. Row after row of gray folding chairs in front of me. A handful of students, heads down, puzzling over their papers. Through the window at the back of the room I can see the contrast that is modern day Phnom Penh: A regal, ornate, gold-plated temple that stands proudly in front of a rather brown and drab new hotel. I am watching that place. Watching them, the students. Not so long ago I was them. Soon they may be me. I am seated at a desk; I am wearing a tie. I suppose -- here, anyways-- this makes me a teacher.
Strange, to be teaching again, after almost a year long absence from the classroom. Strange to be a teacher at all, considering that I always hated teachers and schools, essays and tests.
The truth is, I am happy teaching here, abroad, away. I cannot imagine doing it at home. Perhaps this is because, for me, that old cliche has proven surprisingly true: one learns more from the students than they learn from you. And that can only be intensified in a foreign land. It's impossible to describe what living in a foreign country entails, because it depends on the person and it depends on the country. The question is tantamount to: What's it like to be you? The easiest way I can put it is: You know that feeling you get while watching a foreign film, that slight unease, that enticing intrigue? You understand some, not all; you intuit more than you can assimilate. Living abroad is basically like living in a foreign film that never ends, minus the subtitles. And since movies are the closest, most tangible things we have to dreams, you say that it's like living a dream, living abroad. With all the oddities and ambiguities that implies.
The only way to make sense of it all is to try to learn, period, and it is in countless (or so it seems) Cambodian classrooms I have learned what little I know about Cambodian culture. The students here are kind and bright, lazy and cheating (like students everywhere, in varying degrees), and it is the essential human virtues of the first two qualities that offset the pain-in-the-assness of the second pair. I have learned not to blame the students for their habits, because a habit is all too often something ingrained and implanted by others.
And, besides, who am I to judge this culture? I can only rely on what I see and hear and read and feel; my assumptions and observations are, by necessity, inadequate, filled with open spaces; attempting to fill those gaps is a futile quest. I am daily faced with all that I do not know -- about myself, about them, about where we intersect and where we diverge.
But it's those intersections that have meant the most. Three years ago I cam to Battambang, for a week, teaching English to street children who lived in group homes. They were teenage boys and teenage girls. They were orphans or had been rescued from trafficking or from families too poor to support them; the boys lived in one home, the girls in another. As time passes, I remember much more of that week from three seasons passed than I do of the week before last.
Playing a game of backyard volleyball with the boys as the sky faded from grey to blue to crimson, the colour of a bruise. Listening to one boy gleefully sing a half-English, half Khmer version of 'Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.' (Where did he learn that, and why was he singing it so passionately in September?) Reading Elizabeth Becker's chronicle of the Cambodian genocide When The War Was Over on my bed in my hotel room, trying to make sense of this unknown land, the same way I read and read and read to try to make sense of Japan three years previously when I first landed in that strange and mystic land. (And trying to make sense, too, of why a hotel in Battambang had a channel showing American porn.) Arm-wrestling one boy after another after another, a dozen or more, until my hand shot and sore. Practicing my limited Japanese day after day with those students from Japan, even though their English was much, much more pristine and refined than my Japanese. Wandering down dirt roads in the dead of night, street lights absent, the black sky bloated with stars. Trying to explain to one of the street kids, a girl of fifteen or sixteen, just what, exactly, a roller-coaster was, and failing miserably. (It's harder than you think.) Watching a group of girls rescued from prositution and trafficking laughing with bemused delight at a video of the Japanese anime My Neighbour Totoro. Chatting with a police officer while sitting on the picnic tables in front of the Battambang airport, a site that resembled little more than a dilapitated, seemingly abandoned bus station. (The airport resembled this, not the policeman.) Sitting in the airplane as it left level ground, and me, reclining back, thinking back, trying to comprehend what a week in Battambang, Cambodia meant to me, and to them.
And now, three years later, I think about what that week led to, which was teaching here, in this country, and what teaching has ultimately given me, both her and in Japan. I wonder: If destiny exists, if karma does, indeed, spin its magic wheel by wheel, then why am I here? In this place, at this time? I feel as if I have already, at the brink of thirty, lived a dozen lives. Perhaps I have. After all, every day is another new life, another fresh birth. Our eyes open, and there is either something to teach or something to learn.
A whiteboard. A row of gray folding chairs in front of me. The person reaching out, and the people being reached.
We will either stand and teach today, or sit and learn.
I feel as if I have no other choice. I feel that I'm ready for both. Eager for both.
Are you?
Strange, to be teaching again, after almost a year long absence from the classroom. Strange to be a teacher at all, considering that I always hated teachers and schools, essays and tests.
The truth is, I am happy teaching here, abroad, away. I cannot imagine doing it at home. Perhaps this is because, for me, that old cliche has proven surprisingly true: one learns more from the students than they learn from you. And that can only be intensified in a foreign land. It's impossible to describe what living in a foreign country entails, because it depends on the person and it depends on the country. The question is tantamount to: What's it like to be you? The easiest way I can put it is: You know that feeling you get while watching a foreign film, that slight unease, that enticing intrigue? You understand some, not all; you intuit more than you can assimilate. Living abroad is basically like living in a foreign film that never ends, minus the subtitles. And since movies are the closest, most tangible things we have to dreams, you say that it's like living a dream, living abroad. With all the oddities and ambiguities that implies.
The only way to make sense of it all is to try to learn, period, and it is in countless (or so it seems) Cambodian classrooms I have learned what little I know about Cambodian culture. The students here are kind and bright, lazy and cheating (like students everywhere, in varying degrees), and it is the essential human virtues of the first two qualities that offset the pain-in-the-assness of the second pair. I have learned not to blame the students for their habits, because a habit is all too often something ingrained and implanted by others.
