It's Official... I have amoebic dysentery.

That’s right. The original-gangster queen-mother shogun-assassin of all intestinal parasites. Next time I hear some sucker complain, like “oh, my tummy hurts…” That’s when Alex is gonna be like… “You ever been in the shit, boy? I was in the shit. Back in ot-8. You could never know what that’s like.”

So it turns out that that Vientiane banger had a little more bite than I bargained for. After almost two weeks of on-again/off-again intestinal distress, and after visits to medical clinics in two different countries, we finally got the proper diagnosis. The treatment involves a handful of different powders mixed with vast amounts of water to help me rehydrate and regain some lost nutrients. And for the little amoebas, I have a series of drugs to be taken over the course of 23 days. All told, I have over 200 pills in my possession. Who wants to party?

There is an epic struggle going on in my digestive tract. The invaders slipped in right through the front door in a Trojan Sausage, and, after slight resistance, found themselves occupying the territories ranging from the lower intestine to the lower esophagus. They have further weakened our defenses by besieging Bowel Command’s primary headquarters. But, now that the enemy has been identified, we are prepared to strike back.

First, we ambush them with 2008’s official drug of “Ninjas Strike Without Warning“ (sponsored by Hugyn). Then, just when they think they’ve regrouped and are ready to strike back, we hit them with the full force of the samurai legions. That’s 37,800 cumulative milligrams (it sounds better than converting it to grams) of Direxiode. Take that, amoe-bitches!

Now, if I may change tunes for a moment, there’s something I wanted to discuss, a trend (almost a cliché) I’ve noticed among other travelers: “Beautiful People Syndrome.” But not the kind of BPS you’re imagining. This has more to do with the uncomfortable feeling I get when Western travelers expend all of their rhetoric talking about the beautiful people of Southeast Asia. Like, “the best part of Laos was that the people were so beautiful,”… or “the Cambodians are just beautiful, beautiful people.” So what’s the problem, right?

I understand that these descriptions are meant to be complimentary. But for some reason, it rubs me the wrong way, the way that people keep saying it. I find myself thinking… “Of course, they’re beautiful… they’re people.” But to pigeon-hole a group of millions to such a base generalization, and to objectify their culture is to make them the unwitting victims of the same kind of mind-traps that have allowed people to justify cultural superiority for centuries. You cannot define a nation of people by a stereotype… no matter the stereotype.

Furthermore, I think that in this instance, the underlying motive for praising the “beauty” of the people lies not in an appreciation of their shared merits… rather it derives from the trend of people who are disenfranchised with their own society assigning value to that which they perceive as different in the societies of others. The enlightenment that they should be seeking within themselves is projected onto a group of people who are foreign to them, and it makes them blind to the actual circumstances of the people with whom they believe they have developed an intimacy.

To a young American, a smiling Cambodian villager who lives without TV, electricity, running water, student debt, political allegiance, or cubicles must be living a dream life. But to a Cambodian villager, who may have lost his parents to the Khmer Rouge and his brother to a landmine, and who maybe farms only because the crumbled education system of 1980s Cambodia left him with no alternative, the young American who thinks he lives a dream life is an idiot.

This isn’t a lecture, though, so please stay with me.

When Julie and I visited the S-21 Museum and the Killing Fields while staying in Phnom Penh, the tragic history of the people of this country was brought into harsh relief. Liberal estimates claim that possibly more than 2 million people were killed as a result of the actions of Pol Pot’s regime. Children as young as 13 were forced to murder their own families. People perceived as intelligent (for example, anyone who wore spectacles) were executed, as were their infant children, to prevent their seed from polluting the agrarian society. People despaired. Families disintegrated. The entire country was bleeding, and noone was spared. When the dust settled, the people of Cambodia were left to sift through the rubble, pick up the pieces of their broken lives, and start over.

Yet the Cambodian people are still alive. They have held on to their tradition. They still have their homeland. They still have their Khmer identity. They still have Angkor Wat, and with it, the hope that they can rebuild their country with the magnificent splendor that beckons to them across centuries of imperialism and war. And one thing among many that they don’t seem to have an abundance of is shame. The radiance and vivacity with which the people of this nation continue to thrive, even amidst the rubble of such awe-inspiring tragedy is truly moving. And that is how I justify agreeing, in the end… that, yes, they are beautiful people.

On our ride to the Killing Fields, our tuk-tuk pulled up next to a mini-van full of school children. They were maybe six years old, all in their white dress shirts and whatever else constitutes a school uniform. I was staring at the van, kind of lost in thought, until my eyes finally settled on those of a boy sitting in the back of the van. A huge grin split his face, and he shot me a wave as the bus started pulling away. I think that image somehow made our field trip bearable.

---

---