January 8, 2007

[Editor's note: Today’s blog posting is a verbatim transcript of a lecture Mr. Richardson delivered to Tonle Sap University students and their parents on the special occasion of the third anniversary of the formation of Mekong Blogmeisters Associated. Unfortunately, a rather impertinent heckler, whom you have seen sparingly in earlier blogs, makes a more extended appearance here. Mr. Richardson has kindly asked us to present the transcript unedited on the grounds that all voices, even objectionable ones, deserve to be heard.]

Happy new year to everyone! We have been occupied for three weeks with our children and grandchildren, and I would like to report to you where we have been all that time. I know how often you wait beside the mailbox, pining for more news from your favorite blogmeister, so wait no longer. Here is the first posting in what promises to be an exciting and productive 2007.

So where did we go with our children? Well, after three and a half months in Siem Reap we finally went to the Angkor monuments to have a look. I know how visual you all are, so I will of course project pictures on the screen as proof positive that I actually arose from my hammock to lead the young members of the family on this expedition. Therefore I proudly present this first picture of the Angkor Monuments:

That’s not a monument.

What do you mean that’s not a monument? It is indeed a monument: to the creativity of man, to the hope that springs eternal, and to the power of commerce to drive human progress. Yes, it is dresses for sale. Beautiful, bright, colorful dresses. Dresses to perk up the doleful. To brighten the lives of women who simply can’t understand why their husbands will spend $10 a day to sit in a tuk-tuk, breathing foul polluted air and subjecting their sweaty bodies to a thick covering of red laterite dust, when they could easily have afforded an extra ten bucks to enjoy air-conditioned comfort in an enclosed car with a professional, smartly dressed, English-speaking driver who would have told them something intelligent about the history of Angkorian kings and the monuments they built.

Well, sorry. I don’t mean any disrespect to tuk-tuk drivers, many of whom speak fairly good English and know something about the monuments and–let us not forget this–work very hard to provide a little money for their families to eke out a hard-scrabble existence in a cruel world. They too can be acceptable guides.
So what do these dresses have to do with the monuments? The next picture should make this perfectly clear:

You see the dresses there, in what looks like a market, or more accurately a row of shops, with coconuts and cold drinks in ice boxes out front for sale to thirsty tourists? Well, for those of you who still don’t get the picture, such little shops sit across the road from or adjacent to all the major monuments at Angkor. The really minor monuments, ones that attract only a few isolated tourists simply because the monument was on some obscure list and the tourist has lots of time, will have, not shops, but children clutching trinkets (beaded bracelets, bamboo flutes) that some tourist might buy for his bratty little nephew back home. Commerce! You go to a monument, you buy a souvenir, or a dress, or a coconut (which they will quickly trim for you with a full-size machete–watch your fingers!--and neatly insert a straw for your personal use). You’ll buy something, because you came unprepared and weak and susceptible to their persuasiveness. You don’t stand a chance against these charming people.

You have to assume that people buy the things that are offered for sale here, otherwise the shops would sell something else, or would disappear. So somebody must be wearing one of these dresses somewhere, and somebody must be drinking a coconut, and somebody must be buying, for six or eight dollars, a guide book that has a high price marked on it I paid $8 out there for a book that I had already purchased in the states but forgot to bring with me. The price marked on both copies–the one in the States and the one for sale at the monuments–was $27.95. They look identical–same quality of paper, same sharpness and color in the photos, same stiff folded cover, same binding–but one was original and the other was a knockoff. I was later told I should have paid $5 for it. It is just remarkable what they can do by way of reproducing these things. Maybe what is remarkable is how much they charge for them at home.

In any event, I go into these shops and see junk I would never want, but I did buy a book, and others buy other stuff. The Cambodians who run these stalls are happy to oblige us. Despite my rant about the tacky shops on the way to Mt. Rushmore (you all remember that rant, don’t you?), I don’t begrudge these people the opportunity to make a few bucks off all the tourists who come to these magnificent monuments.

So now here’s a picture of a real monument:

This is taken from inside the outer wall of Angkor Wat looking west past the gopura, with the moon hanging low in the near distance. You may not have known that the moon comes closer to Angkor than any other place on earth. Genuine "double-blind"scientific tests have determined that the combined weight of all the stones that make up all the monuments in the concentrated area of greater Angkor exert a gravitational pull of their own, distinct from that of the earth, such that the moon, when passing directly over Angkor, dips noticeably out of its orbit in what is often considered by the non-scientific mind to be an acknowledgment of the genius of Angkor’s builders.

Did you say "dips out of its orbit"?

