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Some readers have emailed me about the significance of Pchum Ben. Here is a nice article on Pchum Ben I’ve found on the web. Basically, Pchum Ben, or Ancestors’ Day, is a fifteen-day observance beginning mid-September to honor ancestors and offer food to spirits of the dead.

Since we Khmers devote 15 days a year to make offerings to the dead, how about doing the same for the living?

It doesn’t seem that we as a culture value life enough. The news that come out srok Khmer are rife with horrific stories of abuse and exploitation. We often don’t value even our own lives, much less those of others. For example, on the streets of Phnom Penh it’s not uncommon to see two or three small children perched on a motorcycle driven by their father, who weaves in and out of traffic with reckless abandon.

To honor the living means to promote conditions, attitudes, and behaviors that sustain life. It means sharing, being compassionate, helping the less fortunate, and treating all sentient beings with kindness and respect.

It goes without saying that the celebration of life, not death, is more important to the survival of our people– it will ensure that Khmers do not turn into Khmourch (ghosts).

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Boiled corn is a favorite snack food here in Cambodia, found at just about every street corner. Since there are so many vendors competing to make a living selling boiled corn, the profit margins are razor-thin. If one vendor tries to sell a cob of corn for just 100 riels (about 2.5 cents US) more than the going price, then people will just go to the next stall to get theirs.

So if you sell boiled corn for a living, you’re always looking for a way to increase your margins while staying competitive. The solution?

Acid.

Yes, acid! Yet another brilliant idea that can only come from Cambodia!

I have been hearing that the vendors are adding a small amount of acid to the boil to make their corns cook faster. The acid supposedly renders the kernels tender faster, reducing the cooking time and hence the amount of coal used to boil the corn. It’s the savings from using less coal or wood, not the saved time, that add to the profits.

Although I haven’t tried acid-boiled corn myself, I’ve been told that you could feel a slight tingling and irritating sensation in your mouth and esophagus when you eat it. One could only imagine what the acid would do to your stomach linings and intestines.

Acid-boiled corn is just the latest brilliant invention that comes out of Cambodia, where the margins of profit and safety are usually thin, and one often compromised for the other. In the past you may have heard of people selling watered-down beer laced with cyanide, a deadly poison, to increase the beer’s potency (i.e., mask its reduced alcohol content) and spraying dried fish with chemicals that even the flies wouldn’t go near. Yet, somehow these foods are deemed fit for human consumption.

Brilliant, just brilliant!

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Everyone in Cambodia, from top to bottom, still operates on a survivalist mentality. This is understandable because of our recent past. The country has found relative stability just 10 years ago when the final remnants of the Khmer Rouge were eliminated.

When one works on a survival instinct, one has a tendency to hoard resources, often to the detriment of others’ livelihoods, and to flee (to a more survivable place). The survival mentality promotes selfishness– help yourself before helping others.

Selfishness, as it addresses more basic human needs like food and shelter, takes precedence over selflessness, a quality identified with higher needs like altruism and idealism. That’s why Khmer leaders don’t like to lose their seats. Their survival would be threatened. We don’t live in a country where a president who earns just $400K a year in office could make tens of millions of dollars writing books, giving speeches and working for private companies when he is out of office.

Most of us are frustrated with the slow transition from selfishness to selflessness, from the individual fulfillment to collective fulfillment, from pragmatism to idealism, from survival to living. It’s going to take some time and patience. In the meantime, we have to avoid replaying same old tunes like a broken record, because it seems like whenever someone comes up with a bright idea that would radically transform Khmer society, the country is set back to year zero.

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Everyone in Cambodia, from top to bottom, still operates on a survivalist mentality. This is understandable because of our recent past. The country has found relative stability just 10 years ago when the final remnants of the KR were eliminated. When one works on a survival instinct, one has a tendency to hoard resources, often to the detriment of everyone else, and to flee (to a more survivable place). The survival mentality promotes selfishness– help yourself before helping others. Selfishness, as it addresses more basic human needs like food and shelter, takes precedence over selflessness, a quality identified with higher needs like moral idealism and political ideology. That’s why Khmer leaders don’t like to lose their seats. Their survival would be threatened. We don’t live in a country where a president who earns just $400K a year can make tens of millions of dollars writing books, giving speeches and working for private companies when he is out of office.

Most of us are frustrated with the slow transition from selfishness to selflessness, from the individual fulfillment to collective fulfillment, from survival to living. It’s going to take some time and patience. In the meantime, we have to avoid repeating the same mistakes and replaying same old tunes like a broken record.

When one considers the challenges that Cambodia faces, the issue of corruption always seems to jump out. Corruption is really a collection of often unfair, inefficient, and abusive practices arising from the extreme scarcity of resources, greed, and degradation of social and moral foundations of our society. We all know that corruption exists in Cambodia; it’s rather hard to miss. But in order to formulate an actionable plan to tackle this problem, we must be able to measure and quantify the various aspects of corruption and understand the complex interactions among the multitude of economic, social, political, cultural and religious factors that give rise to unwholesome practices collectively known as corruption.

Simply calling out wealthy high-ranking government officials and demanding that they end corruption is not going to get us anywhere. Corruption in Cambodia is an incredibly complex matter that requires a much more thorough and comprehensive approach.

Too much focus on the conceptualization of corruption can be counterproductive because it promotes finger-pointing and the distancing oneself from shared accountability. In the end, we’re all part of the web of humanity that commits all the good and bad deeds in the world.

As complex a problem as corruption is, I think there is, yet, a simple solution for it. Was it Gandhi who said, “Be the change you want to see in world”? This is one of the reasons I decided to move back to Cambodia. If you are mindful of your own thoughts and actions, you’ll find that in each and every day, you’ll have some thoughts and impulses that are good and wholesome and some that are destructive. As long as you’re able to keep track of your own thoughts, impulses and actions everyday, you’ll naturally become more moderate and compassionate. You’ll still make mistakes and commit unwholesome deeds, but at least you’ll commit fewer of them and have less crave for the excesses for yourself that lead to suffering for others.

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Here in Cambodia and throughout East Asia, Asian women are highlighting their hair, getting plastic surgery to round their eyes and sharpen their noses, and even undergoing dangerous chemical peels to make their skins lighter.

Personally, I think the black, silky hair of Asian women are the most beautiful of all. And there are beautiful and ugly women of all skin tones.

Highlighting one’s hair to a different color may be nothing more than a harmless matter of preference, just like changing styles of clothing. But an over-obsession with the transformation to look more European might point to much more serious underlying problems, problems of low self-esteem and inferior complex. Frankly, I think some Asian women who have overdone these transformations look like freaks of nature, negating any beauty improvements they might have gained from the procedures.

As I am writing this Michelle Obama, first lady of the most powerful nation on earth, is touring the world as a Black smart and beautiful woman who has everything going her way. In fact, she was successful long before she became first lady. Perhaps, her prominent profile will foster a new paradigm that redefines people’s perception of beauty, status, and self-esteem throughout the world.

Of course, heavens forbid that Ms. Obama’s high profile should inspire light-skinned to darken their skins. That’s missing the point. Do you know what happens when light-skinned Khmer women try to get a tan? They don’t get tan; instead, they turn brown with unsightly dark patches that look like giant freckles.

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