Yesterday, my tutor Neakru Roth was away visiting her
hometown for the 15th anniversary of her grandpa’s death. In
Cambodia death anniversaries are important; there are ceremonies for day 7, day
100, and certain years after the death. Another tutor, Neakru Reaksmy, subbed for her. She told me we’d be studying Khmer
culture: attitudes toward romance and marriage. We started by discussing
various hypothetical situations, mostly related to parents’ roles in choosing a
spouse. She says she’s old-fashioned – though arranged marriages are uncommon,
she’d be fine with her parents choosing her future husband, and she’d break up
with any guy they didn’t like.
What if your parents weren’t Christian, I asked? What if
they chose a guy based on money or family reputation, even though he wasn’t trustworthy?
What if you saw a friend following her parents’ advice to marry a bad man? It
wasn’t very hypothetical. I know a lot of Cambodian girls whose parents have
essentially told them, “You’re being too picky and getting old. Why not marry
this guy?” Family reputation, salary, and respect for elders are often
emphasized over traits like fidelity, respect for the wife, and willingness to
share in household chores. One friend’s parents actually recommended her first
cousin, though she turned him down. Reaksmy seemed OK with much more parental
influence than I would be, saying that parents are usually wise and loving, and
that people’s short-lived emotions often lead them to choose a spouse they
regret. She made some great points, but I still think I’d be terrified to let a
typical Cambodian couple choose my husband, or even my friend’s husband.
Next, she told me a famous story called “Tum and Teav”. This
classic story of tragic love is a crucial part of the high school exam, according
to Reaksmy and another tutor, and it reminded me a lot of Romeo and Juliet. She told me roughly the version below, which I’ve
condensed from Wikipedia:
While
traveling to sell bamboo rice containers for his pagoda, Tum, a talented
Buddhist monk, falls in love with Teav, a beautiful young lady who is drawn to
his beautiful singing voice. Tum is consumed with longing for Teav and soon
returns to her village. Though the head monk asks him to wait a few weeks, he immediately defrocks himself to pursue Teav. He initially spends some time in Teav's home despite
her being 'in the shade' (a period of a few weeks when the daughter is
supposedly secluded from males and taught how to behave virtuously). After
professing their love for one another, Tum and Teav sleep together. Soon
afterward, he is recruited by King Rama to sing at the royal palace, and he
leaves Teav once again.
Teav's mother is unaware of her daughter's
love for the young monk, and agrees to marry her daughter off to the son of their
powerful governor, Archoun. Her plans are interrupted, however, when emissaries
of King Rama—equally impressed by Teav's beauty—insist that she marry the
Cambodian king instead. Archoun agrees to cancel his son's wedding arrangement,
and Teav is brought to the palace. Tum boldly sings a song that professes his
love for her. Rama overcomes his initial anger and agrees to let the young
couple marry.
When Teav's mother learns of her daughter's
marriage, she feigns illness to lure Teav back to her village, then coerces her into
marrying Archoun's son. Teav writes to Tum, who arrives with an edict from the
king to stop the ceremony. Tum gets drunk, announces he is Teav's husband and
kisses her in public. Enraged, Archoun commands his guards to kill Tum, and
they beat him to death. Grief-stricken, Teav slits her own throat and collapses
on Tum's body. When King Rama hears of the murder, he descends upon Archoun's
palace, ignores the governor's pleas for mercy, and orders Archoun's entire
family—including seven generations worth of relatives—be taken to a field and
buried to their necks. An iron plow and harrow are then used to decapitate them
all.
After the story, my hour lesson was over, but Reaksmy asked if I wanted to stay and watch the movie. It turns out she was on her way with a bunch of other tutors to Roth's grandpa's ceremony, so she had a couple hours to hang out there. She eagerly looked it up on YouTube for me, and since we didn't have speakers (and I didn't have two spare hours), she clicked through and showed me all the characters and the story highlights. Especially the graphic deaths at the end, where characters were covered in orangish-red blood. The other tutors were excited to recognize the movie and chimed in about what a great story it was. I was encouraged to watch it at home, and I hope to... but probably in small chunks.
I know Romeo and Juliet pretty well, having taught it in English 9 the past 5 years. So it was easy to compare and contrast them a bit.
Difference: standards of physical affection.
In Romeo and Juliet, the couple kisses literally at first sight, before learning each other's names, and their choice isn't exactly condemned, though they're in a public ball where they could be seen. More kisses follow. In Tum and Teav, the couple is faulted for kissing in public after they're married. That's definitely a Cambodian value that continues today. PDA? Not OK.
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| Let's kiss a few more times before I introduce myself. |
Similarity: convoluted storyline.
I'd love to chalk this up to Khmer culture's love for cheesy melodrama, but Romeo and Juliet is just as bad.
Difference: sense of justice.
The prince of Verona vows to execute anyone who continues the family feud between Capulet and Montague, but has mercy on Romeo for killing Tybalt since Tybalt was equally at fault, and decides only to banish Romeo. At the end, upon discovering their bodies and Paris, the prince declares, "All are punished!" for their feud, and does not further condemn the families for their contribution to the violence. By contrast, King Rama violently executes seven generations of relatives (including infants) of the governor who ignores his edict to stop Teav's remarriage. That, even though the governor doesn't see the king's letter until after Tum and Teav die. One Western scholar calls the king's disproportionate revenge "a head for an eye" and sees it as a cultural model for the Khmer Rouge atrocities.
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| The bloodthirsty king is shown on the right. |
Similarity: impulsive acts of passion.
Like Romeo and Juliet, Tum and Teav are young and act on infatuation and lust. Both couples shroud their marriage in secrecy, knowing it would never be accepted, and go to great lengths to be together. In both, the girl commits suicide upon discovering her dead husband.
Difference: moral of the story. One year when I taught Romeo and Juliet, we did a court case to determine who was at fault. Fate? The young lovers? Their families? Friar Lawrence? The play isn't quite clear, and evidence exists for all four causes. All the characters rush and make faulty assumptions, yet Shakespeare also suggests they were "star-crossed" from the first. In Tum and Teav, at first I thought it was at least partly the greedy mother lying and forcing her daughter to deny true love and marry for status. Perhaps also the king, ruthlessly slaughtering innocent people. How American of me! (To be fair, my tutor left out some of Tum's transgressions, like rushing out of monkhood and sleeping with Teav.)
It turns out that Tum and Teav are considered most to blame in the story. Their defiance of various authorities - the head monk for Tum and the mother in Teav's case - in order to pursue their own selfish desires brings about their deaths. In fact, most schools teach this as a simple lesson in karma: do bad things, bad things will happen. (Some Buddhist interpretations do blame the mother's greed and manipulation. Not sure about the king and the governor, but usually kingship = a pass to do whatever you want.) Reaksmy and another tutor, Kinal, told me that as far as Cambodian values, Tum and Teav are a case study in "what not to do." They're basically the bad guys who deserve what they get.
Afterward, I was thinking about how Romeo and Juliet translates into modern-day Western culture. The answer is not very well. We're so individualistic and equality-based, not deferring to hierarchy and community like Cambodians (or even like medieval Italians). I think there's a reason my tutors love Tum Teav while my Logos students find Romeo and Juliet cheesy and unrealistic. In Cambodia, it's easy to imagine this story happening today.
