Improvising Cambodia, Part 1

Anyone who has been to a poor country, or even a poorer part of a richer country, knows how deeply improvisation is institutionalized.  It's a matter of saving money, managing without the proper supplies/tools, and, as we find out, a matter of culture as well.  In this series on improvisation in Cambodia, I'll be highlighting some stories that are not just "wow"-moments but also illustrate something perhaps a bit deeper.

The first story takes place on Sihanouk Boulevard in Phnom Penh, around 9pm.  For the late evening, traffic is unusually heavy in my homeward direction but eventually I navigate my moped through the tangled mess of bikes, motorbikes, cars, trucks, and pedestrians, and reach the source of the problem. A bus is broken down in the left (passing) lane and the right lane is also partially blocked because they are arranging to use two vehicles to tow the bus onward.  First impression: they're crazy -- it's hard enough towing a small vehicle with another, let alone towing a bus with two cars.  But besides their willingness to engage in such a difficult maneuver, there are a lot of juicy elements to this situation that one can look into.

Firstly, the necessity.  The broken down bus in question belongs to one of the biggest transport companies in Cambodia, so they probably have the resources (either equipment or money) to tow their buses professionally.  But then again, "professionally" is a relative term in Cambodia and powerful tow trucks are much more difficult to come by even around the big city.  Perhaps the most likely answer is that, against all odds, professional tow truck companies have shut their doors for the night and their employees are out drinking, or the company is demanding an extraordinarily high fee for the special evening service.  Along comes an employee who promises he can arrange to do it with two cars and cha-ching, the cheap late-night solution.

Secondly, the logistics.  What kind of tow cars are they using?  One mini-van and one light truck.  What kind of tow cables?  Well, honestly, a mixture of different kinds of rope (fabric-based and plastic) anchored using t-shirts at the tow-points for extra support.  How are the drivers of all three vehicles communicating with each other? Well, an extra helper is sitting on top of each of the towing vehicles where he can see the cables but is still close enough to relay messages to and from the driver.  Now, the point is that the various factors have not actually been calculated in any meaningful way.  Is the combined power of the two cars (given the angle they are towing) enough to move a bus?  Are those ropes enough and can t-shirts really secure the anchor points?  The quick answer, from my observation, is no.  I arrived when lots of engines were being revved to no avail and t-shirts were flying into the air when their capacity was breached.  And judging by the chaos of the yelling, communication was harder than they hoped.  The other question: will they succeed?  Eventually.  At some point enough help (maybe even a third or fourth car) and enough pushers will arrive at the scene to accomplish the goal.  A lot of chaos and yelling will ensue and many lengths of rope will have to be replaced, but the bus will get where it needs to go.  Even in the countryside, when a bus gets stuck in the mud, entrepreneurial villagers emerge from the woodwork and, in sufficient numbers (50-100 people), can manually push or pull a bus from the mud.  (Stories of those nature will come in a subsequent issue of Improving Cambodia).

Thirdly, the context.  The traffic was light enough that, given half a lane, there should have been no backup of vehicles.  But in true Cambodian fashion, rubbernecking passerbys were creating a 'gawkers block' that almost entirely blocked the road, leaving motorists a small and tricky passage over the sidewalk.  In total, I estimate that about two hundred people and their modes of transportation (mopeds, cars, bikes, tuk-tuks) were gathered around the scene, some even watching from the other side of the median strip (thereby creating a bit of traffic in the opposing lane as well).  Like rural people around the world who see little out of the ordinary, Cambodians (even, or perhaps especially?) in the city are, to put it frankly, nosy as hell.  One could use the more neutral term "curious", and I have been encouraged to think in this fashion by others, but I still chalk it up to unabashed nosiness.  For me, the line between curiosity and nosiness is drawn when people take their innocent observations into the non-innocent world of gossip.  In the case of this bus, I'm betting it is more curiosity than nosiness but there will still be many mealside conversations discussing not only the "incident" but creating unjustified judgments about the bus company and their questionable towing practices.

