Culture

In March of 2006, my mom brought me along with her to Cambodia on a journey to spread the ashes of my grandmother in Siem Reap, the city she and her family are from. It was the first time I’d left the country and the first time she was speaking to me in almost a year. On our connecting flight from Tokyo to Phnom Penh, she requested that I take out my tongue ring.
At the time, I thought I did it solely because she had finally asked me to. Understanding myself better now, there was no chance in hell I was going to walk off that plane with a metal bar in my tongue. It just wasn’t me, and I knew that even at 18.

When asked about my experience, people usually anticipate an elaborate story about how humbling and amazing and spiritual it was. But this was all they got, “it was hard…” Then I would paint a bunch of scenarios of all the times I made a fool of myself or almost died, mentioning only the details worth laughing about. I didn’t know how to express compassion. To put into words that I had to constantly compose my emotions so that I didn't cry the whole time.
It was hard… I saw a lot of painful images while I was there. Children begging for food, elders on their knees crying for help, kids inhaling glue, homes missing walls 10 stories high, birds in cages only freed to be captured again for money – literally and metaphorically, and that was all in the day time, the first day.
On one of our trips to the city, I got blessed, or cursed…I’m still not sure. My eyes were concentrated on this man who was old as a grandfather but moving like a teenager shoveling rocks and tar without any gloves or shoes. I suppose my mom caught me staring because she hands me a 10 dollar bill and motion towards him.
So I walk over slowly, cautious not to interrupt but suspiciously trying to get his attention. I have the bill in both hands as I’m offering it to him like I have no idea what I’m doing. He notices me and then wipes his hands as he walks over to me. I bow my head and put my hands in praying form as I’ve been taught my whole life, and then he puts his hands over mine. I bless him and then he blesses me, but adds in, “Many men will fall in love with you.” After bartering him to take it back, I finally accept and he kisses my forehead...something I'll never take for granted.
The moment that hit me the hardest was when I went along for a ride to drop the kids off at public school. As we were heading back, they were everywhere walking in their uniforms. But in the distance, I noticed one out of place. About half a mile out to the side, there was a little boy in a dirt field by himself. He wasn't wearing the blue or white, and for some reason it didn’t sit right with me. So I made my cousin turn around. When we get there, I notice that he doesn’t have any shoes. I roll my window down and reach my hand out with some money. He smiles at me and then takes it. At that instant something forced me out of the car and I hugged him.
Driving off, I watched him continue to wonder aimlessly in no rush and in no particular direction. Instead of feeling bad for him, I listened to the way he walked and I saw that I was suffering more than he was. He didn’t need anything. As for me, I couldn’t even get over myself.

Jayavaram VII, spoke of his intentions in erecting temples as being:
“full of deep sympathy for the good of the world, so as to bestow on men the ambrosia of remedies to win them immortality….By virtue of these good works would that I might rescue all those who are struggling in the ocean of existence.”

-My mom actually grew up only a few blocks away from Angkor Wat. She swam in the water and ran through the halls of the temples. When I approached the entrance to walk in, they stopped me and asked that I pay a fee. I reminded them politely in Khmer, "I'm Cambodian." And then I walked in.