Life in Cambodia - Ice Girl

Chapter 10.

Ice Girl told Leo about Cambodia life. People here are cunning, devious and scheming.

They smile but behind the smile is repressed anger. Darkness.

It’s pure survivor behavior. They have little or no formal education. Impoverished adults think educating their children wastes time and m-o-n-e-y. Food and survival is their daily priority.

  Let’s Eat is their mantra.

Millions here mill around, stare, interrupt others, are rude, and do not LISTEN, preferring to talk over others.

  They think the louder one is the smarter one. They are easily intimidated by a speaker’s volume.

  Signal-noise.

  They demonstrate behavior and attitudes similar to chimps. Yeah, yeah.

  Their #1 priority involves searching, finding, preparing and eating food. Priority #2 is searching, finding, preparing and fucking females. Sleeping, #3 is popular before, during and after food or suffering a small sexual pleasure death in eight minutes. Sleeping is the best meditation in the tropics.

  Fucking is popular whenever the male, the ALPHA animal in the tribe demands it. This is natural selection. People live on Earth for two reasons: work and breed.

  Read and write, asked Leo.

  No. Work and breed. Female members are passive. They are conditioned by DNA genetics, environment and family expectations to be passive. Produce more workers, more tools.

Children are tools.

  If they refuse to submit to the male they are beaten. If they talk about it they are beaten. If they enjoy it they are beaten. If they run away they are captured and beaten. If they suffer humiliation they are beaten. If they are beaten they are beaten. If they live to tell the tale they are beaten. If they die while being beaten their corpse is beaten. They are beat.

   The longer I work the longer I live. The longer I breed the longer I live. In theory. My main objective is work and breed. Then I am slaughtered. Life is a cheap bitch.

  I see, said Leo, same in China. Our one-child policy is genocide.

 Later, sitting across a rural red road in Battenbang, Leo is a witness. You have to cross the road to learn something. He extrapolates, illuminates, illustrates, and desiccates.

  A family moved into a shack near muddy waters. They set up a food joint selling steamed corn and fast fried foods.

  There’s a mother, two boys 17 & 20 and two girls, the youngest about 15. The girls either belong to the mother or they’ve come from poor areas looking for domestic work. They are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

  No papa. He’s history in the tragic family fairy tale, one of millions throughout the magic kingdom. Long gone in the long now.

  Mom is at the market. Incest Is Best, male, 17, wears a towel-sarong. A girl sets up a glass display case on a wooden counter with her back toward him. He slides up behind her and presses his crotch against her.

  She freezes. Imitating sexual movement, he whispers, little girl, this is what happens to you. I have a little red rooster. Do you like it? I have big power.

  She is powerless. She stands there taking it. Silent. She feels like crying. Her tears create a river. She floats away searching for compassion and meaning in a cruel world without freedom.

 Rule #1: Boys and men run the show. They pay lip service to girls and women. It’s the old work and breed paradigm. You are my property.

Sexual harassment by immature boys and older men (with money, power and control) and a high level of testosterone, IS a game. Simple sex. No education. Zero responsibility. No morals. No ethics. No education.

  This explains why millions of girls have babies and boys run away. Zero responsibility.

Girls and women tolerate it because:

a)    it’s an unpleasant hard, cold cruel fact of life

b)   they are told to submit to males

c)    they live in Fear & Ignorance

d)   they are considered stupid and second class citizens

e)    they have no human rights

f)    no quest-ions allowed

g)    it’s the LAW of the jungle

h)   it’s expected

i)  they have no voice, no way out

j)  they don’t have the power to say or do anything to stop it

k) mother is not sympathetic. it happened to her. that’s life so they say

Ice Girl in Banlung

Learn 4 Life - Cambodia

Learn 4 Life English Language Center

Siem Reap, Cambodia NGO

July 3 – September 8, 2017 

It took a couple of years to get this volunteer gig through Workaway.com.

Students pay $30 for nine weeks.

13-30 years young - 70 in four classes.

One hour a day M-F.

“Push Them Through,” ordered the head teacher, minus heart, a desperate myopic anal 60-year old female Kiwi volunteer.

Grammar Nazi.

“I am in control,” she articulated with marbles in her mouth. “And I love marking. I run this place like a national school even if half the students don’t show up.”

Her good intentions accquiesced to text-based learning. 

Kids have jobs, school and responsibilities.

Attendance is optional. Dance is mandatory.

Elementary & pre-Intermediate with basic English skills are taught by native speaking barbarians.

Khmer teachers do Beginners. It’s a job.

“Khmer students see a teacher as father #2,” said a gregarious young male Khmer teacher.

Respect blind obedience and ZERO critical thinking questions. “Why” is not allowed.

Formal education conditioned them into silence.

