Begging Children in Cambodia

December 22, 2010

You know me, I can't keep bubbly, rosy blog writing for long without describing the underbelly of life in spiritual, magnificent Cambodia. You’ve all heard of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge genocidal killing fields. What I didn’t know is that they only completely squashed the Khmer Rouge less than 20 years ago. Before the killing fields, Cambodia had a period of relative prosperity, filled with intellectuals, artists, and more. Then, the Khmer Rouge killed almost all of the intellectuals, leaving only 3 archeologists who pretended to be rice farmers; it’s sadly ironic, to only have 3 archeologists in a country chock full of rich temples. Then, they even started killing some farmers too, just because they didn’t comport with some twisted version of Maoism. When the Khmer Rouge were overthrown by the Vietnamese, they went into hiding in Thailand, sneaking back over the border for decades, terrorizing the communities there and leaving a trail of landmines that still explode and leave amputees in its wake today.

What’s left is a recovering nation. And, there’s a palpable feeling of learned helplessness in the country today. Lonely Planet described it more as the Cambodians’ resilient nature, overcoming horrific historical events. I agree, but learned helplessness also captures the feeling here. Passivity was probably a safer option, in the face of the Khmer Rouge. But, sad passive moments are what I keep on seeing on the faces of the Cambodian begging children and, even, when the few guides here describe their past history of loss at the hands of the Khmer Rouge and resulting poverty. Their victimhood usually seems to be described with the goal of begging for more tip money. It’s not a direct beg from the guides, but a sad reality that they feel the need to sell their victimhood for more money. It’s not that uncomfortable in person, just part of the complex guide-tourist interaction in Cambodia.

The Cambodian kids here are both doing better and staying worse. Recently, school has been made available to, supposedly, all children. I see children who seem to be out of school, working and begging, but it’s still progress to have universal schooling as a policy.

The country is staying worse by the child begging culture being alive and well here, perpetuated by the parents’ desperate manipulation of their children into beggars. Truth is, you want to give money to a child more than an adult. But, it’s heartbreaking seeing a two year old begging you to buy their faded roses while you’re eating at a restaurant as late as 10pm at night. The child would beg, get a no from us, then put a practiced look of deep sadness on his face, not leaving our table for a long time. Boom was confused but with his typical protective clarity told the begging child, “We won’t give you money. You have to go.” The begging child finally walked away, leaving a sad wake behind him.

Then the questions came –

Alice: “Why don’t we give the kids money when they ask for it? They don’t have any money.”

Griffin: “Why does it make their life harder if we give them money? Won’t it help them?”

Alice: “What’s a refugee?”

I guess the refugee question had been simmering for a while and needed to be answering in this moment of awakening. It’s an awakening for the kids since they’ve never seen that kind of child begging and didn’t understand how, as tourists, we needed to stop perpetuating the begging system by not giving them money. It’s so bad here that an organization puts out little colorful handouts for tourists asking them not to give child beggars money along with telling us not to take orphans into our hotel rooms, that the majority of the prostitutes here are between the age of 12 and 17, and where to give money that will help and not hurt Cambodian kids.

The first photos above are of a maybe 9 or 10 year old boy with his homeless family under the golden dragon, who was smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper until we came up close. Then, he hid his cigarette, which you can see in his hand, barely hidden. Kids sure do grow up fast around here.

Then, there's a picture above of boys playing a game kicking their shoes in the playground, to see how close they can hit and knock a couple Cambodian dollars on the ground. After I took the picture, one of the older boys tried to insist that I pay him for the photo, aggressively arguing with me in Cambodian.

On our walk up a side of a mountain to a temple outside of Phnom Penh, we were followed by a group of 5 boys who may have been around the same age as Griffin. They were pleasant, upbeat, helpful, and had pretty good tourist English. They played with our kids, willing to do the limbo with them. In fact, it often didn’t just seem like they were willing but like they really enjoyed the liberation of playing like kids.

At the same time, there was a slightly out of control vibe that we got, leading us to keep an eye on our kids when they’d run up ahead with them. And, it was unspoken that the kids would want money for their attempts at tour guiding us and entertaining our kids. They’d even swing from branches, pretending to be monkeys…showing our kids the best vines to climb. Our kids and us let ourselves be charmed by them, despite our instinctual sense of reservation.

As we descended the mountain, with our van in sight, the begging began. They got very serious, hard looks on their faces and asked for 1 or 2 dollars for their school. And, they did it with intense, repeated insistence, pushing up on both sides of us. We were going to eat a little local food before getting in the van, but both Ken and I had an unspoken instinct to get in the van asap. The boys even started working Griffin who looked confused and kept on saying, “What? Money? I don’t have money to give you.” He looked so bewildered to have boys who’d formerly done fantasy play with swords with him turn into such hardened, begging businessmen.

Boom saw me give a firm, “You can stop asking, we won’t give you any money.” And, then I ignored them, pressing on. Boom saw me feeling uncomfortable and repeatedly told them “No money for you,” looking at me like he was Superman coming in to protect me. We got in the van, seeing them deliberately put on their sad, hard faces, pressed up against the van windows. Ken and I were shaken up.

The last couple photos you’ll see above were taken that night at Friends Restaurant, part of Friends International, an organization that helps begging, street kids and families in Cambodia. The staff there came from the streets and were trained in vocational skills, in this case as cooks and waiters. The food was really good. We gave a donation we wished we could have given the 5 boys from the mountain temple.

Click here to see video of street kids in training and employment at Friends-International Restaurant, as part of the organization's vast training program.

