Cambodia is going to be fine

The longer I stay in Cambodia, the more I understand about what it is to live here, especially in the energy. I believe whole-heartedly in ghosts, because energy is powerful. Walls, rocks, places, hold energies and history, and I think that at some times there is such a flash of energy that it remains -- perhaps why violent deaths sometimes result in ghost sightings and stories.

There is an energy in Cambodia, and I didn't really even understand that until a friend and I were talking about it. She was in Thailand for a week and said now she thinks it's important to get out of the country at least once every few months because the energy here is heavy.

She's right -- there is a heavy energy here. Going to Sihanoukville or the islands, while relaxing, doesn't cut it, because it's still Cambodia and it still carries the weight of the genocide.

At the immigration office we're working on a separated family case, and between the sisters who have grown up in America and the sister left in Cambodia (born some years before the Khmer Rouge), the difference in their faces and eyes are incredibly striking. The one in Cambodia has years and  years of care and worry and hard work etched into her face, very little education and far too much hurt for her time. Those in America have wide, lively eyes and smooth foreheads.

Sometimes it gets frustrating -- actually, a lot. Corruption has been built into this country's government from the beginning and it is so entrenched now that it's hard to see even the start of the path out. Poverty and corruption are institutions and it affects all daily life. With the recent political stalemates, it highlights the problem even more.

One of my friends said it best -- more often than not, instead of being the "Kingdom of Wonder", Cambodia is the "Kingdom of Wondering What The Hell is Going On."

And yet.

Today I went to go see the circus. If you believe the internet, there is no circus school in Phnom Penh, only in Battambang, but there is a circus, a program of the Royal University of Fine Arts. Circus apparently dates back to the Angkorian times as there are bas-reliefs in Angkor Wat showing people tightrope walking and juggling.

The maybe ten performers were aged somewhere between ten or twelve to maybe late teens or early twenties, all but two male, and they were good. They attacked their work with focus and determination, with all the panache, showboating, and theatricality required for circus. They were choreographed, decently rehearsed, and actually very impressive.

When I left, I had this thought: Cambodia is going to be fine. It's going to be fine because there is a whole younger generation of people who are passionate about what they do and willing to take the time to invest themselves in it.

My brain afterwards was trying to be a cynic about it, saying that the system is so skewed that all that optimism and passion could get squashed -- a very specific google search that finally admits the existence of the school is full of how it might get shut soon and how the artists are not sure if they can actually make a living doing this.

But I can never shake that feeling, whether with these young performers or other dancers and artists I've met. They are not sure, but they are passionate and willing -- so it seems at least -- to take the risk. When they talk afterwards their words are unsure, but when they are performing their eyes are on fire.

It is not now, and change is a very, very slow, ardous, and ugly process. My mind can think of a thousand ways for things to go wrong and very few for them to go right. The passion of youth to be stamped out by the status quo and the old entrenched institutions and all that.

But whatever my mind thinks, my heart sees these young artists and believes unshakeably that in their hands, Cambodia is going to be fine.

Violence is not the answer

There's been some crazy things going on in Phnom Penh. Demonstrations and protests against the total sham of free and fair elections have turned dangerous with police brutally dispersing, or unnecessarily blocking key arteries to keep people from going home, or, in the case last night, standing by as a number of masked thugs slingshot marbles and beat sticks on peaceful protesters.

I don't much like politics, and I don't really like talking about them. Any conversation descends into an us vs them dichotomy, thems is wrong and us is right. So I'm not going to say much more about it and won't spend on long this post either.

Today the new Cambodian "government" was sworn in, 68 seats of the ruling party with the opposition boycotting in protest of the unfair elections. The King was there and read some statement that mentioned none of the violence or the strange fact that half the seats remain painfully empty.

Even worse, a number of major countries -- including the US and France -- sent representatives to the farce of opening a democracy. The US Ambassador to Cambodia was there, smiling, putting a rubber stamp of approval on a government that uses corruption as a way of life and cares about power well before the needs or desires of its own people. Someone said on Twitter, and I couldn't agree more -- those who sent representatives today are a disgrace.

It's not just Cambodia, though. In my own country, the government is raring at the bit to start another war. The two parties refuse pointblank to have anything to do with each other, including discussions or, perish the thought, try some attempt at compromise. And in the meantime, America sickens -- and literally, considering the utter catastrophe of a healthcare system.

