Cambodia Retrospective

This is a follow-up post to the Vietnam Retrospective. Our travel group visited Vietnam and Cambodia in one long trip.

The 4th day after our experiences in Vietnam, we left to explore its neighboring country, Cambodia. We met our tour guides, Tana and Untac, both of whom, I would find, are great conversationalists and very knowledgeable concerning Cambodian history.

As I would learn more about, Cambodia has a bloody recent history like Vietnam. Our tour covered two sites from the Khmer Rouge, S-21/Tuol Sleng and the Choeung Ek Killing Fields, which were once places where some of the worst crimes known to humanity were committed.  However, on the other hand, our group also was able to learn and experience how Cambodia is growing stronger as a nation and changing in the wake of the Cambodian genocide. I was especially happy to see the persistence of traditional Cambodian art and culture through the efforts of Cambodian Living Arts, an organization that teaches young Cambodians traditional art and music to keep Cambodian culture alive.

We started our journey in Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia and a site of great joy and previously, sorrow.

A view of Phnom Penh from our hotel. 

Our group was able to visit S-21 or Tuol Sleng, a former high school that was converted into a prison camp by the Khmer Rouge. To illustrate the brutality of the torture and killing that occurred here, out of the approximately 20,000 prisoners held there over its operation, only 7 people are confirmed survivors, one of which (Bou Meng) is willing to talk to visitors about his life at the museum itself.

A view of Tuol Sleng from the shade of a tree. This building is a good representation of S-21's overall design. Barbed wire over the building is visible here if you look closely.

I asked about the name of the camp in a question to our tour guides, and they proceded to define "tuol" in a manner that I haven't seen captured online. "Tuol" is translated as hill, loosely, but what I gleaned from what the guides said was that "tuol" more precisely refers to an elevated spot that allows building in times of flooding, so ironically, it carries the meaning of a "safe haven" from high water in a sense. 

Reading about the Khmer Rouge didn't prepare me for seeing S-21 in person at all. The sights at Tuol Sleng were especially graphic and unfiltered compared to other sites along the trip. As a student, it hurt me to see tools that were used for entertainment or learning as forms of torture. For example, some of the pull-up bars present on the playground were used for a form of water torture (as described by Vann Nath, an artist that miraculously survived Tuol Sleng), and the classrooms themselves were used for interrogation and torture. Seeing the interior of the prison was shocking for me, too, as in some parts of the prison, there are bloodstains visible on the ground. I didn't personally see this, but a chaperone on our tour even mentioned seeing handprints on a wall, likely of prisoners trying in vain to escape.

One exhibit that was particularly shocking to me dealt with medicine in the Khmer Rouge. Since during the genocide, intellectuals and doctors were targeted, there were no trained professionals to tend to the wounded normally. Those who acted as "doctors" were tasked with keeping prisoners alive just to prolong their time to write confessions. They were trained crudely, with anatomy lessons being taught with live animals and even dissecting prisoners alive. When tasked, these "doctors" would also drain the blood from live prisoners for the later use of soldiers and authorities in the Khmer Rouge up to the point of killing the prisoners themselves. The pills that were given to people by those doctors were duds; they contained leaves and maybe sugar, and otherwise, no medicine was available to those who were suffering. Since showing one's suffering through emotion was considered highly taboo under the Khmer Rouge regime, I doubt many doctors recognized the depths of despair some prisoners were in.

An idea that our group discussed in detail that I would like to emphasize here is the hypocrisy of the Khmer Rouge that was particularly evident in the Tuol Sleng museum.
The first point of hypocrisy present in the Khmer Rouge has to do with its formation. What I and others found so surprising about the foundation of the Khmer Rouge was that the movement started from Pol Pot, a French (and therefore, Western) educated intellectual proposed a radical, abstract idea for altering the social structure in Cambodia, which runs counter to the central principles of the Khmer Rouge, a system that frowns upon intellectuals, who are perceived as "corrupted" by the West, and lauds "base people," ethnic Cambodian farmers who are seen as a more powerful people. The other lies in the moral code that torturers had to practice: they would be punished if someone they were torturing died under their watch. Under the guidelines of torture, Comrade Duch, the one in charge of Tuol Sleng's operations, would punish those torturers who allowed a prisoner to die under their watch with being sentenced to the same fate as a prisoner themselves. It seems so disingenuous to me to try to uphold a moral standard in a place so immoral as to painstakingly extract and document false confessions of largely innocent prisoners with no intent of granting them mercy from a bloody death.