Moving right along, the next picture is of the grounds around the Baphuon, a temple within Angkor Thom which has largely fallen apart over the centuries. I am trying to show you some non-traditional views of the monuments, as you can plainly see.

All of those thousands of stones lying on all sides of the temple (which by their mere presence, even if not in the form of a standing temple, contribute to the scientifically verified gravitational pull of greater Angkor) were studied and tagged and numbered to identify their place in the fallen structure preparatory to rebuilding, but, alas, the records were lost or destroyed during the Pol Pot years and the tags and numbers are now all meaningless.

Excuse me, I’ve got a question.

Yes, by now you may be asking that important question, why do we call it "the" Baphuon? You may also be asking how, if the Baphuon is a temple and Angkor Thom is a temple, the Baphuon can be located inside Angkor Thom? Perchance you are also asking what is the difference between Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, and Angkor Beer? Well, the answers are as follows: 1) probably for the same reason that we call that other temple within a (small) stone’s throw of the Baphuon "the" Bayon, 2) Angkor Thom is bigger, and 3) Angkor Beer tastes better. Let me explain.

No! Please don’t! Forget my question. Let’s just move on, for heaven’s sake.

Don’t be hysterical. I’ll move on soon enough. First, I don’t know why they call it "the" Baphuon or, for that matter, why they call the other one "the" Bayon, except that it doesn’t sound as silly as "the" Angkor Wat. Who would travel thousands of miles to see "the" Angkor Wat? Even the Angkorians knew there are no tourist dollars in that. Second, Angkor Thom means "big city." It is a huge piece of land enclosed within four walls about three kilometers long, making 900 hectares or...let me convert here for you–let’s see, 7 plus 3 equals 10, carry the 10, add that number over there–about 78,000 square furlongs. Today it is mostly field and forest, but when it was built it enclosed a city made of perishable materials, of which there are no traces today. Both the Baphuon and the Bayon and a number of other monuments are enclosed within the walls of Angkor Thom.

Angkor Wat means "city temple", or, if you like, "city monument." The walls of Angkor Wat also enclosed a city, although a smaller one.

I might mention also that Angkor Wat and the other temples here are not pagodas. They are monuments. Most monuments at Angkor were built in accordance with Hindu mythology to honor Shiva or Vishnu, and by extension the king or his parents, for most kings of Angkor held Hindu beliefs and had Bramin advisors. The Buddha figures found today throughout the monuments, along with the candles and incense that are used to pay respects to Buddha, are later additions. I would guess that Angkor Wat is a name given to this monument after the Angkorian civilization collapsed and Cambodia became largely Buddhist. A few of the monuments were built by Buddhist kings, but they are still not pagodas.

There is, by the way, and has been for a long time, a Buddhist pagoda within the walls of Angkor Wat. The monks in that pagoda historically have maintained Angkor Wat and kept it from succumbing to the jungle.
Now we can move on.

The next picture, taken in early morning before the sun broke the horizon, shows a great big date palm tree partially blocking the view of Angkor Wat.

You haven’t shown us a single decent picture of a monument. Just date palms and dresses and that ridiculous dipping moon.

Don’t be petulant. You want good pictures of the monuments, go buy a coffee table book. Here’s the best I can do: a picture of Angkor Wat in early morning without the date palm tree:

Speaking of trees, this next is a picture showing trees slowly destroying the wall around Ta Prohm monument.

You watch trees grow? How can this possibly be interesting?

Ta Prohm has been cleaned up a little, but it is the one monument that has purposely been kept largely in its deteriorated state so that the typical benighted American tourist, after getting off his air conditioned bus and spraying mosquito repellant on his bare legs, can see just what the jungle does to these monuments. Of course, if you go to this monument any time after 7:00 a.m. you will see nothing but Japanese tourists lining up endlessly to take pictures of each other right in front of the one thing that would make your own coffee table book a best seller if they would just get out of the way.

Ta Prohm is my favorite monument. It pays to get here early so that you can reasonably imagine that you are its discoverer stumbling across this strange and enchanting monument. Combined with the semi-darkness of the pre-dawn morning, the ubiquitous chirping of cicadas in the dark forest all around, and the absence of human voices (at this point, all you hear is the rumble of the first 50 buses bringing Japanese tourists to those little shops out at the entrance), you can imagine yourself in a different time, a different world. For about three more minutes.

Okay, I’ll slip in one more tree picture, showing a close-up of just how those tree roots dig in and grab and tear apart those heavy stone walls (please don’t show this graphic photo to the children):

You probably thought you’d never see that in your life. Well, I bring to you nature unadorned, nature demythologized, nature in all it’s heartless cruelty. You can see here, because of my careful selection of non-traditional photos, the forces of nature at work dismantling the proud monuments of man, crumbling them to dust, leaving no trace of this once-great civilization or the people who built it.