There is even a well-respected (by some) American institution with widespread membership whose explanation for the fact that thirteen people were shot in a military base is that "there weren't enough good guys with guns."

While here, armed thugs shoot people with marbles and beat them with sticks while the police passively look on, and in response to the incident, explain "they were trying to do something, but we stopped them, we didn't do anything wrong."

I will say this once, and I'm not going to change my mind: violence is not the answer. It was never the solution to begin with, and trying to stop violence with violence only perpetuates the bloody cycle. Any rhetoric, religious or political or otherwise, that ultimately leads and endorses a violent conclusion, is not the answer either.

Violence has become the rhetoric of everyday life. Hurt them before they hurt you. It's in our games, our media, our politics, our religions, and the result is a rotten fruit.

It is not the answer. Not then, not now, and will never be.

Protection from the overbearing west, or covering your eyes?: Why I'm teaching ballet here

There is an ongoing debate going on in Cambodia right now about arts and culture -- to evolve or to preserve. And on the side of evolve, there's another split as to how. They agree that it's okay to change and move forward, but as to how -- with what influences, etc -- is the question.

Essentially it all boils down to the question, how much of the west is too much? For the preservation side, any is too much, but even on the evolve side that can be true. The west has done enough. Cambodians should evolve from their own culture, and the west should stay in its own place. 

This week I found myself in the middle of this debate as a result of my decision to teach western dance history in a workshop at Cambodian Living Arts. I prefer not to say who the debate was with or how it came up, but the basic question was this: if we're encouraging contemporary Cambodian dance that is still based very much on Cambodian culture, then we should be careful about showing/exposing the dancers to too much western dance so they don't get a certain idea fixed in their head. 

Now here I have to say, I have no idea what the best way is, obviously. I have only what I think, and while I do feel pretty strongly about it, I can't say I'm right and end of discussion, as no doubt the truth is more complicated. 

But what I think is that there is nothing more important than education. There is nothing more important than being exposed to as many things as possible, ideas that challenge what you feel, what you think you believe. Personally, I've watched a lot of dance. I like maybe 10%, and I really love maybe 5%. But the more I watch, the more I understand what it is I respond to, the ideas I really appreciate. 

Now, if it were to be the sort of thing where someone comes in and says, "This is Martha Graham. This is what dance should be. The end," that would be a different story. But I can never say, this is what dance is, this is what it should be. Those ideas are constantly being challenged, and the most revered characters in dance history are those that broke the rules, that did things completely different from those that came before. 

Why is it that we westerners are allowed to steal from every other culture, and yet when it comes to Cambodians learning about the western forms, suddenly it's seen as the overbearing west? 

Isn't it true that looking at the western forms -- and any other cultural forms and dances -- that they might understand what makes Cambodian forms unique and special, and being able to really exploit those areas? 

Besides education -- learning history, context, seeing what ideas other choreographers are playing with -- what about teaching other techniques? This has been a different side of the debate in the past. I am planning, as part of my dancers' training, to teach basic ballet and basic contemporary techniques. I want to do this because I think there are certain tools of movement -- like strength, flexibility, and balance -- that ballet is really good at offering. Graham technique is excellent for core strength, another useful tool, and other techniques I've learned are really good for strengthening and learning to use the back, yet another useful tool. 

But in doing this, am I squashing the Cambodian side? Even if we never actually perform a lick of ballet onstage. Pilates might be okay, but ballet? Too western? Of course I don't know the answer to it, but I do believe that as a dancer, the more tools you have in your pocket to help you move in different ways and adjust to different styles or think of different ways to move, the better. What I know is ballet and contemporary and that's what I can teach. 

Does all of this make me a blind, overbearing westerner? 

I know that sounds like a sarcastic question, but I mean it honestly, and the answer is, I don't know. Maybe it does. But I just can't let go of the idea that it's important to know what's out there, what other people are doing and why, because I'm quite convinced that the more you understand the other, the more you understand yourself. 

It has to be done tactfully, in the sense of showing -- this is this choreographer, they were trying to do this -- and not lecturing. But there is no need to shelter these dancers. Let them look, let them learn, and let them decide for themselves what it means to be Cambodian. With the education behind them, it will be a much more informed decision. 

