Looking for a Loak Ta

Hey everyone! Thanks for all your kind messages - it is so nice to hear from you!

The past two days in Phnom Penh have been a bit slow. We kind of ran out of people to interview! On Monday, however, we went to interview one of my assistant's counsins, who wears an old bead on a necklace because she believes it will bring her good fortune and protect her from harm. It was great to meet and talk with someone who wears the kind of thing we saw so much of in the market.

However, this woman did not get her necklace from a market, she got it from a loak ta, (pronounced look-da) which is a holy man of sorts. So now we are going on a bit of a roadtrip this weekend to meet with two loak ta. How crazy is this - I am setting off in search of two old holy men living somewhere in the Cambodian countryside, where there is no phones or electricity so we can't reach them any other way... My assistant says she knows where they live, so tomorrow we are off!

On Monday we also went to a Buddhist Institute here in Phnom Penh, and interviewed two old Buddhist scholars. It was a great interview but I think I could have probably predicted the things they told me: Yes, Cambodians wear amulets, but only the tiny buddhist figures are actually powerful, everything else is just silly superstition.(There is a kind of heirarchy in Cambodian religious beliefs like the ones I am studying, educated people view amulet usage as uneducated and very provincial, but most buddhists do think that the Buddha figure itself is powerful - just like a cross in Christianity. It is the dried fetuses, tiger claws and old beads that they don't believe in) But they did tell us that they believe all buddhist statues have spirits in them, and the older they are the more spirit (or spirits) are in them. Therefore, older = more powerful and can protect people who wear/have them. This might be a small reason why old buddhas are so often looted from temples! Granted most of these statuary end up outside Cambodia, but my hypothesis is that the smaller, more insignificant items are destined to a life circulating inside Cambodia.

Tuesday was slow, but good because it gave me a chance to transcribe all of my interviews. Today has also been slow, we went to another market in Phnom Penh, hoping they would also have old items. We only found one old buddha for sale, and the woman told us that she just bought it off a poor villager who needed some cash. She didn't really have enough information to help us.

Then last night I took my two assistants out for Japanese food. They had never had it before and I thought it would be a fun experience for them. When I saw the menu I immediately knew why they had never had it before - most plates started around $15, which is a fortune by Cambodian standards! Most Cambodians are happy to make $5 a day, so it is not a surprise to me that this Japanese restaurant did not have any other Cambodians eating there. Cambodia has a lot of places like that restaurant - clearly aimed at foreign aid-workers and diplomats and totally inaccessible for the average Cambodian.

My two assistants are endlessly entertained by stories of life in England and in the United States. Today we had a long conversation in which I tried to explain what cookie-dough ice cream is. I had to start by explaining what a cookie is, and then what the dough is, why it is better raw and how it ends up in ice cream. We also have had long talks about baseball (they don't know what that is) and what a hot dog is. In Cambodia (and in England too... Crazy Brits!) they think a hot dog is a synonym for sausage, and any American can tell you that they are NOT the same!

Anyway, tomorrow we leave early in the morning for Takeo (pronounced Take-ow). I don't know if there will be internet access there, so I may not be able to post until I get back.