Southeast-South Asia Reflections

The horrors of Tuol Sleng, Pnom Penh, Cambodia

sarai-sophia — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 05:05:00 GMT

Today, we went to Tuol Sleng Prison in Pnomh Penh, Cambodia. Tuol Sleng is the political prison run by the Khmer Rouge from 1975-79 where at least 20,000 political prisoners were tortured and killed. Having worked in the 80s in Thailand with Khmer, I was unable to come to visit Cambodia at that time because of the war. It was always my intention to come back and visit Cambodia when the war between the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese backed government of Cambodia was over and the Khmer government allowed it. While working in Phanat Nikhom in Thailand, we got to know many Cambodians, Vietnamese, and Laotians. Many of them were traumatized- haunted by the experiences of the long wars that raged through their counties for decades.

I always felt and still feel great sadness for the role we (Americans) played in the rise of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. If it wasn't for the carpet bombing of Cambodia by the US of over 3,000,000 tons ( yes - that is the figure) of bombs in Cambodia in the 60's through 75 (especially the early 70's) and the resulting death of 25% of its population, Pol Pot would likely never have gained power in Cambodia. But his ego driven ideological embrace of racist driven communism led to the extermination of somewhere between 2 and 3 million more people between 1975 and 1979. Tuol Sleng was one of the worst prisons, and as I wandered between cells and torture chambers in horror I pondered about our own personal responsibility as a nation of Americans. Thinking that my own taxes (gleaned in high school and college - small though they were) had supported and perpetrated such horrors upon a people makes me realize the deep importance for us to be a participatory democracy and to make ourselves aware where our tax dollars are spent. Amazingly, Ford, Carter and Reagen played some role in continuing to support Pol Pot even after refugees were escaping Cambodia to tell their horrific stories of genocide inside the borders. The Khmer Rouge were supported by US government largely to punish Vietnam for the perceived sin of communism and for winning the war (we call it the Vietnam War, but they call it the American war.)

As I stool alone in a torture chamber hearing the silent screams of ghosts of the past it also struck me how history repeats itself and that we as a government fail to learn from history so that we do not repeat those mistakes over and over. Think Iraq! We do not understand the landscape of the culture, its history or its hierarchy, but base our own policies in selfish interests based in economics and regional domination driven by economic interest and a desire to dominate a region. I often wonder what would happen if we based international policy largely on humanitarian interests how much better off we'd be.

Two quotes in the exhibit were very profound to me, enough for me to write them down. The first was written by a former inmate from Tuol Sleng. He wrote "reflection on the past is a crucial task for all post-conflict countries because a country that can not face the problems of its past will never have the courage and fortitude to face the problems of the present and the future." I wonder what we have learned from our own reflections?

The second quote was written by a German Ambassador to Cambodia. Baron von Marshall German ambassador to Cambodia in the first decade of this century wrote "This prison reminds us to be wary of people and regimes which ignore human dignity. No particular political goal or ideology however promising, important or desirable it may appear can ever justify a political system in which the dignity of the individual is not respected." As I am so far away from my own home, I ponder with deep concern the policies I see being put forward against many people based on their religion by our new president in America. Pol Pot was a demigod - narcissistic, cruel, disrespectful who came to power with the support of mostly the rural poor people who lacked education, but were promised jobs and prosperity if they just supported this revolutionary change. The press was reviled, then dismantled and replaced by edicts written by Angkor ( the Khmer Rouge leadersh. Education was not valued and those who were educated were targeted for persecution. Freedoms were restricted and obedience was demanded through fear. Families were separated so as to break the bonds of connection. I can't help but to worry that we are doomed to repeat the past unless we learn from it!

I will write another night about Phanat Nikhom and Koh Samed in Thailand, places I lived and hold dear in my heart always. I had an amazing time there but have little energy right now to write about it this moment. For now, it was an exhausting day and rest calls! Hopefully, my sleep will not be interrupted by nightmares and ghosts of the past!