It reminded me of Leo, a 14-year old in Fujian, China where I taught at a private business university in 2005-2007 saying, “On day one my middle school teacher said, ‘I want you to only bring two things to class. Your ears.’”

Final Enlightening Lesson

Friday, September 8, 2017

Process vs. Product (Whiteboard Finale)

Product -

Mark/Grade #

So What?

60 is heaven

59 is hell o jolly mellow fellow

Asian education 101. Brave New World.

Pass the soma.

Three unit tests are not factored into final grade.

Final exam - Grammar 40%, Listening 20%, Reading 10%, Writing 15% Speaking 15%

Writing and speaking active skill values reflect dystopian educational focus.

Students with courage lack vocabulary.

Students with vocabulary lack courage.

Process -

What I learn

How I learn

How I feel

Grow

Self-improvement

Choices & Decisions

Independence

Self-confidence

Courage

Communication teamwork and group dynamics.

Character

Chess – problem solving, planning, logic, creative thinking, accepting responsibility for decisions. Pattern recognition.

Spacial relationships.

Working memory.

Long-term memory.

Play. Learn. Share.

Creative notebook - drawing, free writing, imagination - a different kind of “product.” Going strong when textbooks gather dust.

(After Grade 6 Khmer students don’t enjoy music or art. Rote learning robots.)

Drawing their dream daily in class is an initial shock. They adapt, adjust and evolve their vision like Picasso/Van Gogh/M.C. Escher singing, “I love to color!”

Chance

My role was to travel with you to this stage.

You have the tools now.

Eye + hand + heart.

Two won’t do.

The wisdom of your heart is greater than the knowledge in your head.

School gives you a lesson then a test.

Life gives you a test then a lesson.

Don’t let school get in the way of your education.

You’re on your own. Follow your heart.

 

Greed is Good - Ice Girl

Chapter 9.

Overtime, a historical bandit with a reputation for laughter, magic, fear, superstition, and an insatiable appetite for diverse languages, customs and cultures lived in jungles and forests. Others preferred living in remote mountains. 

  Jingle, jangle, jungle. Using natural materials they created musical instruments, simple weapons, homes, fish traps, snares and tools like looms. The women had babies, wove cloth and prepared food while the men fished, planted crops, domesticated animals. Children played in extended families learning life lessons. 

  One day a boat filled with white men sailed down the river of darkness to a village deep in the jungle. They wore shiny clothing, spoke a language the people didn't understand and carried weapons that made a lot of noise and scared the people. They pretended to be friendly by offering gifts. The leader of the village welcomed them. They had a party.

  Every day more white people came down the river on boats named Destiny. They were on a quest for gold and slaves. Owning, using and discarding slaves had proven to be an essential part of their historical evolution on other continents.

  Their mantra was, cheap people, cheap labor, cheap raw material, cheap goods, cheap markets and much Profit.

  We are civilized and you are savages, said the white men. We have religion. It is called Greed & Wealth. We are on a mission from the great chief. We control fire. We control time. We control people. We control nature. We have machines. We take what we want. The village gave them hospitality and shelter and friendship. The white men were greedy. They took control of the village, the people and the jungle. 

  Every day the white men marched slaves deep into the jungle singing, we control nature. We shall overcome. They spread diseases. They planted fear. They planted envy and jealousy. They manipulated villages against villages. They divided and conquered, one against the other. History had taught them well. They harvested wealth in the form of people, precious stones, rubber and every useful raw material. They were never satisfied. Their appetite grew and grew.

Lao rice cakes.

  One night a village shaman said, to survive we walk to a new jungle.

  We are here to go.

  Eighty Chinese university students applauded. They cried, Tell us another.

  Ok, I said. Maybe you will see a connection. In Turkey divorce is seen as a failure. It’s a schizophrenic country where women know their role and stay in it. A place where mothers control and manipulate their daughter’s behavior, attitudes and imaginary freedom with a heavy dictatorial hand called love. Chains of love are heavier than the gravity of thinking.

  One Turkish woman I knew was different. She confided in me in Ankara. I listened. After seven months of marriage she’d decided to leave her husband and filed divorce papers.

  “I feel so much better,” she said. She had a lot to say. She’d believed her husband in the beginning.

  “He lied to me. He courted me with sweet words and I thought, or believed I thought or thought I believed he had an open mind but I was disappointed because he wasn’t honest...so after some time measured in weeks then months I saw his, how do you say, irresponsibility, how he wouldn't contribute his heart to me, to our relationship and then, when I tried to talk to him he was closed to me, he shut down emotionally and I was working and trying to keep the flat up and work on our relationship but I saw it was difficult, then really, really impossible to live with everything in my brain and heart. Now, when he saw my action to end the marriage he was filled with remorse and regret and apologies. But it’s too late. I told him to move out. He returned to his mama. He tries to bother me every day in his childlike whining way but it’s over. I can handle it. I am strong and know what I want in my life. My family is very supportive of my decision.”

