Under her watchful eyes: Khmer Arts (part 1)

NOTE: There is so much to say about my trip to Khmer Arts in the Takhmao province that I am splitting up the posts. Here is part one.

Of course I got lost trying to find it, pedaling around in a full circle and warily heading down a road that seemed to be never ending and not really taking me anywhere where I might want to go. I decided to trust my instinct that it was farther than I thought and kept going, alone and sweaty in the middle of nowhere and pedaling away on a one speed bike.

I finally found street 115, much farther than I was expecting and just as I was about to go over a bridge to god-knows-where, a dirt road that sped off into apparent no man's land, construction everywhere. But as I biked alone, I started to hear music -- traditional music. I veered of the hot, dry, and dusty path to the right, and found myself abruptly in the most wonderful oasis.

It was like someone had made a bubble around the place, cutting off the outside sounds. I parked my bike in a small lot with palm trees, the traditional music loud now. In front of me was the theater -- but nothing like any theater I'd seen. It was a huge pavilion, covered, wide open spaces (no chairs) and a patterned tile floors. Huge green sheets were hung from the high ceilings, to keep out the dust, I suppose.

On the side away from the road was the stage, and behind it, what looked like a temple. Four huge pagodas with faces carved on all four sides; some smiling deity with blank eyes and tall, stacked hats. Stairs wound up an around, from the stage and around the back. Palm trees had taken root -- or planted, more likely -- in every corner, and the stone was all intricately, beautifully carved. Naga, the snake guardians, and on the bannisters little monkeys crouched to hold it up.

I did some exploring -- I found the band, practicing in a small room under the stage, and all of the motos on the other side. The offices were clearly inside the "temple", and onstage some twenty five women were doing the slow, intricate, and elegant dance that is Cambodian classical dance.

Almost all were wearing tight bodices with dozens of little buttons running from navel to breastbone, and the traditional wrapped pants (which I think is just one piece of Cambodian silk, wrapped in a certain way, threaded through the legs, and fastened by a metal belt). A different music was playing through the speakers, drowning out the band below.

Wandering among them and fixing hands, pushing hips and shoulders back, was Ms Sophiline Shapiro, a woman I had heard of often and with great praise. She was a small woman, hair still very black and cut short for a Cambodian woman, in a long wrapped skirt. One of the greatest Cambodian classical dancers, she was forced to live in the countryside during the Khmer Rouge and was one of the first graduates of the Royal University of Fine Arts. She studied at UCLA in the United States, and then launched Khmer Arts in the hopes of reviving the classical arts.

I had heard she was working on a contemporary form of classical dance, that the Ministry of Culture wasn't sure about what she was doing, and generally had been told to get there and talk to her at all costs.

So there I was, watching her work, still elegant and most definitely the master. Sitting on the concrete steps and looking up in the faces of the gods and thinking, I never want to leave this place.

Tuesday Night Chatter

Generally speaking I have a point to my blog posts, or at least, I try. But I think I'm going to start a series, called "Tuesday Night Chatter," where I just lay out a smorgasbord of thoughts and short stories passing through my mind.

The first thing occupying my thoughts are the two strange red patches on the inside of my elbow, exactly where the skin touches itself when you bend your arm. Inside each patch, mirrored on both sides, are these little white dots that look for all the world like bite marks.

Naturally my thoughts have run the gamut from "It's nothing" to "It's some horrible disease" and I imagine the truth is probably somewhere between the two and closer to the former. It may indeed be the work of nefarious alien spiders, or just some enterprising bug that got smushed when I bent my arm in the middle of the night. My plan of action is to see if it goes away by itself, and probably shove it in the face of some unsuspecting friend who's been here for awhile and demand, "Is this a problem?"

The next thing is that I really need to remember to wear sunscreen -- my little wander around Phnom Penh reconstructing what was stolen left me with shoulders like lobsters and a weird handlebar tan line just across my knuckles. Oops.

The gecko outside my window -- he's there most every nights -- is croaking away. I think he just gets upset about things and clucks about them to himself, absentmindedly muttering "Geck-o, geck-o" to himself. Sometimes it's more emphatic, maybe an insult to the lizards taking up his wall space, and sometimes more forlorn, a soft 'geck-o' mournfully crooned to the night.

Things have improved since yesterday, where I was having a fit of west-sickness; a function, I think, of a particularly rough weekend including a night of food related yucks and then getting my bag snitched. The blessing was the highlight among all of that but was still a general downtrend. But thankfully everything has been replaced. I'm still cursing when I can't figure out how to use my new phone but the damage could have been much, much worse.

Improved mostly because I'm busier. I decided today to take a new tactic with my four year old tutoring job and it worked spectacularly, and the week is setting up to be busy and interesting and productive, always better for me. I have lots of work to do and am fairly motivated to do it.