Our journey begins

sarai-sophia — Sun, 15 Jan 2017 11:47:00 GMT

There are always so many lessons to be learned on any of life's varied journeys, some of them beautiful, some of them really painful (some of them excruciating), and some of them simply annoying. But no matter what, each is important, a wrap on the head by the Buddha reminding us to be mindful. The lesson for me this week is to "READ THE DIRECTIONS". All yesterday, I was working on getting our blog up and running in order to let others share in this amazing experience. I spent several hours uploading photos and writing about the first week of our adventures. At one point, as I walked away from my iPad, I came back to find a home screen with my careful rendering of our journey disappeared. On the blog's home page screen, there in plainly capped letters read instructions to "save the page" as after three hours, it would disappear into a netherworld of lost words. And so I begin again, as with so many journeys. We often start them over, taking the lessons of the past in order to turn them into a stronger more resilient life story.

My daughter Sophia and I are on a long journey, traveling to Southeast and South Asia for the next three months. We will not return till mid-late in April. By designs, we chose to miss Minnesota's winter. I love the snow, but not its attendant cold. Sophia graduated from St. Olaf last May, finished her student teaching and passed all exams to become a fully licensed high school biology teacher in the State of Minnesota. Since schools don't hire until late April, it was the perfect time to share with her places that are near to my heart and explore new ones with her. Our adventure begins in Thailand where Jim and I worked in a refugee camp over 30 years ago. It continues through Cambodia and Vietnam where, back in the 80s travel was restricted because of the vestiges of our war in that region. We will then travel to Myanmar (formerly Burma). It is, as yet, less touched by the vestiges of foreign tourists as it is only now attempting to expand their tourism industry. Then on to Nepal where I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the early 80s. Finally, we will join my sister Elizabeth and her boyfriend Barry in India to visit many places that have meaning for all of us. We will walk to where Tom fell on the Milam glacier trek in Northern India and follow the sacred journey along the Ganges that Tom's body took. I also travelled here some 30 plus years ago and was always drawn to the sacredness of the River Ganges. We'll also take a side trip to Rajastan - a place that was always on Jim's bucket list - but regretfully we never came together.

I hope this blog will both inform and entertain. I am encouraging Sophia to write as well. Hopefully it will be an opportunity to reflect and process some of our thoughts and feelings. We welcome your comments.

Review and catching up

sarai-sophia — Thu, 12 Jan 2017 11:41:00 GMT

Let me go back to the beginning since it has taken me some time to get the first blogs out.. We took a flight through China Southern to Chiangmai Mai Thailand via Guangzhou China, where we had a 24 hour layover and transit visa. Jim and I had traveled to Guangzhou some 30 years ago, but the city is unrecognizable to me - filled with glittering skyscrapers and modern transit. Back in the mid 80s, I remember mostly low slung buildings and spare surroundings with the major forms of transit to be bicycles. Back then, most people were still dressed in dull colored Mao jackets and few people drew any unique attention to themselves. In 1985, we travelled to Qing Ping Market filled with rows and rows of stalls filled with exotic and unknown (to us) Chinese Medicine, foodstuffs, and lots of communist propaganda. Jim and I bought antique ceramic Mao pins for a couple of renminbis (at the time just pennies) feeling ourselves to be touching this vast hisory that was only tangential to our own. Sophia and I instead went up into the Canton Tower which is the 2nd tallest free standing tower in the world. We got a bird's eye view of this shiny new and modern city filled with smartly dressed and fashionable young people. We also slept in Guangzhou which helped to stave off some of our jet lag.

We then flew to Chiangmai Mai in Northern Thailand. Chiangmai Mai is at the foot of the hills where many hill tribes live, including lots of Hmong people. Jim and I also traveled in this region years ago going up into the hills to visit a Hmong Village. For Sophia and me, our first days were spent sleeping into this radical upside down (for us)time zone, and exploring the wats of the old city Sampling its cuisine and drawing out Thai phrases from the dusty crevi of my fading memory.