And, besides, who am I to judge this culture? I can only rely on what I see and hear and read and feel; my assumptions and observations are, by necessity, inadequate, filled with open spaces; attempting to fill those gaps is a futile quest. I am daily faced with all that I do not know -- about myself, about them, about where we intersect and where we diverge.
But it's those intersections that have meant the most. Three years ago I cam to Battambang, for a week, teaching English to street children who lived in group homes. They were teenage boys and teenage girls. They were orphans or had been rescued from trafficking or from families too poor to support them; the boys lived in one home, the girls in another. As time passes, I remember much more of that week from three seasons passed than I do of the week before last.
Playing a game of backyard volleyball with the boys as the sky faded from grey to blue to crimson, the colour of a bruise. Listening to one boy gleefully sing a half-English, half Khmer version of 'Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.' (Where did he learn that, and why was he singing it so passionately in September?) Reading Elizabeth Becker's chronicle of the Cambodian genocide When The War Was Over on my bed in my hotel room, trying to make sense of this unknown land, the same way I read and read and read to try to make sense of Japan three years previously when I first landed in that strange and mystic land. (And trying to make sense, too, of why a hotel in Battambang had a channel showing American porn.) Arm-wrestling one boy after another after another, a dozen or more, until my hand shot and sore. Practicing my limited Japanese day after day with those students from Japan, even though their English was much, much more pristine and refined than my Japanese. Wandering down dirt roads in the dead of night, street lights absent, the black sky bloated with stars. Trying to explain to one of the street kids, a girl of fifteen or sixteen, just what, exactly, a roller-coaster was, and failing miserably. (It's harder than you think.) Watching a group of girls rescued from prositution and trafficking laughing with bemused delight at a video of the Japanese anime My Neighbour Totoro. Chatting with a police officer while sitting on the picnic tables in front of the Battambang airport, a site that resembled little more than a dilapitated, seemingly abandoned bus station. (The airport resembled this, not the policeman.) Sitting in the airplane as it left level ground, and me, reclining back, thinking back, trying to comprehend what a week in Battambang, Cambodia meant to me, and to them.
And now, three years later, I think about what that week led to, which was teaching here, in this country, and what teaching has ultimately given me, both her and in Japan. I wonder: If destiny exists, if karma does, indeed, spin its magic wheel by wheel, then why am I here? In this place, at this time? I feel as if I have already, at the brink of thirty, lived a dozen lives. Perhaps I have. After all, every day is another new life, another fresh birth. Our eyes open, and there is either something to teach or something to learn.
A whiteboard. A row of gray folding chairs in front of me. The person reaching out, and the people being reached.
We will either stand and teach today, or sit and learn.
I feel as if I have no other choice. I feel that I'm ready for both. Eager for both.
Are you?
Monday, August 01, 2005
REASON #6,384 FOR WHY I DON'T PARTICULARLY TRUST THE KEEN JUDGEMENT OF DRIVERS IN PHNOM PENH
Today's actual, not-a-joke front-page headline in The Cambodia Daily:
Driving Test Now Required For License
Driving Test Now Required For License
Sunday, July 31, 2005
TWENTY-FOUR HOUR PEOPLE
Somebody in the book I'm reading right now, Erik Erikson's psychoanalytic study Gandhi's Truth: On the Orgins of Militant Nonvioence, describes the Indian saint as something like a "twenty-four man", a phrase that leapt out at me. Made me think. Made me pause. To be authentically humane at all times, every hour, consistently -- is that what we're here for? Could anyone other than Ganhdi do such a thing?
I don't think there's anything particularly masculine in the phrase; substitute 'woman' for 'man', and although the particulars may change, the overall sentiment remains basically intact. To be all that we, as human creatures, are capable of being; to achieve what we are put here to be.
Can I do that? Can you do that?
Just now, moments ago, a common sight: in the midst of a pouring rainstorm, a young Khmer boy, thin, poor, guides his blind grandfather around by the the hand, begging for change. Often such old folks are playing instruments or singing; sometimes, like today, they are simply there, existing to be used, elderly.
Think of that boy, if you please, and of his life. He probably does not go to school. He probably never will go to school. His life consists of wandering around in the rain, asking strangers for money he will probably not receive, money that will, instead, give his family the means for a meal. I know he does not do this out of the goodness of his heart, and I know that his life, undoubtedly, consists of highs and lows and sorrows and joys that I no doubt surpass my own at times, if not all the time. He is no saint, and he did not ask for these circumstances.
But still. What he is doing. The basic dignity of it. His willingness to do it, even if he abhors it. I do not know if he is being 'a twenty-four man', since he is not yet a man at all, but there must be something dwelling deep within him that would recognize the truth of such a statement. I'm not even sure what that particular phrase means, of course; I'm adding my own allusions and half-baked insights onto somebody else's perceptions. And yet I believe if anyone could embody that aspect of Gahndi, that little boy does. I do not know why, but I feel it. I don't trust my feelings, no, but they are there, and they are real, and that is all I have to go on.
