Woman at the Window

Lately I’ve felt a bit too close for comfort to the protagonist of the thriller novel Woman at the Window. The title character, recovering from recent trauma, lives alone and fears going outdoors. She spends her days drinking, watching old Hitchcock movies, and spying on her mysterious new neighbors. I’ll let you guess which of those statements apply to me, but definitely the spying does. Read on, and see if you can blame me.

I live up two flights of stairs in a rowhouse, known in Khmer as a pteah laveng, which my parents like to call a “potato van.” It has five rooms in a row… living room, 2 bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen… connected by a long, thin hallway. Many pteah lavengs have windows only on the far ends, but since I have an end unit, in addition to my south windows in the living room, every room has windows facing west.

In the living room, facing north

My western windows have always overlooked a mostly empty lot with a small, unoccupied, traditional wooden home in the corner below my kitchen. (My teammates around the corner say its owner, an elderly woman, passed away before I moved here in 2017.) This is great for natural light and airflow, though the extra sunlight during peak hours does make it hotter than necessary. The house’s yard was a throwback to a decade ago, when most of this neighborhood still felt like a traditional village. A massive jackfruit tree extends across windows in two rooms, sweet aromas wafting inside when fruits ripen. Several piengs – waist-tall jars of water, ubiquitous among Cambodians without indoor plumbing – dotted the grass and brush that had grown up around the house.

One day in mid-December, I heard a ruckus and looked out to find construction workers starting to demolish the house with their bare hands, so close I could have passed them a cup of water, with their soundtrack notably featuring Ed Sheeran's "Dancing in the Dark." At least the noise should be short-lived, I reasoned. There’s not much house to remove. I forgot to factor in the concrete stairs, though.

Then I realized: if the house is going, something new must be coming. The workers left a lot of the rubble where it lay, but began smoothing out the rest of the lot and trucking in sand. As is common, they lived on site, sleeping in hammocks under the jackfruit tree, which suddenly smelled a lot like cigarettes. (Most are probably from provinces several hours away and move around to each job.) A couple of small kids played in the sand. My horror mingled with intrigue at the flip-flop-shod workers welding and wielding jackhammers. Day by day, the lot was transformed.

Into what? I didn’t know, but my guesses abounded. Cambodia has minimal zoning restrictions except inside gated communities, so other lots on my street contain:

• A bus parking garage
• An ice factory
• Some sort of clinic?
• A motel advertising “3 hours = $5” on gaudy neon signs
• Three apartment buildings for lower- to middle-class residents, one of which boasts a nail salon, a seafood restaurant, and two dry-goods shops
• About 10 upper-class single-family villas ranging from classy to ostentatious
• My building, somewhere in between the other social classes
• And last but not least, the headquarters of the obscure Grassroots Political Party

The latest addition to our street, on the other side of my house, took over a year to build.

Basically, it could have been anything. 

I worried that it would be a big apartment building like the one that now dominates my northern balcony view. I might lose all my natural light and airflow out those western windows. But to my relief, they almost immediately began building two long, thin brick structures. 

Next, I surmised it might be two one-story buildings with small apartment units in a line, like the building just past it (the red roof in the above photos). Those are common in my neighborhood. 

 

Similar apartment buildings seen out my kitchen door 

But then they added a square structure with bricks around the perimeter, centered around a large tree in the middle. A courtyard? Apartment buildings never had one of those. And what were the new smaller buildings off to the right?

Eventually they filled in the bricks with concrete but still didn't add any walls. One new building looked suspiciously like public restrooms... apartments would have their own bathrooms. It didn't bode well.

One day, a truck arrived with bamboo, grass, and woven reeds. Within an hour or two, the brick square had become a hut enclosing the tree. This is 2021, in a quickly developing suburb of the nation's capital. Thatched huts are no more normal here than they are in Washington, DC. Must be something touristy, I told myself.

Finally, a new building went up just outside my window, on the site of the original wooden house. Akin to a motel, it was likewise a single story and contained a line of rooms too small even to be $50-a-month studio apartments.

And so I wasn't surprised, only gloomy, when my neighbor broke the news to me. "The workers told me it's a beer garden." Well, there goes the neighborhood.