I'm now thinking seriously about getting a Khmer teacher -- even though I did pick up a part time job, things are going to be tight this month and I'm worried, as always, about spending extra. But if I cut down on the treats (I confess to going a bit crazy at the supermarket on Sunday night, thinking chocolate was a good way to deal with the annoyance of the theft), it should all work out just fine and September looks to be my most lucrative month here.

In the introspection department, I'm thinking about two things, which will probably appear as longer entries on here sooner or later: 1, the trap of staying because it's "easier", and 2, the thought that however much I am currently teaching, I am not a teacher.

In the crazy Cambodian stories department, I went to the market today and discovered that I really should be going on the weekdays, as they have much more good produce. Though last time my friend the fruitseller convinced me to buy a mysterious fruit that turned out to be a papaya and absolutely disgusting, I let her talk me into buying something that I thought was a coconut but then she peeled like an orange, and later found out must be a grapefruit. One of the sweetest grapefruits I've ever tasted, actually...okay, we're even for the papaya now.

Sometime before I went on my current western food and chocolate kick, which may have changed things, I've noticed that my no-fat, bike-everywhere lifestyle has quite agreed with me, and have shed the post-graduation pounds that appeared on my hips when all I was doing was eating and partying. Funny how that works...

I probably shouldn't crow too much now, as tomorrow I'm heading off on quite a long bike ride to the Tahkmao province, but my legs aren't complaining quite so much about all the biking. I suppose this means that in place of legs I have long, flexible pieces of steel instead, but again, those words will probably have to be swallowed by this time tomorrow, and I will have returned to my usual state. It mostly involves a long monologue of whimpers and curses as I am dragging myself up the very steep stairs to my apartment.

Speaking of which, I should go to bed. If I did it right on my new phone (which is the cheapest model I could find, 18 bucks), there should be an alarm going off at 7:15 AM.

I hope.

Bag snatched

Honestly, it serves me right. I usually keep my bag in the front basket of my bike, and naturally, someone saw an opportunity, swerved close and snatched it. It was a stupid plan, and well, I paid for it.

However.

I was carrying neither passport nor passport copy. My debit card had barely any money on it and has already been cancelled. I lost all of my business cards with contacts, my phone, my keys, and my dayplanner.

The phone can easily be replaced, the keys slightly less easily but nevertheless possible, except my bike lock keys and locks are less than 5 bucks. My driver's license isn't helping me much anyway, and the only cash I had was 30 bucks.

Bag snatchers can be dangerous, and even fatal, if they knock you from the bike. All these guys did was take the bag -- I was untouched, and unharmed.

It happens. I'll be more careful, and it could have been a whole lot worse. I'll have to take some time to deal with it and the lack of keys is perturbing, but I managed to get into my house and hopefully it will be solved tonight.

Annoying, yes, inconvenient, yes. Moral of the story, don't carry your bag in the front basket of your bike, you idiot, and thank your lucky stars it wasn't worse.

All part of the adventure -- and it could have happened anywhere else, at any other time.

Still....assholes.

UPDATED: I have regained my access to the apartment and was able to go grocery shopping. Thank heavens, just this morning I had taken 100 dollars out of my wallet, and had some extra cash in a safe place so I wasn't stuck without money at all. Tomorrow will go to replace phone and post office key. Besides my day planner, which is easily replaced, things will be back to normal.

Blessings and Buddha

In the past week, I've found myself looking for some kind of cleanse and restart for many reasons. Getting settled in new life here, of course, but I think it's goes back to the end of the chapter of my life that was university and the transition into life, in a new and very foreign place. Figuring out what I want moving forward, and how to forgive and let go with what's past.

I am not a Buddhist, or a Christian, or anything religious. I am, in fact, an atheist to the core, though neither cynical nor militant. However, when my friend Nettra said her mom was urging her to go the temple and get blessed before her return to school in Paris, I immediately asked if I could come, feeling in it the opportunity I had been looking for.

We went this morning, very early, leaving the house at seven. The temple was just outside the city and we were going to meet a specific monk, who apparently knew the family and had blessed their house when they bought it. The temple was like the rest of them, the entrance a big, ornate gate and behind it the beautiful, curling architecture so markedly Asian. I had never been inside one before, only seen the pagodas of the temples here in the city.

There was a main sanctuary, if I can call it such, closed by a gate and clearly the heart of spirituality. It was built up, steeps steps going up with the bannisters covered in the sculptures of naga, a mythical seven headed snake, acting as guardian.

The entire compound is covered with those curled architectural flourishes and colors, gold and red and grey. Nearby there are small pagodas tombs, grey and ornately carved with their tall spires, though I never actually figured out for whom. Wealthy benefactors of the temple, maybe. In the back, tucked away behind the main building and another two story building, are the monks' quarters. They are nothing special, little blue bungalows with washing hung on the balconies. You could see them, walking around in half-togas of orange.