Surrounded by monks on a daily basis does tend to ground one in a certain way. I'm not sure why, and it could be simply my own cultural appropriation of somebody else's religion; the monks, in their purple robes, often wearing glasses, clutching school books, seem possessed of some kind of inner wisdom that I would never associate with priests-in-training. And I know my own perceptions have been proven false by my very own eyes; I've taught monks, and watched them cheat like everyone else, and sat beside them in the student computer lab and noticed that they, too, search match.com, looking for love. But there's something in their discipline, their ascetism, that stands out, that demands to be taken seriously. If they do not attain a higher level of wisdom after years of study, it's not for a lack of trying. Two meals a day, none after noon; flip-flops the only luxury clothes they possess, and often these, two, are absent from their feet. The memory of one of my first students, a young monk who was curious and interested and passionate about the links between Buddhism and Christianity and Hinduism and all of the world's myriad religions, because they were part of the grand human quest for a universal truth that transcended religion itself. It's the vibes that the monks give off, I suppose, more than anything else, a serene desire for understanding that feels so fundamentally delicate and alien in this sun-soaked land, detached but linked to my cold Canadian heritage, as if virtue and truth were a flake of snow fastly melting in this tropical heat.
I don't spend most days or many days contemplating what it means to be good, but I wonder. The last line of Robert Pirsig's Leila, which was the sequel to Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, postulates the concept of good as a noun, not an adjective. Good as a noun, a thing, a Platonic Form. Sometimes my mind drifts to that idea, that good could in fact turn out to be a tangible thing, a touchable force, maybe the Force that George Lucas was talking about. Can we somehow find it, this goodness? Can we grasp it? Can we harness it so that we, too, can become twenty-four people?
I don't know.
But I want to find that kid and warn that kid, the one with the grandfather on his arm. I want to stop him from becoming the young street kid I fear he will be in five, ten years time, the ones that wander around Phnom Penh sniffing glue from plastic bags, the ones who I see while running in the mornings along the banks of the river, the ones who sleep on the grass and take money for sex. I want to grab this young lad by the shoulders and let him know that now, in his current state, he is a twenty-four hour kid, and that he is the goodness that the world is lacking. He would not understand what I was saying, even if I were speaking Khmer. He would only look at me strangely, and grab his grandfather's bony hand a little tighter, and continue on his way down the long and dusty road, bored and tired, angry but diligent, trying to raise money for his family because that is what he has been trained to do. In that precise and fleeting moment he would thus become what I seek.
I don't think there's anything particularly masculine in the phrase; substitute 'woman' for 'man', and although the particulars may change, the overall sentiment remains basically intact. To be all that we, as human creatures, are capable of being; to achieve what we are put here to be.
Can I do that? Can you do that?
Just now, moments ago, a common sight: in the midst of a pouring rainstorm, a young Khmer boy, thin, poor, guides his blind grandfather around by the the hand, begging for change. Often such old folks are playing instruments or singing; sometimes, like today, they are simply there, existing to be used, elderly.
Think of that boy, if you please, and of his life. He probably does not go to school. He probably never will go to school. His life consists of wandering around in the rain, asking strangers for money he will probably not receive, money that will, instead, give his family the means for a meal. I know he does not do this out of the goodness of his heart, and I know that his life, undoubtedly, consists of highs and lows and sorrows and joys that I no doubt surpass my own at times, if not all the time. He is no saint, and he did not ask for these circumstances.
But still. What he is doing. The basic dignity of it. His willingness to do it, even if he abhors it. I do not know if he is being 'a twenty-four man', since he is not yet a man at all, but there must be something dwelling deep within him that would recognize the truth of such a statement. I'm not even sure what that particular phrase means, of course; I'm adding my own allusions and half-baked insights onto somebody else's perceptions. And yet I believe if anyone could embody that aspect of Gahndi, that little boy does. I do not know why, but I feel it. I don't trust my feelings, no, but they are there, and they are real, and that is all I have to go on.
Surrounded by monks on a daily basis does tend to ground one in a certain way. I'm not sure why, and it could be simply my own cultural appropriation of somebody else's religion; the monks, in their purple robes, often wearing glasses, clutching school books, seem possessed of some kind of inner wisdom that I would never associate with priests-in-training. And I know my own perceptions have been proven false by my very own eyes; I've taught monks, and watched them cheat like everyone else, and sat beside them in the student computer lab and noticed that they, too, search match.com, looking for love. But there's something in their discipline, their ascetism, that stands out, that demands to be taken seriously. If they do not attain a higher level of wisdom after years of study, it's not for a lack of trying. Two meals a day, none after noon; flip-flops the only luxury clothes they possess, and often these, two, are absent from their feet. The memory of one of my first students, a young monk who was curious and interested and passionate about the links between Buddhism and Christianity and Hinduism and all of the world's myriad religions, because they were part of the grand human quest for a universal truth that transcended religion itself. It's the vibes that the monks give off, I suppose, more than anything else, a serene desire for understanding that feels so fundamentally delicate and alien in this sun-soaked land, detached but linked to my cold Canadian heritage, as if virtue and truth were a flake of snow fastly melting in this tropical heat.
I don't spend most days or many days contemplating what it means to be good, but I wonder. The last line of Robert Pirsig's Leila, which was the sequel to Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, postulates the concept of good as a noun, not an adjective. Good as a noun, a thing, a Platonic Form. Sometimes my mind drifts to that idea, that good could in fact turn out to be a tangible thing, a touchable force, maybe the Force that George Lucas was talking about. Can we somehow find it, this goodness? Can we grasp it? Can we harness it so that we, too, can become twenty-four people?
I don't know.
