midnight pumpkin - it's all just a dream

Mixed Feelings

As I stand in awe at the majestic Temples of Angkor, I have mixed feelings about Cambodia, its people and my experience here. Although my experience here has been very much positive, as the people are friendly and helpful, it’s the government and Cambodia’s ugly history that make everything bittersweet for me.

A bit of history for the unfamiliar, in 1975 after a bloody civil war started by the US government, Pol Pot and the Kmer Rouge seized control of Cambodia. With the magnificent Temples of Angkor as divine inspiration, Pol Pot became obsessed with returning the country to the time that created the spectacular stone structures. By force, he emptied the cities and forced the people into the countryside, places now known and aptly named the killing fields. Determined to secure his power, Pol Pot and the Kmer Rouge proceeded to commit mass genocide on a grand scale. As a communist, a racist and a paranoid lunatic, he chose to direct his genocide at the wealthy, the business and land owners, the ethnic Chinese, and anyone with the ability to read, write or who wore glasses. An estimated four million people, half the population, were massacred with such viscious speed, mass graves overflowed and the killing fields today are littered with human remains that children play in.

All the while the world did nothing. In 1978, the Vietnamese army defeated the Kmer Rouge after the Kmer Rouge stupidly tried to expand the Kmer Empire to its former glory against the much larger, better trained, better equip, battle tested Vietnamese army. But even after the defeat, the Kmer Rouge stayed in power and was even given Cambodia’s seat on the UN council, in spite of the worlds knowledge of what occurred. No military tribunals, nothing for the countless crimes against humanity that were committed, even after the Kmer Rouge was overthrown in 1990. Pol Pot finally died of old age in 1998 at the age of 73, as is happening to the rest of generals and masterminds of that era that committed the genocide of over four million people. This is the equivalent of allowing Hitler and Himmler to retain power after WWII, giving them Germany’s seat on the UN council, than allowing them to die of old age as wealthy retired politicians.

That era, several simple years, has left Cambodia permanently in shambles. It has the highest number of landmines in the world (most of them American), and as a result the highest number of amputations in the world (a contributing reason for my entrance into prosthetics). The illiteracy rate is astronomical, as anyone who could read, write or even think was killed or left the country, leaving no one capable of teaching. Outside of the money generated from tourists coming to Angkor Wat, the people live in extreme poverty and neither the people nor government has any other major source of revenue.

All of this is a horrible sad history, but what makes me bitter is that this touches me personally. As I doubt anyone other than family know I’m technically from Cambodia. Although I’m Chinese and was born in the US, my parents were born in Cambodia. My grandparents were wealthy land and business owners in Cambodia, who paid to have my parents, aunts and uncles well educated until the Kmer Rouge took power. I have never known three of my grandparents plus numerous aunts, uncles and other relatives because of Pol Pot and the Kmer Rouge. My parents and family that did survive escaped as refugees and are now spread throughout the world. The refugee camp I visited in Palau Batam Indonesia was where an aunt of my stayed after months in one of those dinghy’s with almost no food or water. My parents sacrificed everything they had to bring my family to America as refugees and sacrifice even more to raise and educate my siblings and myself, and for that I thank them. I would also like to apologize to my parents and grandmother, because I know I’ve always been one of those bratty teenager types that didn’t care about my past and where I came from, much of this story I’ve only pieced together recently while visiting family on the road.

In addition to this extremely personal bit of me, which I’ve had serious reservations about posting online, Cambodia today makes me more bitter. The people don’t care about what happened. Half their population purposely decimated, and there are zero monuments in the country to remember and mourn the past. More than half the population in Cambodia today is under the age of 15, and overall, the people just don’t give a damn about what happened. Out of sight, out of mind! The country use to have a significant Chinese population, that primarily spoke the unusual, rather uncommon dialect of Chinese I speak, but on my visit there was no one left for me to speak too. Finally, the people are still racist against the Chinese, particularly in the military bureaucracy that I had to deal with to get into and out of the country. I was definitely not treated like a normal American tourist as soon as they found out I was Chinese with Cambodian origins.

Regardless of all this, the Temples of Angkor are amazing and are a world heritage site everyone should experience in their life. With that, I present to you the magnificent Temples of Angkor.

posted by Jim Chea @ 5:41 AM