Something that I saw near the end of my visit to Tuol Sleng had me thinking for much of the trip. When I was leaving a message in a book near the exit of the museum, I saw that someone from Canada had left a message incriminating America for its role in funding the Khmer Rouge's regime. I can't remember the rest of the message he left, but I do know that he ended it with the words "May Americans hang their heads in shame." It's hard to interact with an issue that precedes your birth by decades and I suppose, feel responsible for the event happening. The Cambodian genocide previous to this trip felt very distant to me. The US' role in helping the Khmer Rouge predates my personal history in the United States, and most of my parents' as well. I also know no Cambodians or anyone that had any relation to US officials involved. I suppose the problem lies in how we as Americans can act on this feeling of "guilt" that others put on us for our role in funding the wrong people. (We've done this way too many times to have this be a one time thing. America's practice of funding bad actors starts early in our history and continues to the present day.) It feels like an issue that we as civilians have little power to address, and it really is. The best thing to do may be petitioning the government for change or protest, though that still isn't completely satisfying. I think this visit has had impact on how I view myself as an American citizen as well as a world traveler.

Tuol Sleng, along with the Killing Fields, is one of the hardest things that I have had to see. The records that the museum has kept tell a brutal and intensely personal story of human suffering that no textbook could convey. It's really hard not to think of what would happen if you and your relatives were in a situation like this, and how you might handle a similar situation. Throughout my trip to Cambodia, I've gotten a great impression of many Cambodians: they've treated us foreigners with kindness and dignity. It truly goes to show that a human tragedy can happen in any nation, no matter the circumstances.

Our group also was able to visit the Choeung Ek Killing Fields, a place where many were routinely slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge. To me, it was especially hard to hear the narrator of the Killing Fields audio tour introduce the tour by expressing the idea that some of his close relatives and friends would either be dead or never be seen again. That made me very emotional, to see someone completely at the mercy of something so terrible, and to be stuck that way perhaps until the end of their life. Experiencing the Killing Fields didn't evoke such a visceral reaction in me initially because of how oddly calming the environment is. However, the occurrences described by the audio guide would definitely help to break that lull. Seeing the Killing Fields and imagining what it must have been like for the victims of the Khmer Rouge was very difficult. (dehumanization taken to logical extreme with killing victims in a systematic way) I remember in particular seeing the Magic Tree, a large tree featuring prominent holes that was used as a way to amplify sound. Khmer Rouge musicians were tasked with playing their instruments and joyfully singing, using the tree to mask the screams of those sentenced to death by the regime. (This is an important idea that I'll revisit later.) While the brutality wasn't depicted directly, seeing the Killing Tree was also very emotional for me. The Killing Tree was a tree used by the Khmer Rouge to kill innocent children by bludgeoning them against the tree itself. Why use such a brutal method? The Khmer Rouge was perpetually short on resources. To use a bullet on an infant was considered wasteful. Additionally, the Khmer Rouge used a particularly brutal method of execution, where they would execute babies in front of mothers before killing the mothers themselves. It is baffling to me how people can bring themselves to commit such heinous crimes without letting slip any expression of guilt. Not only does this practice of execution used in the Killing Fields treat those doomed without respect, it destroys the psyches of the executioners and desensitizes a nation to death.

The environment isn't as peaceful as you would think, either. There are still undiscovered bones in sections of the Killing Fields that visitors aren't allowed to explore, and likely small bone fragments still scattered around where visitors can see. Before its conversion into a site of remembrance, the Killing Fields were a horror to behold. This was covered by the audio guide: the exceptionally unlucky farmer who stumbled upon the Choeung Ek killing fields on accident was confronted with an awful stench, that of rotting flesh, and upon further exploration, would find mass open graves with countless corpses inside. Think of what it must have been like to have been responsible for discovering such a place! The psychological burden upon those that work closely with the fields must be significant as well. Forensics experts who document information concerning the victims of the Killing Fields handle skulls regularly, which used to belong to people just like us.

Last on the visit to the Killing Fields was the Memorial Stupa, a building dedicated to honoring those victims of the Khmer Rouge. A prominent feature of the stupa is the usage of Buddhist symbolism, depicting the garuda (a divine bird in Hindu mythology) and the naga (a divine serpent) together. Both are usually mortal enemies, but when depicted as a package, symbolize peace.
The interior, however, was quite shocking for me. Inside the stupa is a large column of glass, filled with skulls of the victims. Each skull is meticulously marked with symbols denoting their age and manner of death. What was particularly hard to see was the way in which people were killed (which could be identified based on the trauma to the skulls). The large majority of people suffered blunt-force related deaths, with hoes and weapons used to strike the head.

