The Rice Paddy

Student at a Cambodian Country School (photo by Esther Dunn)

We had the good fortune to visit an elementary school in a remote area along one of the tributaries of the Mekong River, a place where welcoming and exuberant children could barely wait to demonstrate their English language skills. “What’s your name.” and “How old are you?” were the favourites, but that was just the opening of two hours of interaction with the students.

NOTE:  Three Videos of our time in Viet Nam and Cambodia are linked at the end of the story.   For those seeking more background of our travels with Uniworld, link here.  Regards  Harold and Lynn

Lynn and I spent part of our time with a ten-year-old boy (photo above) who appeared to be the oldest in the class. Although a bit shy, he focused intensely on getting the wording of his questions correct, then intently listened as we answered. Had he been born forty years earlier, he could well have been the boy featured in part of the story below.

Part I: Introduction to SE Asia and a Short Story from Cambodia

To gain an understanding of the progress the people of Indochina have made over the past 25 years, take a few minutes first to watch the three slideshows linked in the footer. While incredible natural and manmade beauty greet you at every turn; the happy, healthy and carefree people you see at school, work and play today, contrasts sharply with immense challenges the people faced from 1940 – 1990. Perhaps you are aware of these challenges and the progress made, but we weren’t and the more we learned, the more amazing it all became.

This series begins with a short, personal story which took place in Cambodia in the late 1980’s, a story of one boy’s quest to survive. His story was similar to that experienced by thousands of men, women and children whose lives were taken or shattered by war, genocide, starvation and disease. This story was related to us over several parts by our Cambodian guide and takes place during the height of Pol Pot’s campaign of genocide.

The Rice Paddy

Standing motionless by a small tree in the middle of a rice patty, the setting sun silhouetted the young man’s emaciated body and ragged clothes. He wondered if darkness might bring relief from the pain of deciding that, if wrong, might well result in his and his family’s deaths. Throughout the day, he had collected his mandatory quota of rat tails, and it was those rat tails which led directly to the crisis he faced.

A kilometer away, his father, mother and young sister patiently awaited his arrival as they prepared another starvation-sized portion of rice and weak tea. To the family, that meal, the ragged clothes and the makeshift shelter they lived in were a daily reminder of how much they had lost in Phnom Penn. Another daily companion – the fear of being put to death for breaking some arbitrary farm rule.

Just beyond the rice paddy, the Mekong River flowed peacefully to the South China Sea as it had for hundreds of thousands of years, yet not one thing in the boy’s or his family’s lives was peaceful. At one point, the boy considered running away, as had others, but he could not abandon his family. As he struggled with a decision that he alone must make, and with rat tails in hand, he began the trek home.

His story will be continued momentarily, but first more background.

Today’s first-time travellers to Cambodia, Vietnam, or Laos may not realize these countries only recently emerged from fifty years of war that killed an estimated three million men, women, and children. I know we didn’t. We learned a bit about the Vietnam War and the Cambodian genocide, but that was the limit of our knowledge. Beyond those killed, horrific injuries caused by the wars, combined with starvation and disease, claimed millions more.

While what happened from 1940 – 1990 remains close to the surface for those who lived through part or all of those desperate years, the young of today, who now represent a majority in all three countries (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos), have chosen to focus on the present and future as their way of healing the deep wounds of the past.

In gathering notes and photos in preparation for writing this travelogue, the intention was to focus on the natural wonders of Indochina, particularly the areas in which we travelled. But, after meeting so many people and hearing their stories, I realized that as Westerners from a first-world country, many of our preconceived notions were wrong. The following five parts describe our experience:

Part I:   Introduction and a short story
Part II:  Indochina Wars: 1940 – 1990
Part III: Resilience of the Human Spirit
Part IV  The Future Belongs to the Young
Part V:   River Cruising with Uniworld  (currently being written)

(Note: Within the above linked posts, several photo albums are linked in McNeill Life Stories FaceBook Page. Also, three slideshows and several linked photo albums, provide a pictorial record of the people we met and the places we visited).

There is no question we became enamoured with the people soon after we set foot in Vietnam and Cambodia, as it was impossible to miss the resilience of these spirited people. Many lived through the worst the world had to offer and bounced back without seeming to have missed a beat. Could we be that strong in the Western World? In the past, perhaps, but now?

The short history in Part II provides background, while general descriptions of life today are provided in Part III, along with suggestions of why so much was accomplished in such a short time (1990 – 2016). While I have strived for accuracy, errors will undoubtedly have crept in. If you think a correction is needed, please drop me a line, and I will make the necessary changes.