I don't know all the answers, but I just think that covering your eyes does not help you see. 

Losing the thread, or rather the words

I wonder if there is a moment in any new experience or immersion such as this -- such as Paris before it -- where words become completely inappropriate. When taking the time to find them, to place them together in strings of meaning that may or may not encapture that which you are living, is too long and cumbersome and in the end it doesn't say what you wanted anyway.

Maybe it's just the busyness -- that around a year of building, of negotiation, the seeds that were planted and watered and cared for are suddenly exploding out of the ground with the sheer joy of being free. Or maybe it's the craziness of someone working too many jobs and adding too many projects, and when I do have a moment to breathe, I spend it mostly playing silly games that do not require thought, or analysis, or negotiation.

Either way I've noticed the weeks flashing by and I think about the blog, but often find I have very little to say. Are there still cultural differences to be noted and learned from? Of course. Daily, hourly. Each moment of being here is a negotiation. But it's hard to put those into words, because they must be lived, and breathed.

It's funny, this blog has mostly been about life, about the fact of living here. Dance is referenced and mentioned -- as it would be impossible not to -- but often in the context of a job, like CTN, or a mention that it happens. But there is very little here about the conversations I have very regularly about dance, about my vision of it, the negotiations that take place around that subject.

In some ways I guess I feel like the blog was intended to track the cultural side of things, the adventures and challenges related to that, life as it tumbles along and my thoughts from the wake of it, and maybe dance philosophy wasn't exactly part of that.

I guess what I'm saying is, lost inside this existence where words seem very clumsy and time-consuming, I wonder what this blog is for -- it's certainly not written for a wide public audience, maybe just more for myself to keep a record of this time as it was happening. Looking back to things is cheating because then you have hindsight, and perspective that now lacks, and sometimes I like to look back at previous posts -- to find solace in the fact that SHE didn't know what she was doing either, or to see how far I've come, or just marvel at this crazy journey I've been on.

But there are things to be said. There are remarks to be made, things that have struck me as beautiful or profound. I suppose I'll try taking the Pixie Dust Chronicle into a new direction -- not just long, in-depth studies, but remarks, things I notice, short posts about one thought or conversation.

I'll wrap up this mostly useless post with a story: I met someone the other day who is doing some very beautiful dance/theater work in Siem Reap with three Cambodian girls (www.newcambodianartists.com). He was telling me about one day when the girls were doing an improvisation, and one surprised him with this kind of feral, tigress kind of thing, low and open and very, very daring especially for a Cambodian girl. They took a long time to get back to it the next day, but when she at last got there, he asked her how she felt in that moment.

She said this: "I felt very alone, and I felt like I could dance very well."

I thought it was one of the most beautiful and perfect things anyone has ever said about a performance.

គ្មានការរំាជីវិតគ្មនន៍យ: Actually, it means something

I've been spamming the heck out of my Facebook wall tonight, so I decided just to write a short post about it because I've been so up in arms -- and sort of surprising myself in the process.

The background is this: this week, for Saturday concert, I was told that there were no slow songs to dance because the singer had their own team of dancers. At first, I just accepted that, hey, whatever, but when the concert came on tonight, I found I wanted to watch it. If the dancers are good, I thought, no problem, but if they aren't, I'm going to be upset.

It was a singer that's been on quite often, some big star, that was featured, but the thing was, he sang two slow songs, and no dancers were present. There was a group of dancers doing a traditional dance, but the longer the concert went on without slow dancers, the more agitated I got, and when he finally came on with dancers, it was for a disco song.

The dancers weren't bad and he had clearly rehearsed with them, which is actually something I've been wanting to see from the stars, so there was that. But what about the slow songs? Where were the dancers? And if they weren't performing, then why, I demanded of the television and my flatmate ad infinitum, weren't we invited?

I was actually quite ticked off about the whole thing -- the having their own dancers, the lack of slow dancers, the lack of my dancers, everything. It wasn't reasonable -- hell, they're a giant corporation, they can do whatever they want, and he's a big star, he can do whatever he wants.

But then I had to step back, and I realized something kind of surprising: I care about this job.