Fourthly, respect.  Cambodians are well aware of the ruckus they will create by initiating an extraordinary display of towing on one of the main boulevards in the capital, even as late as 9pm.  As a result, it is as if they intend to work under conditions that complicate the situation.  Consider the din created by rubberneckers, and the pressure created by having a few hundred eyes on your operation.  And what about the poor motorists (like me) who are in a hurry to get home and find 9pm traffic inconvenient?  All of those issues can be solved by hiring a police officer to clear the area and direct traffic.  It is not bribery - you just throw him another $5 or $10 and he gets off his couch, puts on his uniform, and shows up dutifully to wave a baton around.  Hiring out a police officer to de-pressurize the situation would also be a form of improvisation -- but apparently too much of an improvisation for guys who would dream up towing a bus with passenger vehicles...

(see you next time)

The coffee that was (not)

At some point, the words "Java" and "Sumatra" became imbued with a mystique that seemed to automatically lend credibility to any coffee-related product bearing those names. I'm here to discredit that appellation a bit and sit down for an honest discussion on so-called Geographical Indicators for global agriculture.

First, the good news. Sumatra and Java do have at least one thing going for them in the realm of coffee. Here, I'm referring to kopi luwak (or civet coffee), the beans from which have a unique kick deriving from their having gone through the civet cat's digestive system.

Second, the surprising news. Sumatra and Java are unfortunately not mystical islands in the Caribbean inhabited by descendents of Atlantis who have grown majestic coffee in rugged jungles for thousands of years.  Rather, they are islands of a rather corrupt Southeast Asian nation (Indonesia) that are being rapidly settled, deforested and saddled with feudal-style monocrop plantations of oil palm, rubber, and yes, coffee. Fairtrade has done an admiral job of raising attention to some of the most egregious issues here, but by and large, the romance of Java and Sumatra does not correspond with the reality.

Third, the bad news. There is nothing in the soils of Sumatra and Java that automatically leads to good coffee.  Sumatra, for example, is a massive island, the 6th biggest in the world, and the largest producer of Indonesian coffee. There are pioneering farmers in the uplands who produce that romantic Arabica and usually deserve your romantic devotion. Then, there are massive plantations in the lowlands that churn out tons of generic coffee (mostly Robusta, though I won't judge Arabica vs. Robusta, just the farming system) that might find its way into instant Nescafe. Location of origin, in the end, often has little to do with quality. A diverse island with mostly industrial coffee plantations can somehow garner the same reputation as the artisanal upland farmers.

The above three points were mostly known to me, but my real inspiration for this rather cynical piece is a recent trip (March 2010) to the islands of Sumatra and Java that really pushed me over the edge.

And so lastly, the heartbreaking news. The denizens of the mystical lands of Sumatra and Java, rather than being awash in aromatic coffee, have a rather dismal coffee culture in their own right. Admittedly, some of this has to do with history and poverty but certainly not all. And there are, of course, the exceptions who sit around and sip bitter AAA (treepehl AH) and might know something about coffee. But by and large, they drink over-sugared, low-grade coffee out of a water glass and don't even bother to filter or steam it. I suspect they care little for the roasting, storage and grind, and likely dream of Starbucks Christmas Blend with caramel syrup. Okay that was harsh, but it reflects how dramatically disillusioned I was with the coffee situation here in Indonesia.

I suppose I was seeking some kind of validation based on my past experience with romanticized foods and drinks. Something like the Arabic/Turkish copper coffee boiler with cardamom or the Mayan/Aztec chocolate blends. Instead I found a few denuded islands exploiting an historic appellation and boasting little to no local passion for their agricultural product.

Consider the increasing subtlety and localization of wine and beer quality in Europe. French wine farmers have some of their proud production specified down to the square meter of land on which the wine grapes are grown. Belgian beer brewers have their fermentation specified down to the airborne bacteria in a certain attic space. Japanese Kobe beef producers can trace a steak back to a specific cow. And yet somehow the coffee from a feudal plantation owned by a corrupt Indonesian commander shares the same reputation as a small-scale upland farmer?

And then of course, location matters even less when one throws in the consequences of processing, transport and preparation. Coffee, in particular, is vulnerable to storage, roasting, and grinding conditions. And once it reaches your home or your neighborhood cafe, cooking matters considerably as well.

So, if location can be misleading and the farm-to-home adventure of the coffee is hard to control, what can a poor consumer do? It all seems too complicated to manage.