The monk in question was out getting food with several of his brothers, so we looked around a bit. Despite the construction on one side, the whole place was vibrating with peace and calm. There were stretches of grass, plants, and birds, a few lazy dogs. No one was hurrying, or rushing.

A few carloads of monks returned. These wear deep red robes, apparently a signal of what temple they're from. Our monk was very old -- I later learned he was ninety -- and was being helped by a younger monk. We did not go into the main sanctuary, but into a smaller, two-story building nearby. Inside was a room with a Buddha statue, covered with gifts, offerings, and candles, and then a small bench for the monk, covered again with offerings.

We had bought some bread to offer him, and presented it on a gold plate, seating ourselves on the carpeted floor. The monk's secretary began asking the sign of the year we were born, and the day we were born -- apparently there are certain days that are better to be blessed - if you do the whole nine yards - than others. Of the three of us, the two born in 1990 and the year of the Horse -- me and my friend Nettra -- were advised to be blessed. Our friend, a year of the Dragon, was told Sunday or Monday would be better.

I had been worried they wouldn't agree or it wouldn't be a good day for me. I was up half the night thanks to a dodgy dish of fried noodles with "Tofurkey" meat from a Chinese vegetarian dive and was feeling more in need of a blessing than ever. However, with my year accepted and Saturday apparently a good day for me, I followed Nettra into another room, with small tiled rooms.

In each were a couple short stools, barely five inches tall, and a tiled pool of water about a foot and a half by a foot. I had known there would be water involved but didn't realize how much, as Nettra handed over a sarong to wrap myself in and said to take everything else off.

Completely naked under the sarong, we sat on the stools to wait, our backs to the door. One of the guys working there brought some hot water to warm up the pool, and then the monk arrived. We bent our heads, hands together and touching the nose.

He began to chant in sanskrit, his older voice wavering slightly as he murmured the words, a sweet chant that faded at the end. He took huge bowlfuls over the water and poured them on us, our backs, necks, and heads. The water had been perfumed by flowers, and after two bowls Nettra said to wash my face. By the end -- five or six bowlfuls later -- we truly were drenched to the bone.

I don't know how to properly describe it. I didn't know what he was saying, but closed my eyes and felt the waves of encouragement pouring over my head with the water, and imagined it running down with dirt and confusion and everything else I wanted to let go of. I don't know why, but my eyes were full and my throat tight.

After, lacking towels, we dried off the best we could and got dressed, returning to the other room. I lit some incense -- eight sticks, following the advice of Nettra's mom, and placed them in the smaller offering to the Buddha just outside.

Because our friend hadn't gotten the full blessing, the monk blessed the four of us again, this time just sprinkling water and chanting. Following instructions, we bowed three times to the monk at the end, and then three times to the Buddha. "You can pray too, ask him whatever," Nettra's mom said.

To bow, by the way, you put your hands together by your head, then touch them to the ground, usually with the body bending as well. I did, and with my head on my hands, asked the Buddha for what I ask every god, regardless of whether or not I believe in them: strength, and courage.

As far as I can tell, one can never have too much of that.

Studying abroad to living abroad

When I came back from Paris after eleven months abroad, I realized something: my family, the people I'm closest to in the whole world, had lived a full year that I knew nothing of. They were the same as always, but changed, and I found myself trying to relate to them in a way that hadn't worked for a year, like trying to fix a  fridge the way you used to fix an ice box.

It was upsetting, and disturbing, but understandable. While I didn't cut them out completely, I did intentionally disappear, burying myself in the city and my own soul, trying to figure out what it looked like. I was lost, and needed that time to reform.

It's the only time I've spent significant time abroad; while New York is a full three and a half hours by plane away from Colorado, the family is only two hours and a phone call away. Plus, when I left, I knew I was coming back. I had a year left of school, after all.

This time, as has been previously noted and the cause of all sorts of shenanigans and complications, I just don't know when I'm coming back, and in fact I'm not planning to go back to America to live. Just to visit, a month or two every year. This time I'm separated by thirteen hours and a skype call, or a very expensive phone call.

This isn't a year abroad to find myself, but actually moving abroad, and it's changing my focus. I've been asking my family to send me updates, things about the daily life, little challenges and uncertainties that I would  miss otherwise. What they're thinking about, what they're concerned about, triumphs and challenges.

I may live far away, but I don't want to be far away. Space is a distance, but thanks to technology even the other side of the world is just fourteen inches and on the other side of the computer screen away.

Not so very far away at all.

You still have a lot to learn, kid

The first time I showed my choreography to my students, they watched with some confusion. Later, my translator admitted to me he didn't really understand what was going on. Where were the shapes, he wanted to know, that tell you what is going in the story?