I know. All I do is complain about it. But when it comes down to it, I'm proud of the work I've done and the improvements made under my watch, and whatever happened with CTN or the singer meant nothing, but it touched on my pride (That's my stage you're taking away from me...).

But beyond that, it actually touches on a much deeper thing in me, which is that I love what I do -- dance, and creating dance -- beyond all reason.

The tattoo on my leg, and the title of this post, reads "Without dance, life is meaningless" and gets a lot of funny looks. People read it at stoplights and kind of laugh or give me weird looks. Sometimes, with a bit of a teasing voice, they'll ask if I like dancing. But what I want to say is, you don't understand. You don't get it. Dance is in my very bones, above anything else in the world. If my family asked me to stop dancing (which they never would, but just to prove a point), I'd choose dance first. If a man ever asked me to stop dancing, I'd choose dance first. Without dance, I am lost.

But not only do I love what I do, I take pride in it. That's why, although I'm not required to be at CTN for the live concerts, I'm always there, because I want to see it -- and not just the clips in the background you get on the television. I need to see the whole picture, how the space works, which parts work and which don't, and I get upset when things go wrong. It matters, and matters deeply, that I do my job well, and never stop improving.

All things considered, the poor singer probably didn't deserve the wrath I was sending his way, but along the way I learned a pretty important lesson about a job that some months ago, I was considering running away from.

Duly noted, universe....

Hello, I love you, let's get married...or not

The time has come to chit chat about an area of life where Cambodia and America have very little to do with each other: love, dating, and marriage.

I'd like to start with a disclaimer: It'd be easy to read this as saying one thing is better than the other and therefore it's stupid to continue and really now. I don't mean for it to be that. I'm just trying to lay out some things I've noticed, and if I disagree with something, it's because I come from where I do, and believe what I do. It doesn't mean it's wrong.

So let's start with this: Cambodia still has a tradition of arranged marriages. From what I've seen, it's not uncommon for a relative to meet what they consider as a potential mate and introduce the two. A marriage a month or two months later is not uncommon either. Even in the case that the two are boyfriend and girlfriend, it's the parents who talk and decide if they'll be engaged. Monks are consulted and depending on a number of factors, a lucky day for engagement and marriage is decided.

Marriage is a very important thing, and most people are married fairly young -- especially women. Twenty-five and single is not a good thing. Marriage -- and children -- is the ultimate goal.

Perhaps for this reason, or some other factors I'll get to, things get serious very quickly. Love happens abruptly. I know a number of expats who get frustrated with dating Cambodians because on the first or second date, the latter has proclaimed their undying love (hence the title of this post).

I've actually noticed this when it comes to friendships as well. In general, I have the feeling that most people here have a fundamental aversion to being alone. It might be the family focus, the fundamental unit of existence. But being alone is a bad thing (and let me tell you, I know a lot of people in the west like this too). It means loneliness. It means listening to your own thoughts, which go into a lot of bad neighborhoods.

There must always be at least two. Simple things, like going on an errand or something. There are always two. While, for example, it is perfectly normal to see an expat alone in a cafe with their laptop, you almost never see Cambodians alone. They work in groups.

Anyway, back to the friendships. Awhile back, I met a Khmer woman outside of the ballet school. We had a short conversation, small talk, and she asked for my number, which I gave. I didn't think much of it, but then she started to call. She wanted to talk, wanted to know what I was up to, if I could come hang out. I don't have much time, but undeterred, she would call multiple times a day, and when I'd say maybe I could meet up next week (a normal time frame for me), she said she missed me.

I found it completely bizarre, and a little uncomfortable. When, on my birthday, she convinced me to go eat something, and I told her I had maybe twenty minutes then I had to get back from work, she thought that was too short, but yet, when we were there, in person, she was so shy. She wanted to drive around Koh Pich, but I said I had to get back to work, and when she called, I said I couldn't talk.

I didn't think she was a stalker, or dangerous. I know that, for Cambodians, it's perfectly normal to call your friends at least once a day to see what they're up to, what's going on. Still, I had to back off from any kind of contact, because it became very clear to me that we were just unable to relate on the most basic level of what we expected from such a friendship. For me, the thought of missing someone after speaking with them for some five minutes was utterly foreign. I have very little time, and I wasn't going to hop on a moto and spend hours not talking with someone I barely knew.