I have visited beer gardens before. Germany had some very nice ones, with tasty bread and sizzling meat, in scenic locations where I could sit and talk peacefully with classmates. Please don't think of that when you hear this term. Cambodian beer gardens are as tasteful as Hooters, and sometimes a good bit less legal. There are probably ten or more of these fine establishments within five blocks of my house. They're only one step less shady than the giant, windowless KTV (karaoke) buildings. At each, girls sit out front, two lines facing each other, in short skirts and high heels. Salons like the one on my street rely on these girls, who need perfect hair and makeup every night. Many vulnerable young women start out as "beer promoters" or "hostesses," accompanying male clients in drinking, flirting, and singing karaoke in return for tips and/or low wages. The job often leads to illegally forced abortions, prostitution with or rape by clients at nearby guesthouses, and a heavy burden of shame. A 2012 Unicef report estimated 35,000 of these "entertainment workers" nationwide, mostly in Phnom Penh. 

That week, nice cars showed up bearing a family in formal clothing, probably the owners. They planted sticks of incense in a line in the dirt and disappeared into the hut, where monks chanted to bless the new business. Day after day, well-dressed people in fancy vehicles kept milling around and laughing together. I couldn't tell if they were clients or owners. 

Around then, a big orange sign appeared, with parking attendants sitting out front to direct people in. Less than a month after the first roof panels were pried off the old wooden house, this beer garden was open for business. Like most gardens, its chosen beer brand (Ganzberg) is a prominent part of the sign. The restaurant's name is literally translated as "Shade rose-apple cool heart," but I think it means something more like "Calm in the shade of the rose-apple tree." But it's a mango tree inside the hut, so I'm not sure where the rose-apple is.

The red arrow shows my apartment

Another Ganzberg beer garden displays typical simple plastic chairs and metal tables - 

I'm guessing this one has similar furniture

The limited parking area remained packed daily with nice cars. From what I could see, the kitchen wasn't getting much traffic. What about this basic hut with no A/C, limited food and hygiene, and ongoing construction appealed enough to draw these big shots for hours of their afternoon? I was baffled why they wouldn't drive five or ten minutes to somewhere more upscale.

I kept bracing myself for nonstop karaoke eight hours a day, like several other places near my house. I might need to move... I've learned to work from home during intermittent karaoke down the street, but nonstop out my window is too much... there's a limit to how often I can visit cafes to get peace and quiet... will it keep me up every night? Will I have to dodge drunk drivers?

Despite the occasional warblers and a constantly full parking lot, singing has been much rarer than raucous laughter and general hanging out. So far, there's actually less karaoke here than at the seafood restaurant just past it. (The video below features one renowned singer.) But the danger's not over yet. All karaoke places were officially closed last spring due to Covid and could reopen in July only as "restaurants," which has reduced but not eliminated karaoke in my neighborhood. Covid might be the last defense protecting my ears and sanity from a constant barrage of noise. Time will tell.

Another encouraging sign is the chairs out front. Though I've seen some girls walking around inside, I'm not sure if they're employees, and I haven't seen any sitting at the entrance. Instead, it's been men like the parking attendants, or conservatively dressed older women. That lends support to the theory that it's an ordinary restaurant. (Basically every restaurant here sells beer.) Furthermore, the posted hours are 10:30 AM to 9 PM - lunch and dinner hours - rather than early evening through the wee hours, like a bar or KTV. (It's still blared some 10:30 PM karaoke and other music, though.) Khmer friends confirmed that this seems to be an ordinary restaurant. One theorized that its appeal lies in the atmosphere inside. 

However, I'm still nervous about that building adjacent to mine with the line of tiny windowless rooms. What's that about? It doesn't seem very family-friendly. 

When they added a tin roof, blocking my view inside, the rooms still had dirt floors and bare concrete walls, lending few hints as to their purpose. We'll see what happens when that building opens. In the meantime, they've installed green plastic netting to keep the parking area cooler, which effectively blocks most of my people-watching. (If only it were sound-proof too!) Thus ends my illustrious career as Woman at the Window.

The other day, it finally dawned on me that while my curiosity may be harmless, my fretting was and is pretty selfish. Shouldn't my heart break more for the women risking their safety, reputation, and hope at places like this all over my neighborhood, than for myself risking my concentration due to noise pollution? Am I praying for Cambodian men to be transformed by Christ into people of integrity, or just for this one business to fail and stop interrupting my life? I conveniently ignore the darkness here, but if I really loved Cambodia, I'd fight for change. Lord, please make me more like C.T. Studd, who wrote:

Some want to live within the sound of a church or chapel bell;

I'd rather run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.

I don't expect any imminent rescues, but maybe driving past my new neighbors can remind me to pray.