Well, first, use your nose and your mouth and your eyes. Coffee has a fragrance (before it is prepared) and an aroma (after it is prepared). The shape (or rather the geometric regularity) of the beans is important. And tasting is, contrary to popular Starbucksian belief, something that you, as the consumer, can learn. And if all else fails, find a local company that you believe knows something about coffee and let them do the work for you. Don't ever fall for packaging that claims to have the "best" quality or "finest" beans. And for g-dssake, don't fall for the Sumatra or Java romance. You've been warned.

Stories and adventures as representation

Although I have the means to travel comprehensively in Cambodia (language, knowledge of transport and prices, risks, dangers, etc.), I realized recently that I have surprisingly few bonafide independent 'adventures' under my belt. Honestly, I am not sure if that is a concern necessarily, as the whole concept of 'adventure' is a shifty subject that, as I now understand, is wholly dependent on publicizing ones experiences in the specific manner to a sympathetic audience. Indeed, the 'adventures' that I refer to are those that have historically been defined by backpackers and expatriots of the past few decades, and before that British travel writers. They have crystallized the essentials of a story about an adventure and we are largely paying homage to them with each story we relate to our friends and family. I hate to be prosaic (and my colleagues in the Development Studies department back at Oxford would cringe to hear me say this) but, indeed, 'adventure' is socially constructed. My uncle Avi, a master story teller and a good critic of others' stories, kept up a long series of exchanges with me that he aptly titled "How shit works in Cambodia". For him, anthropological depth and perspective are key ingredients for filling in adventures. For others, a bit more danger or suspense is required for a good adventure. Whoever the audience, the important ingredient is not the exotic or the dangerous that is, in itself, intriguing, but how that adventure is woven into a story that is ironically about oneself rather than the context (even if the storyteller is not an actor, he can be present in a good aventure by means of being the analyst of the context). By that, I posit that storytelling is essentially a subtle means of endearing oneself to an audience and explaining something about oneself without being overtly self-centered. So yes, this blog is indeed tainted by my own self-centeredness (I mean, why write a blog anyway?).

So if stories are the means by which we publicize adventures, why and how has humanity let itself be carried off on the winds of the subjective? In their book "Animal Spirits", George Akerlof and Robert Shiller (two American economists) describe the contradiction between economists' view of the rational human and the fact that irrational stories have had an enormous influence in people's economic behavior. I am frequently reminded of this whenever I get into a discussion/argument/fluster about the Palestinian/Israeli situation. The narrative of either side is often so radically different while at the same time being more-or-less factually correct, that the result is indefinite gridlock. And ramming facts into people's faces is often counterproductive because the various stories behind those facts are the basis for the emotions people have, which are not easily changed. And the longer those stories (i.e., the stories that distort the facts) fester, the stronger they often become. Israelis are always good for an example, so I will choose them yet again. In this case, I'm looking at the horde of young post-Army Israelis who will most likely visit India, Thailand, or somewhere in Latin America after their service is over. The casual justification for these post-Army travel binges is the stress of the Army and the need to get out of tiny-little Israel. The real reason, these days, is more likely that one has been fed stories of adventures in India through her breast milk and by her friends for so many years that the social pressure for traveling in an adventuresome way (i.e., not being a tourist) is very deep. Stories upon stories continue to feed this trend and no "fact" such as "the longer the trip after the Army, the poorer one's job prospects are afterward" will stem this flow of Israelis to India.

So without further ado, let me launch into a somewhat stereotyped story about an adventure that I had this week. It includes all the essential ingredients of a good story except one thing -- that I prefaced the story with another story about how stories work. Just think about the past two paragraphs as you read the next three.

