Gary Haran.com

What: AtheistDrinks
When: March 31st at 6pm.
Where: Brutopia @ 1215 Crescent
How: RSVP on Facebook or Contact Me directly
Why: have a drink with like-minded individuals

This is the continuation of a series of a blog post on my recent trip to South East Asia(SEA). The previous blog post was on Bangkok.

After leaving Bangkok, still jet-lagged and tired it was great to take only a short plane ride to arrive in Pnom Pehn after dark. We took a cab that swerved to the middle of the road a few times to avoid motorbikes and flashed his headlights almost incessantly to alert people he was there. He dropped us off in Lakeside: the backpackers district. There for only 4 dollars a night you can get a bedroom with private washroom; a luxury.

This luxurious washroom did not include hot water. It was one particularly shocking washroom for my occidental eyes, unfamiliar with the backpacking lifestyle. The sink spilled to the floor reaching the drain on the floor unless you think to put a provided pail under it. The pail has triple purpose. It recycles hand-washing water, minimizes splashes on your feet and is also used to flush the “manual” toilet. The toilet shares its vital space with the cold water shower. When I told my traveling companions that I was surprised they looked confused. In Africa they shat in holes in the ground. This was a step above what they had gotten used to.

I like my toilet to flush automatically. I must be a spoiled brat.

Understanding The Cambodian Culture

With my occidental eyes it is difficult not to have a judgment of another culture that isn’t biased in a certain way.

One morning I woke up a bit earlier than my wife and friends. Not looking forward to a cold shower I put on a pair of shorts and went for a walk with my camera. As I stepped out I saw the guesthouse attendant brushing his teeth using water from a hose in the garden.

I walked out of the guesthouse and further in the street I saw a man crouching at a stall plucking his facial hair with a small metal plier. I had a little conversation despite the conversational handicap between us and he let me take a picture of him. I was surprised by two things about this man and the guesthouse attendant. Grooming is done in very public spaces and crouching is done with feet flat on the ground. I have lots of friends I’ve never seen brush their teeth (my friends all brush their teeth I assure you) and I’ve seen a lot crouch at some point or another. None of my occidental friends would crouch like this. They would be on the ball of their feet. On multiple occasions throughout my trip I tried crouching like that but had trouble without the right pair of shoes but with flat soles it’s very relaxing.

I walked forward and was invited for breakfast by a family eating in front of their house. The eldest woman was cooking meat cutlets on a small grill above wood fire bbq. In the bunch there was one woman who spoke very good English and had spent some time in the United States before coming home and marrying a Cambodian man. Her and I talked more than everyone combined and although it was a bit uncomfortable at times I used the opportunity to learn more about culture here. She explained how people often eat together and in the street like this. Around our 2 foot high table people would gather, grab a stool, receive a plate of rice from the elderly lady, ate and left without uttering a single word. I asked politely who everyone was and it was mostly family and extended family, some were friends.

At some point I had to use diplomacy. Having asked the English speaking woman what she thought of her stay in the USA she told me she really enjoyed the space and cleanliness in public (I think she meant how clean the sidewalks were). She also mentioned that she didn’t like the scary black people there, adding that there was a real black problem in the states.

The conversation went like this:

Me: I’m not sure I understand what you mean.
Her: Well the black people you see they cause lots of problems. Like crime and drugs.
Me: I don’t understand. Black people aren’t a problem in Canada and we have plenty of blacks in Canada. What’s so different about them?
Her: Well they’re mean.
Me: I’m not sure they’re mean. Perhaps they’re just reacting to how poorly they are being treated.
Her: blank stare…

I could see I made her think a bit about this but I’m not sure I had any lasting effect on her.

Compassion in Cambodian culture

To understand the Cambodian economy and politics you have to understand what happened with Pol Pot in the late 70s. Essentially this man came to power and eradicated bankers, intellectuals, educated class and closed all schools. In order to do this he built prisons by recycling the buildings once used as high schools. Around the big cities he created killing fields where dissidents would dig their own graves before being killed as cheaply as possible.

In the killing fields bullets were expensive so killing often meant crushing, stabbing or puncturing the skull with a sharp object. Another method was to saw open the neck with a local plant that grows with sharp serrated edges. Babies were thrown against tree trunks or crushed with a boot. Cambodians were killing Cambodians; forced to do so by fear of being on the receiving end of this inhumane treatment.

Two places are worth visiting to get a sense of this fratricide: S-21 prison and The Killing Fields.

What struck me as amazing is how this was presented to us. In both places we visited there was an emphasis to understand both sides. The killers were often forced to do their vile acts and were seen as victims as much as the ones dying in these atrocious ways.

