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Friday was spent, from 5:00AM to about 4:00PM, visiting the various Angkor temples.

Sunrise at Ankgor Wat

One of over 200 enigmatic faces at Bayon temple:

Ta Phrom temple has not been restored, and the resulting fusion between 12th century temple and 800 years of forest:

If you’ve seen the film Tomb Raider, you might correctly think the above two images look familiar, as much of the Cambodian temple portion of the film was shot at Ta Phrom. Cool, eh?

A million pictures, with a hundred days time, by a photographer a hundred times more capable than myself would fail to capture the essence and sublime beauty of the temples.

After just barely catching the bus Friday morning, I arrived as a wildly popular celebrity in Phnom Pehn. The moment the bus pulled up, it was surrounded by throngs of remorque drivers and guest-house representatives. The moment I stepped off the bus, I was instantly surrounded by no less than thirty of them, all yelling loudly for my attention, shoving brochers in my general direction, trying to herd me to their vehicle, and just generally clammoring for my attention. I can’t even being to describe the experience– feeling clauterphobic, smothered, and entirely unable to form a clear thought; amusement, frustration, agitation, maybe some element of fear. My god.

Anyhow. After some work, the two Dutch girls that I was traveling with and I managed to find a decent guest house, where I am currently writing.

The rest of the day was spent getting slightly acquainted with Phnom Pehn. It contrast to Bangkok, Phnom Pehn is paradise– or, rather, many of the things that I dislike about Bangkok are absent in Phnom Pehn: the pollution, the noise, the eratic traffic, the lack of open space and greenery… Phnom Pehn has a million residents, but doesn’t seem to suffer for its size. The air is clean, the river is clean, the streets are generally quiet and less than crowded… In the more affluent portion of the city, parks are prevelent, and are filled by people as the sun goes down– eating, playing, talking, enjoying the splendor of the evening.

I’m unable to believe that Phnom Pehn is the same country that I was in two days ago.

Today has been less than productive, though I did manage to get an amazing sun-burn while driving my little rented motorbike all over the city.

I suppose I’ll post more details when I put the pictures up. Unfortunately, my lens is a little dirty, so all my pictures are a little blurry. Tsk. So it goes.

For me to try to document just the events of the last few days would require pages and pages and pages. And frankly, there’s a lot of exciting Cambodia out there, and I’m disinclined to while away my hours in an internet cafe. Ask me next time you see me and I’ll fill in the details.

To be short: in terms of development, Cambodia is to Thailand as Thailand is to the United States. And that’s not an exaggeration. This reality was driven home by the nine hours of hellish bus ride it took to pass from the Thai border at Poipet to Siem Reap. Part of the “road” had been paved at one point in time, but thirty years of tanks and landmines have collected their toll, leaving potholes the size of cars at such a frequency that we seldom moved faster than even a crawl. The road was only paved for the first four hours, and then became dirt, which was equally innavigable. Imagine the worst dirt road you’ve ever driven down, sustained for five hours.

The belabor the poor quality of the road only to stress that, with the exception of a small handful of cities, Cambodia isn’t a lesser-developed nation: it’s an undeveloped nation. 80% of Cambodians (of which there are currently about 12 million) are farmers– subsistance farmers. The villages we past were generally dark, save for small fires the front yard and the occasional glow of a television seen through the “walls” of the houses. No lights or running water, but televisions. Third world contradictions of development…

Needless to say, we did eventually arrive (just after midnight, having set out at 2:00PM), and were well rewarded. Thursday was spent seeing the Land Mine Museum (http://www.akiramineaction.com/) and the state ran war museum. At the war museum, my “tour” was led by a local university student named Kohn who lost his parents and his arm to a landmine. It’s difficult for him to pay for his education because employers are generally unwilling to employ “cripples,” but he volunteers at the war museum giving tours anyway.

Thursday night we headed out to Angkor Wat for the sunset:

Ar. And that’s where I’m going to stop for now, because I’m starving and this keyboard sucks. More later.

Although I can say nothing of hell, I can faithfully attest that I waded through high-water for a cup of coffee this afternoon.

For that matter, walking across a flooded campus has almost become routine the last few days.