I wasn't sure what to say. Cambodian dance is such that each hand position, each shape has its own meaning, a kind of shared cultural language that people use to tell the story. I said, well -- there are no shapes. It's how you do the movement that makes the difference.

I guess, he said, it's dancing from the heart.

Just one difference among thousands between the two art forms. Okay, I thought, so the fusion I want to make has to reflect both ideas.

But today I had a conversation that made me realize that it's not just how you do the movement that differentiates the two cultures. It's also how you present it.

This idea I have to "produce" something is, apparently, a very, very western way of looking at things. The idea of fusion is maybe not as much, but going into something with the goal of performing, a final product in a professional venue -- doesn't that, my lunch meeting partner remarked, sort of take away from the process itself?

My instinct was to say no, of course  not, and what's the point of doing something if you don't have anything to show for it at the end?

I guess if I'm serious about this fusion thing, it can't just be in the movement -- but how it's presented, how the process is approached. I still intend to show it somehow, but I have to put that aside in order to really truly go into the development process with an open mind. What comes will come, and neither I nor any of my collaborators should have a final result in mind to cloud the creative process.

Yes, I keep having these breakthroughs, I keep learning, and then I find out that I still have so much more to learn, and so many cultural habits to let go of. Things I don't even think of as being western brand me as other before I even understand why, but at least -- thank god -- people keep reminding me, and helping me see exactly how far I have to go.

And this is just the beginning.

Oh yeah, I'm staying a while

You might have noticed, if you've seen me recently, the necklace I always wear. It's a Maori hook, from New Zealand. Bone, in the shape of a fish hook.

A kiwi recently told me the origin legend of New Zealand, that the founder discovered first the southern island, then threw out his fish hook and snared the north.

It's a symbol of abundance, and good luck, but, he said, it's more about finding home -- especially finding home wherever you are. Hooking the other island.

I've worn it pretty much nonstop since my mom gave it to me in March this year. Right now, it's making me think about home, and being where you are.

It's been three weeks and change since I arrived in the charming city of Phnom Penh, the usual time for vacation, when everything is still new and exciting and interesting. The shine blinds you everywhere you look, and I charged into it like a bull into the sunset and leaving the Princess behind in happily ever after.

But now it is week four, when things are settling in, work is starting. Not as many meetings, not as much going on, not as much to deal with. Now is the time when I'm making a routine, when earning money is becoming not a priority but really essential to me staying here.

It's part of the adventure, of course, when you start to realize that this isn't a vacation, and even if you knew it all along it takes some time for your soul to get the memo. "Knowing" things doesn't necessarily mean you believe them, if you'll permit me a confusing explanation.

I don't want to say it's bad -- besides not believing in the word or the concept itself, I think it's just one color among thousands. But it is a transition, and I admit to finding myself a bit adrift this week.

What can I tell you? The adventures, while I'm sure they are still happening, don't feel like adventures, they feel like life. I spoke about choreography at a Phnom Penh expat staple called Nerd Night, in a shady club in the Red Light district turned auditorium for an evening. The bartenders couldn't believe all the people whispering to order beers so everyone else could hear the speakers, and the girls who 'work', all prettied up, played on their cellphones, bored out of their minds.

The black light made all the reds neon-orange and the whites shine clear, and the disco balls played tricks with the lights. All while a few passionate people stood onstage and presented about a topic, using 20 slides, 20 seconds each slide.

Or maybe we can talk about how the fruitseller, sort of my friend now, convinced me to buy a somewhat mysterious fruit that took me several good minutes of searching on google to identify as a papaya. For the dollar I paid for it, I suppose it isn't too much of a waste to throw away; as much I am somewhat opposed to the principle of doing such a thing, it tastes horrible to me.

Driving is always an adventure but I've learned to drive just as badly as the locals and get along just fine. I'm logging the kilometers on that bike, a one-speed pretty little piece of work that goes only so fast as I pedal, and is a real pain in a headwind, as has been happening much too often for my taste recently.

I've learned my way more or less around the city, I still can't speak Khmer but have picked up a few more phrases. I'm busy trying to convince my students that having a finished solo on the second day of an entire week dedicated to creating them is not quite what I'm after. I'm teaching English here and there, and my newest challenge is dealing with a cute, but hyperactive, four year old who has a speech delay and a mother who wants a native speaker to talk to him.

Maybe I'm imagining it, but on my usual routes the guys who hang out along the streets seem to know me, because while they still stare, I don't get the same yowls as before. Maybe they're learning, like my soul, that I'm staying for a bit.

Well, I am. I've been craving western goodies and snacks, which I'll indulge. A few things to remind me of home, until where I am is enough -- and as it will.

As it is already becoming.