Since the fall of the mighty Angkorian Empire some five hundred years ago, the surrounding jungle has crept back, reclaiming its territory from the abandoned temples. Huge arboreal gargoyles surmount crumbling roofs, their thick roots snaking down the walls like a kraken’s tentacles, slithering into the forest floor below. Stepped pyramids in various stages of ruination rise from the ground; ranks of inscribed pillars march the lengths of long corridors; labyrinthine passages and walkways leave your mental compass pointing nowhere. When you enter the temple complex of Angkor Wat, you feel like you’ve stepped through a time warp.
But without doubt, the most impressive structure is Angkor Wat. Here is a square, moated island, fronted by an immense gatehouse. Pass through it and you’re on a long elevated concourse, crossing a palatial garden. Some distance ahead, three imposing spires rear up from behind a formidable curtain wall. Angkor Wat translates from Khmer as Mountain Temple. The central pyramid represents Mount Meru, a sacred peak in Hinduism, and the moat is the sea. The scope and symbolism of this structure cannot be emphasised enough. It has remained a significant religious centre since its founding nearly a millennium ago. Its image adorns the Cambodian flag; its presence accounts for over two million tourists a year and provides livelihoods for 50% of the local population of the nearby city, Siem Riep.
Clambering through ruinous temples under the scorching sun did take its toll however, and before long we were sweaty messes. Rehydration and a midday hammock siesta soon set us to rights and we pressed on. After a commendable (though by no means exhaustive) tour of the more prestigious temples, we retired to the aptly named Pub Street in Siem Riep to soak up some booze after our helpings of history and culture.
Learnt the basics of Khmer before heading over. A fascinating language with a wide influence across the Indochinese Peninsular. This goes back to the reach of the Khmer Empire a thousand years ago. When once it had flourished, sadly this ancient language currently has only 15 million speakers left. Though arguably easier for a Western tongue to master (there are no tones like the neighbouring languages) it nonetheless subscribes to an abugida writing system not dissimilar to Thai, making it notoriously difficult to read and write. Coupled with the relative lack of usefulness (Vietnamese, by contrast has over a hundred million speakers) it isn’t widely studied, and beyond the basics, I’ll be giving this language a miss.
The old pool buddies from Bristol and I split paths after Siem Riep; they headed down to Ko Rong, whilst I was homeward bound for another weekend of teaching. Stayed over in Phnom Phen for a night. A rather small capital city (a mere 1.5 million inhabitants) with the mighty Mekong meandering through. Not a bad nightlife, though with more than a few bars catering to the ‘sex-pat’ industry, a sad reality of South-East Asia.
Am now back in wonderful Bien Hoa, Vietnam, with my beautiful girlfriend, Nghi, now nine months into our relationship. On this topic, what are relationships like between the East and West? Before I begin, I’d be remiss if I didn’t convey a universal trend: Western guys are attracted to Asian girls; Western girls are (generally) not attracted to Asian guys. Thus you have the statistic that declaims the Male Western-Female Eastern: Female Western-Male Eastern ratio to be approximately 100-1. Why is this? Several theories have emerged, the most prevailing of which (from an Eastern female perspective) can be ascribed thus: Western guys are assumed to have money; they have light skin and are taller than their Asian counterparts; they speak English; they will increase you social standing amongst your peers.
Social hierarchy is massive in Asia. Those higher up on the ladder often refrain from confabulating with those on the lower rungs. This can be exemplified by a personal eyewitness account of one the staff from my school enquiring about a gym membership at California Gym, of which I’m a member and frequent quite regularly, after which she was told to hit the road owing to her relatively inexpensive sporting attire. ‘’We don’t want your kind of rabble tarnishing our reputation!’’ I imagined the salesman saying. Salesmen of this ilk see Westerners and dollar signs light up behind their eyelids, whether you’re wearing shorts and sandals, or a suit. The point here is that, with Westerners held in such high regard (despite any misgivings in personality or looks) having bagged one as a partner generally goes down well and elevates you above the ‘other girl’ who has a Vietnamese boyfriend. I’ve seen some Vietnamese friends of Western friends, who can speak very good English, but will even shun their neighbours in favour of foreigners. Many of these also like to show off their English, to wit, when I ask a question in Vietnamese and the recipient responds in English. We continue these bizarre, error-riddled conversations until I end up asking (in Vietnamese) ‘Why are you replying in English when I’m making a concerted effort to learn your language?’ Eventually they concede, but for whatever reason they hadn’t considered it rude. For my part, if a Vietnamese person asks me something in English, I always reply likewise. I guess it boils down to the globalisation of English, the fact that very few foreigners speak Vietnamese, and that speaking English is a way of standing out.
Another cultural phenomenon in South-East Asia is skin colour. The colour of one’s skin is of great importance. Dark skin assumes a familial background of farming in rice paddies, with the sun beating down every day during the dry season. Where in the West, a bit of bronzing of the dermis after a sojourn on a beach would be considered attractive, the exact opposite is the case for Vietnamese (and East Asians in general). They pride themselves on pale skin and won’t suffer the sun’s rays to mar it. Nghi is a classic example. She is whiter than me, yet will refuse to walk into open daylight without being covered head to toe like some ninja, with only a thin eye-slit to see where she’s going. This has inevitably led to a conflict of interests, whereby I might like to go out to some mountain temple and hike my way up under the midday sun, she wouldn’t even entertain the prospect.
We are currently in the process of convincing her parents to let us go on holiday together, which also appears to be upward battle, yet despite the gulf between our cultures, things are still going strong. Marriage and a family life, however, is still obfuscated beyond an uncertain horizon.
On the work front, I’ve just finished a grueling month of summer school whereby all the teachers had additional morning classes throughout the week. Seemed more like an over-priced babysitting service to me, with the students lunching, napping, and then spending the afternoon doing activities with the Vietnamese teaching assistants. Nghi managed to drag me along on one of the trips with our class. A lengthily bus ride ensued, followed by trekking through an unremarkable forest in the South-East of Vietnam. I quite liked the walk, but with an absence of activities, and having to listen to a busload of raucous Vietnamese teenagers for six hours, I’ve had better days out.
On a more promising note, I’ve just finished my first year’s contract (three months longer than the reprehensible Thai school I’d walked out of previous) picked up a hefty bonus, and have used it to secure myself a place on the DELTA. This is somewhat equivalent to a Masters in English Language Teaching, and should take me a year or so to complete. I’ll be doing it alongside teaching however, so busy days ahead, but once obtained it’ll be a ticket allowing me to follow any future path in the world of language teaching, be it school management, teacher training, course book writing etc. Ultimately though, I want to be multilingual in the main East-Asian languages, and use this as a springboard for something else, not quite sure yet……
My Vietnamese has far surpassed my Thai, whereby I’ll be taking a university exam in the near future to obtain something tangible for my studies. I feel like I’m getting close to that eureka moment, where you realise you’ve got it, where the grammar has been internalized, the pronunciation firmly locked into the muscle memory of your mouth, and you can have extended, meaningful (though perhaps not intelligent) conversations with the locals. Of course, there is still a long way to go before full fluency, and my next goal, in tandem with obtaining the DELTA, is to achieve this within the year. After that, the logical next language to study would be Mandarin Chinese, which shares many similarities with both Thai and Vietnamese.
I realise this latest blog entry is well past due, and I’ll endeavor to write the next in a more timely fashion. That is, if anyone is still reading this drivel after nearly two years.
If you speak to someone in a language they know, they listen with their head. If you speak to someone in their mother tongue, they listen with their heart.