Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Visiting Parliament

I recently teased with my family members that I have been to more government buildings in foreign countries than I have in my own, as I have also visited the Reichstag in Germany but saw the Capitol building only from a distance when on vacation in Washington D.C. The Parliament in Bangkok isn't so much a tourist attraction, but as international students it was important for us to visit in order to better understand the politics of the country we had been living in for the last three months.


Thailand transitioned from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy in the 1930s, asking the king to abdicate his power and changing the name of the country from Siam to Thailand. As a result, Thailand is still getting used to being a democracy and to put it lightly, things have been a little trial and error. There have been eighteen constitutions thus far and a great deal of pushing and pulling back and forth between leaders and ideologies as a result. We visited first with a deputy speaker of Parliament, who spoke to the importance of maintaining a neutral stance in his position in an attempt to appease all sides.

Next we met with the former prime minister of Thailand, who was very charismatic but controversial. He spoke to the importance of voters and having elected (rather than appointed) leaders so that Thailand is ideally a "by the people, for the people" nation. Objectively looking at the current political climate, however, it is obvious that there is still a ways to go on this front. Though one could argue that no country has gotten it perfect yet. I certainly could file some grievances with my own government on some issues, but ultimately experiences like these are personal for me because it reminds me to take my citizenship into my own hands and stay informed and use my vote wisely.


We were warmly welcomed by the Thai Parliament and posed for many group pictures as well as were invited to sit in on an actual meeting, although it was all in Thai. Another highlight was visiting the museum where we got to get up close and personal with the various Thai constitutions and other important original documents! I was amazed because the U.S. equivalents are carefully protected in dark rooms behind bulletproof glass with several sinister security guards around to make sure the tourists keep shuffling past. Someone pointed out that there is quite the age difference in these documents, and the Thai Parliament isn't quite as touristy as the Declaration of Independence.

Our next stop was at the Anata Samakhorn Throne Hall, which used to serve as the Parliament building before it moved to its current location (and it's planning on moving again into a newly built place). Now this throne hall is a beautiful museum with so much art given in homage to the members of the royal family. The building itself is stunning, done up in the Italian architectural style.


Again I am the victim of a "no photos allowed" rule, because the inside was absolutely incredible. The frescoes on the ceiling and the marble interior was amazing in and of themselves, but the true marvel was with the various artisans' gifts that are housed there. Thrones, palanquins, and models of royal barges were made of intricate gold  and inlaid with precious gems. I could have stared at the scenes depicted in huge wood carvings forever. Massive embroidered tapestries showed famous stories and were made with every color of the rainbow and then some. I regretted running out of time before I could truly appreciate the collections of dishes, porcelain, and smaller embroidered pieces that were housed downstairs. The Throne Hall is a definite must-see for anyone visiting Bangkok.


Our final stop was at a famous monument of a king astride his steed in front of the Throne Hall. It is placed next to a medallion, small in comparison, inlaid in the pavement as an homage to democracy. The professors summed up that it represented Thailand's politics well: the monarchy is still the most revered, and even if it no longer has as much political power over the people, it's ideological power is as strong as ever.

That basically concludes our trip to Bangkok! We stayed up late to pay an informed visit to the red light district of Bangkok, but I didn't stay long, preferring instead to hang out with friends in the hotel and swap riddles. The next day we were back on the road, doing the long haul all the way back to Chiang Mai. I was glad to have the whole weekend in front of me, and was a weekend it was, as it was time for the famous Loi Krathrong festival!

Monday, November 25, 2013

Textiles, Cultural Center, and the UN

We had a very busy next day that started early with a visit to the Jim Thompson Textile Museum. Located at his historical home, Jim Thompson is famous for having put Thailand on the map for textiles and fabric production. His home was just as innovative as his business, as it linked the traditional Thai houses together to make a larger house where one used hallways to walk from room to room without having to go outside. The whole area was beautiful and showed the fusion between the traditional Eastern styles and Western influences that are common in Thailand. I loved to see all the old art pieces, especially the intricately detailed porcelain dish collection. Another highlight was a demonstration on extracting the silk threads from the cocoons of silk worms.