We had an absolutely amazing experience visiting with one of Sophia's St. Olaf college class mates, Sarin and his family. Sarin invited us to come to Lampung to visit his amazing family, and it was such a privilege and honor to spend time with them. Sarin picked us up in Chiangmai Mai and drove us to Lampung stopping on the way at an elephant camp that was started by the princess of Thailand. She is very popular with her people for her good works, and she created a camp with a hospital where former working elephants retired. Elephants used to do logging but it is now illegal in Thailand. Jim and I back in the day also saw an active logging camp in eastern Thailand and it was brutal work for elephants that is no longer allowed - a good and compassionate decision. We went to Lampung where we stayed with Sarin's grandparents. Sarin's grandpa was born in the Punjab in what is now part of Pakistan, so after the partition his family made their way to Thailand. Sarin's grandma spoke excellent English and we went to the evening market in Lampung. We ate incredible food and met Sarin's parents, aunt, uncle, and cousins. We visited area Buddhist Wats (temples) and ate the local specialty cuisines (kao soi) and sticky rice and bean paste cooked and served in a hallowed out bamboo. Sarin and his wonderful mom drove us back to Chiangmai Mai as they were preparing for a family wedding in Bangkok and Sarin's impending semester abroad in Denmark. It was an incredible experience. We returned to Chiang Mai to spend a few more days. Fortunately, my niece and Sophia's closest cousin Celia is doing a Hamline J term in Chiang Mai so we were able to snag her for a part of an evening. It was weird to come across the globe and be able to see each other so far from home. We visited a museum called Art in Paradise where we took a lot of photos of illusion which are noted in the photo album Chia Mai.

some five days ago, we took a train south to Ayutthaya. It is an old historical city surrounded on four sides by rivers and was a former politically powerful kingdom prior to Thailand being unified. There were temples on nearly every block, and the ruins of others in a huge park in the center of the city. We stayed at a beautiful home stay with a Thai style house built up on log stilts. It had a big veranda looking out on the river and on the other side of the river stood an old Portugeuse church a minaret end mosque and several wats. As we arrived, we heard the sunset call to prayer. Within moments, we also heard the bells of the church and the buddhist monks' chants. As the sun set to the west, a full coral colored moon rose in the sky. Sophia and I both felt those magical spine tingling shivers. In the following days we biked to various wats, and one evening circumnavigated the city in a boat as the sunset. That evening, we went through a school of fish so thick that they were jumping and splashing and getting us wet.

This morning, we took the train to Bangkok. It too has changed since I was here so many years ago. There is a modern sky train as well as a subway, and the city has grown, quadrupling its metro population to 20,000,000 with surrounding areas. But the tourist areas still have a gritty side that includes young women entertaining Western (and probably Thai and other Asian) men for a price. I can't help but feel sad to see this degradation. And it is apparent on the street with western men in theit late middle age strolling the street with girls young enough to be their daughters and granddaughters. Even in our hotel, there is a sign in the elevator that says that all prostitutes ('guests') must register at the desk before coming upstairs. The sex trade is all around and so destructive. Years ago, my good friend Julian travelled to Thailand with me after her own Peace Corps experience in Tanzania. She spent time on an island in the Gulf of Siam interviewing and talking to these young women, many of whom were poor and trying to help out their families. They would sometime get lured in by scams with promises of getting rich only to be trapped in a terrible cycle. It actually makes me angry to see this sort of western exploitation of these young girls/women (and boys as well). Many boys are exploited similarly.

I want to say two more things. The first is that I'm so proud of the competence that my daughter Sophia carries within her. She is strong and smart and while I thought I would be the one taking care of her, she is often the first to figure things out. I know that I travelled here at her age alone, but I see that she too is as capable as I was at that age. My eyes aren't what they used to be so Sophia is my GPS. I'm forever misplacing my readers to my great frustration, so I feel like she is taking care of me.

The second thing I want to say is how greatful I am that some very techie people have made amazing offline apps that make traveling so easy. We literally have offline phone apps for Thailand that give us the ability to travel anywhere with turn by turn maps and offline GPS, tour guides, and suggestions and reviews for food, hotels and activities helping us to read the landscape more easily. Thank you techies for making life so much easier. We've used these apps for biking, on trains to know our stop, in taxies to make sure we aren't taking the 'long' route, and to pinpoint our lodging. We learn about off the beaten path places not to miss, and major attractions not worth your while. The apps help tourists learn about how to be polite, not to offend, and how to speak some of the language. I am filled with gratitudE to have these incredible tools!

Photos: Chiang Mai

sarai-sophia — Mon, 9 Jan 2017 11:49:00 GMT