Andrew Turco - A year in Cambodia

On Friday, I went to the “hospital” (the international medical clinic) to get a splinter removed. I thought they were going to laugh me out of the office when I first arrived, but I had unfortunately gotten a nice selection of splinters from one of the wooden doors at school the day before and still felt some in my hand even if I couldn’t see them to get them out. Anyway, I went, and in my defense, it took the doctor thirty minutes to get the rest of them out. But at the end of the visit, the doctor did keep asking if there was anything else I had come in for. In a classic experience of going to a non-native English speaking doctor who was seeing an English-speaking patient, he asked me a few times how to say certain things while he was writing up my report after the visit. Does anyone know what the part of your hand between your thumb and index finger is actually called?

Anyway, I figured I’d take this entry to give an update on some random things I haven’t yet gotten to write about, as well as some experiences from the past couple of days. My biggest find for the week is an art gallery/bar that Brendan told me about that shows outdoor movies on its rooftop terrace on a regular basis. It’s about two blocks from where we’re hoping to soon live (more on the whole apartment saga at some other time), and it has a breezy rooftop bar with plants, a quiet view of the surrounding parks, and a bunch of comfy couches. I went to my first movie there with Alexis, Lea, and Brendan when they were in town on Thurs night. We climbed to the top of the four flights of stairs and were excited to see how nice it felt with the breeze and the twinkling decorative lights at night. We got there a little late and were looking for any available seats or stools when, all of a sudden, we looked at each other and realized that we were four English speakers who had just stumbled upon a Turkish movie being shown with German subtitles in the middle of Cambodia. Think about that one. There wasn’t much we could do, so we headed out soon after. But I went back last night with Mel and think I’m going to make the rooftop outdoor movies part of my regular routine.

For some reason, I haven’t remembered to mention on the blog so far that I’ve gotten to know a Princeton woody woo grad student who’s here for the year working at the Clinton Foundation and who was an ‘04 undergraduate. It’s been great to be able to hang out with her during my time here so far, and we actually started taking Khmer lessons together with a teacher named Sokha. Although we’re going to start learning how to read and write Khmer soon, we’re starting by getting down some of the basics: directions, bargaining, introductions, numbers, food, etc. The sounds are very different than those in English, but I think the language is actually doable. It feels good to walk out of our sessions and be able to say a few additional phrases or words in my day-to-day life. We’ve been meeting on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays during lunch time, and towards the end of our longer, hour and a half Friday session, either me or Rabia are usually cracking ourselves up as we’re tired from the week and are usually trying to pronounce a word that just inherently sounds funny to us after unsuccessfully attempting to say it ten times.

A while ago, Brendan and I went to grab a drink at a bar called Ruby’s, a cozy bar in my favorite neighborhood of the city, on the corner of Streets 19 and 240. It’s a fairly popular meeting place for expats who live here, and when we got there, Brendan and I sat down, ordered drinks, and started chatting. After about five minutes, the owner came over and introduced herself when she overheard us mentioning Rabia. Apparently, lots of people from the Clinton Foundation stop in there regularly, and she knew Rabia. She apologized for ease dropping and then explained that she hadn’t said hi earlier because she thought we were European and didn’t speak English. She had apparently checked with her Khmer bartender after we ordered to make sure that she had understood what we wanted, worried that we were all communicating in “our” second languages of English. I was thoroughly amused and decided to continue “acting European” for the rest of the night.

On the eating front, it’s equally common to use either a fork and spoon or chop sticks here, but I’ve noticed that when people use forks and spoons, they never actually put the fork in their mouths. They usually just use the fork to put stuff on their plate from a shared dish or to push things onto their spoon. Also, another thing that I’ve noticed is that it is very cool to play music from your cell phone here and that, every night I go out or pass a teenager sitting on a front step listening to his cell phone, I hear either the hip-hop song “loosen up my buttons, babe” or the 50 Cent song “[unbutton your pants] Just a lil bit.” There must be something about songs with loosening pants lyrics here that are very popular. In other news, I’ve gotten used to driving down the wrong side of the road on a moto and no longer find anything weird about it. Same goes for running red lights as long as no one else is coming. I’ve gotten used to being searched at bars before entering, and I look back in amusement at my personal journal when I mentioned how great it felt to hear loud, familiar American pop music on my first night of really going out. I wrote about how settled I had gotten when I got to the point when I was comfortable enough to want to listen to music again. I’ve also had the experience of meeting a Cambodian at a bar called Pontoon, a great low-key place set on a platform floating in the Mekong. In a somewhat classic interaction, I asked him what he studied in school, since he had explained to me that he was a student, to which he responded “yes.” The only thing that really hasn’t changed is accidentally walking into girly bars. Girly bars are not what their name might seem to suggest. They are not bars painted pink but, instead, are a certain kind of upscale bar that has replaced the formerly more obvious prostitution parlors. Although being here has made me realize how comfortable I have become in potentially embarrassing or otherwise uncomfortable situations, this is one area that has not changed.

Well, I think that’s the end of the random slice of life updates. Because this has been a random entry anyway, I’m going to share my book selection so far, which has certainly had an influence on my experience and which has included “The Tipping Point,” “Old School,” “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” and “Stay Alive, My Son.” I’d recommend “Old School” as simply a great book. It’s a great story about a budding writer at a New England prep school. Additionally, I’d recommend “Stay Alive, My Son,” (which had been recommended to me) for anyone wanting an extremely powerful personal account of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and for anyone wanting to learn about the history of that time.