We then walked over the the Bangkok Art Cultural Center, which is a multileveled modern building that caters to all needs of the art community. There are coffee and clothing shops that draw the artistic crowd, a theater for live performances and films, and large galleries for the current art exhibits. There was one that featured the use of recycled materials - I loved walking through loops of newspapers attached together and draped from ceiling to floor. There was also a really neat sculpture that was a mosaic of mirrored cubes that were so large and stacked in a way that you could walk underneath them, to see an alcove where a pile of dirt and your own image was reflected back at you a thousand times.


I loved the peace and quiet of the art museum compared to the hustle and bustle of Bangkok traffic outside. Since the food was a little pricey inside the culture center, we walked right across the street to the shopping center where we went the day before. I sprung for Subway, though, and it was great to have a little taste of home in the form of a tuna sandwich and a double chocolate chip cookie!

In the afternoon we got the special opportunity to be guests at the United Nations in Bangkok. After going through security, we got our own name badges and were escorted to a conference room to talk about the state of human trafficking in Southeast Asia with a UN representative who does field research. It was an interesting talk that really helped me understand how international policies break down to the national level and even the regional level. The image that the phrase "human trafficking" brings up is often one of women and even children being sold into slavery for sex work, but that is not really an accurate picture. The majority of trafficking cases are for the labor industry, such as fisheries, but that doesn't have the same emotional draw as "sex trafficking" so less people know about it. In reality, sex work is often the best-paying kind of work some people, often migrants, can find and so is seen as an unsavory option but an option nonetheless. 

I think the real problem is the demand for sex work from the clientele and that a true solution will only be found when we can find a way to change the culture and reduce the demand for sexual services. The criminalization should be placed on the clients, not the workers. When sex workers get busted, no one is offering viable employment to replace their jobs. Plus, as long as it's illegal, it's unregulated, which can be dangerous for all parties involved. That's why groups like Empower, an organization of sex workers in Chiang Mai, have arisen to change the way we look at the sex industry. They have even started their own bar (which I have visited) to show that they refuse to be victimized and that their employment should be legitimate, even if it is viewed as socially taboo.


As you can see, our trip to the UN gave me a lot to think about in conjunction with what we had been learning in my Institutions of Thai Society class. The remainder of our trip was just as politically focused, but I'll save that for another day and give you a little break! Until then!

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Grand Palace and Wat Pho

Hello everyone! I'm sorry I haven't been updating on Bangkok more, things just got busy this week! I am off to one more adventure this afternoon - a weekend home stay and service project in a remote Karen village. Karen are an important ethnic group to the struggle in Burma, but this is a Thai Karen group. I'm really excited!

Anyway, we arrived in Bangkok late Monday night so our sightseeing didn't start until Tuesday morning, but we started off big with a tour of the Grand Palace. The current royal family doesn't really reside there much (seeing as the king and queen are quite elderly) but it was still magnificent to see.


I was particularly impressed with this golden chedi, which is a common sight in Thailand except this one was covered in a tiny gold tile mosaic from Italy.


As we continued on the tour, I saw a familiar sight in the form of a model of Angkor Wat! One of the former kings had wanted to show the prestige of the kingdom of Siam (modern day Thailand) over the neighboring Khmer kingdom in Cambodia. He wanted to go and bring Angkor Wat to Siam, which would have been expensive and difficult, so I guess he had to be satisfied with this model.


One of the main attractions of the Grand Palace is the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, which I unfortunately was not allowed to take pictures of. However, I thought that the mural surrounding the temple was equally fantastic, as it was gold-leafed and depicting scenes from the famous Hindu story of the Ramayana.


I was also impressed by the beautiful garden areas of the palace. We had a nice break here to take pictures and explore a little before heading off to another temple, Wat Pho.


Wat Pho is home to the enormous reclining Buddha, the posture he takes just before his death. It was very crowded but I managed to snap a few pictures, despite my camera battery dying a little bit!


I thought the chedis at Wat Pho were beautiful too, covered in intricate, detailed floral designs. 


