Love stoned

Last Wednesday I went to Kampong Thom, a province 165 km northeast of Phnom Penh, for the second leg of the field work that began in Steung Treng a week ago. This time I joined the other survey team. The eight of us took the bus that travelled to Siem Reap and got off at Kampong Thom, which is sort of the mid-point between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.

The work was to begin officially the next day so after the necessary preparations and arrangements were made, the group decided to do some sight-seeing. Aside from being a stop en route to Siem Reap, Kampong Thom is also home to a Hindu temple complex called Sambor Prei Kuk. This was established by King Isanavaram in 618, as the capital of what was then the Chenla Kingdom, which rose to power in the 6th Century. The kingdom was subsequently divided during the 8th Century into Upper Chenla (present-day Laos and Eastern Thailand) and Lower Chenla (present-day Cambodia and Southern Vietnam). A century later, the divided kingdom was reunited under the rule of King Jayavarman VII.

Sambor Prei Kuk has about 150 temples and towers that predate the Angkor Wat by several centuries. It is made up of 4 major groups of temples. It is about an hour away from the town proper, through a circuitous dirt road whose seemingly endless bumps caused us to christen the drive as the ‘kampong thom massage’. We were only able to see one group of temples because we were only there for about an hour and a half.

Although most of the temples have fallen into disrepair due to looting and pillaging, the US bombing in the 70s, and the Khmer Rogue, the site was still impressive and magnificent. As our tuktuk snaked its way through the trails in the dense forest, the sight of the temples seen between the ancient trees took my breath away.

When we walked around the complex, the temples seemed to literally emerge from the forest as shadows and light concealed and revealed the brick structures in each step that we took. Like Ta Prohm (made famous in the Tomb Raider movie) in Siem Reap, the jungle has made its way into many of the temples, tangling bricks and rocks with roots and tree branches. Insects bit me but I didn’t mind. One scary moment, though, was when I crossed the enormous web of a spider that was almost the size of my hand.

(more…)

Give it to me

I started blogging in November 2006, with Friendster. I was inspired by J, a friend who blogs in her Friendster account up to this day. A few months I created another blog in blogspot but I eventually settled in i.ph, which I started using on May 2007.

On May 27, my 2 blogs in i.ph– The Zen Bitch Speaks  and Two-Tongued Poetry, are turning one year old. I have been extremely pleased at the feedback and support I have received from the (few) readers of these blogs. In return, I am giving something back.

As you, dear reader, may have noticed, each post in The Zen Bitch Speaks is named after songs. I have compiled 20 of these songs into a CD (cover pictured below). It’s called Life’s A Bitch! Music from the blog and I’m giving 6 copies of these CDs. Kind of like what Kris Aquino did in her CD, but minus the voice-over. I don’t want to send you to an irreversible coma with my boring monotone of a voice.

All you, dear reader, have to do to is to place a comment on this post, answering this question in 50 words or less. Please pardon the obvious self-indulgence in the question.

What do you like most about this blog (The Zen Bitch Speaks or Two-Tongued Poetry) and why?

You can comment in English and in Filipino. Please leave your email address after your comment. You have until midnight of May 31, 2008 to place your comments. The comments will be judged independently (meaning, not by me) in terms of clarity, verbal panache, and the ability to flatter the zen bitch immensely.

Winners will be announced on the first week of June, and will be contacted by email for their mailing addresses. I am prepared to send the CD anywhere in the world through registered mail.

To inspire you, dear, reader, please see the track listing of the CD below:

Waiting to exhale

Today, May 17, is the International Day Against Homophobia, or IDAHO. This is observed in at least 30 countries worldwide, including the Philippines. Unlike the LGBT Pride Day, which focuses on proudness of one’s sexuality, IDAHO seeks to raise the visibility and awareness of struggles around the world to combat and eradicate the pernicious consequences of homophobia. Homophobia itself is shameful and it has to be fought openly.

This year’s observance of IDAHO is significant because 2008 is also the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This was the first international document to define and outline a universal and inalienable set of human rights that every person–regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression–is entitled to.

Many governments have reformed their own laws to stop discrimination against LGBT: South Africa, many European governments, and South American countries like Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, among others. A document called the Yogyakarta Principles was issued by international human rights experts and this outlined the range of rights LGBT people are entitled to under international laws.

Unfortunately, homosexuality is still criminalized in more than 80 countries. LGBT people are vulnerable to violent acts that are often uninvestigated and its perpetrators remain unpunished. Discrimination in many sectors is rampant, affecting access of LGBT to health care services, education, and employment.

Homophobia is an insiduous force that rears its ugly head in all aspects of our lives. It can come in the form of a direct confrontational, often violent, encounter or in the guise of friendship and concern for somebody else. I have previously written about the homophobia of G and L, two Filipina ladies I used to know here in Phnom Penh. After writing that particular post I struggled with my decision to remain friends with these 2 homophobes because I believed that they were basically good people. However, events have proven that they were conniving and manipulative and deceptive and, well… suffice it to say that they were not the good people I believed them to be, so I am just utterly relieved to have rid of their treacherous company. 

Which makes me wonder: can a homophobe ever be a good person? Or does homophobia connote a lack of character that makes a person ‘good’? As of this writing, I have no answer to this question.

Like I said, homophobia manifests itself in many situations. When I visited Singapore a while back, there wasn’t any shortage of gay-oriented bars and massage parlors to visit for hook-ups and what-not. But Singapore’s Health Minister openly directs his vitriol to the gay community for allegedly driving the HIV epidemic in the city state. In Cambodia, there is no Khmer word for homosexual. MSM is used as an umbrella term to include gays and transgenders. Lesbians are virtually invisible. This impedes their access to education, employment, and healthcare, and increases their vulnerability to discrimination–within the family and the community at large.