Buddhist Monks in Cambodia

December 22, 2010

I hopped the fence of the Royal Palace playground, leaving the kids with Ken for me to explore the huge Buddhist compound across the street. These Buddhist temples were not glimmering in the gilded glory of other, more wealthy Buddhist temples in other Asian countries, like my local Kuala Lumpur Buddhist temple. This Buddhist compound was remarkable for its size and the loving attention to details. Each centimeter of every temple was covered in colorful paint, to bring to life the Buddhist statues and even some statues that seemed to have Hindu influence. There was one temple after another.

As I walked through the walled compound, I felt like I was a female imposter in a male world of Buddhist monks. I’d turn a corner, and there would be young Buddhist monks in training topless, fresh from a shower, looking at me then quickly looking away. I turned another corner and saw a monk in the trademark orange robes coming towards me smoking a cigarette. A cigarette? Isn’t that cheating Buddha somehow? He seemed to have the same reaction because by the time I passed him, he’d hidden his cigarette. Stray dogs barked at me. I saw one other Western tourist there who was lost in the compound, unable to find her bearings in the city, and I steered her the right way and she reassured me visitors are welcome at the Buddhist temple compound, where they welcome all of the city through their gates. All I know is I felt like the lone female and naked without a shaved head and orange robe. I briefly prayed, distracted by onlookers, took a flurry of pictures, and snuck back out and over the playground fence, back to my playground compound where my children were praying to the gods of play and physicality.

Note: I took this video of Buddhist monks giving alms to a woman in the street next to our hotel. All the monks walk around town holding silver bowls and covered by orange umbrellas, with people paying them to pray and chant to them. I found out later that in Cambodia you can choose to be a monk for either a short time or a lifetime. And, being a monk in training means you get to learn English so you can have a trade at the same time as being a monk.

Griffin’s Blog in Phnom Penh, Cambodia: Gymnastics Playground

December 22, 2010

When I got in the playground I didn’t think much of it. But when I started to climb the junglejims I loved the playground. When I started to climb a dome I had a lot of trouble getting to the top. Each wall on the outside of the dome was mostly all different. Then you had to get past the bars that were over the spider web. The bars were 5 feet obove the spider web. I had to lie down on the bars and slide my way to the top. When I got to the top I put my hands the top of the dome to balance me. I pushed my hands and stood up. I was standing on top of a 10 foot tall dome.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia: A raucous city with wild tuk tuk rides

December 22, 2010

At first glance, Phnom Penh seemed like a smaller, less developed version of Kuala Lumpur, the high-rise capital of Southeast Asia. From our air-conditioned van, we first saw Phnom Penh, noticing that it had no skyscrapers and buildings only as high as 3 stories. But, you don’t really know Phnom Penh until you take your first tuk tuk ride. And, the kids and Ken had their first tuk tuk ride today.

A tuk tuk is a little open-air buggy attached to the back of a motorbike. You might think it is a slow, put-put of a tuk tuk ride. You’re wrong. We learned that you only become a part of the pulse of Phnom Penh once you careen, dodge, and force your way into on-coming tuk tuk traffic. You’re screaming as if you’re riding a roller coaster at Great Adventure. And, miraculously, no one seems to get hurt in these raucous, wild streets.

And, these Phnom Penh streets sure are colorful and filled with smells of food like Chinese Noodle Soup! They are filled with soup hawkers on the side of the road, women selling gas to the tuk tuks from little tanks straight off the sidewalk, and people busily rushing to and from all the informal and formal jobs that crop up all over the city. If there’s a need, they’ll sell it! You need water, they’ll sell you ice cold water. You need a blessing, the monks will sing you a blessing. The bustle of commerce, living, and spiritual activity in Phnom Penh is awesome.

I was leery about taking an early morning run in town, concerned about getting mugged in the quiet streets. I left the hotel at 6:30am, having waited til the sun creeped up. The moment I stepped out of the hotel, there were tuk tuk drivers offering me rides and smiles, saying “Run run run!” And, the streets were already flowing with competing cars, motorbikes, and tuk tuks filled with food, parcels, and humans.

I ran next to the river, hugging the Royal Palace where it’s side streets are closed to traffic. The side streets were filled with Buddhist Monks in training walking to their Buddhist “wat” alongside local and Asian tourists walking to and from the river. I soon heard loud music from the riverside, reminding me of rocking pre-running race music. I thought, they didn’t have a race here this morning, did they? Not here! When I hit the river, I saw that there was not one set of speakers blaring exercise music, but there were many speakers. Some with ethnic Chinese music, some with local Cambodian music, some with U.S. techno dance tunes, and my favorite, one speaker blaring Latin dance rhythms. Each speaker was faced with 10 to 40 ethnic musically-matched groups. So the Chinese speakers faced 40 exercising Chinese tourists, the techno speakers had a few local Cambodian boys practicing their moonwalks, and the Latin speakers had what I can only imagine were local Cambodian women practicing their Latin hip thrusting moves. I laughed out loud, completely thrilled and surprised by this early morning spectacle.

Then I ran by a group of men playing a hard-hitting game that looks like volleyball except no hands are used. They deftly used their feet and heads to hit the rattan ball back and forth over the net. Damn, they were good at headers over the net. Yes, there were homeless families, which is more common that you’d like across Cambodia. And, yes, there were begging children and adult amputees. You’d imagine that seeing these people would be really depressing, and it is sad, but you see them in the context of this lively, bustling jigsaw puzzle that is life in Phnom Penh.

Click the words: video to see our tuk tuk ride!