A well-known British land mine amputee, Chris Moon rides his bicycle on the street near the Monument Independence in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Friday, Sept. 8, 2006. Chris said Friday he has beat the hot weather and bumpy roads to complete a 900-kilometer (559) bicycle journey through Cambodia to raise money for a charity work to support the country's land mine survivors and disabled people. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)The Associated Press
September 8, 2006
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia A British land mine amputee said Friday he beat hot weather and bumpy roads to complete a 900-kilometer (559-mile) bike ride through Cambodia to raise money for the country's land mine survivors and disabled people.
Chris Moon, who lost part of his right arm and leg to a land mine blast in Mozambique in 1995, said he arrived in Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh late Thursday, a week after he started his journey from Poipet, a northwestern market town near the border with Thailand.
With stops at night, the journey took him through Cambodia's main tourist town of Siem Reap, and Kep, a small beach town in the country's southwest, before finishing in Phnom Penh.
Moon's only complaint after the journey was a sore bottom from long days on the saddle.
"I'm standing up now because sitting down is not too enjoyable at the moment," the 44-year-old said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.
"It's hot, some of the roads are bumpy, and you've always got to keep your eyes on the traffic as you know here it's different rules of the road," he said.
He completed the tour to raise money for The Cambodia Trust, a Britain-based charity providing rehabilitation for Cambodian land mine amputees, polio victims and other disabled people.
It was Moon's second cross-country journey in Cambodia. In 1999, he did a two-week run from Poipet to Sihanoukville, a port city in southwest Cambodia, also to raise money for land mine survivors.
Moon helped clear mine fields in Cambodia for the British charity Halo Trust before undertaking similar work in the African nation of Mozambique, where he suffered his injuries.
In Cambodia, he had already once survived a potentially deadly situation.
While traveling to clear land mines in a remote village in northwestern Cambodia in 1993, he and his Cambodian translator and driver were abducted by Khmer Rouge soldiers and held captive for three days.
"The commander intervened and wouldn't allow them to kill us, and we were given 24 hours to get out" of the guerrilla-controlled area, Moon said, describing the officer as "a good guy."
The story was featured on the Discovery Channel program "I Shouldn't Be Alive."
Having survived two deadly situations, Moon is determined "to make the best of life."
His last day on the bike on Thursday, he clocked more than 200 kilometers (124 miles).
"It's a lot tougher than I thought it would be... In life we all have the ability to go further than we think," he said, adding he has done charity work in about 20 countries around the world.
Chris Moon, who lost part of his right arm and leg to a land mine blast in Mozambique in 1995, said he arrived in Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh late Thursday, a week after he started his journey from Poipet, a northwestern market town near the border with Thailand.
With stops at night, the journey took him through Cambodia's main tourist town of Siem Reap, and Kep, a small beach town in the country's southwest, before finishing in Phnom Penh.
Moon's only complaint after the journey was a sore bottom from long days on the saddle.
"I'm standing up now because sitting down is not too enjoyable at the moment," the 44-year-old said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.
"It's hot, some of the roads are bumpy, and you've always got to keep your eyes on the traffic as you know here it's different rules of the road," he said.
He completed the tour to raise money for The Cambodia Trust, a Britain-based charity providing rehabilitation for Cambodian land mine amputees, polio victims and other disabled people.
It was Moon's second cross-country journey in Cambodia. In 1999, he did a two-week run from Poipet to Sihanoukville, a port city in southwest Cambodia, also to raise money for land mine survivors.
Moon helped clear mine fields in Cambodia for the British charity Halo Trust before undertaking similar work in the African nation of Mozambique, where he suffered his injuries.
In Cambodia, he had already once survived a potentially deadly situation.
While traveling to clear land mines in a remote village in northwestern Cambodia in 1993, he and his Cambodian translator and driver were abducted by Khmer Rouge soldiers and held captive for three days.
"The commander intervened and wouldn't allow them to kill us, and we were given 24 hours to get out" of the guerrilla-controlled area, Moon said, describing the officer as "a good guy."
The story was featured on the Discovery Channel program "I Shouldn't Be Alive."
Having survived two deadly situations, Moon is determined "to make the best of life."
His last day on the bike on Thursday, he clocked more than 200 kilometers (124 miles).
"It's a lot tougher than I thought it would be... In life we all have the ability to go further than we think," he said, adding he has done charity work in about 20 countries around the world.
7 comments:
you all won't like to know me saying this. it seems like the majority of people who do charitable works for cambodia like mr. moon is doing, are westerners. i see very small numbers of khmers doing this thing. oh wait, i did see many khmers do charitable works in srok khmer. on a side, some even took times off to indulge themselves with cambodia's rich and natural beauty.
anyways, thanks mr. moon for his will and determination to help the khmer people. -k
Hey man! Alot of Cambodian people who did charitable events in the past are blamed for stealing the money! So nowaday no Cambodian people want to do any charitable work!It is sad! Oh well! MOre power to Mr.CHRIS MOON!