The Khmer Rouge, responsible for prison camps like S-21 and killings like those which happened at the Choeung Ek Killing Fields, has dramatically changed the face of Cambodia and its demographics. Now a nation becoming something new after the killings of trained individuals, a certain few fight to keep the spirit of Cambodia alive through culture and through teaching. Enter Cambodian Living Arts, an organization devoted to teaching the youth of Cambodia traditional Cambodian art.

Our group met with Cambodian Living Arts several times and participated in their dance and music workshop, where we got a feel for traditional Cambodian art forms.

Here's the music workshop. Our group was able to experiment with traditional Cambodian instruments here. I'm at the back in the picture because there were a limited amount of instruments available at one time. 

This is a picture of our teachers during the Dance Workshop. Here, we learned traditional hand motions that dancers practice, as well as more contemporary forms of dance. 

Our group also had the distinct honor of being able to travel with Arn Chorn Pond, the founder of Cambodian Living Arts and co-author of Never Fall Down, a critically acclaimed book, on his Magic Music Bus. I was quite touched by the word choice that went into the title of the bus. Earlier, the Magic Tree was named so because of its property to amplify music. Here, the title of Magic Music Bus calls into play the same idea: that music is a form of magic that makes life more enjoyable. It completely turns around the negative connotation associated with the tree and turns the underlying idea into something that can be used for positive change, which I thought was genius. (In a similar vein, the title "Cambodian Living Arts" has a lot of symbolic meaning as well in the term "living." It was quite inspirational to me to see that title: to see that traditional Cambodian art has "lived" and persisted despite the almost insurmountable odds.) 

Musicians from the Khmer Magic Music Bus performing to a school. Mr. Pond is the one center right wearing a green shirt and krama.

What our group ended up discussing concerning the visit to a school that we did with the Magic Music Bus had to do with how the event ran counter to our expectations. As a group, we were given very little information on how the visit to the school was supposed to go. The tour guides also were in the same position: they had never led an event like this before and had little frame of reference. How Mr. Pond phrased the visit made it seem like we were going to have a different experience than we actually did: he said that we would be sitting with the kids. Instead, what happened was we were given separate seating. What you can't see in this picture is where our school group was seated. We were in a garage with more space than the kids had, isolated from the rest of the crowd, and behind the performers (The picture above was taken from around where we were seated.) This made some members of the group feel guilt for being there. It felt in a way like our school group was a group of "white saviors," or rather, we were being held on a pedestal, which didn't feel right. It felt as if we were coming to the school to alleviate their problems as a higher power instead of approaching the school as equals. After the performance was over, we danced a bit with the kids, and the kids were being so nice to us students. One member of our travel group remarked that the praise they were getting didn't feel earned in any way, and instead should be directed at the performers if anyone. Another variable that came out of the blue was a camera crew that was present with Mr. Pond's permission, that was recording the experience ostensibly as part of a "world-tour" type documentary. One member of the crew in particular didn't treat the kids well, I felt (and so did other members of our travel group), and seemed he was just interested in getting material for a film instead of the performance itself. I feel that next time Poly hosts an event like this, there should be more transparency in the trip, lest students in the group have a negative reaction to what was a very positive experience for the performers and the students. 

In Siem Reap, our group was also able to learn about the past and futures of Cambodia, this time, from an educational perspective. 

Siem Reap itself is a city quite unlike Phnom Penh. While Siem Reap isn't the capital of Cambodia like Phnom Penh, it in some aspects is more luxurious. I was quite shocked at the overall appearance of Siem Reap. Despite its population (which is around Glendale's at 200,000 people), Siem Reap has some of the most dramatic contrasts between wealth and poverty I have ever seen. It was really quite strange to see. The streets look somewhat like Phnom Penh, but as you get closer to the city center, massive hotels of the highest quality appear everywhere. I probably couldn't count the amount of hotels I saw on a short tuk-tuk ride on both hands, even. In other words, Siem Reap was probably the largest tourist-oriented city I've seen. 

Siem Reap is so developed in the aspect of hotels and tourism because it is home to one of the "7 Wonders of the World," Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world, and Angkor Park, a large plot of land that holds many more temples than Angkor Wat, including the Bayon and Ta Prohm temples, which are also quite famous. 