After Wat Pho, we had lunch at a small restaurant on the riverside and then relaxed in a nearby park where we saw a giant prehistoric-looking lizard crawl into the water! It disappeared before I could get a picture, but it was a crazy sight to see. We had the afternoon off with the option of going to a shopping area. A couple of my friends and I went and checked out the upscale malls before doing some shopping in a maze-like area of market stalls in one of the malls. We topped it off with a pizza dinner and then headed back to the hotel to rest up for the next busy day.

Monday, November 18, 2013

Sunny Sukhothai

As we ventured further south, the tiny hints of cooler weather we experienced in Chiang Mai were pretty non-existent. Though technically we are at the end of rainy season and beginning of "winter" here, this born and bred temperate west/northwest gal just can't get over the fact that she can still wear shorts and a t-shirt and still sweat in the middle of November. Regardless, hitting up Sukhothai Historical Park was well worth it before the long van ride to Bangkok. We started early in the morning with a visit with a Sukhothai expert, who showed us all the sites we would see on a model map.


As my Thai professor said, "He is an encyclopedia on Sukhothai, but unfortunately for you, this encyclopedia is written in Thai." Our professor graciously translated, though, and we had enough background to appreciate the ancient temples. First we wandered over to a modern temple to admire the murals, some of which featured the current king of Thailand and his family participating in Buddhist community activities.


The first old Sukhothai temple we visited was the famous "Big Buddha" temple, as the Buddha image is so large they suspected that it was built first and the temple constructed around it. It is considered good luck to make a wish and then touch the downward facing pinky finger of the Buddha's enormous hand. The long, curvy fingers are a trademark of Sukhothai style and a good insight into the perceptions of beauty at the time. 



The next stop was a temple featuring a walking Buddha image, and was known as the temple of the rock bridge as that was the path you had to use to get up to this forest temple. The workout was worth seeing the large Buddha image up close and for the view from the hilltop. 



Next we headed back to the main historical area, the heart of the old city, to see the many temples there. So many large Buddha images, both walking and sitting, and dozens of chedis, the pointed structures that house important Buddhist relics. The main chedi has a distinctive lotus flower spire.


The oldest temple thought to be at Sukhothai is actually the only one that faces south instead of east and is built in the Khmer styles of Cambodia and Angkor Wat. This is indicative of the Khmer influence on the region and how the ancient kingdoms were not so isolated but interconnected. 


Our final stop was a temple that overlooked a body of water with Thai longboats on it. It was very beautiful and peaceful in this area of Sukhothai, and I thought it was a little sad that we didn't have more time to explore, but we had a tight schedule in Bangkok and so needed to get on our way!


We did not get into Bangkok until late, so we went to bed as soon as we could to be ready for a full day! If any of you keep up with international news, you may have heard that there is political unrest in Bangkok right now and our visit happened to fall in the middle of it - protests and demonstrations and the like. I can assure you that I never felt unsafe and as a school tourist group no one bothered us. I will give you more details on that in a later post, so good night for now!

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Spirit Night and Sukhothai Museum

Hold on to your hats, ladies and gents, because I have a ton to update you all on! It has been a whirlwind of a week, and I imagine things are going to be pretty crazy from now on as we try to cram all our favorite things into these last four weeks left in Thailand. Not to mention finals (I'm still a student, after all). Wow. It's surreal. Anyway, the Saturday night before we left for Sukhothai and Bangkok we went over to the Chiang Mai University stadium to check out sports day and spirit night. Sort of like an American homecoming celebration, each faculty (department) competes in sports during the day and then does a school spirit performance in the evening - described to me initially as a cheer-leading-type competition. What they did went far above and beyond cheer-leading, though. Each faculty put on a multimedia performance with costumes, dancers, music, giant set pieces, chanting, choreography, and props. Each faculty did a different theme, like "Phantom of the Opera" or "Aladdin's Genie in the Lamp."

We were actually down in the field while each performance was up in the bleachers, so we sort of shuffled around in an enormous crowd for each performance. I was just blown away by the amount of time and energy put into each of the performances - there really isn't anything like it in the United States, at least not at a university level like that. It was hard to get pictures, but this should give you a general idea of what it was like.


This performance was by the Faculty of Medicine, which had up until this competition had a multi-year winning streak. Regardless, I thought each faculty did an amazing job and was so glad I went.

The next morning we left bright and early for the historical city of Sukhothai. Three of my friends and I lucked out and got a van with just two other professors and the driver in it, so we had plenty of space to read, nap, and talk to each other. We got hung up on car games and riddles, so the time passed pretty quickly. By mid-afternoon we made it to the Sukhothai museum, which gave us some background information before visiting the actual historical park the next day. It was full of interesting artifacts and gave me a better idea of how the Sukhothai kingdom fit into Thailand's history. The important thing about Sukhothai is that is existed during a time of piece so that art and architecture could flourish, leaving the awesome site for us to see today.



The entrance to the main part of the historical site was lavishly decorated in anticipation for the Loi Krathong festival the next weekend, an important Buddhist holiday. I had my own plans for Loi Krathong, as you will see in a later post, but it would have been neat to celebrate in the old city among the beautiful temples. 


It was a little late in the day to start in on visiting the actual temples, so we headed over to our hotel in the new area of Sukhothai to find an early dinner and rest up for the next day. I had an amazing raspberry Italian soda with dinner, and the proceeded to fall asleep at 6 pm (guess sitting in a van all day tuckered me out!). I needed the sleep for the adventures to come the next day!


Saturday, November 9, 2013

Art and Entertainment

Hello everyone! I thought I'd update you all really quick before jetting off yet again . . . this time to the old Thai capital of Sukhothai and the current capital of Bangkok. It's a class excursion (like the Golden Triangle trip) so it will be filled with plenty of interesting learning opportunities. In addition to visiting the Historical Park in Sukhothai, we will be touring important political places in Bangkok such as the Parliament, Grand Palace, and UN. Should be fun and informative!

In the meantime, I have been keeping busy with all my classes (as a student and a teacher) but making time to relax and have fun with friends as well. I love my art class and so excited that my professor is coming with us to Bangkok to show us the arts and cultural centers. We've been doing some pretty cool projects lately, too. The week after break we turned in our "Food and Art" projects depicting how we might associate food with emotions, memories, experiences, etc. The aspect of food I chose to represent was a combination of memories from the many road trips my family took as I was growing up. We would often stop at rest areas along whatever highway we were driving on (we've been all over the US and even ventured into Canada!) and break out a picnic lunch, keeping it simple and homey with the extra touch of a tablecloth.


I constructed this scaled-down version of a picnic lunch using popsicle sticks (bought at a craft store, I didn't have to eat a bunch of popsicles all by myself!). They are inscribed with the names of the places we stopped, songs we listened to, books we read, conversations we had, or inside jokes that came up. I used a plastic bag, napkins, paint, clay, and even pencil shavings to make the rest of the spread. I have no idea how (or if) I can transport it back home somehow but it was fun to make either way.

This last week our art class took a field trip to the workshop of Ajahn Tor, a textile artist. Skilled in fashion design, dying, and all techniques of weaving, he graciously showed us around his home and work space, showing us samples of his work and then prepared dyes so we could try it out ourselves! He specializes in natural dyes, which is a very involved and labor intensive process but well worth the results. This is the smaller of the two pieces I made, the other being solid indigo with a very faint pattern that I didn't think would photograph well.


So the indigo dye is on the far right, a watered down version of the blue is in the middle, and the green on the left is made from the holy basil plant. The stripes were made from using a dye-resistant plastic string to tie up the cloth before I dyed it. It was so much fun and has kindled my interest in the fiber arts and encouraged me to consider pursuing it as a hobby back in the United States.

I've been keeping busy and having fun outside of class as well. As you all know, October 31st was Halloween, which is a novel and Western concept to this part of the world. I didn't have any plans until roughly 24 hours before Halloween when my friends and I decided to throw together some last-minute costumes and go out to one of the many Halloween parties happening all over town. I take Halloween costumes very seriously and had to brainstorm for a long time before deciding on . . . a hipster. With borrowed leggings and a bear and reindeer bro-tank, I donned a giant pair of glasses and grabbed a can with a homemade PBR label. An ironic mustache finger tattoo and another of a Perks of Being a Wallflower quote completed the look. 

Then this last Thursday two of my friends and I headed over to the Central Mall movie theater to see the latest superhero flick Thor: The Dark World. No, we did not have to see it in Thai; they had some showings in English with Thai subtitles. It was fun to walk around the mall for a while and grab some snacks before heading into the theater.


The whole hall was decorated to look like Hollywood and yes, that is a cardboard Billy Crystal looking down cheerfully at all of us. It wasn't crowded at all for opening day, and we scored some pretty sweet seats to enjoy the movie magic. I admit, I had only seen the first Thor movie once a couple years ago and really didn't remember all of it, but the sequel proved to be completely entertaining and totally worth seeing. Plenty of action with a surprising amount of humor thrown in (not to mention eye candy), it was a nice follow-up to the Avengers.


But let's be real, the true reason I went to go see it was Loki. Not even kidding. It takes someone special to upstage Chris Hemsworth, and Tom Hiddleston pulls it off. 

Okay, so I better wrap this up so I can pack for Bangkok, get ready to register for next semester's classes, and attend CMU's sports day which is supposedly a big, fun event full of school spirit. I'll update you all again next week with plenty of new tales!

Monday, November 4, 2013

Balance Your Mind, Balance Your World

After my ten days of international travel, I had about 48 hours of down time in the apartment by myself before embarking on the final part of my fall break adventure: a meditation retreat at Wat Prathat Doi Suthep. You may remember from an earlier post that it is called Wat Prathat because the relic instead the gold chedi is from the actual Buddha. Pretty cool stuff. Anyway, my friend and I caught a song taew taxi from the front gate of Chiang Mai University up the mountain. It had started to rain as we arrived, so we were eager to find the Foreign Meditation Office and check in.

After filling out some paperwork, we traipsed a little ways back down the other side of the mountain, on a footpath that wove through trees and small buildings that may have been where the monks lived. We were joined by a man from Munich who planned on staying for a full 21 day course instead of the 3 day "sampler" course that was all we had time for due to classes beginning on Monday. I went back and forth on whether or not I wished I could have stayed longer - maybe you can help me decide at the end of this post!

Our first day was a Thursday, so we got a quick tour of the meditation center facilities (3 meditation halls, 4 buildings with rooms for people to stay in, the office, and the kitchen). We bought our white meditation uniforms (very basic pants and shirt) and were instructed to change and meet back at the main hall for the opening ceremony with the teacher.

One of the most important aspects of the retreat was taking 8 precepts. These are rules that are very important to different communities of Buddhists. Lay people can take 4, novices must take 10, and full-on monks take 227! We were pretty lucky with just 8, I guess. They were:

1. Abstain from killing living things. Not hard to follow, unless of course there's a mosquito on your arm or a spider on your wall! Not allowed to smack 'em.
2. Abstain from stealing. Generally I rule I try to follow every day!
3. Abstain from sexual misconduct. Although this means abstain from unhealthy relationships to lay people, for us it meant men and women sleep in separate buildings and to keep the focus on the meditation.
4. Abstain from false speech, i.e. lying. Also easy to do since we were instructed to keep silent as much as possible to eliminate distraction, but I guess it also meant being honest with the teacher when he asked us about our meditation experiences.
5. Abstain from alcohol, drugs, smoking. This is to avoid intoxicated, unnatural states of mind.
6. Abstain from eating at the forbidden time (i.e. after noon). I got really hungry the first day or two, but by the third day I realized my body didn't need all the sugary snacks I was so fond of.
7. Abstain from singing, dancing, playing music, attending entertainment performances, wearing perfume, and using cosmetics and garlands (decorative accessories). This one was actually pretty hard, not the no jewelry and make-up part as I left them at home, but the no entertainment part. I love my iPod so not having music to listen to at night was hard, and not being allowed to read or write either was really difficult when I was feeling bored with meditation!
8. Abstain from luxurious places for sitting or sleeping, and overindulging in sleep. We were to sleep only from 10 pm to 5 am, which is enough to stay healthy, but naps were not allowed! And our beds were harder than the ones at school, which is saying something.

So what did I do all day? Let me give you a break down of the typical day at Doi Suthep. The first day was different because of our brief opening ceremony at 4 pm when we lit candles and made flower offerings to the teacher while chanting in Pali. The closing ceremony on the final day at 8 am was similar. But here's the usual schedule:

5 am: Wake up. It was still dark at this time, and I had my own alarm clock so I could roll out of bed, wash my face, and brush my teeth.

5:30 am: Dhammatalk. The dhamma is a really broad word for the Buddhist teachings. Since I'm Christian, it helped me to "translate" the dhamma as maybe "the Word" or "the Good News." The Buddhist equivalent of the Bible is called the Pali Canon. The teacher, a monk, would tell us a story, not necessarily a Buddhist one, and relate it to our daily lives with plenty of advice on how to find balance and peace of mind. He loved to talk about the progression of science from Sir Isaac Newton to Albert Einstein, and how amazing it was that we could be so globally connected these days with just the phones in our pockets. With this information overload, it becomes all the more important to know yourself and train your mind so you don't get lost!

7 am: Breakfast. Prepared by lay people, breakfast was something simple like fried rice or noodle soup. We ate in silence, being mindful of each bite as we slowly chewed and swallowed, then washed our dishes. The point was not to enjoy the meal, but to acknowledge the necessity of food for survival.

At this point I would usually go to the walking meditation hall, which had several long carpets laid out as well as plenty of cushions for sitting. The method of meditation we followed called for equal time in walking and sitting meditation - beginners like me started at 15 minutes of each at a time, but I moved up to 20 minutes by the end of the retreat. For walking meditation, you only take 10 steps at a time, then turn around and take 10 more, etc. for 15 minutes. You focus only on the act of lifting and moving your feet. I actually found it to be easier than the sitting position.

The sitting meditation is motionless, as you sit on a cushion with your legs folded (right leg on top) and your hands palms up, right hand resting on left. You focus on your breathing - rising and falling - and the act of sitting. If your thoughts wander elsewhere, you acknowledge them, then try to get back to following your breath and sitting. It was so hard for me as after just a few minutes my legs would fall asleep, my back would start to hurt, and my thoughts would be all over the place. They don't say, "Practice makes perfect" for nothing, though, because the more I meditated it did get a little easier each time.

11 am: Lunch. Much like breakfast, the food was usually rice with a couple different kinds of vegetable or soy protein dishes. The food was all vegetarian, which was perfect for me! Mindful eating, always.

Sometimes I would go to the porch of one of the sitting meditation halls and just stare out and the trees. I wasn't meditating, I was just taking a break and thinking about my life, memories, or random things. It was like the special treat I awarded myself for being disciplined about meditating in the long mornings, afternoons, and evenings.

1 pm: Report to the teacher. The monk was so friendly and animated that it wasn't intimidating. He'd ask me a couple simple questions, then give me the next step of the techniques for sitting and standing. I didn't get very advanced in the techniques, being only there for a couple days, so I finally understood why people stayed for 21 days to really dig into the methodology and to get really good at meditating. It is a skill that requires much practice and is often the path to enlightenment for Buddhists. Not being Buddhist, enlightenment wasn't my goal, just spiritual re-connection as I feel that I've been letting so many other things get in the way of that aspect of my development as a person.

Afternoons were the longest block of time for meditation, and I would stake out "my" carpet and cushions in the walking hall. Although the claims were unspoken, each person in the handful of those who used the walking hall regularly had the place where he or she liked to practice. I think it established routine and a sense of comfort and familiarity, which ultimately helped with the practice as you wouldn't be distracted by a new pattern of sunlight on the carpet or new lump in the cushion. I would do my meditation set - 15 or 20 minutes of walking followed by 15 or 20 of sitting - using my phone as a timer. Each completed round meant a 5 or 10 minute break to stretch, drink some water, or go to the bathroom. I would do this for hours. It was a little nuts.

6 pm: Chanting. Buddhists chant in Pali for many ceremonies, and the daily chanting pays respect to the Buddha, the dhamma, and the sangha (Buddhist community). There was a translation for us as well as the pronunciation in booklets, but the point was not to pray but to practice deep breathing and meditate on the tonal qualities of the chanting. The teacher assured that it would not "interrupt our religion" as Buddhism is generally pretty open-minded towards other religions (hence why I could attend the retreat in the first place). I believe that you can respect and participate in someone else's religion without spiritually compromising your own. I really appreciated the opportunity to experience such a central aspect of Thailand's culture in a personally meaningful way.

10 pm: Bedtime. After a few more rounds of meditation practice, I'd take a quick shower in the tepid-at-best water, brush my teeth, and hit the hay. Our final instructions were to do 5 minutes of laying meditation in the form of focusing on breathing and relaxing. If I wasn't already tired (from sitting around all day!) it would have been really calming. A good trick to remember for those hectic days when my mind doesn't want to go to sleep even when the rest of me does.

Our final day (Sunday) we went to the closing ceremony with the teacher where he left us with the central message of "balance your mind, balance your world." The whole point of this is mental training so that you can control your thoughts to best handle any situation life throws at you. If you achieve balance in your mind - not focusing on negativity, pointless worrying, or unproductive wandering - you can achieve balance in everything you do. People so often take so much care of the others in their lives (family, friends, coworkers) that they forget to take care of themselves. The teacher encouraged us to try to do a round a meditation every day. "I say try to do, not have to do or must do," he clarified, acknowledging that life gets busy and we can get forgetful or lazy. That's the aspect of  this experience that I took to heart: I don't have to be perfect in my practice, the main thing is that I'm trying.

I recently read on the lifestyle blog "A Beautiful Mess" that this time of year is a good time to make "4 Simple Goals" to meet before the new year. I'm taking the writers up on this challenge and making one of my goals to do something meditative (in my loose interpretation) - walking, journaling, yoga, or a sitting meditation - every day for 20 minutes. I'm hoping this will give me some more balance between classes, teaching, friends, and other Thailand experiences and make the most of my remaining six (eek!) weeks here.

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Stories from Phnom Penh: Part 2

You got me: I said on my last post I was going to update tomorrow and it's obviously been a few days since "tomorrow." I have gotten more than one comment on this (sheesh, give me a break! Just kidding, thanks for keeping me honest), and so I apologize for not sticking to my word. My excuses are: one, Thursday was Halloween and so I was quite busy doing lesson planning and homework and such and also putting together a last minute costume so I could go to a Halloween party. Two, Friday was my full day of teaching and I had papers and emails to catch up during my very little downtime. Three, yesterday I needed to recuperate from aforementioned Halloween festivities (nothing too crazy, you all know me) and teaching and so I deemed a full day of Gilmore Girls and junk food was in order. But here I am now!

Okay, so on our last day in Phnom Penh we got started early with a trip to the killing field of Choeng Ek. It was located a good long tuk tuk ride outside of the city but we hired a driver for the day for a really reasonable price. He even stopped at a roadside stand to get us masks for our mouths and noses because there was a lot of construction and congestion kicking up dirt and other nasty stuff into the air. We looked a bit like we were about to scrub in to a surgery but it did the trick and mask-wearing is actually extremely common in Asia.

A little background information on the tone of the day: after the U.S. left Southeast Asia in 1975, that April a political party known as the Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia. Headed by the now infamous Pol Pot, the regime was founded on the principles of Cambodian nationalism and communism. Basically, Pol Pot wanted to create a agrarian utopia in which all kinds of modernization and urbanization was stamped out in favor of simple, collectivist village life. Within hours of the Khmer Rouge takeover, the capital city of Phnom Penh was emptied along with all other major cities, forcing the city people out into the country to become farmers.

The work was grueling and the people were given very little food and time for rest. Many of them didn't even know how to farm, being from the cities. However, anyone even remotely suspected of dissent was arrested and taken to prison, oftentimes along with their family members. They were tortured and forced to confess to plotting against the state, and eventually executed in killing fields such as Choeng Ek. To maintain order, every effort was made to keep these execution sites a secret from the remaining population. It wasn't until the Khmer Rouge was overthrown by the Vietnamese in 1979 and the locals discovered the mass graves that the world began to learn about the Cambodian genocide. In the end, they estimate 2 to 3 million people were killed under Pol Pot: roughly one fourth of the population.

Choeng Ek is the most comprehensively designated and preserved killing field, with a large memorial built on the site and a small museum. The most notable part of the visit was the audio walking tour, which enabled visitors to take in the killing field at their own pace and to hear firsthand accounts, background history, and other relevant stories to understand what they were looking at. All of the original buildings, such as holding areas, offices, and storage sheds had been disassembled by the Khmer Rouge, leaving the mass graves as the only evidence to the horrors that happened there. Although extensive excavation has occurred at Choeng Ek, each rainy season still turns up the buried human remains. The audio tour warned me that I might see rags or even bone fragments along the paths I walked, and I didn't believe it until I saw it with my own eyes.

As you can imagine, I wasn't too into snapping photographs of the site, but I did take a picture of the massive stupa that had been erected as a memorial and testament to the thousands who died at Choeng Ek and millions all across Cambodia.


You could actually walk into the stupa and study the shelves and shelves of human skulls that had been excavated from the mass graves nearby. In Cambodia, post mortem care is of great spiritual importance, as they believe that in order for a person's spirit to be at rest they need to be properly cremated at a temple. However, the death toll was so high it would be almost impossible to match up the remains and identify each person and see if they have any family remaining. The best that the excavation teams are able to do is sort the remains by sex and age, and display them as a somber but necessary reminder of the genocide. The tour ended with the closing sentiment that genocide happens all over the world, every day, and it will take a global effort to bring it to an end.

Our next stop was the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum back in Phnom Penh. Originally a high school, the buildings had been converted into a prison by the Khmer Rouge to house the people they suspected of plotting against the regime in some way. Totally paranoid, they would lock up and torture hundreds of people at a time before their executions. Much of the museum remained untouched since the Khmer Rouge abandoned it, but some of the rooms had been turned into exhibit halls for photographs and other information. Most striking were the countless mug shots of each prisoner, ranging from elementary age children to the elderly. I will never forget the faces that gazed back at me across the years, as they eliminated any kind of anonymity I could have projected onto the experience, making it personal and emotional.


There were rooms where rows of makeshift brick or wooden cells had been erected, and other rooms where the metal bed frames upon which people were chained and tortured still sat in the middle of the floor. It took a while to walk through the multiple buildings (all looked more or less like the one above). Since the Khmer Rouge had been replaced by a Vietnamese-run government, the regime actually held the United Nations seats for Cambodia long after its official fall, as the Vietnamese government was deemed illegitimate in the international community. Pol Pot went into hiding and eventually died. However, there has since been an ongoing tribunal for the remaining Khmer Rouge members, overseen by the current Cambodian government and the U.N. It tries the former leaders for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide.

It was not the happiest way to end my time in Cambodia, but one I felt was totally necessary to understanding the country and to gain some perspective on its current state of development and the inter-connectivity with rest of Southeast Asia. The more time I spend here, the more and more I understand that no country can live in a vacuum, and that each event has ramifications far beyond the immediate or short term. It's a mindset that I want to carry with me long after I leave Thailand, which is the whole point of me being here in the first place!

We ended the day on a more upbeat note with dinner at an Italian restaurant and cupcakes for dessert with a dip in the hotel pool afterwards. I caught an early taxi to fly from Phnom Penh back to Chiang Mai via Bangkok. I got a couple days of downtime before my next adventure: a meditation retreat on Doi Suthep!