One of partners in Cambodia is a traditional healer who lives up on the holiest mountain in Cambodia, Phnom Kulen. He moved up there in 1992 after 13 years of helping rebuild and repopulate Phnom Penh after Pol Pot was removed from power by the Vietnamese in 1979. Although much of Cambodian medicine was ignored during the revolution because of its relationship to Buddhism and the pagoda, Mr. Heim was still sought after as a healer while he lived and toiled away in his native province of Svay Rieng. Of course, he had learned much of what he knew of plant botany and herbal remedies during his 12 years as a monk. Medicine and a more spiritual way of life were something he missed while living in Phnom Penh and they were a big part of his reason for moving up to Phnom Kulen in 1992. He says he would have gone earlier, but Kulen was one of Pol Pot's last holdouts and was not demined until 1992. On top of Kulen he has carved out a life for himself and now is respected and known simply as "Grandfather Heim". But most of his family is still in Svay Rieng and he is bound by his own familal piety to maintain a strong connection with his home province. This year marked the one year anniversary of the death of his father and he was organizing a big festival in his parents' honor back in Svay Rieng and he graciously invited me to attend, as his god Son.

My journey started rather lazily at 9am, when I set off for the taxi station at Olympic Market under the foolish assumption that his hometown was a measly one hour away and I would be there in time for a shower and a nap before things got underway at 3pm. After being dragged left and right by some taxi touts, I ascertained that a car heading for the specific district I needed wouldn't set off for another hour. I walked to a nearby cafe and slurped through an iced coffee for an hour and came back, only to find a disheveled van filled with yapping villagers and over-ripe mangos. As per the custom, I loaded myself in and sat there sweating for a while to help the driver create the illusion of having a "filled car, ready to go". 20 minutes later we set off -- well, we set off for another 10 different markets in which we picked up one or two passengers each and some random cargo. After two hours, and at around noon, the car finally jostled its way onto the national road heading for Svay Rieng. At this point, I had learned that not only would the ride by a minimum of three hours (not one), but would involve a rutted out road for the last hour. I just hoped I would make it in time to avoid making my sweaty appearance in front of every guest at the ceremony. Instead of hurrying on, the car stopped in some other villages to pick up more passengers, in total squeezing 5, including me, in the front bench (with a stick shifter). Three dusty and yappy hours later, we pulled into a little village whereupon a motorbike driver approached me and said he was sent by Grandfather Heim to bring me to the festival. His story seemed credible, so I jumped on and 20 dusty minutes later, arrived just in time to have the whole ceremony turn and lapse into silence as a (disgruntled and exhausted) foreigner showed up. After being whisked from one table to another and "sompya"-ing (palms together greeting) a hundred guests, they allowed me to freshen up. All I had time for was to throw on some baby powder and change my shirt. Upon emerging from the toilet, I noticed that my shirt had already been smudged by dust and moisture and I tried my best to rub it out, only managing to drop my phone and crack the LCD screen in the process.

Noodles later, the crowd started dispersing for various elements of the ceremony - some for meditation with the monks, some for fireworks, and others for negotiating whose daughter/son would be marrying whose son/daughter. I wandered between all the stations, almost getting married off at one, almost falling asleep at another, and almost being immolated by fireworks at another. More noodles ensued for dinner and dancing began, which I was of course obliged to do. After 20 some-odd Cambodian weddings, I was already used to this madness and just went with the flow, being dragged from the dance floor to the rice wine table and back to the dance floor at regular intervals. Various nieces of Grandfather Heim tried, in turn, to wink and flirt with me in their own ways and various gay members of the family also gave it a go. At some point, I extracted myself for bed, awaking to rice soup and prayers with the monks. After a lavish event in which Grandfather Heim gave away a mountain of gifts to the 20+ monks in attendance, they loaded me into a van full of monks bound for Kompong Thom (by way of Phnom Penh) and waved goodbye. The ride was exceptional. Not only is it rare to see monks sweat, but a few parts of the trip were punctuated by monks fainting from heat exhaustion and being roused with menthol rubs. Most of the monks were in their teens and were clearly still struggling with their holiness and their childishness. They cat-called at many a cute passing motorist to the chagrin of the monk superior. We stopped for lunch, which is the monks' last meal, and I got to see them all gobble down three, four, sometimes five plates of rice in preparation for the evening fast. A rest break in Prey Veng province followed by a prayer session and a fruitless hunt for ripe mangos in the village gave my body time to cool down and get ready for the long, hot, ride back into the Penh. Our last moment was particularly bizarre. They dropped me off on a road not heading for Kompong Thom and wished me goodbye. As they drove off, I called out "Where are you going now?", expecting everything else but their response: "To Sovannah Mall!"