To the moon and back

I’ve just returned from a 10 day trip to Japan to see Tyler who has just recently relocated there to teach English. Izu Oshima is his new home, a sleepy volcanic island about 100km from Tokyo out in the Pacific. Sleepy refers to the people – the volcano is very much alive and kicking.

Let me tell you, Japan is no picnic for the English speaking traveler. This being claimed by one who has spent six months of this year in backward Cambodia. For the record, Cambodians speak and understand far more English than the Japanese.

It was really interesting ordering my first meal after I had settled into the hotel and then ventured out into modern Tokyo. I was lured into a restaurant by its sidewalk English signboard saying “special”. That was the last English word I read. Try ordering off a menu with no English and no pictures. What I ended up with was a bowl of cold rice with a lump of raw minced and marinated fish on top. Good thing I’ve been training my stomach and tastebuds on Cambodian cuisine.

Tyler met up with me about 3pm and we ventured out into the unknown of Tokyo, visiting the emperor’s digs and old section of the city the first day before heading out to the fabby chic area of Shibuyo that night. Think Times Square. The world’s largest pedestrian crossing where when the lights go green, all walkers unite into a mass of magnificent humanity. Unbelievable.

We spent the next two nights in Tokyo as well before heading over to Tyler’s island. It’s only a 90 minute ride by hydrofoil, skimming along the water at 50 mph - a very pleasant ride indeed. Instantly, we entered a world starkly different from that of Tokyo. Oshima has 9,000 inhabitants, scattered about in 5 villages – Tokyo is the largest metropolitan area in the world with over 35 million people in the metroplex.

1986 was the most recent volcanic eruption, but it’s not the last. To make things really real, Tyler (and all Oshima residents) has a white plastic hard hat in his closet, just in case…

Tossing caution to the wind, Tyler and I hiked Mt. Mihara – the volcano – on my second to last day. Our 8 km jaunt was like going to the moon. It’s the fantasy birthplace of Godzilla (Go-zee-ra). Imagine an ancient crater that is 5 km in diameter and then within that circumference another crater, 600 feet higher and 1km in diameter; and then within that a .5km cylindrical blow hole. We hiked it all in virtual solitude, seeing only two people at the very end. Spectacularly eerie. The photo below is Tyler standing on the edge of an extinguished lava flow on the inside of the older crater.

I’m so glad I went to be with Tyler in his new habitat. I think he was glad to see me too, particularly in a sea of change too. I’m very proud of him for taking this very big and unusual step. I’m sure he’ll do well. He’s a great adapter and knows no strangers, even when there are language and cultural barriers.

Asia is the new frontier in so many ways and does an exceptional job in arresting our comfy Western ways. Tyler is in for the time of his young life. (yes, that's Mt. Fuji on the left, as seen from "Tyler's Island"). If you'd like to write to him, his new email address is: tylerknoxville@gmail.com

Proud Dad...

S-21 Prison

Two words that strike fear into the heart of Cambodians. Tuol Sleng. Once a high school in Phnom Penh, it was transformed into a horrific torture prison by the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979. Known as S-21, the secret prison was the most brutal and well-known evil machine of the Khmer Rouge years. Actually, there were over 200 prisons and labour camps scattered about Cambodia, with an equal number of “killing fields” where people were sent to their deaths with one swift blow of an oxcart handle to the base of the skull.

Few of us really know what happened in Cambodia during these four dark years in the late 1970’s. Even fewer of us from the free world can comprehend the atrocities committed here. Most people have heard of the Khmer Rouge, the communist movement led by Pol Pot and his Western-educated band of Western-hating revolutionaries. Most have heard of the killing fields, the expression popularized by the movie of the same name (well worth seeing). But few people really understand what actually happened in Cambodia or have a grasp of the breadth and depth of the destruction wrought here – me included.

It’s time for me to talk about this because the trouble we are dealing with in Cambodia today stems directly from this hugely destructive period beginning earlier than, but gaining traction by 1968. It’s also time to talk about this because FINALLY, the Khmer Rouge leadership – the ones who are still alive that is – are being brought to justice after nearly 30 years. You’ve probably read this in the news – only so, I’m afraid, because it makes a sensational headline that sells newspapers.

Cambodia is a lovely country filled with graceful, easy-going people, but also owns an sinister past from which questions arise as to how its people will eventually recover. Living literally four blocks from S-21, I wonder what some of the people whom I see everyday were doing back then. Were they victims? Were they perpetrators? Were they forced? Were they willing participants? It is a classic “good side – bad side” of the personality of a good portion of this population. It would be foolish to think that economic recovery will ever erase or even ease the unbearable pain of genocide, whichever side one was on.

Two million Cambodians died out of a population of eight million during the years 1970 to 1979. That’s 25% of the population. Imagine that – 75 million Americans or 15 million British citizens killed. Many of those who perished were the leaders of the country – its politicians, doctors, attorneys, teachers – anyone who smacked of Western influence. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were determined to remove from Cambodia any and all Western influence and to exterminate the bourgeoisie. The hoped for result was to be a Maoist agrarian civilization devoid of external influences and a country turned inward, dependent only upon itself.

Out of the two million that died, roughly a half million were as a result of American bombing as it attempted to cut off North Vietnamese supply lines that snaked through the eastern half of Cambodia during the Vietnam war. Ironically, it was this attempt to defeat the NVA that propelled the Khmer Rouge into eventual victory and power in Cambodia. The people of rural Cambodia became so disenchanted with the corruption laden, American-backed government of Lon Nol that they turned to the Khmer Rouge as saviors.

It is estimated that another 200,000 people were victims of direct Khmer Rouge genocidal purges. Another 1.3 million died as a result of the brutality encountered in slave labour camps and the ill-conceived agricultural revolution that literally starved the country’s occupants. Imagine, working the fields all day in the very hot Cambodian sun only to receive one cup of a watery rice mixture as your daily nourishment.

A generation of educated leadership, intelligence and culture was wiped out. It should come as no surprise that nearly 70% of Cambodia’s population is younger than age 30, 50% less than 15 – only 3% older than 60! Literally, the cultural, political and social fibre and intelligence of this society has been decapitated. No wonder the road back isn’t as easy as just being at peace or attained simply by ageing.

So, there’s some fat to chew on this week. Savour your liberty.