Facing Reality And Learning Important Lessons From Travel

Three things have happened since I last wrote: 1) I had my 25th birthday, 2) the blockbuster film Watchmen was released in theaters, and 3) I traveled to Cambodia for the first time. These things may seem completely disparate to you, but they’ve got me thinking a lot, and it’s funny how the brain always forms connections between the most random things.

Witnessing Genocide and Poverty in Southeast Asia

Cambodia can feel like Hell on earth. Hot and smoggy. You can’t see the sun some days, and it’s not clouds. People say Bangkok is the most polluted city in the world, but that can’t be true.

People here are poor. Exceptionally poor. There’s naked children in the street and impoverished young kids constantly swarm you asking for money or trying to hock guidebooks. This country doesn’t accept its own currency because it has been so devalued. US Dollars only please. Try giving a kid 2000 Riel and he’ll likely curse you for being so cheap.

One of the first things I noticed upon arriving in the country’s capital, Phnom Penh, was a pungent, harsh smell in the air at times—until finally I realized that it’s the smell of burning plastic. They burn the trash! I can only gather that there’s hardly any municipal services to speak of, so garbage and waste line the streets.

Witnessing what’s left of the Vietnam-era “Killing Fields” makes me angry at human nature. Angry that human beings can do such horrible, despicable things to each other. Pol Pot was a radical despot who’s Khmer Rouge regime took over the nation in the mid-70’s and attempted to brainwash the population to serve a brutal communist state. The things these people did make Hitler’s method of mass genocide look humane.

I don’t understand how a person can get to a mental space where they can be so violent and gruesome to their own people—men, women, children, the elderly, even the regime’s own inner circle were beaten, tortured, and maimed. There is a monument to the nearly million people who were killed—about 8 or 10 meters high, filled with the skulls of thousands of the Khmer Rouge’s victims. We saw halls of learning transformed into prison camps, playground swing sets turned into gallows.

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A lot of people don’t like this new flick Watchmen. Maybe it’s too long or too slow for most audiences, but I think it’s because most folks go in expecting something different. This isn’t a superhero movie; it’s a deconstructionist look at the superhero genre. It shows “supermen” as regular people—flawed, messy, violent. It’s an examination of the human condition.

The event which drives the story forward is the murder of one such “superman”, The Comedian, a member of a masked law enforcement team called the Crimebusters. In Alan Moore’s 1986 graphic novel, another member of the team describes an early memory of him:

“It’s March. I’m in Saigon, being reintroduced to Edward Blake, The Comedian. He works mostly for the government now […] Blake is interesting. I have never met anyone so deliberately amoral. He suits the climate here: the madness, the pointless butchery… As I come to understand Vietnam and what it implies about the human condition, I also realize that few humans will permit themselves such an understanding.”

Another character says of Blake:

“Of us all, he understood most. About world [sic]. About people. About society and what’s happening to it. Things everyone knows in gut. Things everyone too scared to face, too polite to talk about. He understood. Understood man’s capacity for horrors and never quit. Saw the world’s black underbelly and never surrendered. Once a man has seen, he can never turn his back on it. Never pretend it doesn’t exist. No matter who orders him to look the other way.”

Makes sense that the soldiers stuck in this part of the world during the Vietnam war could go crazy. It was overwhelming to witness the evidence of what happened here only 40 years ago. One tends to think that this sort of violence, pillaging and enslavement ended a few thousand years ago. I just imagine watching it happen in the NOW, and then having these poor kids tugging on you all the time, knowing that even if you give them money, you’re not helping them.

But still the Khmer people are happy somehow. I would say Cambodia earns the title “the Land of Smiles” even more so than Thailand does. A majority of the population speaks English, and they always greet you warmly and with a toothy grin. I don’t understand how people could have gone through all this shit and still have a positive outlook on life.

It’s not all bad. I also traveled with my two backpacker friends up to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat, the ninth wonder of the ancient world. It is a beautiful city with many parks and restaurants aimed at tourists, and the ancient ruins of temples are breathtaking. But it’s the other stuff that makes you think.

I want to help them. I want to give the kids money. Or buy what they’re selling. But they’ve been taught canned lines, they chant the same songs, and tug at your heartstrings (or use guilt when you don’t play along). They don’t want food or water. Anything I give them, I’m sure will go straight to their parents or whomever makes them go out and beg day after day.

I don’t know what to do. I’ve never seen poverty and the effects of violence like this. And the really sad thing is that genocide is still happening in places like Sudan and Rwanda, and even next door in Myanmar. Why aren’t we doing anything? I’ve hit a quarter century mark on this earth, and what the hell have I done with my life? What have I really done to make the world a better place? I was going to enroll my business in 1% for the Planet this year, an organization where businesses donate 1% of profits to projects that help the environment. Maybe I’ll do that too, but visiting Cambodia makes me want to reach out locally to the people in this part of the world. I think I’ll visit the Bangkok Refugee Center with a friend soon and start contributing a part of my earnings to help these kids, and these refugees, in some sort of way that actually makes a difference.

This is why people should travel. People need to know what happened here.