Story Highlights
BATTAMBANG, Cambodia (CNN) -- Cassie Phillips is in Battambang, Cambodia, where she will be working with the NGO Homeland.
Homeland is a Cambodian organization that works with local underprivileged children to give them some of the advantages they may have missed out on in their early life.
Cassie will be meeting and helping children from the region who have suffered from a range of afflictions. Keep up with her experiences in her blogs and video diaries.
November 13, 2007
As I've been getting to know my neighbors better, I've slowly begun to piece together more about their personal histories.
One of my neighbors is a kind woman who enjoys talking with me in a broken Khmer/English exchange. She lives in a house with her children and husband. However, I've noticed that she does not speak or interact with her husband. In fact, she told me she doesn't talk to him at all any more and that he's taken another wife in another province. Not wanting to pry, I've never asked why.
One afternoon, my friend came to visit. She showed my neighbor and me the traditional Khmer photos she recently had done at one of the many costume and photography shops in town.
Normally, Khmer have this type of photography done when they are getting married or for other special occasions. At the shop they dress you up from head to toe in gowns, wedding dresses or whatever traditional style clothing you want, complete with jewelry and makeup. Then, through the magic of Photoshop, you can be inserted into any background scene you desire. All in all, it makes for some sa-aat nah (very beautiful) photographs.
As we were looking over the photos, my neighbor suggested I should go to get some taken. The photos clearly impressed her, so I asked her why she didn't have any of her wedding. She explained there were no photos taken at her wedding and naturally I asked why not. Instantly the smile on her face faded and in a serious tone, she recounted her wedding as just a handshake in a group of 15 couples. Grim smiles were on everyone's faces as I realized she had had a forced marriage under the Khmer Rouge.
Within a 10-second period, what had been a light-hearted conversation filled with laughter became a serious and uncomfortable silence haunted by memories.
Though it's not often discussed, the Khmer Rouge explains so much about the current cultural reality. Families were systematically separated for purposes of control and domination, and many young people were forced into assigned marriages where they would wed, en masse, with the shake of a hand.
I realized that the man my neighbor calls her husband was nothing more than a stranger she was forced to marry some 28 years ago. They had children and became a family, so they still live together, but their history explains a lot about why things have not worked out between the two of them.
My neighbor's story is a not-so-subtle reminder that the legacy of the Khmer Rouge still touches every aspect of the Cambodia I experience today.
When I came to Cambodia I didn't know what to expect with regard to the impact of the Khmer Rouge. However, I did anticipate a noticeable and disproportionate population distribution between generations, given that approximately one quarter of the population was killed during the regime. But I was surprised at the number of older people I saw and realized that I had misjudged how small 25 percent of the population would have been.
In my first weeks here, whenever I saw someone who looked over the age of 40, I would reflect about what they might have experienced during the war as I studied the creases in their faces.
As a tourist, it is difficult to lose sight of the ubiquitous memory of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Whether it's visiting the many killing fields and shrines throughout the country, spotting frequent prosthetic limbs, or seeing people sell memoirs and novels detailing Khmer Rouge atrocities at tourist hot spots, it is never too long before the next reminder. Indeed, it is difficult to ignore any part of this history and reality of Cambodia.
However, as an expatriate living in this country, the history and relevance of the Khmer Rouge is not as prominent on a daily basis. At times it is easy to neglect this past as one of the major forces shaping the status quo.
But it seems that every time I lose pulse of the implications of the war, a story or place will revive my understanding that the Khmer Rouge is far from history in Cambodia -- it lives on in the hearts and faces of all who survived.
- Cassie has made friends with her neighbors, one of whom is a married woman
- Her marriage was one of many forced by the oppressive Khmer Rouge regime
- Cambodian society has been greatly influenced by the period of Khmer Rouge rule
BATTAMBANG, Cambodia (CNN) -- Cassie Phillips is in Battambang, Cambodia, where she will be working with the NGO Homeland.
Homeland is a Cambodian organization that works with local underprivileged children to give them some of the advantages they may have missed out on in their early life.
Cassie will be meeting and helping children from the region who have suffered from a range of afflictions. Keep up with her experiences in her blogs and video diaries.
November 13, 2007
As I've been getting to know my neighbors better, I've slowly begun to piece together more about their personal histories.
One of my neighbors is a kind woman who enjoys talking with me in a broken Khmer/English exchange. She lives in a house with her children and husband. However, I've noticed that she does not speak or interact with her husband. In fact, she told me she doesn't talk to him at all any more and that he's taken another wife in another province. Not wanting to pry, I've never asked why.
One afternoon, my friend came to visit. She showed my neighbor and me the traditional Khmer photos she recently had done at one of the many costume and photography shops in town.
Normally, Khmer have this type of photography done when they are getting married or for other special occasions. At the shop they dress you up from head to toe in gowns, wedding dresses or whatever traditional style clothing you want, complete with jewelry and makeup. Then, through the magic of Photoshop, you can be inserted into any background scene you desire. All in all, it makes for some sa-aat nah (very beautiful) photographs.
As we were looking over the photos, my neighbor suggested I should go to get some taken. The photos clearly impressed her, so I asked her why she didn't have any of her wedding. She explained there were no photos taken at her wedding and naturally I asked why not. Instantly the smile on her face faded and in a serious tone, she recounted her wedding as just a handshake in a group of 15 couples. Grim smiles were on everyone's faces as I realized she had had a forced marriage under the Khmer Rouge.
Within a 10-second period, what had been a light-hearted conversation filled with laughter became a serious and uncomfortable silence haunted by memories.
Though it's not often discussed, the Khmer Rouge explains so much about the current cultural reality. Families were systematically separated for purposes of control and domination, and many young people were forced into assigned marriages where they would wed, en masse, with the shake of a hand.
I realized that the man my neighbor calls her husband was nothing more than a stranger she was forced to marry some 28 years ago. They had children and became a family, so they still live together, but their history explains a lot about why things have not worked out between the two of them.
My neighbor's story is a not-so-subtle reminder that the legacy of the Khmer Rouge still touches every aspect of the Cambodia I experience today.
When I came to Cambodia I didn't know what to expect with regard to the impact of the Khmer Rouge. However, I did anticipate a noticeable and disproportionate population distribution between generations, given that approximately one quarter of the population was killed during the regime. But I was surprised at the number of older people I saw and realized that I had misjudged how small 25 percent of the population would have been.
In my first weeks here, whenever I saw someone who looked over the age of 40, I would reflect about what they might have experienced during the war as I studied the creases in their faces.
As a tourist, it is difficult to lose sight of the ubiquitous memory of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Whether it's visiting the many killing fields and shrines throughout the country, spotting frequent prosthetic limbs, or seeing people sell memoirs and novels detailing Khmer Rouge atrocities at tourist hot spots, it is never too long before the next reminder. Indeed, it is difficult to ignore any part of this history and reality of Cambodia.
However, as an expatriate living in this country, the history and relevance of the Khmer Rouge is not as prominent on a daily basis. At times it is easy to neglect this past as one of the major forces shaping the status quo.
But it seems that every time I lose pulse of the implications of the war, a story or place will revive my understanding that the Khmer Rouge is far from history in Cambodia -- it lives on in the hearts and faces of all who survived.
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