  “In China it’s always about saving face,” I said. “Appearances. In Anatolia, it’s about your self-respect, growth and personal dignity. Some grow, some die day by day.”

  “Yes,” she said, “I am not living the lie anymore.”

  “Now your heart is calm. You’re taking responsible for your life. I am happy for you.”

  “It’s tough,” she said, “living here where women are beautiful and sad with synchronicity. They’ve fashioned these well-defined skin-tight PERSONA masks out of loss, hopelessness, confusion, and serious misguided misunderstood maligned relationship blues using tears wrapped in self-pity, shame, guilt and silence. Millions of us wait for an arranged marriage at a fake bus stop to deter male Alzheimer patients from wandering off.

  “Here,” ordered the Byzantium Great Father Authority Figure disguised as a religious or political fundamentalist zealot, “accept this man, this stranger into your heart of hearts and give us many poor deprived children. He bought you. Produce more.”

  A gravedigger blessed their union. Dearly beloved, an unpleasant global fact is unregulated population, no medicine or education and lack of job opportunities.

 That could never happen here, said a female Chinese student. I was born to pay for my parent’s sins.

  Yeah, yeah, said another. My mother was appointed to have me. Eighty student robots applauded.

  Yes, and one more thing ladies, said Leo. After graduating, while living at home and trying to find a job along with six million recent college graduates, if you consider marriage you can forget the A men; the ones with cash, car, career, credit cards and condo. They are taken. You’ll have to settle for B or C quality.

  A feminine sigh ran through the room and jumped out a 10^th floor window. Goodbye cruel world.

  I’ll kill myself first, said one girl. It’s an honorable alternative to facing family shame and humiliation.

*

In the Under Story, fire from burning bamboo, coconut leaves and plastic garbage in world jungles circled its veins through a heart’s four clamoring chambers. Smoky love echoed from the Forest Floor to the Understory, rising to the Canopy emerging through the Emergent. Bird of Paradise, Eagles and Macaws took wing.

*

  Monsoons arrived. Ice Girl played her unpublished symphony for children under 100.

  Shaman: Monsoon’s intention is to clean air, turn dusty red rutted ragged roads into quagmires and provide essential moisture to roots below the surface of appearances.

What you don’t see is fascinating.

Unpleasant facts on life’s road of eternal suffering are more plentiful than 14.7 million forced abortions in China, universal health care, education or clean drinking water.

Twelve million stateless humans live on Earth.

17,000 children die of starvation every day.

Ice Girl in Banlung

 

Questions ask Questions - Ice Girl

Chapter 2.

Red dust town turned windy. Swirling quality gem stone particles and degrees of indifference spiraled through air. Redwood slats covered open sewer drains.

Locals in Banlung, Cambodia watched Leo with curiosity and suspicion. They stared from a deep vacuum. When he made eye contact they glanced away with fear, uncertainty and doubt. They didn’t see many strangers here. They listened at 49% or less saying yeah, yeah with panache.

Leo discovered his quest-ions were constantly repeated.

Quest-ions grew tired of repeating themselves.

This is so fucking boring, said one quest-ion. We are abused. We are manipulated and rendered mute. Useless.

Think of it as a test, said another quest-ion. Patience is our great teacher.

I’ll try, said another quest-ion.

Yes, said a quest-ion these non-listeners have a distinct tendency to say more and say it louder when they’re leaving, when their back’s turned away from eye contact and potential real communication.

I’ve seen that too, said a quest-ion, who, until this moment had remained silent. My theory is that it’s because of the genocide and fear. 

It’s also a delicate mixture of stupidity or indifference, said another quest-ion. Why is the most dangerous quest-ion, said one.

Can you explain, asked a quest-ion.

Sure, people ran away to survive. People started running and others would ask them a quest-ion like why are you running, who’s chasing you, where are you going or what’s the matter or when did you become afraid or why don’t you stay longer and the one running would keep going trailing abstract quest-ion words behind them like memories or disembodied spirits or molecules of indifferent breath.

I see, said a quest-ion. That explains it.

Yes, said a quest-ion. Being correct is never the point.

Tell me why oh my. How did I grow?

Ice Girl in Banlung

 

Ice Girl in Banlung, Cambodia

Chapter 1.

It’s fucking hysterical.

Now and then mean the same in Ratanakiri, Cambodian animist jungle languages.

Leo is incognito and invisible perusing the Wild West. It is replete with wandering literary outlaws, animists, shamans and 25,000 natives. Rambunctious young Banlung cowboys and cowgirls dance 125cc machines through spiraling red dust.

How long have you been here, said Rita a 12-year old girl cutting and selling ice along a red road.

All day. I started in China. I walked to Vietnam. Then Laos. I’ll stay here awhile. We can talk.