My fish, after three and a half years, died yesterday. Number one. The control group, as it were.

I’ve stopped reading the newspaper. I find myself too distressed by it– too much burning with the knowledge of suffering and injustice, and my powerlessness to affect it. Instead, I’ve turned my reading to some history works and some American classics. It’s too easy to be uninformed about politics and world news, and too comfortable. For the time being, I choose my happiness over my informedness, and defy anyone to chastise me for that.

I will (some day!) give a cookie to who ever can correctly identify which totalitarian regime (hint: not the Bush administration!) the following excerpts describe:

Not long after the coup, crude signs appeared on store windows questioning the loyalty of [ethnic group] proprietors within. Word-of-mouth campaigns started boycotts of [ethnic group] establishments, from restaurants to automobile repair shops.

By early April [Year], [Dictator] had ordered his military to set up detention camps of holding centers for all [Ethnic group] citizens. Soldiers rounded up the [Ethnic group] and placed them in large abandoned buildings, where they were held as prisoners. One [dominant nationality] woman remembered a bleak detention center near her home. “The soldiers took over a deserted house near our [religious building] and the [ethnic group] had to live there. They had nothing. They slept on hammocks and had to sit in the compound all day with nothing to do. The women sat on the ground nursing their babies; the man just walked around. [Dictator] hated the [Ethnic group].”

The campaign grew into a pogrom. The government admitted to arresting some 30,000 [Ethnic group] and jailing 7,000 of them under suspicion of treason. They did not acknowledge the stories of racial murders that were reaching [capitol city]. On April 10, [year], in the town of [town], eighty-nine [ethnic group members] were summarily killed by [Dictator’s] soldiers. There were unconfirmed reports of murders in other parts of the country-side. Two weeks later the army went after one of the biggest [ethnic group] communities, the largely Catholic [ethnic group] settlement on the isthmus…

The soldiers came at night and took the men away, some 800 [ethnic group] laborers. They tied their victims’ hands behind their backs and shoved them onto waiting boats. Then the soldiers executed every man and threw the bodies overboard in the [river]. For days, these bloody, bloated corpses floated on the waters, an open, hideous warning to all [ethnic group] living in [country].

Bonus points to anyone that can fill in the omitted text (heh– or should I say “Bonus points, Meekyung, if you can fill in the omitted text–?”).

Along those lines, I’m done with midterms, with the exception of my Thai-language course. They were a joke, but I fear for my life with regards to next week’s Thai exam.

I’m leaving for Cambodia tomorrow. I’ll be gone till Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. I may find occasion to stop in an internet cafe, but I certainly wouldn’t count on it. If, for some reason, you should find that you need me desperately, I’ll have my cell phone with me.

That elevator is going to be my sad undoing, I tell you. It’s just been getting progressively worse, every time they “fix” it. There were “out of order” signs on and off of it all last night, in addition to the worsening creaks and groans, and the power seemed to fluctuate when I asked it to take me to the 6th floor. Sometimes I had to force the doors open, because they didn’t open on their own, and this morning I’ve been actually hearing the thing running– groaning, rather– as the repairman works on it. The ride is getting progressively more bumpy, too. Worrisome.

More worrisome is that it seems (except for last night, when the power cut out and I decided to take the stairs) that I’m more afraid of working up a sweat than I am of falling six floors in an elevator shaft. Hmm.

In other news, my trip to Cambodia has been pushed back until this coming Tuesday/Wednesday, owing to some.. extenuating circumstances. Yeah.

There’s so much I’m troubled by… so much I don’t understand. I don’t understand the physics that allow my laptop to carry a charge of 90+ volts, or that allows my USB hub to carry 110 volts… and yet everything functions properly. Except when I touch it, there’s definitely a shock there. My multimeter shows that the voltage is there… there are no grounds in this country. Everything is two-prong outlets. And it needs some grounding. Small wonder my laptop is starting to indicate hardware failure, when it’s a collection of electrostatic sensitive components being exposed to a constant load of at least 90 volts of direct current without anyway to ground out.

