Holiday in Cambodia (and Vietnam and Bangkok)

I spent the last two weeks in Bangkok, Cambodia (Siem Reap, Phnomh Penh), and Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City, Mekong Delta, Phu Quoc, Hanoi, and Halong Bay). It was an amazing trip packed with adventure, intrigue, romance, scandal, serenity, conflict, sun rash, giddy gastronomy, cultural faux pas... overall a very rough intro to the complex and fascinating peoples of Southeast Asia. Below are the highlights (and lowlights) of my brief time in Southeast Asia this winter:

- Sitting on the street with Brendan at 1AM after my 24+ hour journey having street cart pad thai, fried chicken, beer, and watching large white men "accompanied" by petite, scantily clad, overly made-up (yet still very gorgeous) Thai women (or ladyboys) in Bangkok.

- Getting a foot massage on Khao San Road in Bangkok. Talking to the women massaging my disgusting feet about her village and whatever else she could understand in English. She was amused by me and laughed hysterically (I think they are conditioned to do this around Westerners).

- Laughing at Brendan slam into the side of a parked car while trying to do a bunny hop on his bike during our bike tour. Unluckily for him, that car was the only one on the entire street with a driver in it... who chased us down 10+ blocks via motorbike, to tell us there's a scratch and we needed to pay the $48 to repair it.

- Taking a 3rd class train 6+ hrs to cross the Thai countryside into Cambodia. Meeting hot Norwegian girls on the train. Waiting more than an hour in the scorching sun to cross the border. Thinking I was going to be sold into slavery when the taxi drivers at the border were yelling at each other instead of driving us the remaining 3 hours to Siem Reap. Jumping into the pool at our awesome boutique hotel (Viroth's) after our 12 hour journey.

- Angkor Temple complex. Bayun temple (the one with the Buddha faces) was the tits.

- Night out in Siem Reap... awesome backpackers pub street. Partying with the hot Norwegians at Angkor What?

- Meeting the 2 lone survivors of the 7 people that weren't killed in the S-21 Prison in Phnomh Penh (out of the 20,000 that were placed there... most of whom were imprisoned for "being too advanced" for Pol Pot's vision of a pure Agrarian communist society). Lily cried. I would have too if I weren't dead inside. It was a bit off-putting/sad that they were selling their books there to tourists though...

- Skulls stacked on top of each other 30 meters high in the killing fields.

- Ho Chi Minh City... Motorbikes, motorbikes, and more motorbikes.

- The coconut shrimp on the Mekong cruise. Simple, yet probably my favorite food on the trip.

- Squeezing through the incredibly tight coochy tunnels while holding my Dong. (Coochee Tunnels = tunnels Viet Cong used to execute guerilla warfare tactics in the Vietnam War; Dong = Vietnamese currency... what were you thinking I meant?)

- Constant immature Dong jokes.

- In Phu Quoc, karaoking Sweet Caroline with Matt while the cheesy Pinoy girl group took on the role of our back-up dancers... Cute little French girl came and joined us on stage. Pretty epic karaoke experience. Also... skinny dipping later that night.

- Taking motorbikes around the gorgeous island of Phu Quoc and seeing an amazing white sand beach on the other end of the island.

- My neck literally getting fried by possibly the most brutal sun I've ever experienced (In January, in the northern hemisphere).

- Hanging out with Tan's family on the night of New Years. Karaoking with the family, playing Angry Birds with the kids, listening to the grandfather's war stories (he was Viet Cong), scrumptious food, visiting the priest's family and having rice wine with them, presenting the kids with the little red lucky envelopes with money and seeing their eyes brighten.

- Biking through the rice paddies in Tan's village.

- Kayaking in Halong Bay

- Frantically looking for Pho on the streets of Hanoi (it was Tet and everything was dead)... Finally found a little cart with an old woman serving Pho... and it was everything I had hoped for and more.

Slumdog Millionaire

It's been quite some time since I blogged... a few years to be not-so-exact... 2 years to be more exact... But here I am... new blog... no readers... just me, my mind, the keyboard of my work laptop, the midnight drowsies, and the banter of the inane "Girls Next Door" playing in the background (I tend not to be able to function in the quietness... even if I am not paying attention to the tele. at all.)

Sooo... let's have at it. Today's topic:

Slumdog Millionaire. An amazing movie or a western misreprentation of India?

My verdict: AMAZING MOVIE. However, in some circles (more specifically, the circles that include the upper class in India, the un-educated Indian masses, and many of the first generation Indians living abroad) there has been great dissent concerning the movie. The argument goes... Slumdog Millionaire portrays the seedy underbelly of India and creates a negative image of a country which is actually rich with culture and modernism. The movie highlights the lives of the poor masses and puts on center-stage the un-couthe slums and tenements that make up a minority of India. As a result, the movie creates an image of India as a hopelessly impoverished nation and neglects the great strides the country has made.