And now what you have all been waiting for: my grandchildren:


Why do they look like they’re afraid of you?

Well, Ha Ha, they haven’t seen me for months, you know, and I guess I’ve changed a bit.

They actually look terrified.

They’re not terrified. They’re just a little surprised. They thought they were going to Disney World after they got off the plane and they got me instead.

That would make them bitterly disappointed, not terrified. These aren’t your grandchildren, are they. They look like Cambodian kids.

I’ll have you know that my grandchildren are, technically speaking, Cambodian kids.

Not these Cambodian kids. Man, you’re a total fraud. Why did I pay 25 bucks for this lecture?

This next picture is of these same grandchildren of mine at play. They are sitting inside a commune office. Outside is the road going through the village and all the dust churned up by large dump trucks going back and forth.

Here’s a closeup of one of these kids, er, grandchildren. This picture is included for the sole purpose of importuning you to write a big check to FWAB.


We also went to Phnom Penh and saw the king’s palace, which I show you right here:

Next you’re gonna tell us you’ve been inside there.

We’ve been inside there, though, for the sake of full disclosure, we weren’t invited this time. He was out of town or something. The king, that is.

There’s a little park on a small hill within the compound of the Silver Pagoda next to the palace where I found this forlorn little Cambodian boy searching for something (truth? enlightenment?) under the watchful and protective gaze of several Buddha figures:

There’s something fishy here.

We drove one day to Prey Veng, a province to the east of Phnom Penh. Prey Veng turned out to have nothing of interest, so we ate lunch at what was probably the only restaurant in town and turned around and came back. On the way to and fro, however, we crossed the Mekong River at the Neak Luong Ferry. A bridge is under construction, but the ferry is much more interesting. One, it is incredibly crowded:

They pack cars and motos and pedestrians so thick I thought we would all sink and die before we got started.

A cause for celebration, surely.

Two, you have to sit and wait a while for the ferry to come before getting on, so you encounter the hoards of vendors and, unfortunately, child beggars, taking advantage of your forced wait. It is an opportune time for the intrepid photographer to get pictures such as this:

And this:

All that covering is meant to protect them against dust and auto exhaust and sunlight.

And photographers.

We also took a day trip to Oudong, a small mountain some 40 kilometers north of Phnom Penh which was an earlier capital of the Cambodian kingdom. Its long association with religious undertakings made it a suitable place for establishment of the king’s residence, for royalty and religion are linked in Cambodian thought. A number of wats and chedei (burial mounds) are found on top of the hill. The ashes of two or three kings are enclosed there. Here is a view from the top of the hill looking south across other wats below and the Tonle Sap in the distance.

And here, below, is a girl who didn’t flinch at the sight of my camera. She sat there for picture after picture, never changing her insouciant expression.

(Must...write...check.)

She doesn’t live in Siem Reap, but she would be admitted to the Angkor Hospital for Children if she could get there. No restrictions. My grandchildren would be admitted. After all–you probably don’t know this–the AHC functions as the pediatric department of the Siem Reap Hospital, so kids don’t go there, they go to AHC. See, you are learning so much, despite that crank in the second row over there.

We also visited Kep, on the coast. Kep was the playground of the rich and famous in the 1960s–fabulous villas, boat trips to the islands, parties with the cream of the diplomatic corps. It was destroyed during the civil war and the Pol Pot years. It is slowly making a comeback, but may not be able to compete with Sihanoukville, not far down the coast, which has bigger beaches and much more money being poured into it. At any rate, this is a picture of the resort as it stands now. Note the hammocks. Hammocks and a sea breeze: what more could you want?

Here are a mother and her child playing in the water of he Gulf of Siam at the beach in Kep.

Why all these pictures in silhouette? What are you up to now?

And here are two Cambodian children running out to the family boat in the evening in Sihanoukville. They may want to accompany the men on their nightly fishing trip. The girl is hobbling for some reason on bandy legs and, if you look closely, appears to need a cane just to walk. She’d probably love to run as free as the wind just once in her life.

There’s something wrong here too. What is all this artifice?

And finally, we walked way down the beach at Sihanoukville to see the fish market where the boats come in after the nightly catch. We came upon this house on the water’s edge.

Next to the house are dozens of fish and crab traps. On the other side, they sell snacks to the fishermen.

The fishing boats gather here in a small cove to unload their catch:

And here is an actual fish, to show you that they are not just wasting their time out there.

And finally, a traditional picture: a couple of boats sitting quietly in the water.

All the best to you until next time.

Forget it. I’m not coming again.