I’m confused by the fact that, despite people protesting in the streets, Thailand’s biggest entertainment magnate– GMM Grammy– just bought controlling interest in one of Bangkok’s two leading newspapers, the Bangkok Post. The board of directors is opposed to Grammy control. The people are opposed to control– and why not, when Grammy CEO Paiboon Damrongchaitham is a close confident of Thailand’s Prime Minister Thaksin, who comes from Thailand’s richest family and owns one of Thailand’s several television stations, iTV. But what can they do? Ultimately, The Bangkok Post is a public corporation, and if someone can come up with the 1.4 billion baht necessary to buy 23.6% of a publicly traded company, then who’s to stop them? Is it for political purposes? It’s hard to say. But the fact that “GMM Media paid nearly seven baht per share more than the book value for its stake in Post Publishing” which will lead to, at best, only about a four percent return on 1.4 billion baht would suggest that it wasn’t a financially sound idea to buy out controlling interest in Post Publishing. But, as an article in Thai Day notes, “The price may be worth it if GMM can eventually use the content from the newspapers for a television station it might buy when the National Broadcasting Commission is operation.” Ah. A national monopoly on media– a la AOL-Time Warner, except GMM is closely tied to the notoriously corrupt Thai government. And yet everyone stands by and says “gee, what a shame.”

I don’t understand the one sided investigation in the recent beating and killing of two Thai marines in southern Thailand. The story (which has made national headlines– on the BCC, at least, I don’t know about shitty american media) goes like this: A van drives by a tea shop, shooting and killing two Thais. The village explodes in response, and chases after the van. They find two marines in a broken-down vehicle, who they abduct and tie up at a local school. The villages were holding the Marines hostage while waiting for the Malaysian media to show up– the Malaysian media because the villages didn’t trust Thai media. The marines were beaten (“tortured,” according to all the Thai media), and then stabbed to death when word gets out that the Thai military is moving in. But what makes no sense is the government’s response. A hundred soldiers have been stationed in the village to ensure that no one is able to leave, and the military police are going door-to-door seeking out suspects. So far, eleven suspects have been arrested. A Thai general was quoted saying “I’m so mad that I want to napalm the whole village. But I can’t do that. We have to use the law to seek our revenge instead.” And so it goes. While a full-on investigation has been launched into the murder of the two marines, there has been no mention made of the two Thais whose original murder precipitated the whole mess. The Thai government (military?) doesn’t give a flying fuck about two random Thais who were murdered. Hell, why should they? They probably don’t have the personal to investigate half the murders taking place in the war-torn, terrorism riddled south right now. Another eight people were killed yesterday. Two remotely detonated bombs. A drive-by shooting. So it goes. But two soldiers– that will be investigated and persecuted to the full extent of the law. Where’s the justice in this? How is this right? Why are the villages so agitated that they’re willing to risk their lives by bonding together, capturing two military personnel, barricading the roads, and making a desperate plea to attract foreign media? Why isn’t THAT story being told?

And why isn’t the story of the American soldiers still being killed in Iraq told? Why isn’t the public up in arms about the fact that the Bush administration has prohibited the publication of photos of the 1,907 coffins that have been sent home from Iraq? Isn’t that a violation of a basic constitutional right? Click here for the updated death toll. As American journalist Robert Cohen noted,

Taken together with the 234 dead in Afghanistan and in other countries affected by Operation Enduring Freedom, the global U.S. response fo the 9/11 attacks, the number of military personnel killed since September 2001 is fast approaching the 2,796 people slaughtered when the World Trade Center in New York Came down. Indeed, it seems reasonable to assume that by the fifth anniversary next year of the attack on the United States, the number of American dead in response to it will be greater than those killed that clear September day by the planes-turned-missiles.

And yet the turnout in last week’s anti-war protests was lower than in previous years. Where were you? Where was I? What was I thinking? Was I in Washington D.C., assembled with 100,000 other Americans brought together to protest this on-going all-American fuck-up? How many lives per gallon, Bush? Were the endangered and senselessly dying American troops on my mind at all? On September 16th, David Ford, age 20 from Ironton, Ohio, was killed alongside Alan Gifford, 39, of Tallahassee, Florida (Cohen). Number 1,905 and 1,906, respectively. Their coffins were not photographed.