But I want to find that kid and warn that kid, the one with the grandfather on his arm. I want to stop him from becoming the young street kid I fear he will be in five, ten years time, the ones that wander around Phnom Penh sniffing glue from plastic bags, the ones who I see while running in the mornings along the banks of the river, the ones who sleep on the grass and take money for sex. I want to grab this young lad by the shoulders and let him know that now, in his current state, he is a twenty-four hour kid, and that he is the goodness that the world is lacking. He would not understand what I was saying, even if I were speaking Khmer. He would only look at me strangely, and grab his grandfather's bony hand a little tighter, and continue on his way down the long and dusty road, bored and tired, angry but diligent, trying to raise money for his family because that is what he has been trained to do. In that precise and fleeting moment he would thus become what I seek.
Saturday, July 30, 2005
SOME STUFF I'M THINKING ABOUT
The viability of an 'Aquaman' movie -- I thought about this while swimming last night. There's just something so cool about swooshing your hand through the water, watching the waves cascade through your fingertips. As a kid (and, um, okay, as an adult, too), whenever I was on a boat I'd lean over the side and stick my hand in the blue and pretend that I was shooting water out of my fingertips, controlling the oceans, summoning the dolphins. And such effects are totally cinematically possible, me thinks, and I think it's high time (or is it high tide) that Aquaman got the big-screen treatment he deserves. I mean, c'mon -- the dude breathes underwater. I'm sure with all the CGI available today they could do a decent job of an underwater Atlantis. I'd heard rumors that they're already considering a Sub-Mariner movie -- the Sub-Mariner being Prince Namor, another citizen of that lost city of Atlantis, albeit one featured in a rival company, Marvel Comics (Aquaman's published by DC). That would be cool, too, although Namor is a bit more, well sinister; he's sometimes good, sometimes bad. Sometimes a friend of The Fantastic Four, and sometimes a foe.
What old people say to younger people -- For some reason, maybe it's because I'm teaching again, I found myself remembering what my third year Creative Writing teacher said to us -- that most novelists don't publish a book until they're well past forty, that most writers are depressives and alcoholics, and that it's almost impossible to make a living from writing, so don't even bother. And there I was, young and idealistic and trying to write novels on the side. I don't fault my teacher, who's a good man and a good writer; he was just trying to inject some pragmatism into our veins, which is probably a good thing. But I wonder. When you're young, you don't know shit, and you tend to look at and up to those who do. It's the job of the old to caution the young, I suppose; but it's also the job of the young to disregard such cautions whenever possible...
All the books I want to read -- A new biography of Arnold Schwarzenegger by Laurence Leaner. The new novel by Canadian science-fiction writer Robert J.Sawyer (www.sfwriter.com) A book on the history of baseball I picked up in paperback over here. (I don't like watching baseball all that much, or playing it all that much, but I do like reading about it very much. Go figure. And I like reading about how things work, whether they be corporations or governments or sporting leagues.) A new novel called Mafia Summer by some dude who was TV producer Aaron Spelling's right-hand man for many years, simply because the way that he came across when being interviewed by Larry King, and the story that he told, of his friend who didn't make it out of the streets, in real life and the book, made both him and the book seem humane and true. From Beirut to Jerusalem, by Thomas Friedman, which is about fifteen years old, but I'm hoping that it explains the Middle East situation in a way that is comprehensible to me. And, most importantly, the new John Irving novel, Until I Find You, because, well, it's the new John Irving novel.
The Khmer Rouge Tribunal -- It's supposed to be set up sometime soon, but they've been saying that for years and years, so I'll believe it when I see it. I have the gnawing feeling that the whole thing will take place when I'm gone from Cambodia, which will be somewhat ironic, because I think the tribunal will then put Cambodia back in the news for a little while. (Actually, is that ironic? Maybe not. Must have been listening to too much Alanis, don't you think...)
Whether or not Wayne Gretzky will coach the Phoneix Coyotes -- Because if he does, everytime he comes back to Canada to coach against the Leafs or the Canucks or the Canadiens or the Flames or the Senators or the Oilers he may very well be the first coach who is asked for more autographs than the players. (Because Wayne Gretzky, like Mario Lemieux, is basically God in Canada. If Wayne ever ran for Prime Minister, forget about it. He'd win in a landslide. Probably do a pretty good job, too.)
The fact that it's the beginning of August, and it should feel like summer's winding down, but it's always freakin' bloody hot over here, so there's absolutely no sense of seasons passing, which is kind of neat at first but which gradually, almost insidiously gets somewhat spooky after one or two years -- Self-explanatory.
The way that some strangers don't say 'thank-you' when you 'god bless' them -- Pisses me off.
The essential goodness of Rocky II -- Because each of the characters sacrifices what they want most for the desire of the ones they love: Rocky's trainer, Mickey, who wants nothing more than to see Rocky kick Apollo Creed's ass in a rematch, tells Rocky, overcome with grief at the fact that his wife, Adrian, is in a coma after giving birth, that he will train him, yes, but if he wants to blow it, well, they'll blow it together, the two of them, sitting in church, day after day, praying; Rocky, whose whole essence is that of a fighter, tells Adrian, after giving birth, that if she doesn't want him fighting, they'll figure some other way to survive; Adrian, after hearing Rocky's offer, telling him that there's nothing else she wants him to do but win. They all love each other so much that they give up what makes them happiest for the hope of happiness in the other. Beautiful.
What old people say to younger people -- For some reason, maybe it's because I'm teaching again, I found myself remembering what my third year Creative Writing teacher said to us -- that most novelists don't publish a book until they're well past forty, that most writers are depressives and alcoholics, and that it's almost impossible to make a living from writing, so don't even bother. And there I was, young and idealistic and trying to write novels on the side. I don't fault my teacher, who's a good man and a good writer; he was just trying to inject some pragmatism into our veins, which is probably a good thing. But I wonder. When you're young, you don't know shit, and you tend to look at and up to those who do. It's the job of the old to caution the young, I suppose; but it's also the job of the young to disregard such cautions whenever possible...
