MIN MENCHET NGEAY (Never Easy)

So I have this long list on a yellow sticky-note next to my lap-top at work with topics I needed to blog about, but haven't actually gotten around to.  Perhaps this calls for a list update on what July in Cambodia has brought me:

1. I finally moved to my new flat next to New York International School on the cor

ner of St. 278 and 143. The flat is near the Olympic Stadium. I went running there once and got bloo

dy ankles. I guess my running shoes needed to be broken into (again).  The flat is nice and big and the "grand hall" presents ample opportunity for parties, soccer ball passing, and sliding barefoot back and forth between the door and the wall.  We have a house cleaner but the bottoms of my feet are always black.  I like the

  neighborhood, but get woken up at night by little dogs and cats thrashing between the aluminum roofs.  Sometimes I wonder if it's like 101 Dalmatians and they are all talking to each other.  Also Khmer people still wake up at 5am and start chopping and pounding things in this part of town. (photo above: grand hall; photo below: view from my room)

2. I still eat Chinese food next to my office almost everyday for lunch. This involves consumption of one or two of these dishes: roasted peanuts, fried noodles, fried rice, vegetarian dumpling soup, eel, watermelon and tea. Tom & Jerry inexplicably always play on cartoon network on the television in the background.  Conversations stop and almost every single person in the restaurant turns their attention to the show.  This includes 50 year old men and working people. I like to think that they are regaining their lost childhood, taken away by the Khmer Rouge. They probably just really like Tom & Jerry.

3. Last week one of our film directors visiting from South Korea took us to eat dinner at a North Korean restaurant in town. It's no secret that the restaurants (all over S.E. Asia) are money-generating ventures for the North Korean government. While on the one-hand I condemn support of anti-democratic government activities, I do (now) love North Korean food and figured it was okay that I was sharing the meal with some human rights activists. Ironic as it may be, the setting was perfect for conversations involving living in Thai refugee camps and speculating on whether or not the pretty girls working at the restaurant and dancing to Swedish-like music were paid (probably not) or kept hostage by the government (probably yes). 

4. My new colleague at work is a music composer. He also plays for a band named Coconut Rock! He's 29, has an earring and told me that Khmer people don't say, "Okay my friend" when hanging up the phone... They say, "Okay my Prin".  I told him that that's not a real word, but that I would try it next time.  He said no, only Khmer people can say that because it doesn't make sense. 

5.  I was going to do the red dress run with  some friends and the Hash people for charity last Saturday.  After evaluating the situation: 1. too hot 2. too hot, we quickly opted out and chose to

 get ice cream instead.

6. The music composer does not believe there are pyramids in Mexico. I had to show him a picture of one. He still didn't believe me and thought they were computer animated.  Also, I'd like to point out that this is a higher-educated Cambodian.  I can't remember his name and it's embarrassing since he sits across from me, so that's why I've renamed him, "the music composer." Unoriginal I know, for a guy who plays the keyboard at night for a band named Coconut Rock.

7. I went to MetaHouse to watch some Cambodian documentary films the other night and when we arrived we found that one had already started so we went to get ice cream while we waited for the next film.  We found ice cream across the park on Sisowath Quay and I ordered Strawberry.  Steve saw "milk egg" on the menu and at 2,000 Riels (50 cents) figured that, that was  a good price for trying something new. He got what he ordered: a yellow egg floating in hot water with milk. Condensed milk. Surprisingly, it wasn't half-bad...

8. Pontoon and BB World on a Saturday night. Enough said. For those of you that don't know what this entails (and that is most of you), suffice is to say that Saturday night was one of the funnest nights I've spent in Phnom Penh because it involved dancing. All night. On a bar, that's a boat named Pontoon. My beverage of choice at the bar: water (though served Evian not by choice). My dancing music of choice: Reggaeton.  Highlight of the evening was spotting a long blonde braid trailing down the red -shirted back of an old white person. Okay maybe it wasn't THE highlight, but it came close. Also, BB World: It's open 24 hours and allows one to purchase a scrumptious snack of crispy fried chicken nuggets, french fries and coke at 4am after Pontoon. For future reference: it comes with free Wi-Fi, so if in theory I took my laptop to Pontoon and then to BB World, I could Skype with America at 5am (5pm CST).

9. Udong: Well, it started like this.  David texted me at noon on Sunday "Is it too late for Udong?" Having gone to bed at 5am the answer was undoubtedly "yes." A half-second re-thought prompted us to meet an hour later at Central Market for a mini-adventure trip to 

Udong, Cambodia's old capital 38ish kms outside of Phnom Penh.   With 10,000 riel bus tickets, baked pastries for breakfast, and water bottles in hand, we hoped on the bus and were deposited by the driver near the temple.  A quick moto-dop ride later we found ourselves in front of 509 steps leading up to the temple at the top of the mountain (okay- small mountain). 10 steps later we also found ourselves escorted by 5 Cambodian kids. The leader of the pact, a 10 year old future multilingual savvy tour guide with gorgeous eyes took it upon himself to relate the historic importance of the temple (half of which I understood as he tried to remember probably what his school had taught him to say) and the monumental importance                                         

of the closeness of his school and straight fact that he had to pay his teacher to go to school (very common here). Upward we went, snapping photographs and taking in the scenery: the Cambodian country flatness, the Chinese garment factory at a distance, the Buddhist institute near by, the rocky trail of temples along the hill. We purchased flowers and incense to present to Buddha and the kids showed us how to light the yellow candles and burn wax on the bottom to make them stand just righ

t, even after they told us we could just say we were Christian.  Trudging along older temple

s, we encountered an amusing fertility monkey statue, a white clay little Buddha that looked like a kid had molded it to shape, and a lot of elderly folk that "are too old and cannot work" so they beg for alms, according to our guide.  To avoid the hoards of sellers on the steps on our way down, they took us down the "old steps" that crumbled beneath the encroaching foliage. In the end, David and I were a little apprehensive as to how to exactly pay our guides for our delightful

and informative visit.  Would money do? What about ice snow cones or drinks?  We settled on cold drinks all around to be enjoyed next to a monkey foraging through a garbage can full of plastic bags of rice and old corn husks, and paid them a couple thousand Riel each for their services. Who knows... Maybe the money did go to their teacher for school or to their parents or for the purchase of another cold drink. Either way, I remember it being nice treat to receive money from my parents when I worked hard for something. 

