'You buy my fan lady? Only one US dollar. When you come back from the temple you remember me okay, lady?'
The plaintive voice of a young girl, not older than 10, joins a chorus of
children's voices as
tourists alight from their motorcycles and buses to visit the magnificent
temples of Angkor. These children should be in school, but their parents think
it makes more economic sense for them to sell ice-cold beer to cash-rich
tourists in the blazing sun. And why not? If a child sells three cans of beer,
she makes US$5. A truckload of money in a country where a year's private
university tuition fees is US$300.
But far from moaning about the heat or scowling at tourists who are impatient with them, the children smile, their beautiful faces light up with amazement at all the different people visiting their home from faraway countries yet to be discovered.
By default of geographical closeness, the Cambodian people have been battered by the Vietnam War. Indiscriminate American attacks destroyed the landscape, especially when the B52s were used extensively throughout the war to carpet bomb the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Civil war broke out in 1970, pro-US generals and an anti-US alliance formed between Prince Sihanouk and the communists. Some of these communists were from Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, which took over the country in April 1975.
Then
followed four years of untold hardship at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. The
Khmer Rouge immediately introduced radical economic reform, emptying the
country's capital Phnom Penh and other cities and putting people to work on
massive agricultural projects in the countryside. Entire families were killed
and the middle class was all but wiped out. From 1975 to 1979, two million
people were killed, cities were emptied, institutions were disassembled and
modern Cambodian society was destroyed.
The Khmer Rouge converted a high school in Phnom Penh for use as their torture chamber. One could be hauled up for any number of reasons - because you were middle class, because you could speak English, because you wore spectacles! The ground floor classrooms were converted to individual rooms and reserved for the most horrific torture, and the upstairs rooms housed the victims who would be next. Depending on how severe the Khmer Rouge felt your transgressions were, your torture could last between one to six months.
In today's Cambodia, the high school has been converted to the Tuol Seng Genocide Museum to memorialise the horrors of Khmer Rouge rule. This museum is just minutes walk away from other sites in the capital, such as the Central Market and Royal Palace, yet its impact is terribly sobering. The fact it is situated in the capital speaks volumes about the Cambodian people's resilience, ability to look at their past squarely and a determination not to let history repeat itself.
Fifteen
kilometres away at Cheoung Ek is the site where most of the 17,000 people from
Tuol Seng were slaughtered and buried, most of them bludgeoned to death to save
precious bullets. A macabre testament to the Killing Fields is the display of
some 8,000 skulls stacked inside a 30 foot stupa. Victims' remains were exhumed
from the mass graves after the Khmer Rouge era ended.
The Khmer Rouge continued to conduct a violent insurgency after they were driven from the capital in January 1979 by a Vietnamese invasion. Since that time, the country has suffered from internal strife which isn't completely quelled. Border skirmishes are commonplace and the standard of living dismal. Yet the people are happy.
The capital Phnom Penh is crammed with signs on shophouses advertising 'business classes', 'management classes', and everyone under 50 is keen to improve their English. One gets the feeling that Cambodia has roused itself from a long sleep and is keen to jumpstart its economy and get in on the globalisation act.
There isn't a single fast food joint anywhere in the country, and not one
high-rise building in
Phnom Penh. Cambodians are keen to develop - but on their own terms. There are
several roadside stands selling food and bottles containing an orange liquid.
This is a convenient way of selling small amounts of gasoline for the hundreds
of small mopeds in the country. It's this entrepreneurial spirit and a
self-possessed air about the country which are its main strengths.
Cambodia has embarked on a strenuous journey to rebuild its society from the dust and disarray of conflict. A journey that is emerging from the dark horror of war and genocide to the magnificent sunshine of prosperity that Angkor Wat was built to symbolise.
Rejini Raman