All the books I want to read -- A new biography of Arnold Schwarzenegger by Laurence Leaner. The new novel by Canadian science-fiction writer Robert J.Sawyer (www.sfwriter.com) A book on the history of baseball I picked up in paperback over here. (I don't like watching baseball all that much, or playing it all that much, but I do like reading about it very much. Go figure. And I like reading about how things work, whether they be corporations or governments or sporting leagues.) A new novel called Mafia Summer by some dude who was TV producer Aaron Spelling's right-hand man for many years, simply because the way that he came across when being interviewed by Larry King, and the story that he told, of his friend who didn't make it out of the streets, in real life and the book, made both him and the book seem humane and true. From Beirut to Jerusalem, by Thomas Friedman, which is about fifteen years old, but I'm hoping that it explains the Middle East situation in a way that is comprehensible to me. And, most importantly, the new John Irving novel, Until I Find You, because, well, it's the new John Irving novel.
The Khmer Rouge Tribunal -- It's supposed to be set up sometime soon, but they've been saying that for years and years, so I'll believe it when I see it. I have the gnawing feeling that the whole thing will take place when I'm gone from Cambodia, which will be somewhat ironic, because I think the tribunal will then put Cambodia back in the news for a little while. (Actually, is that ironic? Maybe not. Must have been listening to too much Alanis, don't you think...)
Whether or not Wayne Gretzky will coach the Phoneix Coyotes -- Because if he does, everytime he comes back to Canada to coach against the Leafs or the Canucks or the Canadiens or the Flames or the Senators or the Oilers he may very well be the first coach who is asked for more autographs than the players. (Because Wayne Gretzky, like Mario Lemieux, is basically God in Canada. If Wayne ever ran for Prime Minister, forget about it. He'd win in a landslide. Probably do a pretty good job, too.)
The fact that it's the beginning of August, and it should feel like summer's winding down, but it's always freakin' bloody hot over here, so there's absolutely no sense of seasons passing, which is kind of neat at first but which gradually, almost insidiously gets somewhat spooky after one or two years -- Self-explanatory.
The way that some strangers don't say 'thank-you' when you 'god bless' them -- Pisses me off.
The essential goodness of Rocky II -- Because each of the characters sacrifices what they want most for the desire of the ones they love: Rocky's trainer, Mickey, who wants nothing more than to see Rocky kick Apollo Creed's ass in a rematch, tells Rocky, overcome with grief at the fact that his wife, Adrian, is in a coma after giving birth, that he will train him, yes, but if he wants to blow it, well, they'll blow it together, the two of them, sitting in church, day after day, praying; Rocky, whose whole essence is that of a fighter, tells Adrian, after giving birth, that if she doesn't want him fighting, they'll figure some other way to survive; Adrian, after hearing Rocky's offer, telling him that there's nothing else she wants him to do but win. They all love each other so much that they give up what makes them happiest for the hope of happiness in the other. Beautiful.
Friday, July 29, 2005
A HARSH, DANGEROUS WORLD POPULATED BY, UM, PEOPLE WHO BUTT IN LINE? or A LESSON IN CROSS-CULTURAL TOGETHERNESS
I knew he was going to butt in front of me. Knew it. I waited for it, was ready for it, and dealt with it accordingly.
(This constitutes 'drama' and 'confrontation' in my life in Phnom Penh.)
I'm used to 'cultural differences'. Living in Japan for four years was a megaton-level wake-up call for this Ontario small-city boy as to the convoluted societal regulations inherent in a millienia-old society. To even begin to list the intricacies of Japanese dos and don't would take pages, possibly volumes. Irritating, yes. Annoying as hell, sure. Comprehensible? Sometimes. But after awhile I grinned and bore it. There was nothing else to do. Especially because they were, and are, so damn polite about everything -- and really, how angry can you get at somebody for being too nice?
Things are not quite as a complex here in Cambodia. Don't get me wrong. I don't begin to understand much, if anything, of what Cambodia is truly like, even after living here for two years. (Think about it -- do you really, truly understand your hometown, let alone your country? Can you even figure out what the rationale behind what occurs at your local Wal-Mart? Trying to do psychoanalysis on a Southeast Asian country just doesn't cut it.) Cambodian people are a lot more, well, open than the Japanese. (Which is not a value judgement, by the way.) They smile and laugh and get pissed off quite easily and openly. You may not always know where you stand with them, but you know where you don't stand. If that makes sense.
But there are some things about Cambodian life I still haven't quite gotten the handle on. Pissing in the street, fine. No big deal. Refusing to admit that they don't understand something, even though they say they do -- got it.
And yet, time and time again, month after month, I'm baffled by this:
Standing in line at a convenience store. Waiting for my change at a grocery shop. And here comes a Khmer, stepping in right in front of me.
I don't mind if people don't see me, are half-asleep, are blind, whatever. Sometimes mistakes are made. And I'm not sure if this is strictly a 'foreigner' thing, though I doubt it, because I've seen the same thing happen at the snack shop on the Cambodian-Vietnam border, where a Cambodian dude just blatantly ignored the long line, took out a dollar bill, and walked to the counter, waving it in the air like a bullfighter taunting his animal.
But it happens all the time. People just walking right on by me and placing their goods down and generally ignoring me.
I honestly don't get it. Do they think that because I'm a foreigner and they're a Khmer citizen that lines are thus not for them? I know that, in general, most Cambodians don't really follow the whole 'line' thing -- but how can you just cavalierly sidestep someone who's directly in front of you?
