I don’t really know what I expected from the small, culturally rich country that became tragically infamous after Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge's genocide killed 2 million of the country’s 7 million residents. The worst part was that almost all of the perpetrators, including Pol Pot, escaped prosecution and continued to live among Cambodian citizens and refugees throughout Southeast Asia. Perhaps more so than any other genocide in the world, this country’s residents have lacked closure. Instead, they’ve had to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives alone.
Maybe I was expecting a country whose relatively recent terrors stilled simmered close to the surface. I imagined that the tension, the distrust would still be palpable.
But, if it is, they hide it well. We rolled into the capital of Phnom Penh on a sunny, unseasonably warm and pleasant weekend afternoon, and were immediately met by the nicest, most agreeably persistent Cambodian tuk-tuk driver ever. His name was Lucky, and he had an easy-going smile and an excellent command of English (with an Australian accent that made him even more charming). He approached me as soon as I’d descended from the cramped bus that had delivered us to Cambodia from the motorbike-clogged insanity of Saigon. He pleasantly offered to take me around to find a guesthouse.
Now, by this time, I’d been traveling long enough to know that you don’t accept the offers of cabbies or tuk-tuk drivers that lurk around bus stations—they’re more likely to scam you of your life savings, leaving you stranded in a city that you don’t even know if you like yet.
So, I waved him off and we started to walk towards where we thought a potential guest house would be located. But Lucky was following us, the easy-going smile never leaving his face.
“It is so far, and it’s so hot. Come on, let me take you. I’ll even drive you to several guesthouses so you can shop around and see which one you like best.”
We were beginning to realize that it was hot, and our bags were heavy (and the rice paddy hat I’d recently acquired in Vietnam was becomingly increasingly awkward to carry around), and the guesthouse began to seem farther and farther. Besides, Lucky seemed exceedingly affable, unlike the pushy taxi drivers I’d come to expect in other countries.
“Take us for a dollar?” I asked.
With a wide grin and a big thumbs up, Lucky said, “A-OK!”
So, before we knew it, we were in Lucky’s colorful tuk-tuk, careening down the crowded markets and wide avenues of Phnom Penh—a city that, for me, was surprisingly beautiful. As he drove us around, he chatted about his life in the capital; how he’d lived here for 8 years since moving from a small town northeast of Siem Reap, and that he’d fallen in love with the city because, as he said, “It’s always changing, and, more or less, I think it’s changing for the better. It’s not perfect, but it’s a good model for Cambodia.” So interesting considering Phnom Penh had been the center of the genocide only 30 years ago.
Upon finally selecting an awesome guesthouse that hugged the banks of the Mekong River, we agreed that Lucky would be back to take us to the Killing Fields of Cheong Ek and Tuol Sleng Prison the following morning.
He was waiting as promised at 8am, his characteristic wide smile greeting us as we climbed back into his tuk-tuk and made our way 10km out of the city to the Killing Fields. I was enjoying Lucky’s company. Probably unbeknownst to him, he was becoming the face of Cambodia for me: easy-going, affable, and happy.
The Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng provided a jarring complication of that sunny image, however. The eerily bright and foliaged fields where people had done such horrendous things to each other were indescribably disturbing. We paid an elderly local to give us a “tour” of the field. This tour provided us with an unscripted and genuine perspective on the genocide by someone who’d lived it. He said it was difficult for him to give these tours, but he did it because it ensured that the victims—his friends, family members, and acquaintances—would not be forgotten. He saw it as his duty.
Over and over, as we silently walked among the fields, finding it difficult to comprehend what had happened on the grounds upon which we were treading, he muttered, “Crazy Pol Pot. Crazy man.”
This seemed to be the encapsulation of Cambodians’ perspectives on the dictator. Even upon somberly exiting the Fields and returning to Lucky’s bright tuk-tuk, our usually cheerful driver simply said, “Pol Pot. Crazy, wasn’t he?”
This damnation of the country’s dictator stood out to me in stark contrast to the admiration that Chinese citizens still hold for their own controversial leader, Mao Zedong. Despite Mao’s similarly destructive policies that drove the country into economic and sociopolitical destruction, his face still adorns every piece of Chinese currency, and my students are still quick to complement his unifying leadership abilities.
Why is this so? Were Pol Pot’s policies more transparently evil than Mao’s? Possibly. Was the Chinese Communist propaganda machine more effective than its Khmer Rouge counterpart? I’d imagine so. But it still seems interesting that one evil leader has earned rightful criticism from his victims, and another has largely escaped historical retribution unscathed, at least domestically.
But, despite that exceedingly depressing day of “genocide tourism,” we returned to the public square of Phnom Penh to sights and sounds of residents enjoying their leisure time. Children squealed with delight as they ran in and out of clusters of pigeons, and families spread blankets on the bright green grass to have picnics under the twilight. There was even a balloon seller that had an unusually large line of customers—all men, in fact—waiting to purchase their bit of helium-filled goodness.
What an emotional whiplash from the sights we’d witnessed today. We happened upon an outdoors aerobics class that was moving and twisting to the sounds of early 90s dance music along the banks of the Mekong. Feeling inspired by the exercisers’ carefree smiles as they jumped and sashayed to the beat, we cast aside our bags and our somberness and joined in. We shared laughs with our fellow participants as we initially struggled to figure out the movements, and then giggled goodnaturedly when we accidentally bumped into each other as we struggled to master to the hop-step-two turn-jump maneuver. I never claimed to have rhythm.
It was a beautiful evening in Phnom Penh. It was the perfect way to end such a day: by following the reminders of the evil of which people are capable with the reassurances that the human spirit cannot, in the end, be broken.
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