Ok, she said cutting crystals. Is a day long enough to process a sensation and form an impression? Is it long enough to gather critical mass data about the diversity and evolution of humans in this total phenomena? My name is Rita.

Good to meet you. I’m Leo the Lionhearted. Yes, if you slow down. How is life here?

I work, I breed, I get slaughtered. This is my fate. My fate is a machete slashing through jungles. Fate and destiny are two sides of the same coin.  Janus. Yeah, yeah are two of my favorite lazy words. She smiled. Especially when I am talking with illiterate zombies.

They are same word. I spit them out twice at light speed. You accent the last consonant, drawing it out like a sigh, a final breath a whisper. Y-e-a-hhhhh. It’s crazy English believe you me. Impressive, eh? I can also say OK twice with a rising sound on the k sounding like a meaning I understand without internal meaning or personal truth-value. It’s vague. Why be precise? Many people have conversations using abstract metaphors. Ok? Ok?

Ok. Address the very low literacy rate.

Hello, literacy rate, how are you, she said.

I am well and speaking with improved elocution. My English is getting better. I know my English is not grammatically correct but I know my English is fluent. The more I see the less I know.

Well said, said Ice Girl. Someone said literacy means reading and writing.

I doubt it, said Literacy, Who needs reading and writing? Humans need food, sex, air, water, shelter, clothing and red dust. Hope is in last place. In fact, hope may be the greatest evil because it’s a myth. It’s the last thing that dies.

Let’s not have this conversation in the abstract, said Ice Girl, sawing cold. I love myth, fiction, truth and inventing stories.

I thought you said eating and fighting, said Literacy. You must be fucking crazy. My survival depends on eating and fighting. Reading and writing is for idiots. Millions never learn how to write, let alone scribble stories. No chance. No money. Poor people see education and school as a waste of time and money. Education and medicine are expensive.

I see, said Ice Girl. When I write my stories filled with immediate direct sense impressions and precise details they lose their magic. They are like ice. Ice loses its essence in the big picture. Existence precedes essence. It’s lost between heart-mind-hand-tool-paper. Spoken stories lose their edge fast. Spoken words float around looking for a character, like plot.

Too many people talk out their stories. Lost in the telling. Lost tales float around looking for ears. Talking kills and rejuvenates magic and mystery. Ghost stories.

World tribes memorize chants, rhythms, songs, tales and star trails with a side order of red dust. You never hear a kid say, Let’s take the day off and be creative.

Here’s my secret. I look for a literary agent. Someone said they help writers. I sent one a query. One wrote me a letter. I will share it with you later. I write at night. During the day I’m busy with school and selling ice. If they ask me I will send them a manuscript. Maybe they will love it. Maybe they’ll find a publisher with a big marketing budget and the rest is history as they say. If not I’ll be independent and publish it myself. Ice is my life and I will never give it up. Besides writing, laughing, loving and living, it’s my life.

Wow, that’s lovely, said Leo.

Yes, she said, I follow my bliss. If it’s not in your heart, it’s not in your head. I’ll tell you about the agent later.

A man arrived on a broken motorcycle. She gave him a blue plastic bag of ice. He gave her Real currency.

Sure. I follow my blisters, laughed Leo.

Where are you staying, she asked.

I don’t have a home. I live in small houses along the road. For now I sleep at Future Bright.

I know it. The woman owner smiles and lies at the same time.

What’s the difference between hearing and listening, Leo asked.

98% are asleep with their eyes open, she said. They don’t know and don’t care. It’s endemic.  They look without understanding. The remaining 2% are dead and long gone.

She opened her notebook. She spilled red ink on white paper. Red is a lucky color of wealth and prosperity. Living in a red dust town brings everyone good luck.

Tell me about your visionary skills, said Leo.

I am ahead of the future. The day after tomorrow belongs to me. I connect the dots forward. I practice detached discernment. My job is to pay attention to direct immediate experience, get it down and make sense of it later.

People here live in a perpetual disconnect. They are talking monkeys looking for a place to happen. They can’t focus. Their attention span is ZERO. Like Year 0 in 1975 before I was born. No attention span? No problem.

How about your town, asked Leo.

Red dust roads in Banlung are paved with blue Zircon and Black Opals (nill) reflecting Ratanakiri, or “Gem Mountain.” Rich city women wear blue Zircon, gold necklaces, rings, bracelets, sparkle bling. Rural women do not wear this wealth.

Married women wear red bead strings. They fashion yellow, red, blue, green, glittering plastic bangles on necks and wrists.

Here it’s about food and honoring Earth spirits. Animists believe taking stones harms the spirits, creating an imbalance in the natural order of things.

Thanks for Life Lesson #3, said Leo. I’m going to have a look-see. See you later.

 Ice Girl in Banlung