Culture shock has its ups and downs, and sometimes you can go from happy acculturation back into rejection at the blink of an eye.
Today I was having a great day. I went to the Wat with my mom, dad, and little brother. People fussed over me. I heard over and over again that I was pretty, but my hair was dirty, my arms were hairy, and my nails were ugly. But I can deal. Then I came home, my family made me eat a ridiculous amount of food, and then I skyped with Emily, Andrew and Al for like an hour and a half. Then I relaxed for a bit: studied and played some uke. After that, I sat and talked with my sister for a long long time, which I always love doing. Things were great!
I’ve been wanting to get a picture of my whole family for a while. And I’ve been wanting to get some shots of what dinner time looks like. So I brought my camera to the table, and did get some good shots! Then as my camera was being passed around the table, my mom and my little brother lost their grip of it and it fell right into the soup. My mom freaked out and got it out as quick as she could. I didn’t really react because I thought my camera has been through a lot.. it can handle some Khmer soup. SO my mom runs and gets napkins, and I start wiping it off. But now I’m realizing that the lens is not going back into the camera… and the screen isn’t turning on. I finished drying it off, but it’s still not working. My whole family was watching me in complete silence. I was upset about my camera, but the last thing I wanted was for my mom to feel like she has to somehow pay me back for this. So I told them it wasn’t a problem and I was just going to wait for it to dry.
Dinner was quieter than it has ever been.
After dinner I took my camera into my room to see if I could fix it without my family watching and feeling bad. No luck. Not only is it not working, but it also reeks of fish soup. Why did it have to be fish soup??
After I pronounced my camera dead, I figured I should go out to my family and put on a happy face so that they don’t feel like I am going to hold this against them. So I went back to the kitchen, and they are all sitting around the TV watching their favorite Khmer Comedy show. I sit down, and they ask me if my camera is working. I said not yet- the safest non-lying answer I could give. My dad asked me if it smells bad. That was not worth lying about, so YEAH!
Then we quieted down to watch the show. I don’t particularly like this show to begin with. It is sort of like Saturday Night Live with skits and a live audience. There is always a lot of shouting and really fast talking, and can only understand MAYBE 10% of it, on a good day. But when I want to spend quality time with my family, this is what I gotta do.
So this skit starts with a young man and a woman. They were putting on coats, scarves and big silly ski hats because they were going to America! It was pretty funny. The woman kept practicing saying “excuse me” and the man was putting on make-up to make himself whiter, and he said in Khmer “I only know how to speak Khmer a little” haha.
So then the scene fast forwards and they are in America looking around. Then an “American couple” walks on to the stage. From here on in there is no talking (whether because the actors can’t speak English or the audience can’t speak English, I don’t know. Probably both). The woman is wearing enormous sunglasses. The man is wearing a black wife-beater and I believe he had tattoos. Both were poorly dressed and just looked rude and dirty.
The Khmer couple accidentally bumped into the American couple, and the American woman fell down. The Khmer man bowed and apologized, but the American man wouldn’t have it. He walked over to the Khmer woman and pushed her to the ground. So the Khmer man retaliated by pushing the American girl down again. Then the American man did the same- AGAIN. Then the Khmer man took something like a bat out of his bag and hits the American girl with it. The American man does the same. They both end up beating the girls with the bat, breaking their legs, and breaking their arms. Then in the end, The American man and the Khmer man call an unspoken truce of respect, shake hands, and hug.
I can’t even put to words what the most disturbing part of this was. I sat there watching in complete shock and horror the whole time. First of all, last time I checked domestic abuse was never funny. I was disturbed that Khmer people could think this was funny. I was disturbed by the Khmer impression of Americans. I was disturbed by the womens’ passiveness in the scene. They literally just sat there and whined every time they were beat. Yes, domestic abuse happens in both countries, but in America it is never funny.
Now I’m sitting in my room, also remembering the last thing that really disturbed me. I went dancing in Phnom Penh with some Peace Corps friends. I was having a good time until I stopped and really looked around. Around the room there were a few old rich white males accompanied by awkward looking young beautiful Khmer women. I looked over the balcony down at the street below, and I saw more of the same. I’m sure you can figure out just as well I could what this was. Some were probably American. I know I compared Cambodia and America in terms of their reaction to domestic abuse, but realistically- people are screwed up everywhere.
It’s times like these that I wish I could close my eyes and just for one night sleep in my own bed, under my own roof, and just… understand all the ways of the small world around me.
But tomorrow, I will: get up, think about doing laundry, decide I can go one more day, look over some notes, go to language class, have more of a therapy session than a language class with my teacher, and continue to go on about my day. I’ll climb back up the acculturation line in no time.
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