10. I am addicted to National Geographic and its

sister channels. The other day I watched Mega Structures on Dubai's Palm Island, Diego Buñuel's: Don't Tell My Mother I'm In (Iran), and Gorilla Murders (in the DRC). This is better than watching CNN's three-hour long NEWS reporting on MJ's funeral. Unfortunately, we don't get the BBC.  Also, our T.V. image sometimes goes down to one line as opposed to a full screen. This is easily remedied by hitting the T.V. in the back at just the right spot with measured force. 

11. I just returned from a self-indulgent hour of sanity at Monument Books. "Sanity" is ironic seeing as the price of one Harvard Review is $35, The Economist $9, and your assortment of female magazines priced at over $15 per issue.  With overpriced books in this littl

e bookstore on Norodom Street, the high cost of knowledge couldn't be presented more clearly.  Either way, my need for some reading materials from the outside world is probably a symptom of a disease that has haunted me all my life: restlessness. It comes with the itchiness of wanting to do a million things and doing just one or two. I list, plan, sometimes act, most of the times dream and in between read. Funny enough, I always feel guilty sitting at Monument Books. I sit there, wondering why I've paid $1.75 for a LAvazza cappuccino, a/c and the ability to hold (and browse) a new book in my hands, when I can very well just go to Central market and grab coffee for 2000 Riels in a plastic bag and not deal with feeling like the wealthier 1% of the population in this country.  I enjoy both: the street plastic bag coffee and the tea-room-like coffee cafe. As always I'm caught in between. Some call it flexibility, or adaptability. I call it confusing.  As my dad once said, "You come from a generation that wants to save the world with an ipod in hand."  Maybe it's true... I feel it happening- the whole clash of economics thing. I can't really help wanting both "me time" with a good book and cup of coffee and a moto-dop waiting or me when I leave the store, as much as I can't help wanting to go for a good walk to the market and interact with other people as I find the right stall selling the best Khmer coffee. Such is life.

12. I'm confused. The title of one of the songs on our next CD Album translates to "Boasty Boy." What exactly does that mean?

13. It really is a shame not being a man, and the injustices and inequalities of being a woman. For instance, I cannot get my hair cut on the sidewalk by a barber. Also, I cannot go number 1 on the sidewalk next to a wall. 

14. The composer's name is Sam Pety. I just found out because I needed to quote him on a Press Release.  

15. Also, today I explained the differences to him between the warmth of the Latin American culture and the reserved attitudes of the British. This explanation came after he said he liked how I was more open and smiley.  Of course at the time I was bursting out in laughter after reading the titles "Boasty Boy", "Peasant's Heart" and "I'll Leave You."  Honestly, the dramatics here could rival Latin American novelas sometimes. On another note, I watched a S. Korean drama the other day and thoroughly enjoyed the long stares.

16. Last night I was told that the dogs thrashing about the aluminum roofs are actually rats. Lovely.

The 4th of July, Just Like a Circus

On July 4th, Phnom Penh pretty much went about its daily business. I still worked half a day on a Saturday as usual, the

traffic was still crazy, Cambodian kids went to school, but for about 1,300 people, half of which were American, the 4th was a day when you could get corn dogs at the American Embassy.  

Throughout the world, wherever there is an

American Embassy, the Embassy throws two types of parties, a formal and an informal one. The formal one is for diplomats, dignitaries and the like, while the informal one is for you, me and if I had them, my Cambodian spouse and child. Not that I work for the American Embassy, but from what I gathered, preparing for a 4th of July event abroad is pretty much a circus, which as it turned out, was also the theme for this year's Cambodian 4th.  

For some reason or another, during my time here I have also signed up to volunteer as the "Media Contact" for the non-profit, Democrats Abroad 

(all over the world as well) which comes with the job of writing press releases and volunteering at events like the 4th of July. So this July, I found myself helping set up a bamboo structure and booth for DemsAbroad at the American Embassy, next to the military vets and Swensen's Ice Cream.   

The gardens of the embassy were transformed to allow a gigantic white, star-spangled tent to shelter the party-goers from the rain (and it did rain at one point).  A good punk-looking, Khmer band rocked out to American pop-songs (including the Brittney Spears Circus song) as acrobats and clowns made their way through the crowd, performing at will to the delight of the strange-crowd of American citizens.  NGO workers, English teachers, Marines, Embassy people, a white monk in costume,  and your typical over-weight white male in a Hawaiian flower button-down, paraded around

the grounds, licking strawberry, chocolate or vanilla ice cream cones, chowing down on huge cheeseburgers, taking part in hot-dog eating contests, and drinking beer.  

You could also get fake-twizzlers at the USA Donuts booth.  Sadly, there were no fireworks this year.  Tim blamed it on the economy. I spent most of my time trying to sell Obama Cambodia tee-shirts (which are actually

pretty cool), trying to get people to come to a July 16th DemsAbroad meeting on health care policy reform for Americans living overseas, and sneaking away to hang out with friends. 

It was a good 4th, though family picnics and small-town parades and fireworks were greatly missed.