Angkor Wat and Seam Reap

Angkor Wat and Seam Reap

Visiting Angkor Wat one cannot help but think of Shelley's Ozymandias. It is a clear and awesome testimony to the power of a past age. One can only imagine how many people it took to construct it and how many servants and workers and minions were running around each day to maintain it and those for whom it was built.

Probably due to the climate and the fact that it was in large part overgrown by jungle for many centuries, it is remarkably well preserved right down to the intricate carvings of Hindu dancers on door posts and depictions of myths and legends of Hindu gods and goddesses on walls that stretch for 100 meters in some places. At the opposite end of this detail is the massive grandeur of the huge temples and palaces with their winding corridors and inner chambers, some of them now holding Buddhist statues reflecting the cultural and religious evolution that has gone on in Cambodia since the building of Angkor Wat. One can only go and see. Further attemps at description seem futile.

Seam Reap is totally a tourist town, but the tourism in Cambodia, at least in Seam Reap, is much better organized than that of Viet Nam. Getting in the country is easy and efficient and one does not need a visa beforehand. There are child peddlers but they are more polite and less aggressive and one does not have the feeling of being taken all the time. Outright beggars are noticeably fewer than in Viet Nam.

We rented a taxi for a complete day for $25 US to tour Angkor Wat. Like everyone, the taxi driver had story. I relate it to the reader not knowing how much is embellishment. His English was quite good because he had studied until the 11th grade when he dropped out after his mother died. His father was killed during Khmer Rouge times because he was a military officer with the previous regime. One of his sisters died for lack of medical care. He said that the family could have taken her to Viet Nam for better treatment but could not afford it. He has a bit of land in the countryside outside of Seam Reap and a small house that he rents out. He is married with two daughters, one 5 years old and the other just 9 months. He says that nowadays in Cambodia some people have 10 or 12 children, but in such cases they are not likely to get much if any education. He estimates that now only about 40% of children go to school as far as high school even though it's free. His wife stays at home to run the house, which is a good bit of work due to childcare, daily shopping, cooking with wood and such things. (Indeed, in the morning and evening in particular one can easily see and smell the evidence of cooking stoves that burn wood.)

He said that he voted for Hun Sen in the last election and there will be another election in the fall, but he's not happy with Hun Sen now because he didn't do what he said. Now there's a familiar theme! Western style democracy has taken hold in Cambodia. Already there are campiagn billboards and posters everywhere on sides of roads and many political party offices. The driver also said that there is a gap between how rural and urban people vote. Though I am not in a positon to explain the reasons in terms of the Cambodian situation, there is little surprise that such a situation would exist, for as in China all the countries of SE Asia are seeing the effects of the incursions of foreign money and a "modern" capitalist economy, but the beneficiaries are in the minority. Relations with Viet Nam, according to our driver, are now good, but during the Viet Nam-Cambodian war of 1978, the Vietnamese did come all the way to Seam Reap and there was serious fighting there. When the Vietnamese left in the 80s, he says, they took with them whatever they could carry—wood, resources, cultural treasures, etc.

He works whenever and as often as he can but it varies a lot. He plans to pay off his car—a Toyota Camry—in about 2 more years. Work is hard to find and lots of people come to Seam Reap for the tourist work. He said lots also go to Thailand and may work there for years only to get shaken down by Cambodian police at the border when they return and be left with absolutely nothing even to the point where they have to walk back to their home villages. Relations are still bad with Thailand due to the refugee situation and the existence of refugee camps there, continuing effects of the Viet Nam war long forgotten by Americans.

On the way out of Angkor, we ran into a Shanghai Chinese who owned a tourist business back in Shanghai. He was visiting Angkor for the first time to scope the place out as a possible destination for well-heeled Chinese who could afford this kind of travel. However, he was pissing and moaning that "this culture has nothing interesting," just "these stones" as he characterized Angkor Wat, and the accommodations and food were not good. Yes, I said sarcastically, I know Chinese people hanker after physical comfort (贪舒服) and wouldn't be inerested in such a place. The worst was his tone of voice and facial expression, which made no attempt to hide the old arrogance of the Chinese toward Southeast Asia combined with the new arrogance of the Chinese nouveau riche. There will be ever more of it in coming years. Of course, what he's looking for is speical food—the #1 Chinese pleasure—along with people to kiss his upper class ass.

Koreans are everywhere too, and according to the driver they own many businesses and are very demanding employers. Korean language is on many shops, hotels and restaurants. I went into one restaurant to scout around and was told in Korean accented English that there was no menu probably because they primarily serve Korean tour groups. Across the street there's a minimart named Kim's and every product inside is Korean except the local beer. Maybe Seam Reap is an easy flight from Seoul and an attractive place to come to in winter. It might not be the whole story because there was a restaurant named Pyongyang too. I can't imagine well-to-do South Koreans flocking to a place with that name.

The books in Viet Nam and Cambodia in English about the wars there seem to appeal to liberal guilt or interest—Viet Nam's suffering or Pol Pot's murders, but in Cambodia there is nothing at all that I could see about the incredible US bombing there and how it drove many Cambodians into the arms of the Khmer Rouge as recounted in William Shawcross's Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia (1979). Most of the books on display in the hotels in Seam Reap were published by a Silkworm Press out of Australia, about whom I know nothing.

The young woman working at the hotel gift shop had pretty decent English, which she had studied for one year after high school. Now she is studying to be an account. I complimented her on being clever and having a good plan for the future. If she gets a nice 9 to 5 job doing accounting in an international tourist business of some sort, she should do quite well.

We visited silkworm raising and silk painting businesses run by the Cambodian government. They were started in 1992 and are now self-supporting. Some of the workers were deaf-mutes but most were able bodied. Salary is based on total sales in the shop. There are now 9 or so such places in the Seam Reap area mostly out of town and one of the goals of the program is to keep so many people from streaming into the city.

US dollars are the coin of the realm here. You can even use them in small markets or restaurants and get your change in USD or local money. While in Seam Reap, I overheard interpreters in English, French, German, Spanish, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and others that I didn't recognize or can't remember. It seems that everyone in Seam Reap has a little English even in somewhat out of the way places. The young woman who was our guide in the silkworm farm gave us a competent tour in English but kept apologizing because French was her first foreign language. All of this puts Americans to shame. All over SE Asia I had conversations in English with Europeans, who probably have some competence in another foreign language as well. Of course, these are upper class people who have money to travel and had the advantage of a high quality education back home. Nevertheless, most of the Cambodian interpreters were in their early or mid 20s at most, evidence of what hard work can accomplish—for economic motivation to be sure, but in any case something that few Americans are willing to do for the purpose of talking to those who are different for whatever reason.