As a result of “China’s breakneck economic development, industrial accidents claimed more than 136,000 lives last year.” In terms of GDP, this equates to one death per $12 million USD. So then every Ficher-Price children’s toy represents what fraction of a life of a Chinese woman or man’s life?

And yet I sit here, in my comfortable Bangkok studio apartment, reading and wondering and feeling angry and betrayed and helpless. And helpless. Helpless. How do I stop the war? How do I stop the killing in the south? How do I stop the slow electrocution of my laptop? How do I make sure that the stories from the south are told? How do I make sure that someone listens? South-east Asia is a region so torn… torn by the revenges of capitalism, the scarring of imperialism, the scourge of war, hate and discrimination. Destroyed by terrorism, fear, poverty. Devoid of dignity. And I’m torn, too. Because I don’t know how world around me whole. Then how can I be whole?

Apparently, the car-park was full. Oh my.

I hate to be the one to say it, but parking outside the car-park and fogging up the windows just isn’t as classy as pulling up inside a stall and closing the curtain. But hey– that’s just me.

But here’s another thing I don’t understand– there’s a LOT of taxis that go into the car-park. No, actually, I understand all too well… and just hope that I can spare myself from thinking about that next time I climb into … OH! THAT’S why the taxis all smell like lysol. oh noes!!

I went to a piano and cello concert tonight, which I enjoyed. I must note, though, that it was very asian, in that some exceptionally challenging pieces were played with impressive accuracy, but I felt that the musicians were just playing by rote. I don’t know how you can play Beethoven’s Sonoata in F and not be completely caught up in the flow and passion of the music, how one’s life can not flow and explode through your bow or onto the keys in song… Again, they were good, but it seemed like the music was their business, not their passion. And music should always be passion.

About the title… I slept a little later today than I had intended. In fact… I didn’t make it to my 2:00 class. Oh, god. Oh well. I’m sick. I need the sleep, right? Right.

Bangkok, for as big as it is, is really pretty small. For example, when walking out of the MBK tonight, which is on the opposite side of town from where we live, I ran into Josh. What’s more, we were both looking for a taxi. At the exact same time. In the exact same place. Miles away from home. What a strange coincidence.

I have this odd routine where, almost every night, I come down from my 6th floor room wearing running shorts and a ratty t-shirt at some obscene hour in the morning, carrying my laptop to the computer room, where I plug in and check email. Everytime I do, I walk past the same night-shift guard. And he always laughs at me. It’s become almost an on-going joke between him and me. Every night, I see him. And every night, he laughs at me.

Small wonder I’m getting sick. Small wonder I sleep till noon almost every day. Small wonder that I didn’t get up in time for my 11:00 class this morning.

In that regard, though, I set a personal record: last week was the first time since the start of the semester that I missed class. I haven’t been that good since… god, Freshman year of high school? Yeah. I think so.

Author and renowed nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal died yesterday at age 96.

His passing does not go without notice; may his story and legacy live on.

In an unrelated rant, if I were forced to evaluate Thammasat’s security, I would give it a shining 100%– nay, 110%! But in terms of resources for students? A golden goose-egg. A big fat zero. An aggrevating students should not have access to campus resources nothing. At all times, unless a class is in session, classrooms are locked. There’s not a class? Well, then, lock it up! You never know when a student might sneak into one of those empty room and, gast, do school work or something even more scandalous! The bathroom, similarly, are all locked at night, with the exception of one or two, usually on the bottom floor of an eight story building. This makes NO sense, seeing as how there’s nothing (not even toilet paper) in the bathrooms that could possibly be stolen. Similarly (and I assume this is true of all Thammasat activities) my Speaker’s Union club must finish by 7:00PM sharp, because, despite being paid Thammasat staff, the coach doesn’t have keys to the rooms, and the janitor shows up at 7:00PM to lock the room.

There’s one nice, big field on the Tha Prachan campus (my campus– Thammasat has two). Unfortunately, this is the soccer field. Not that I’ve ever seen anybody else on the field. No, I’ve never seen anyone on the field, because the rules are plain: if you’re not playing soccer for Thammasat, that’s not your field. Do no walk on grass.