That's the thing -- talking. I've learned that it's pretty normal for couples to not know that much about each other -- for wives not really to know what their husbands do or how much they make. That just baffles me, coming from the communication culture.

I wonder sometimes if the tendency I've noticed in people my age to "fall in love" very, very quickly stems from the desire to insert love into the arranged marriage situations. Now, their world is fill of love songs in which the singer is either proclaiming their undying love for their girlfriend or boyfriend, who has usually either cheated or left them. I wonder if it's their way of making sense with the traditional marriage and the modern love, or if it just comes from that fear of being alone. Whatever it comes from, I've seen it enough to know it's a common thing. There's not much between "stranger" and "best friend" or "future spouse" or "love of my life."

There's a young couple that always goes to one of the cafes I do a lot of work in. I think they come in every day. It's always just the two of them, and they cuddle next to each other and watch videos or something on a laptop or a phone. After a couple hours, they'll get on their separate motos and go home, presumably. I wonder how long they've known each other, and when they'll get married -- because I assume, that's the next step.

It's easy to see why, then, cross-cultural relationships are so hard. I would never say never, but let's be honest: this is the girl who doesn't want to think about tomorrow, let alone next week or next month or next year, the we-are-together-right-now-for-as-long-as-that-lasts. I don't want to have to know if we'll be married or not, and no, you do not get to say you love me if you've met me once. That's not possible, you don't know me, I don't know you.

I've seen it work on a few occasions, so I know it's possible, with a hell of a lot of negotiation. But again, it's not that one side is better or not, it's just completely different views, with completely different cultural expectations. I think love can -- and does -- transcend all of that, but you've got to find two parties willing to walk the tightrope and meet in the middle of the chasm.

And as a last note -- in the cafeteria at CTN, the older woman who always works there came over to chat briefly today.

Question number three was, do you have a boyfriend?

The Politics, and the Life Behind

As I'm sure you've noticed by the subject of my blogs lately, questions of time, place, and identity have been very predominant in my thoughts. I'm sure there will be more posts about it as I think more, mulling things over, turning over thoughts like stones.

There's a lot of talk these days. A lot of talk and posturing, armored vehicles with men in helmets inside, political games and wracking up tensions and fear. It's kind of the same thing in America, too, only without the armored vehicles, though I'm sure those are around somewhere too.

From the outside, that's all you see. From the outside, the only thing I see of America is blowhards and shouting, outrage and the media. The headlines cover the calamities, the wrongdoings, the mess of this and the mess of that. Similarily, my parents say the only thing they hear about Cambodia, if they hear about anything at all, is the politics and the election and the tensions and etc.

On Sunday, my flatmate took me to a little place called the Alley Cat Café. It is indeed tucked down an alley, a hole-in-the-wall space that opens up right into the alley. When we arrived, all 5 tables were full, though a space for two was found at one, and stuffed against the wall was a guy playing a guitar and singing. The food is Mexican and it's done well, not the sort of fake burritos I've found elsewhere, and the guy with the guitar was singing original songs with clever lyrics, and the patrons were there to listen and enjoy.

It took me back to several places in the US, to underground live music venues in New York, to the excellent Mexican restaurant in Denver I've been to several times with the family, to the neighborhood pub by my parents' apartment. Places where people go to hang out, to drink, to eat, to enjoy the music, to talk and laugh. Places that have nothing to do with the media or the talking heads, when life is about what it is and nothing more than that.

At the Alley Cat Café, I felt perfectly at home and comfortable. I had never been before, but I knew it already, and the memories attached were all good ones. It reminded me once again that the outside perception is very rarely the whole truth. In talking to my parents, they mentioned that the fuss and furor of the politics affects their daily lives very, very little. "Maybe our tax rates change a bit," Mom said.

Likewise here. Maybe things are about to blow up and maybe things will change and maybe they won't. But I can say this much: since the election, my daily life has not changed at all. Yes, of course I'm a foreigner and not inside everything, but as far as I can tell, life goes on much as it did before, no matter what the talking heads shout about.

As far as my own place in all of this, that's another question. I've been particularly thinking about where I see myself and where I want to be to do what I want, something that's not quite as clear as I thought it was.

But that's a conversation for the next post. In the meantime, I'll leave you with the thought that the outside is madness and black and white, but inside, life goes on.