Since it really isn't a trip to Siem Reap without visiting Angkor Wat, that was basically the first thing we did (We couldn't do much else the first day there because of a canceled airplane flight...). 

The sunrise at Angkor Wat. Given that it was a cloudy day, the sunrise was different than what the group had expected.

The travel group exploring the interior of Angkor Wat. 

Angkor Wat definitely met my wildest expectations. Seeing pictures and reading about it really don't do it justice at all. The amount of labor and care put into designing this temple are staggering. The interior of every portion of the temple is decorated with detailed patterns or figures that aren't made by any kind of mold or device, but by sheer labor. I was wondering about this until I took a closer look at one pillar with extensive repeating flower designs, which upon closer inspection, differ slightly from the last. It is ridiculous how much design went into every aspect of the temple. You can see in the picture above some cosmetic pillars on the walls. Those serve literally no purpose structurally yet have much attention paid to their regularity and similarity. Angkor Wat differs from other massive structures built by ancient civilizations in the artistic aspect, I'd say. It is far and away the structure in the world that required the most skilled labor, I'd say, while other structures are significantly less detailed (yet require a large degree of physical labor to move stone, etc.) 

Ta Nei Temple. While not one of the most famous, it was still definitely worth visiting.

Our group also got to visit Ta Nei Temple, one of the smaller religious temples in Angkor Park. It was great to observe the architecture of the temple and to see a bit more of how wildlife interacts with the architecture of the temples. (Notice trees growing within the temple, this will be a continuing theme with Ta Prohm temple.)

Bayon Temple.

Bayon Temple was a great visit as well. While Angkor Wat exhibits symmetry down the middle, Bayon exhibits radial symmetry. It's very satisfying in terms of design, and if you look at the positions of the towers that compose the temple, they form the shape of a blooming lotus flower. Our group also got a nice lecture on the creator of the temple, Jayavarman VII, or J7 for short. He's the GOAT. He pushed for better social conditions during his reign and improved education for all. 

Ta Prohm, or the "Tomb Raider" temple, was also built by J7. It's a temple that was dedicated to his mother, and J7 built it before he built his own temple. Best son of all time right there. The trees in the Ta Nei temple have nothing on Ta Prohm. Ta Prohm is a temple that has a lot of incorporation with nature, intentional or otherwise. There's a location where a massive tree grows from the temple and is basically incorporated into it. 

It looks super cool. (Unfortunately, this tree has a large parasitic tree growing off of it. I'm not an expert, but if the original tree dies...) This is a big problem for many temples in Angkor Park, though. Trees cause damage to temples but are annoying to remove. You have to keep the roots intact if possible during tree removal, which is no small feat. For famous temples like Ta Prohm, it's hard to remove trees because of the potential repercussions. 

During our trip in Siem Reap, we also got to see the future of Cambodian Education at the PEPY program, which educates college-age students in English. A discussion among the group and the tour guides preceded this, however, in which we discussed the state of education in Cambodia, and in Siem Reap specifically. Due to the effects of the Khmer Rouge and Cambodian culture, 16% of K-12 teachers have college degrees. Many drop out of K-12 education partly because of encouragement from their parents to farm or immigrate to Thailand, where many are exploited for cheap labor. Unfortunately, many parents who are small farmers don't see the long-term benefits of education as worth pursuing when considering the opportunity costs of educating children. Also, not every state/province has universities in the first place, which can add to costs for travel. There are issues with the teaching itself, as there isn't enough time allotted throughout the year to teach all of the material required. Our tour guide told us that he stayed back grades just to be properly informed on some of the material covered during his childhood. Another factor that gets overlooked: 36% of schools don't have public bathrooms at all! This can be a large factor in students' education (especially if they're female) as school takes place over long periods (4 hour stretches) without any sort of break. For this reason, there is a disproportionate amount of males getting educated as compared to females in higher education. I was inspired by the students I met at PEPY, who succeeded despite the educational odds they faced. My pen pal was great to talk to. Despite only having learned English for 6 months, her command of the language was conversational, and I could talk to her about goals in life and the American education system. We're still keeping in contact now, which is wonderful. 

I greatly enjoyed my trip to Vietnam and Cambodia and would recommend it to all students looking to learn about the history of East Asia, and all Americans. I'd like to thank the Global Initiatives Program for providing the opportunity to travel these two countries and our guides, Mr. Hau, Untac, and Tana.