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may/june 2018yogajournal.com.auCAMBODIA
IT TOOK ME UNTIL MY THIRD DAY in
Cambodia to realise what was different.
I’d traveled to Southeast Asia before.
The first day always feels the same,
no matter what the country: I’m
overwhelmed by the combination of
jet lag, thick humid air, and the utter
chaos of moped traffic; distracted by the
strange smells; and startled by the vivid
contrast of rich and poor. The third day
is usually when I desensitise enough
to start noticing the details, like an
ancient statue hidden by jungle vines
or the hawkers selling sticky rice and
sandwiches.
On my third evening in Phnom
Penh, I was about to dig into a dish of
croaker fish tossed in coconut broth
with wild mushrooms and candle yam
when it hit me: no one here is old, and
everyone is smiling.
When I arrived in Cambodia, my
knowledge of the country extended to
the famous temple of Angkor Wat and
the fact that Angelina Jolie had fallenA lesson in letting go
BY JEN MURPHY
PHOTO: 4FR/ISTOCKPHOTO.COMhard for the place while filming Lara
Croft: Tomb Raider. The country’s mix
of Buddhist religion, archaeological
wonders, and French architecture
prompted me to read up on its history
when I got to my room at Raffles Hotel
Le Royal, an oasis of calm in the heart
of this bustling capital.
I felt a wave of guilt when I learned
that during the Vietnam War, the U.S.
undertook a covert, four-year bombing
campaign in Cambodia, devastating the
countryside and causing sociopolitical
upheaval that led to a Communist
takeover. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge,
Cambodia’s communist party, drove
anyone perceived a class enemy, or a
threat, to the regime out of Phnom Penh
and into rural areas. Between 1975 and
1979, this dramatic attempt at social
engineering meant nearly two million
people—a quarter of the population—
died. As a result, about 70 percent of
Cambodia’s population is under the age
of 30 today, which explains why Inoticed so few elderly Cambodians.
To try to understand more of this
country’s painful past, I hired a driver to
take me 20 minutes outside of the city to
the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek—a
mass grave where more than 17,000
victims of the Khmer Rouge are buried.
An enormous glass stupa containing
more than 5,000 human skulls acts as a
shrine acknowledging, rather than
hiding, the truth of Cambodia’s grim
past. The $6 entry fee included an audio
tour with devastating stories from
survivors. My eyes welled with tears
as I listened to unthinkable horrors.
That evening, on a flight to Siem
Reap, I tried to shake the haunting
images from my mind. After my
sobering history lesson and new
understanding of America’s role in the
atrocities, I felt the urge to apologise to
every local I met. Yet no one seemed to
share my heavy heart. When I visited
the floating fishing village at Lake Tonlé
Sap, a young woman waved to me with
a gap-toothed grin. The teenagers
selling fish pedicures near my hotel
danced and sang to K-pop tunes.
The next morning, Aki, a gangly
guide with Hulk-like strength, pedalled
me by tuk-tuk to watch the sunrise at
Angkor Wat, cracking jokes the entire
bumpy ride. With some prying, I
learned that he had lost his mother, two
sisters, and a brother during the
genocide; his father lost both legs to a
land mine. As the sky turned a soft
golden hue, we sat side by side on a
crumbling stone and I asked Aki if he
felt any resentment toward Americans
for bombing his country, or toward
those who had killed his family. He
smiled as he looked at me.
“Anger will not bring back my
family,” he said softly. “I am here,
watching the sunrise, in a beautiful
place with a new friend. Life is full of
promise.”
What a beautiful lesson on the yogic
concept of duhkha (suffering), I thought.
While we can’t undo loss or heartache,
we can change the way we react to the
hard times we face. The people of
Cambodia haven’t forgotten their past,
but they’re also not letting it define
them.“Anger will not bring
back my family...
Life is full of promise.”