^ perhaps, khmer people are a natural at hypocrisy. after 8 years doing community works in the khmer community, i must say, we have lots to learn about hypocrisy.hypocrisy. hypocrisy. hypocrisy. hypocrisy, it should be a mnemonic in our mind and heart.
What is hypocrisy? Since you bring up the word hypocrisy and you owe an explanation!
Please put the word hypocrisy in context where most people can understand it! The floor is your!
^^ okay. you ask for it. here's a mouthful...
In light of the Festival of the Deads, Bun Pchum Ben, it dawns on me a virtue that our beloved Khmer ancestors ardently tried to bestow upon us. And that is, "Khmers know to help Khmer". Many of us have heard it at least once in our life time. The question arise now is how many of us believe in it.
In retrospect, I am reminded of how Khmers have historically helped our fellow Khmers. Most importantly, I recall the direct and indirect actions people did to make other people feel or become a victim. Thus, the phrase or concept “Khmer helping Khmer’ has lately, to me, become a cliché, a cliché without any meaning.
Looking back to how Khmers have habitually helped one another, I dare say that our ancestors are deeply disappointed in us. So disappointed that I can visualize them chastising, pounding their forehead with a peddle stick, even cursing us from the thick white clouds. Yet little do we take the time to evaluate their disappointments.
Time and time again, we refuse to learn from the past mistakes. Instead, we let our past wrongful actions dictate our daily life’s decisions and our identity of who we are as people. Worst, we pride on our wrongdoings.
Some people must scold me what is the point in bringing this up. I assume that some may even ridicule that I only want to vent my unresolved issues and set up a character attack on certain individuals. After reading this, many may even erased my name in their friends list.
These speculations may be true about me. But I dare challenge those who scold me. I maybe an American citizen, educated an American, and my fellow Khmers may even think I am more American than Khmer. I refuse to be oblivious when seeing another Khmer commits wrongdoings towards another Khmer.
I also should not keep silent because certain Khmers considered to be the pillars of our society, help our fellow Khmer through community services have disappointed me. In many Khmer communities which development is at a standstill, I question the true intent and passion of certain leaders, and remember what I have learned from them are all about socialism, careerism, and corrupt’ism.
With socialism, I usually observed people volunteer to help Khmer simply to gain an opportunity to make friends or build up their social networks, to hook up with a guy or a girl of whom they have pined for ages, etc. With careerism, I observed people volunteer to help Khmer only to gain attention, name recognitions, or boost their career chances. Lastly, corruptism is self-explanatory.
I feel I am right on the above points. I know I am not the only person to have these feelings. A while back, a fellow Khmer published these points in Cambodian American’s email group, highlighting various neurotic symptoms which qualify as the neurotic psyche of the Khmer community.
"Most Khmer people like to talk about conflicts in the community rather than about those at work, and they like to talk about conflicts at work rather than those in their families. Most recognizable conflicts are:
- Lack of proper communication
- Lack of cooperative efforts
- Being unfairly blamed and given no chance to explain
- Being unfairly accused and given no chance to defend
- Refusing to take responsibility
- People expecting too much from the community
- Lack of recognition and praise from community
- Growing sense of undervalued among community members
- Unreasonable expectation from people
- Rumers that comes about due to lack of creditable information
- Unworkable ideas put into operation
- Silly rules and pittiness
- Over-zealous in the community management
- hypocrisy leadership
- sexism mentality
- Being arrogant
- Ignoring priorities
- Unreasonable changes of rules and traditions
- Allow petty quarrels to affect relationship
- Being too selfish
- All nine neurotic personalities displayed in Khmer community
- All features displayed by PTSD carriers."
Finally, one might question my intention in bashing my own people. It is because I want to see people, Khmer people, realize that with Khmers helping Khmers, the help does not start with helping other people. It starts with helping oneself, by acknowledging one’s past wrongdoings, behaving according to the cultural values, and realizing our neurotic self. Until we learn to help ourselves will our ancestors praise our behavior. It may also be what our ancestors really want us to do right now.
Happy Bun Pchum Ben
To 3:01AM
To be a human one must possess everything not just the so called nine neurotic personalities! We human have capbility of every emotion! Now if one experience only happy or sad all the time and most people would think that it is crazy including me! We human sometime feel stupid and sometime feel smart, sometime feel happy and sometime feel sad! The human emotions are constantly changing because of the chemistry in the brain! I sometime don't understand why people behave certain way! Everything that I had said just add more complexity to be a human! But what you have said dwell too much on the negative part of human emotion and it is so untrue! Base on the logic that Cambodian people are also a human and human is capable of every emotion!
I sometime think it is so hard trying to be a human especially in trying to understand another human like you!
Happy Bon Pechum Ben!
^^ thank you for wanting to understand me. :p
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