So this particular time, the other night, at BB World, after ordering my #1 combo, I refused to back down.
A young Cambodian kid, in a rush, was coming up behind him. He brushed by me and literally pushed me aside with his shoulder and shouted out his order.
I, feeling royally ticked off and pleasantly pleased that my prediction had come true, pushed him back, slightly, with my own shoulder, a move I have not made on anyone since I used to (attempt to) bodycheck people during hockey games all those moons ago.
His reaction?
A sheepish grin.
He knew he'd been caught red-handed in the act. (Khmers tend to smile and grin nervously whenever they're nervous, unsettled, embarrassed or ashamed.) I was left alone to finish my order in peaceful bliss.
I felt vindicated. I felt stupid for feeling vindicated.
And yet, I suppose it's alright, this peeve of mine. In this sense: in a world of terrorism run amok, where people are willing to maim each other and kill each other because they disagree with somebody's principles and way of life, I suppose there's some small form of comfort in the fact that the biggest criticism I can think of regarding living in Cambodia is the fact that people sometimes butt ahead of me in line. In today's world, in fact, I suspect a minor infraction like that could even be deemed somewhat, well, quaint.
(This constitutes 'drama' and 'confrontation' in my life in Phnom Penh.)
I'm used to 'cultural differences'. Living in Japan for four years was a megaton-level wake-up call for this Ontario small-city boy as to the convoluted societal regulations inherent in a millienia-old society. To even begin to list the intricacies of Japanese dos and don't would take pages, possibly volumes. Irritating, yes. Annoying as hell, sure. Comprehensible? Sometimes. But after awhile I grinned and bore it. There was nothing else to do. Especially because they were, and are, so damn polite about everything -- and really, how angry can you get at somebody for being too nice?
Things are not quite as a complex here in Cambodia. Don't get me wrong. I don't begin to understand much, if anything, of what Cambodia is truly like, even after living here for two years. (Think about it -- do you really, truly understand your hometown, let alone your country? Can you even figure out what the rationale behind what occurs at your local Wal-Mart? Trying to do psychoanalysis on a Southeast Asian country just doesn't cut it.) Cambodian people are a lot more, well, open than the Japanese. (Which is not a value judgement, by the way.) They smile and laugh and get pissed off quite easily and openly. You may not always know where you stand with them, but you know where you don't stand. If that makes sense.
But there are some things about Cambodian life I still haven't quite gotten the handle on. Pissing in the street, fine. No big deal. Refusing to admit that they don't understand something, even though they say they do -- got it.
And yet, time and time again, month after month, I'm baffled by this:
Standing in line at a convenience store. Waiting for my change at a grocery shop. And here comes a Khmer, stepping in right in front of me.
I don't mind if people don't see me, are half-asleep, are blind, whatever. Sometimes mistakes are made. And I'm not sure if this is strictly a 'foreigner' thing, though I doubt it, because I've seen the same thing happen at the snack shop on the Cambodian-Vietnam border, where a Cambodian dude just blatantly ignored the long line, took out a dollar bill, and walked to the counter, waving it in the air like a bullfighter taunting his animal.
But it happens all the time. People just walking right on by me and placing their goods down and generally ignoring me.
I honestly don't get it. Do they think that because I'm a foreigner and they're a Khmer citizen that lines are thus not for them? I know that, in general, most Cambodians don't really follow the whole 'line' thing -- but how can you just cavalierly sidestep someone who's directly in front of you?
So this particular time, the other night, at BB World, after ordering my #1 combo, I refused to back down.
A young Cambodian kid, in a rush, was coming up behind him. He brushed by me and literally pushed me aside with his shoulder and shouted out his order.
I, feeling royally ticked off and pleasantly pleased that my prediction had come true, pushed him back, slightly, with my own shoulder, a move I have not made on anyone since I used to (attempt to) bodycheck people during hockey games all those moons ago.
His reaction?
A sheepish grin.
He knew he'd been caught red-handed in the act. (Khmers tend to smile and grin nervously whenever they're nervous, unsettled, embarrassed or ashamed.) I was left alone to finish my order in peaceful bliss.
I felt vindicated. I felt stupid for feeling vindicated.
And yet, I suppose it's alright, this peeve of mine. In this sense: in a world of terrorism run amok, where people are willing to maim each other and kill each other because they disagree with somebody's principles and way of life, I suppose there's some small form of comfort in the fact that the biggest criticism I can think of regarding living in Cambodia is the fact that people sometimes butt ahead of me in line. In today's world, in fact, I suspect a minor infraction like that could even be deemed somewhat, well, quaint.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
NOW IS THE TIME WHEN YOU GIVE ME SOME MONEY
“ Now is the time when you give me some money.”
Those words, spoken to me by a Cambodian policeman who was helping me deal with replacing my lost passport, seem to symbolize something about my Southeast Asian experience up until now. I wouldn’t say that it’s representative of the people of Cambodia or the culture of Cambodia or anything beyond my own, individual encounters with those institutions that are -- on paper, anyways -- supposed to be bastions of diplomacy and fair-play.
Before living in Cambodia, I never gave much thought to government structures, both physical and symbolical. Roads were roads. Schools were schools. The idea that government itself had something to with these commonplace institutions was surely somewhere in the back of my mind, but I’m not exactly sure where; perhaps locked away in those portions of the brain that scientists claim we so rarely use.
Ah, but to lose a passport, and to lose it in a place like Cambodia, forces you into manuoevers and machinations that are not sufficiently dealt with in the Ontario school system. I was never taught about the protocol for bribing a police officer; I must have missed that particular Social Studies class.