Any culture that encourages compassion on both sides has my utmost respect.

Working from Home

Driving is very organic, even more so than in Bangkok where there were lots of traffic lights. There are very few mid-size cars. Families usually have a single 110cc motorbike they take together (we saw up to six people on one) or a SUV. Although there are gas stations like the ones we know there is usually an attendant in front of each pump to provide service and change. In the rural areas people resort to bottled gas as seen in the above picture. In the poorer areas the coke bottles are replaced with whiskey bottles. This man is just the stall in front of his house but there are no clear defining boundaries between what’s the house and what’s the shop. You’ll often see people eat in a shop, often sitting or crouching on the floor right next to clients walking in.

How Children Are Little Grown Ups

This photo in Angkor Wat shows a little girl using a very heavy and sharp chopping knife to make a whistle of sorts from a straw. The yellow basket on the side is full of little items she sells for 1$ each, 3 for a dollar if she likes you. In North America this scene would be shocking for numerous reasons. One it’s a child with wielding a big knife and secondly it’s a child working. I think my own culture is unreasonable and excessive in this judgment. We give children too little credit. They’re quite capable (and willing) to do these dangerous things reserved for adults. Sometimes children will want to goof off but if we let them they want to do the same things we do and they get the same sense of pride and accomplishment we do when they successfully attain a goal they set for themselves.

How Buddhist Pagodas Are Begging Schools

In the East we have this impression that Buddhist monks are somehow detached from this world and live happy life getting closer to enlightenment every day. As the image of the smoking monk I mentioned in my previous post was still sinking in I was taken aback by another troubling bit of what it meant to be buddhist.

I sparked a conversation with another monk in Angkor Wat hoping he would give me some kind of insight or revelation. Angkor Wat is a grandiose temple complex built for the King of Cambodia almost over 900 years ago and was later recycled as Buddhist temple. He explained to me that lots of monks are just monks because they couldn’t afford life without it. He told me that he was from a poor family and joined as a disciple because education, food, housing and getting around is really cheap. It was all thanks to the generosity of the people he said. And then he asked me how much I paid for my hotel and (not being sure exactly) I said 10$ or so for two nights. He told me that it was what it cost him to learn English for a full month and then asked me if I could help him get his education. I approached this man genuinely interested and left flustered and annoyed.

Other days we’d eat in markets and there we’d assist to a parade of monks that would arrive in front of a stall or shop and stand there with a large bowl or bags held in ways meaning it was time to give. The way this was done in public meant it was impossible for anyone to refuse. Shop and stall owners all hurriedly grabbed some food, money or both, took their shoes off, approached the monk, dropped the goods in the bowl, bowed down and walked backwards back to their shoes. The monk would grace them with a prayer (I was told later on that it was for the ancestors of the person giving the goods) and would leave to go do the same with another stall or shop. The large sized bowl was sometimes filled out so quickly that the monk would take out bags that he hid under his robe to be able to carry even more goods with him back to the pagoda.

When leaving Cambodia for Vietnam I snapped this latest picture but I don’t feel it represents what we had seen in the heart of markets. Imagine the bad publicity someone would get if they refused to give to the monks. This kind of social pressure only leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Although I had a great appreciation for Cambodians in general I can’t help but feel they’re getting the raw end of the deal with Buddhist monks. So far as I could see these monks don’t offer anything in return aside from what I believe to be empty promises.

My next post will be on Vietnam.

There are plenty of ways to get people to give you money for a “Ministry”. This one which predates the year 2000 used the y2k bug to scare the money out of gullible pockets.

After the year 2000 went by without a hitch (save a few hangovers) these con artists turn to the mayan calendar to scare the bejeesus out of everyone.

I feel sorry for those who get caught in those shenanigans. We have so many other ways to use money to make this world a better place to live in. Sadly these con artists might be too good at what they do to let any of their victims any time to think. Fear is the tool of the devil.

I was looking forward to seeing Alister McGrath on The Hour. I’m a big fan of Dawkins but I’d pay good money if someone could shut him up with reasonable discourse.

Viewers of the show had claimed that McGrath was the man to bring down Dawkins. After all he was once an atheist and now is a priest. He even wrote two books attacking Dawkins. Aside from half decent rethoric McGrath has nothing on Dawkins.

“God is more exciting than I thought.” - Alister McGrath

After watching the show I felt the segment with this guy was an utter waste of time for me. I was looking for intellectual discourse, a reasoned argument why God could be believable. All I got was empty rethoric and a man calling Dawkins grumpy. Because of that I’d like to state that McGrath is half the man Dawkins is.