What started this rant, however, is the fact that, at 4:30PM every day, the campus wireless network is shut off. Well, I should clarify– the only thing that’s turned off is the internet access– everything else remains on. And why 4:30? Classes go until 5:00. Christ. WHY?!?

AND the library! I don’t know who’s idea it was to ban book-bags in the library, but I think whoever it is, s/he should be sumarily shot in the back of the head, while holding an unruly pile of books and papers. Let’s think about this: I want to go to the library to study. Unless I should want to, say, study my hands, or perhaps study that cute Thai girl that just walked in ahead of me (hypothetical, mind you!)… no, no. Lets assume that I go to the library for something remotely academic. In such a case, I might need to bring my BOOKS with me. Well, fortunately, in the great wisdom of the library administration, outside books are allowed in the library. Papers, pens and pencils, too. How gracious of the library staff! Backpacks, bags, hand-grenades, boom-boxes, bookbags, and other distracting objects, however, are simply not allowed. If one attempts to bring one’s backpack in, there will be a sudden outburst of nasally-pitched Thai (“HIII! YA-HE-TII-YI-NII!”) accompanied by ardent gesticulation. Eventually, one figures out that the problem is one’s backpack. Or boombox. Or hand-grenade. One is directed to the row of mini-lockers on the far wall, and I hope you brought your own lock, because you can’t just rent things like that, you know.

And yes– it’s not like you can just walk into the library (beacuse, after all, an unauthorized person who does NOT pay tuition to support Thammasat’s dimminuative library might sneak in, read a book and LEARN something. This isn’t a university, after all, this is Thammasat, Inc. Our goal isn’t to educate, it’s to MAKE MONEY!! Wait… I seem to have something confused here.). Wow. But back to trying to get in the library. There’s a person who sits at the turn-stile entrance and ensures that every person who enters the library swipes their student ID card. The turn-stile is locked until the guard is sufficiently satisfied that the student actually is a student, at which time the turn-stile is momentarily unlocked to allow the student (or rogue with a fake ID!) to pass through, at which time it is locked until the next ID is scanned.

Of course, the no-book-bag policy might make some sense if the books weren’t magnetized, and if there weren’t detector posts that you had to walk through on your way out of the library. But there are. So even you were that one Thai in Thailand who actually steals things, and you had stashed a book away in your contraband bookbag, alarms and sirens would go off when you tried to leave the library.

I guess I can see where they’re coming from: when you only have twenty or thirty books, the theft of one book is a BIG DEAL! It’s not an exaggeration to say that my high-school had as many English-language books as Thammasat does. English and Thai books combined, the Thammasat library is the equal of one floor of Montana States’s Renne library. And Montana State’s Library is far from impressive, even for a state university. But imagine what it could be if it received the same annual funding that MSU’s athletic program! But that rant belongs to someone else.

—

In the last week I’ve been interviewed twice by Thammasat students for a PR class. One of the questions I’ve been asked both times is what do I like about Thammasat. I regret to admit that I’ve been a little taxed to answer. But here’s a couple things I like about Thammasat:

1) It’s a nice campus. Where not completely congested by cars (yes, Thammasat does have a parking garage), Thammasat how flowers and trees and statues.

2) It’s a historic campus. On Octber 14th, 1973 the Thai military brutally supressed a demonstration at Thammasat, where students had gathered to demand a constitution. In addition to releasing tear gas, soldiers fired on the crowd. Although a constitution was eventually esablished as a result of the protests (which had been on-going since June of the same year), the victory was short lived. On October 8th 1976, students again gathered in protest at Thammasat, this time in reponse to the return to Thailand of Thanom Kittikachorn, who had headed the military dictatorship in Thailand from 1964 to 1973. Police and right-wing parliamentary groups assualted the 2000 students holding a sit-in. Hundreds of students were killed or injured in the confrontation, and over 1000 were arrested. The sit-in bitterly turned on the students when, “using public disorder as an excuse, the military stepped in and installed a new right-wing government.” This complete failure lead to widespread student and intellectual disillusionment.

I came across a most intriguing article on the BBC’s website concerning face transplants: