Why am I here?: The ups and downs of life in Cambodia

I suppose it would happen in any country, to anyone living anywhere, abroad or otherwise -- though perhaps especially for expatriates like me. Every few months, you start to wonder what you're doing here, because the things you think you want morph, the things you think you came for vanish, and in between there is a whole lot of gray to deal with.

It's not as though there are not opportunities in Cambodia -- in fact, there are so many that I'm working close to 50-60 hours per week between three jobs and my extra projects, which include a number of performances to dance in and create.

But it just doesn't look like I thought. Most of my recent frustration has come from my attempts to start "Pandaemonium Dance", which I had pictured as intense training and rehearsal with a number of dedicated dancers, building up to a variety of performances. I spent a long time worrying about the fact that I have no paid opportunities yet and not wanting to waste the dancers' time, and yet thinking they would be there to build the thing up with me.

Except, as artists do everywhere in the world, that's not the case. As the producer/creator, you are always the one who cares the most, and the others are there because it is one opportunity among many and they don't want to miss anything, so they do everything 50% instead of throwing 200% into one thing to build it and see it through.

What does that mean? It means that every week, some dancers are missing because they have other shows, other rehearsals. Saying they are free to rehearse at a certain time -- which they all did -- does not, I've discovered, mean they actually are. That time is not "blocked out" of the schedule as it is with mine, and if something else arrives, well, they try to do everything and if they can't, they say yes to the new one and send me text messages apologizing profusely for not coming.

That's all well and good, but they still aren't coming.

It's frustrating because of course I want it to be as essential to them as it is to me. When I say I'm doing something, I do, and come to every single rehearsal unless I absolutely cannot -- and if another thing comes up, I say I can't do it, I'm already working on something else.

But that is not the case with everyone and everywhere, and in the past few days, I've had to go back to that old question -- what do I want?

Every time in Cambodia when I think my mission is to "help" or to "teach" and that my knowledge is somehow invaluable or essential, I get lost and I have to realize that it is not. These artists are busy. They are good. And they will find their way -- or not -- regardless of what I do. I am not the Doctor or the Know-All, End-All.

It's a sobering thought, but the only way out is to go back to that simple question. What do I want out of being here? Why am I still here, a year and change down the road, and why shouldn't I just leave, as I consider doing every few months? If all these things I want, in life, love, career and etc, seem so very far away, where can I go to find them?

I actually still don't know the answer to those questions and probably never will, but I do know that for whatever reason, I'm not ready to leave this place yet, and I can't picture it.

So I'm having to go back to what there is and go from there, and follow my own heart, do things because I want to and not because I think someone else needs it. And be willing to let my vision of what it is I thought I was doing here to change. As an example, the past week I started judging for a Kpop dance contest on CTN, which is fabulously amusing, but that is not at all what I thought I was coming for -- a TV personality on Cambodian TV, WHAT??? But there it is, and it's fun, and though it is not the artsy fartsy production/creation I had in mind, it is here and happening, and I have to follow it.

Life is complicated, and so is this country, but for better or for worse, I am here, and learning by the day -- and maybe, in the end, that's the real and only reason to be here -- and maybe it's reason enough!

Waiting for the world to turn, or running madly to catch up

The title of this post is a paradox, because my brain is full of them.

I suspect that most of it has to do with the time of year. Anywhere in the world, it's been the same season for a few months now and it feels like high time to move on, to whatever it is that comes next. It's the same problem as I have with February, or used to. Last August was tough too, if I recall.

Then, it was about culture shock. This is about the continuing and constant dialogue of time, place, and identity that is particulary present when you live abroad.

The expiration date on my latest visa extension -- my fourth Cambodian visa -- is February 2014. I don't know why, but somehow the date really threw me off. It means that 2014 is only -- and less than -- six months away, because that's how long my extension is for. But that number seems totally wrong. For some reason 2014 seems like it should be farther away than that, and it almost feels unfair that in fact it's more or less right around the corner.

That's the time part of the equation: I feel like I want time to move, but the fact that is does, and is doing so in great leaps and bounds, is somewhat terrifying. It's not as though I don't have enough to do -- in fact, sometimes it's too much -- or that I don't have things coming up and plans being made. In many ways, the upcoming things are abstracts, strange concepts that mean something in the future, while in the meantime there is a heavy amount of daily. From one place to the next, from one thought to the next. Second by second, hour by hour.

The city is quiet these days. There's talk of elections and investigations and the Prime Minister gathering the armed forces in case the opposition rallies, and the media talks and talks, and in the meantime life goes on, as it does. Election propaganda has all but vanished, just a few banners here and there to remind of what happened. Otherwise, life goes on as it does, as it always has.

I've been missing Colorado a lot recently, which I find really strange. Those mental conversations always end with, yeah but what would you do there? to which I have no reply. Then I'll read something about the latest bone-headed move by the Republicans, the latest healthcare crisis, the latest outrage over something, the latest this or that that exemplifies all the reasons I don't want to live in America, but then that mental conversation ends with, but Colorado isn't "America" as a whole.

It's a conversation that has no resolution and probably won't for a good long time. As I've discovered often, things aren't simple, black or white. It's never going to be America or Cambodia or France, one is good and the others bad, I want only to be one place and not the others. The truth is much more complicated than that, and can't be stuffed into separate boxes.

I was rereading some old blog posts, and found one that I'd written just at the beginning of my stay in Paris. I knew I was going to Paris to get lost (literally and figuratively) but it was when I was just starting to understand what it really meant. The thoughts I was having then are different from those I'm having now, but the feeling is much the same. This is what I wrote --

Oh, I thought, staring at this beautiful world going by, the blue sky above. This is what it's like to be lost; to have utterly no idea what's coming next, what it may look like, and to have no other place whatsoever to be except for exactly where you are. To have no real place to call "home" besides where you've left those you love, and to only be here, wherever the hell here is. 

Maybe that's what this is, seeing a mess of plans in the abstract future and floating uncertainly in the ever-fluid present, unsure if the abstracts are what I want or where I want or how I want, and yet going forward into them because I have no real better ideas.

Does this sound melancholy?

It's not meant to be. Being lost is disturbing and uncertain and when you have time to think about it, as I do today, it gets very confusing. During the week, there are moments when I'm exhausted and frustrated, and moments of joy and laughter, moments of gratitude and moments of wanting to flee. It just is, and continues every second.

In the mean time, there is work to be done. There are words to be written, moves to be created. I'm rethinking where I want to go and how I want to get there, and finding very few answers, but a shit ton of questions.

Oh, is that what happened?

The other day, a dear friend commented on a facebook photo how glad she was to see how I've embraced Cambodia.

To be honest, I looked at the comment and thought, "Is that what I've done?" I kind of feel like I resisted doing so, muttering and bad-tempered and weaving through traffic, except when it comes to my students and my work, of course.

Is that what I did? Embrace Cambodia? Is that how I now very much despite myself find myself thinking seriously about staying much longer than anticipated?

When the heck did that happen?

I guess during all the moments when I had -- and still don't -- no idea what was going on or how to begin to talk about it, when I couldn't say anything but hey, it's happening and I'm still running. Whenever I wasn't paying attention, maybe that's when it happened, when I wasn't homesick or thinking damn-it-I'm-learning-a-lot-but-get-me-the-hell-out-in-eight-months, that somehow my feet just sunk into the soil and the roots starting wrapping up my body.

I guess it's the transition from 'project' to just 'living'. I am used to moving on and moving along, enough time for a project or a semester or a summer, and then kiss whatever's there goodbye and start anew. I do it a lot and get myself into tricky situations constantly of having to leave behind lives, people, and work that I love dearly. In fact, one of the times I did that was in Paris and I still, no matter what happens here, intend on returning long term at some point before too long.

But if everything goes well -- I should know by the end of the week -- I'm thinking that maybe it is time to stop my mad globe-trotting and settle to do something for real, spend a little more time building houses instead of just laying foundations.

The fact that it's happening while I'm here -- is that embracing Cambodia? Is that what I'm doing?

If it is --

I did it behind my own back.

Visiting, living, and the shame of not seeing the sights

I am about to make an illogical statement:

I have serious travel inertia.

This might sound odd coming from a girl who has, multiple times, upped and moved to a new country or state, knowing one or no people at the destination city, and recently jetted off to the other side of the world on a one-way ticket.

But let me explain.

Having now been in Phnom Penh for over two months, I'm starting to get the questions about where I've been and what I've seen, inside the city and country, and outside. Today -- National Museum? No. Tuol Sleng, the genocide museum? No. The Killing Fields? Not that either. What about around Cambodia? No. Thailand? Laos? Vietnam? No, no, and no.

They all happen to be on my list of things I'd like to see, sure. It does seem a bit silly to be in this region of the world and not go voyaging, and especially the things in Phnom Penh, and I do feel a bit guilty about it. Sometimes I see the tourists flocking around Wat Phnom -- which I have to go by every day on my way to work -- and I reliably think, I should probably check that out too.

But in reality, unless there's a good opportunity or I have serious reason to want to do so, I don't. My excuses are the usual -- no money, don't want to go alone, don't know where is good, don't know how to organize it. All of them are perfectly well solvable and avoidable.

And yet the fact remains that, unless the opportunity comes knocking, the chances of me actually organizing a trip to Vietnam by myself, for example, are pretty darn slim.

I don't really know what to do about it. Like I said, I feel kind of guilty that I'm in the region and just doing my thing in Phnom Penh, but maybe that's just it -- I'm not really here to visit. I came here to work, and to make stuff happen. I'm doing that. I came here to live. I'm doing that too.

I suppose it all works out in the end. I've noticed it enough, though, to realize it's just something in me. If I have good reason to go, I do, in somewhat spectacular fashion. If I don't, I don't.

For better or for worse, I guess...

Riding out the downs of culture shock

I have nothing but good things to say about adventures, about throwing yourself into life, about following dreams with obsession if not blind, then at least consuming. That’s what you want to hear about, I’m sure, it’s why you’re reading this blog.

But please excuse me, if you would, a paragraph or two about the darker side – not the bad side, because I don’t believe that exists – but the times when where you are is too far, and you are very alone in a very big world.

It’s all part of the adventure, and I know it – I’ve been here before, I know how it looks and that it’s not forever. But it doesn’t matter: each time is like the first. Doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been down that road, it’s still the same.

Today is the day when everything is harder. I couldn’t download a very important file and got told off for asking it to be compressed, then got up early expressly to get to café with high speed internet and nope, doesn’t work there either. Followed shortly by a lunch in which I got told all the reasons why I can’t do what I want to do, with all the excuses I’ve heard before: not enough funding, people won’t be receptive, yada yada yada.

Frustration is not good for culture shock. The thoughts running through my head as I biked to work were not charitable in any way: I am tired of being the only white girl, of the Cambodian men shouting “Hey Lady!” at me from the street when I’m biking by and being stared at like a zoo exhibit. Tired of the heat. Plus I’m still hung up on things that don’t matter at all anymore and that I can’t do anything about anyway, stuck on words that can’t do anything but drive me crazy, and nothing really to do about it but wait it out.

Thankfully, I know that none of this is permanent, and soon enough – probably tomorrow – all will have changed, and the adrenaline of adventure will return, the excitement and the stars. Soon enough the things in my head driving me batty will have vanished to the dusty corners with all such similar things, soon enough the wall will break down, soon enough ---

It’s just the cycle of things. Times when it’s easy, times when it’s hard, times when you just want to go home and stay where you are, all at the same time.

Gillian v. Herself: Dealing with Culture Shock

I noticed something interesting today, in how I’m dealing with the new culture.

I decided, as I usually do, to jump into this new adventure with both feet, full immersion. To the market right away, on my own on the bike, learning Khmer, eating the local food. It’s a sure way to get used to what’s going on and I’m proud of it.

However, today I was craving the West and the familiar, and decided to spend some time in a western style coffee shop, on the internet and on the phone with my parents. I had been planning not to do that until Sunday, letting that day be my day to spend in a familiar environment.

There are two opposing factions in my head. There is the one that is almost ashamed of having given in, the one that is so upset with the stereotypical tourist and ex-pat that remains constantly in the Western areas that she tries desperately to do the exact opposite. She’s the one who thinks the best way to deal with the shock is to just continue on, and soon enough it will become normal.

Then there is the other faction, who thinks that it is perfectly okay to seek refuge in the Western style when faced with an overwhelmingly new life, and not only perfectly okay but perfectly understandable. She thinks that so long as it does not become a crutch, or a habit, or otherwise impede the experience of the country, there is absolutely nothing wrong with retreating to one’s roots.

The two are just about equal, and while one does seem more reasonable – the latter – I just can’t discount the former, the embodiment of my come-hell-or-high-water, obsessive self that throws herself into life with a verve some may call utter insanity.

I’m trying to compromise the two halves by having internet installed in my apartment. That way, I don’t have to always go to those western cafés for internet but remain in touch with the world I left behind. I think it’s a very healthy compromise and may appease that violent adventurer.

I guess I just need to convince my obsessive self that you can have the cake and eat it too, that it is possible to be fully engaged in the life and the culture here and yet still irrevocably rooted in the place we come from. I will always be western, and as much as I try otherwise, I will always be American. I can’t erase that self. I just need to learn how to keep it, nurture it, and yet remain open to the influences of the culture around me.

It’s not an easy job, and goes against my instinct. But I think I have to learn, because I have a suspicion that the only way to fully immerse myself in the newness of this place is to be perfectly grounded in where I came.

Certainly, it’s something to work on…

Learning to be still

"Faire une nuit blanche": pull an all nighter.

Every year, Paris pulls a nuit blanche. Art exhibits are everywhere, music is everywhere, and crazy light shows are abundant. People stay out until 7am, after which it's time to quietly slip into bed.

I wasn't there, at least not past midnight or so. I can't decide if I should have, or could have, but the point is that I was exhausted and chose instead to return back home and go to bed. I had been planning on going to a ball thing sunday evening, today, with "the club internationale des jeunes à Paris", but sent an e-mail making my own excuses.

I will be the first to accept the fact that I am an old woman when it comes to going to bed early, but why didn't I just stay out? Live a little, be young? I could make all sorts of excuses, but I won't. I didn't, because I couldn't. I wanted to sleep, I wanted to disappear for the day and have absolutely nowhere to be, nothing to do.

I did stay out for a bit -- having a lovely dinner and then taking a long stroll to the Centre Pompidou, which as far as modern bullshit claiming to be art goes, is really up there at the top. I apologize for insulting anyone's artistic sensibilities, but I saw a lot of interesting things in there and not a lot I considered to be art -- but that's the point, I suppose, that everything and anything can be art so long as you call it that. But for me, the best part of the building was the escalator staircases on the outside of the building, pulling you irresistibly up into the Paris night, and at the top, surrounded by a glass bubble, you can look out into the night, watch the Eiffel Tower sparkling, see the Cathedrale de Sacre-Coeur on Montmartre. It's stunning.

But after we were done making fun of the pieces inside, we headed out  --- everyone headed for Trocadero, but I headed home, clambering into bed.

I didn't wake up until 11:30, staying in bed until I was good and ready to get up. I knew I wanted to go somewhere, but waited until a good idea came to me, and a little past one headed out. I stopped at a boulangerie to buy a goodie and a baguette, then turned my steps to the Cimetière de Montparnesse.

I had been there once before, and I like cemeteries usually. I went in the back way I guess, because there wasn't that many people -- the cemetery has a lot of famous people buried there and attracts a fair amount of tourists. But there wasn't many where I came in, and I walked slowly, listening to the wind rustling the leaves, just beginning to turn and fall. It was a very mild day and fairly sunny, and with the inherent calm that always comes in cemeteries, I found myself utterly at peace.

This is what I was looking for today, I thought -- this past week felt too much like home, rushing, stressing, thinking, --- doing. I am so tired of doing. I "do" very well. The other day at dinner, someone said to me, "you're doing so much -- trying to find a job and getting your dance classes and all that. I don't think I could do that."

I didn't know how to explain to her that "doing" is easy for me. I'm used to doing. It's natural.

But what I was looking for -- a lesson from the dead, who, I've heard, are quite good at this -- was how to stop -- how to not do -- how to rest. To stand in the face of the world, with all of its insanities and terror, to look at all of the black and white and grey and color color color -- and not do.

(Isn't that fatalistic?) The demons in my head are never satisfied with stillness. (To change the world, mustn't one do?) 

I let the dead answer for me. One can only do from a point of stillness, or the doing only blends into all the other 'things' we humans do. 

I sat on a bench for a long time and looked out at the graves, and quietly buried the stress, uncertainty, and various other things I've been carrying with me. Rest in peace, I thought. There are a lot of things I need to let go of -- some things I may find again, some things I may fight for again, but for right now, for these few short months I have for myself -- I buried them.

There are some things that are perfect.

Like that.

If you'd like to see pictures the day, click here.

À bientot.