Cambodians themselves didn’t miss that class, because they don’t NEED that class. They know that you can’t trust the police, and that the people in power are not there to serve the people. This is not necessarily a hypothesis; in desperately poor countries like Cambodia, it serves as a fact, and it is a fact that you learn quite young here.
Let’s start with the schools: woefully underfunded, criminally underdeveloped, with a pay for teachers that starts at a whopping twenty bucks a month. A few times I visited a few of the high schools here in Phnom Penh, along with the marketing head of our university and his assistant (the same chap, Veasna, who was killed by a drunk driver a month or so ago), hoping to drum up interest in our school. Let me tell you. Can I tell you? Let me tell you. It was like something out of a Van Damme movie set inside one of Thailand’s premier kickboxing arenas. I shit you not. Video games down in the dusty, darkened entrance, food being cooked, chickens running around, cramped classrooms with fifty students and a teacher standing on a box clutching a squawking microphone that whined in and out of sonic audibility. And this was one of the good schools. Gotta love that Ministry of Education. No money for books or renovations, no, but boy, their cars sure are spiffy.
When you have to bribe a teacher to go to school, something’s fucked up within the system. When the politicians drive Mercedes Benz around town while most people can barely afford a moto, there is, most certainly, a ‘cancer on the presidency’, to use an old Watergate quote. (Okay, okay – Cambodia doesn’t have a president, only a prime minister, but ‘cancer on the prime ministership’ doesn’t sound boss…)
Sometimes I’m left reeling here. Not only by what I know about Cambodia, firsthand, but what I read about the rest of Asia, secondhand. The latest issue of THE ECONOMIST features a headline that reads: “How To Save Myanmar”, another corrupt military regime that does jackshit for its people and has no intention of altering that present state of stasis. The newest news out of the Philippines details yet another corruption scandal involving their leader, Gloria Arroyo, and protesters yet again demanding a better, stronger, fairer government. A recent article I read regarding the situation in the Philippines made an interesting point: Fillipinos have to learn to trust their institutions, and not their leaders. By investing so much energy into a savior who will lead them to the economic promised land, they are inevitably setting themselves up for failure, because that’s what people do – fail. It’s only the system itself that can endure. (But at least they’re protesting, one could argue. I view, from a distance, the recent corruption scandals in Canada, and I realize: The reason why there aren’t mass protests is simply because, by and large, more often than not, people are doing all right. Even look at some of the recent news coming from Sony; they paid off radio stations and their employees, offering them cash and vacations, in order to play their artists. Nobody on the streets is rioting. Why? Because they are surviving. The politicians may or may not be corrupt, and the corporations may or may not be on the take, constantly, consistently, and the businessmen and governors and premiers may or may not be lying through their teeth, and hockey may have been missed for a year, but, in the end, life is good. Ah. Inertia. You wonder why most of the world seen on your nightly news seems so, well, chaotic? Why the people seem so angry? Because the leaders are corrupt and the system itself is fucked and it’s the people that pay. Almost everywhere. Throughout the world. I feel like I’ve seen it, lived it, felt it. That’s the only conclusion I can come to.)
It reminded me of what Al Pacino says in The Godfather III – as a young man, he thought that the higher up he climbed, the more moral and humane the system would become, only to discover otherwise. How much do we trust our institutions? How much do we trust the people running them? At a certain point, no matter how high you get, will it always come down to a man in a back room with faulty air conditioning saying: “Now is the time when you give me some money”?
I don’t know.
Growing up, I trusted the people at the front of the room. The ones wearing glasses, with the ties and the nifty pens. They seemed to know the deal.
The scary thing is, I’ve now become one of those dudes – wearing glasses, standing in front of a whiteboard, saying this and saying that and trying to look, if not credible, at least intelligible. (And sometimes even succeeding.) I had the good fortune of being an ‘individual consultant’ with a UN agency for an extended period of time, and I gradually realized that, despite an institution’s size or gravity, people are people are people are people. You can be flattered by the logo on the shirt, awed by the mural on the wall, but there are people inside, and they are often noble and scared, passionate and exhausted, and they are sometimes confused, and they are trying to do their best, the only way that they know how. (Kind of like the Duke boys in Hazzard county, though that’s just a little bit more than the law will allow…)
Sometimes that is a recipe for progress, development, innovation and growth; often, it is a recipe for incompetence, stall-tactics, justifications.
So, yes. I think that’s what happens. As complex and convoluted as the world and its many corridors are, there is a similar process that opens the lock each and every time. You are taken into a back room, and money exchanges hands. Perhaps not literally, no, because we in the west are more subtle than that, more careful than that. But at a certain point, somebody in power has something that you want, and you have to do what you have to do to get it. That could mean cash, or cheque, or a slow and steady compromise of your principals – the tie you don’t want to wear at work, or the little white lie you have to tell your client every now and then. It may be more gritty and blunt over here in Cambodia, and you may feel the sweat of the palm you’re greasing a little more easily, but that’s just a matter of degrees. Plain and simple, isn’t it?
But sometimes I just wish it wasn’t so complicated.
Those words, spoken to me by a Cambodian policeman who was helping me deal with replacing my lost passport, seem to symbolize something about my Southeast Asian experience up until now. I wouldn’t say that it’s representative of the people of Cambodia or the culture of Cambodia or anything beyond my own, individual encounters with those institutions that are -- on paper, anyways -- supposed to be bastions of diplomacy and fair-play.