Our travelling group owes a great deal to our tour guides as well as the Uniworld team leaders and staff who spent hours and days shepherding us around and explaining the nuances of cultures that, in many ways, remain a mystery to Westerners. In the West, we take much for granted and, as well, we tend to make invidious comparisons between people, cultures and religions. We learned much from the people of Vietnam and Cambodia as they view the world more positively and peacefully than ourselves. You will see this tendency exposed time and again throughout our travels.

One way to begin improving our society is by having as many of our citizens, particularly the young, spend a few months immersed in another culture that exhibits characteristics we admire yet seem unable to achieve.

Now, back to the Rice Paddy:

It was dark as he made his way home, but the boy was not afraid as he knew every inch of the rice paddies he worked, and he was comforted by the animals and birds that were his constant companions. All that is, except for the rats and even for them, he held no animosity. The boy was doing what he had to to survive.

As our tour guide told the story, tears welled in his eyes. While other events, including the Vietnam War, were hard for Cambodia and surrounding countries, Pol Pot’s rise to power in 1975 was the most brutal killing spree in that country’s history. After forming thousands of collective farms, his army, the Khmer Rouge, began to empty cities and towns as he forced people to move to the farms. Anyone who dared resist, including their families, was immediately executed. As a young man, our guide and his family were escorted to one of the Collectives.. 

Shortly after settling on their farm plot, rats that had overrun the rice paddies during the Vietnam War were declared a public enemy as they consumed so much rice. Every boy approaching or in his early teens was ordered to kill thirty rats daily and deliver the tails to the man in charge of the Collective. Failure to reach the quota was not an option. Failure meant a severe, one-time warning.

After a second failure, the consequences were brutal – an escorted trip to a ‘re-education camp”. As everyone realized, these camps were nothing less than “Killing Fields that, from 1975 to 1979, numbered in the hundreds across Cambodia. Over four years, one million people, including men, women, and children, were exterminated. That was twenty per cent of the 1975 population.

One day, as the boy struggled to meet his quota, good fortune fell upon him when he discovered a place where birds of prey regularly fed upon rats. It was easy for the birds to find rats as they could cover a wide area in the air, then swoop down and scoop up a rat. For some reason, the birds flocked to specific trees, and while they ate most of each carcass, they rejected the tails.

Under one of these trees, the boy discovered dozens of well-preserved tails partially buried in leaves and grass. He could meet his daily quota from this one location, yet the discovery brought a terrible dilemma. Should he tell anyone? If he didn’t, the outcome for some was evident, but if he did, the supply would soon be gone, and if he missed his quota, his family might well pay the price.

Late that night, while walking home, he resolved to keep the location secret. He would only take extra tails when needed to help friends who came up short. He couldn’t save everyone, but he could save a few. Such was the brutal way of life that developed under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. The man telling the story, our tour guide, was that boy of some forty-five years earlier.

Our guides childhood was shattered by a dictator who placed personal interest above all else, but it was not only dictators and their supporters who killed and maimed. While many may remember or be aware of the Vietnam War, that war was only one small part of one hundred years years during which some combination of colonialism, war, genocide, occupation and civil strife, devastated the people of Indochina.

As the writing of the five posts coincided with Remembrance Day, November 11, 2016, it is fitting to again remember those who died in the Forgotten Wars of Indochina – in particular, the people of Viet Nam, Laos, and in the Killing Fields of Cambodia.

Next, Part II provides a partial summary. (Link Here: Indochina Wars: 1940 – 1990.)

Harold
(email: lowerislandsoccer@shaw.ca)

Photo Albums     (Slideshows Below linked below)

The mighty Mekong: Lifeblood of Indcochina: Life Along the Mekong
Our travel companions and those we met along the way: Friends
Hanoi and Saigon – 12 million friendly, busy people:  Cities and People
The glue that binds the past, present and future: Spiritualism in Indochina
The arts have never died in Indochina: Music, Dance and Art
Get Fresh, is a way of life in Viet Nam and Cambodia: From Farm to Market
Two developing nations: a place where everyone wants to learn and work: Schools and Factories
Pedestrians and people have learned how to share the road: In one word – Respect
Two nations of small farms provides food for 105,000,000, with plenty left over for the rest of the world: Farms and Villages

Slideshows:

Cambodia
(Cambodian Flute Music and Robain Neary Chea Chuor)

Hello Viet Nam
(Music: Hello Viet Nam: Quynh Anh)

The Mighty Mekong
(Music: North Star: The Mighty Mekong)

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