King-Father Norodom Sihanouk passed away last month at age 89. He was a shrewd politician who "was
king, then prince, then king again of Cambodia, amending his royal role according to the needs
of the hour and his own volatile will." He holds the world record for serving the greatest variety of political offices. He was once the victim of a US-backed coup against him. He abdicated (for the second time!) in 2004 due to poor health, naming his son Prince Norodom Sihamoni as his successor in a controversial decision.
Appointed by the French as a puppet at age 18 in 1941, he managed to lead his country to independence in the '50s, while undermining Cambodia's Democratic party in order to make Cambodia a "quasi-dictatorship and one-party state." He then sided with the Khmer Rouge in hopes of "protecting" his country from Vietnam's growing menace. The Khmer Rouge spared his life, but five of his children perished under their regime. After the civil war ended in the early '90s, he helped Hun Sen become prime minister by less-than-democratic means; twenty years later, Hun Sen remains the prime minister. He had a close relationship with former North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il. An eccentric, artistic, and charming man, King-Father Sihanouk's complex legacy includes numerous films, songs, and writings.
It was the second-to-last day of Pchum Benh, a dark two-week Cambodian Buddhist holiday praying for the spirits of dead ancestors and offering food, money, and incense for them at various pagodas. Logos had a 6-day school holiday for Pchum Benh, and my sister, Julia, came to visit (more on that later). We were returning from Angkor Wat when we noticed that many houses had flags at half mast. We didn't know why until we arrived back in Phnom Penh.
The next day, my friend Sovannary filled us in further. His body was on its way back from China, where he had spent the last few years in and out of the hospital. "For the next three months, Cambodians are supposed to wear white and black" - traditional mourning colors. Thousands of people were lining up along Russian Boulevard, one of the main streets in town, to wait for his processional from the airport to the Royal Palace. Sure enough, out the window of our restaurant, we could see dozens of people on foot in white shirts and black pants or skirts, with black ribbons pinned to their shirts, pouring down Kim Jong-Il Avenue (Phnom Penh streets are mostly named after Sihanouk's relatives or Communist countries and leaders) toward Russian. "Don't try to go downtown," she warned us. "Traffic will be insane!"
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| What we saw: the crowd waiting. |
But we'd been planning to see Toul Sleng, the genocide museum, and we didn't have much else to do that afternoon. So we decided to brave the crowds and see all there was to see. We started out in a tuk-tuk, but soon abandoned it when it got stuck in a huge traffic jam. The driver couldn't even turn around - we felt bad. We continued on foot to Russian, where we felt rather conspicuous crossing...no traffic was allowed on it, but there were hundreds of white-shirted people watching us while waiting to see Sihanouk. We waited too for a bit, but it was already 45 minutes after the processional was supposed to pass through, so we eventually caught another tuk-tuk and continued to the museum.
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| What we missed: the processional came through about thirty minutes later. |
Afterwards, I wanted to show Julia one of Phnom Penh's biggest landmarks, the Independence Monument, which is near the Royal Palace. It was a few hours later. Would the area still be crowded? Sure enough, our latest tuk-tuk driver refused to go too close, and we continued on foot by the Monument and all the way up to the Palace. For about half a mile near the palace, we felt as though we were swimming upstream through the hundreds of white-shirted Cambodians pouring out from the palace, where ceremonies must have just ended.
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What we saw:
not this particular guy, but hundreds of these shirts for sale near the Monument. |
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| What we saw: next to the monument, they'd put up the King's portrait. |
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What we missed:
the height of the hubbub when the King's body arrived at the Royal Palace. |
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| What we saw: people lingering outside the Palace. |
Though much of the crowd had dispersed when we arrived, it was still a memorable sight. Groups of young people - maybe Scouts of some type - were picking up the thousands of water bottles strewn across the streets and sidewalks, handing them off to recycling collectors, who must have made a killing that day. (They get a cent or two per bottle.) People were still burning incense, peering in through the gates toward his casket, and just sitting on the lawn and chatting. We were two of the only Westerners around, wearing the wrong colors, and yet I felt as if no one noticed us. For once, they were all too absorbed in the goings-on to pay attention to the outsiders.
Many of my Cambodian friends wore white and black, or at least avoided bright colors, for the first several days that followed. A few of my students likewise pinned ribbons to their uniforms. I don't see many people mourning now, but I do still see his portrait swathed in white and black fabric outside many businesses and even schools, often with yellow flowers. One of the teachers at my school even attended a service at his church for the king.
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| A Logos teacher, Matthew, with others who attended the church service |
I asked my 9th grade English students to read articles about him and respond in a written reflection. One girl cited a Cambodian proverb to explain her country's attitude toward the king. "Love your crooked neighbor with your crooked heart." Cambodians know their King had shortcomings, but their outpouring of affection and gratitude toward him this month has been heartfelt.