Before living in Cambodia, I never gave much thought to government structures, both physical and symbolical. Roads were roads. Schools were schools. The idea that government itself had something to with these commonplace institutions was surely somewhere in the back of my mind, but I’m not exactly sure where; perhaps locked away in those portions of the brain that scientists claim we so rarely use.
Ah, but to lose a passport, and to lose it in a place like Cambodia, forces you into manuoevers and machinations that are not sufficiently dealt with in the Ontario school system. I was never taught about the protocol for bribing a police officer; I must have missed that particular Social Studies class.
Cambodians themselves didn’t miss that class, because they don’t NEED that class. They know that you can’t trust the police, and that the people in power are not there to serve the people. This is not necessarily a hypothesis; in desperately poor countries like Cambodia, it serves as a fact, and it is a fact that you learn quite young here.
Let’s start with the schools: woefully underfunded, criminally underdeveloped, with a pay for teachers that starts at a whopping twenty bucks a month. A few times I visited a few of the high schools here in Phnom Penh, along with the marketing head of our university and his assistant (the same chap, Veasna, who was killed by a drunk driver a month or so ago), hoping to drum up interest in our school. Let me tell you. Can I tell you? Let me tell you. It was like something out of a Van Damme movie set inside one of Thailand’s premier kickboxing arenas. I shit you not. Video games down in the dusty, darkened entrance, food being cooked, chickens running around, cramped classrooms with fifty students and a teacher standing on a box clutching a squawking microphone that whined in and out of sonic audibility. And this was one of the good schools. Gotta love that Ministry of Education. No money for books or renovations, no, but boy, their cars sure are spiffy.
When you have to bribe a teacher to go to school, something’s fucked up within the system. When the politicians drive Mercedes Benz around town while most people can barely afford a moto, there is, most certainly, a ‘cancer on the presidency’, to use an old Watergate quote. (Okay, okay – Cambodia doesn’t have a president, only a prime minister, but ‘cancer on the prime ministership’ doesn’t sound boss…)
Sometimes I’m left reeling here. Not only by what I know about Cambodia, firsthand, but what I read about the rest of Asia, secondhand. The latest issue of THE ECONOMIST features a headline that reads: “How To Save Myanmar”, another corrupt military regime that does jackshit for its people and has no intention of altering that present state of stasis. The newest news out of the Philippines details yet another corruption scandal involving their leader, Gloria Arroyo, and protesters yet again demanding a better, stronger, fairer government. A recent article I read regarding the situation in the Philippines made an interesting point: Fillipinos have to learn to trust their institutions, and not their leaders. By investing so much energy into a savior who will lead them to the economic promised land, they are inevitably setting themselves up for failure, because that’s what people do – fail. It’s only the system itself that can endure. (But at least they’re protesting, one could argue. I view, from a distance, the recent corruption scandals in Canada, and I realize: The reason why there aren’t mass protests is simply because, by and large, more often than not, people are doing all right. Even look at some of the recent news coming from Sony; they paid off radio stations and their employees, offering them cash and vacations, in order to play their artists. Nobody on the streets is rioting. Why? Because they are surviving. The politicians may or may not be corrupt, and the corporations may or may not be on the take, constantly, consistently, and the businessmen and governors and premiers may or may not be lying through their teeth, and hockey may have been missed for a year, but, in the end, life is good. Ah. Inertia. You wonder why most of the world seen on your nightly news seems so, well, chaotic? Why the people seem so angry? Because the leaders are corrupt and the system itself is fucked and it’s the people that pay. Almost everywhere. Throughout the world. I feel like I’ve seen it, lived it, felt it. That’s the only conclusion I can come to.)
It reminded me of what Al Pacino says in The Godfather III – as a young man, he thought that the higher up he climbed, the more moral and humane the system would become, only to discover otherwise. How much do we trust our institutions? How much do we trust the people running them? At a certain point, no matter how high you get, will it always come down to a man in a back room with faulty air conditioning saying: “Now is the time when you give me some money”?
I don’t know.
Growing up, I trusted the people at the front of the room. The ones wearing glasses, with the ties and the nifty pens. They seemed to know the deal.
The scary thing is, I’ve now become one of those dudes – wearing glasses, standing in front of a whiteboard, saying this and saying that and trying to look, if not credible, at least intelligible. (And sometimes even succeeding.) I had the good fortune of being an ‘individual consultant’ with a UN agency for an extended period of time, and I gradually realized that, despite an institution’s size or gravity, people are people are people are people. You can be flattered by the logo on the shirt, awed by the mural on the wall, but there are people inside, and they are often noble and scared, passionate and exhausted, and they are sometimes confused, and they are trying to do their best, the only way that they know how. (Kind of like the Duke boys in Hazzard county, though that’s just a little bit more than the law will allow…)
Sometimes that is a recipe for progress, development, innovation and growth; often, it is a recipe for incompetence, stall-tactics, justifications.
So, yes. I think that’s what happens. As complex and convoluted as the world and its many corridors are, there is a similar process that opens the lock each and every time. You are taken into a back room, and money exchanges hands. Perhaps not literally, no, because we in the west are more subtle than that, more careful than that. But at a certain point, somebody in power has something that you want, and you have to do what you have to do to get it. That could mean cash, or cheque, or a slow and steady compromise of your principals – the tie you don’t want to wear at work, or the little white lie you have to tell your client every now and then. It may be more gritty and blunt over here in Cambodia, and you may feel the sweat of the palm you’re greasing a little more easily, but that’s just a matter of degrees. Plain and simple, isn’t it?
But sometimes I just wish it wasn’t so complicated.
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