In the Phillipines, the medical staff of a government-run hospital recorded a video of a surgery involving a perfume canister inserted into the anus of a gay man without the patient’s consent and then posted the video on YouTube (my respect for the victim prevents me from placing a link to the video). The video showed the medical staff cheering and jeering as the canister was being removed, one even shouting, ‘Baby out!’ The other people present in the operating room shot photos and videos using their camera phones. Two doctors and a nurse have been placed under preventive suspension by the provincial Department of Health.

Admittedly, in the last 60 years, there has been some progress in promoting, protecting, and upholding the human rights of LGBT people.  But we still have a long way to go before we can stop holding our breaths and being able to savor that air of freedom and equality with the rest of the world.

Everybody hurts

Post-coital conversations are over-rated.

It is early evening. We are in bed. I am curled in his arm, sore from the rather vigorous bout of sex he and I had gotten accustomed to. I can still smell sex in the fine hairs in his armpit. I close my eyes and wish we are not talking. But I know he won’t be able to help himself. He will talk, he always does. He asks me how I am. I tell him I’m sore. I know he likes to hear how he hurts me when he fucks me. A small laugh. ‘Aside from that. How are you handling it?’ I tell him I’m okay. He asks again, ‘Are you sure?’ I try not to pay attention, relishing the fatigue and languid pleasure brought on by sexual release.

‘Do you really want to know?’ I rest my chin on his chest. He nods. I tell him I’m coping. That I will miss the company, more than anything else. The feeling of security that results from the knowledge that someone cares for me. The sex is negligible. He smiles, knowing full well that my relationship hasn’t been sexually fulfilling for a long time before this break-up. ‘I care for you,’ he volunteers. 

‘You might, but I don’t really have you, do I?’ I remind him that he’s married.

He winces as if I had poked him with a sharp object. Recovering, he says, ‘But unlike him, I have never hurt you. And he did it to you twice.’

I do not say anything. I silently wish I am not discussing the demise of my relationship with him. Why can’t we just have sex and not talk, like we used to do?

I remember the first time I met him three years ago. It was about two months after my first break-up. We locked glances as I stepped out of the internet shop I’d regularly frequented. He looked young, made more obvious by his wispy moustache and goatee. The next time I was there, he sat beside me and just started talking to me. He was eight years my junior. I invited him to my flat but found myself to do anything but talk. He asked if I had some porn, I admitted that I didn’t. He asked if he can bring some DVD next time and watch it in my TV. I said sure, no problem.

He watched two DVDs the first time we had sex. Not that he needed the inspiration. I was the one who felt so ill-prepared for it and I hesitated. I didn’t want to get fucked but when he gently insisted, I relented. And I was sore for a couple of days. It was a new feeling. So much different from the emptiness that I’d been harboring in the time that my lover left me with no explanation.

In short, he became my coping mechanism. My rebound sex, my fuck-buddy, or whatever it is called these days. Two weeks later we had the same vigorous, almost brutal sex. We began meeting weekly. 6PM became a sort of witching hour for me. He began trying new things: he got more physical, bordering on violent. He would bite me, hit me a bit, throw me around. And I allowed him to do it all. Me, the hopeless romantic who had thrived in timid kisses and cuddling.

The pain was a welcome relief from feeling nothing.

(more…)

Take me to the river

Last Sunday Ted, Vic and I travelled to Steung Treng, a province about 300 kilometers northeast of Phnom Penh. It was a business trip for Ted and I; we were there to supervise the field work for a study we’re working on. Vic, fresh from Manila, decided to tag along because he hasn’t been to this province. I haven’t been to Steung Treng before as well, so the trip was a welcome one.

The survey team rented a van while the three of us rented a car. We left Phnom Penh at 7AM, and the 6-hour drive took us past the provinces of Kandal, Kampong Cham, and Kratie. Vic brought some fried crickets and a tarantula in Kampong Cham and tried to eat them. I have eaten crickets in the Philippines (I’m from Pampanga) and I’ve also eaten a tarantula years ago, upon the prodding of my ex Kimrun. I didn’t want to try it again. Ted and I munched on cashew nuts, banana chips, and spiced tamarind instead. In Kampong Cham we also saw the Khmer equivalent of the bayanihan. A whole house was being moved. The difference from the Filipino style was this house was mounted on carts and pushed, not carried, to its destination.

We arrived in Steung Treng at around 1PM, and after a quick lunch we walked around the town center. Steung Treng is located on a high sandy bank overlooking the Mekong River, where it is joined by the Se Kong River. We went to the riverside and looked at the port. When we got tired walking we bought fruits and went back to our guest house and waited for Poeu (our survey monitor who knows the place) to pick us up for a late afternoon drive. Steung Treng is also about 40km south of the Laos border. We had brought our passports in case we get hit by wanderlust and decide to cross the border.

Poeu arrived at half-past four and we went to the bridge that crossed the Sae San River, towards the border to Laos. The bridge was new, built through aid from China. From afar, it reminded me of the bridge in Koh Kong that led also to another border crossing (Thailand). When we got there, however, I noted that that the bridge only had 2 lanes. The bridge in Koh Kong had 2 lanes also but it had 2 pedestrian/bicycle lanes on each side, plus viewing decks. The lack of viewing deck did not deter people (including us) from stopping by and looking at the view, which was quite nice. We took pictures as well.

For dinner we had some Laotian noodles, which was really delicious when eaten with iced coffee with milk. Steung Treng is also famous for its coffee. Before heading back to our guest house Poeu pointed out the venue of the survey the next day, a wat (pagoda).

(more…)