I can't disagree more with that statement. First of all, if you really pay attention to the movie, it shows that in the short period the main character, Jamal, goes from being a young boy to a young man, the city of Mumbai has transformed from a virtual (and literal, if you've seen the movie) shithole... to a modern commerical center with a bustling economy. At the end of the movie, the imagery is predominantly of the towering and lavish apartment complexes and corporate offices that have replaced the slums. I can't think of something that is more indicative of the country, as a whole, than this idea... Ten years ago, much of India WAS a shithole, or at least starting to become less of a shithole. Today, vast shopping malls with Gucci and Armani stores have been plopped on top of those former slums. And yes, the truth is, these commercial centers have, on many occasions, been erected by the corrupt... as was insinuated by the movie.

Moreover, so what if the movie depicts poverty in the way that it does? I just came back from there... and let me tell you what. Poverty exists. Slums exist. One cannot simply close his eyes to this fact and focus only on the great companies that have built fortunes in the largest capitalist country in the world. You cant only focus on the Benzes that the occasional telecom tycoon or the Bollywood hipster drives. You cant focus on the 10 bedroom mansions with the intricately designed spiral staircases. You cant focus on the positive... They are there. And they are becoming more and more common. And yes, maybe in 50 years, it will be the norm, for the middle class to be rolling in a Benz... but poverty will still exist. And in a country with a sickeningly large population that continues to burst out of the creaks and crevices of the cities of India... no matter how prosperous the rich become... no matter how many Calvin Klein shirts the middle class can buy, no matter how many slumdogs do end up becoming respectable Dell Customer Support reps name "Chris" or "Steve"... There will still be MILLIONS that live in the utter shambles of poverty. They will live in the shanti-huts. They will shit in public places. And they will wash their clothes with the same water they use for the toilet. Maybe they will have a satellite tv in their home. Maybe they will have an electric fryer. But these people will not break free from poverty anytime soon.

And the problem will continue because of the reasoning behind why certain people dislike Slumdog Millionaire. It will continue because there are people from India... people who live IN India, who are optimists... not realists. They see the growing economy (even though it's not doing too well now), the fattening middle class, and the great new 5 star hotels erected on every corner... and they become blind to the fact that next door to the five star hotel, there may live someone who makes $100 a year. The free market may help some of them. But there are simply too many. The free market was not meant for the hordes and hordes that exist in India. The free market will create two distinct countries. One that the fortunate ones who have gone to college have created... the country that produced 4 of the top 10 richest people in the world... and the other... well that country was depicted, fairly well, in Slumdog Millionaire.

So, it's time for the Indian populace to open their minds. There is a culture of optimism that has shrouded the country's reasoning. Optimism, in the absence of realism, destroys civilizations. There are no limits to how great the first country I mentioned above can become. But, unfortunately, there is no limit to how much the second country can spiral out of control if people continue to ignore such a place exists.

In the end, however, it comes down to one very simple issue. Entertainment... rather the "culture of entertainment". There is a significant difference between what western movie-goers seek in movies and what Indian movie-goers seek in movies. In the past, I was guilty of being closed-minded to Indian movies due to their seemingly inane plot-lines, over-acting, melodrama, and seemingly unneccessary diatribes. I thought it was all drivel. But, at some point, I realized Indian culture is so incredibly different from western culture, that one cannot evaluate Bollywood movies with a Hollywood mindset. It won't work. It won't make sense. Westerners don't understand the concept of the importance parental approval of the selected spouse. They don't understand the power of... Astrology... in determining your entire life... they don't understand the feel, the emotion, the vibe, that can only be captured in the highly under-edited format of Bollywood movies. These are all aspects that the Indian movie-goer expects to see when they see a movie. There are norms they expect, and what we find to be "duh-moments" are actually drastic divergences from these expected norms... things that many may consider to be "groundbreaking"...

So, I am not surprised that Slumdog does not get much love in India... it's just not what they want to see when they go to the theaters. But I have to say one thing... If I can open my mind to Bollywood movies. If I can learn to appreciate these seemingly brainless movies to the typical westerner... then I would expect the Indian movie-goer to open their mind to a movie like Slumdog... and not write it off as some westerners putting down their country. One may not like it as a movie, for whatever reason. But I think its a sad thing to write the movie off as a western movie that portrays the country negatively. Open your eyes. That is the country. It's marvelous. A beautiful country with culture, tradition, riches, and spirit oozing from every river, ghat, home, and even slum... but foreigners will see what is different. What is different stands out. And the slums stand out. Even today. They stand out... because... they exist! Maybe not as much as before. But they do exist.

"Everything is extreme. It's too hot, the tea is too sweet; everything is kind of too much... That's wonderful for drama, absolutely wonderful."
- Danny Boyle, Director - Slumdog Millionaire