Reflections (without the expectations)

"A Traffic Police Man" by Lim Sokchalina. 

Throughout my independent study class, my knowledge about Cambodia has expanded leaps and bounds. Although I do believe that going to a country is the best way to learn, Cambodia does a great job at covering up the country's realities with a facade of romantically verdant rice fields and sandstone temples. I am still in shock about my dis-knowledge (ignorance, but I like to think that I was not totally ignorant) of the country before this course. I have learned a lot more about the Khmer Rouge, French colonialism, and the current state of Cambodian political affairs today. I have looked at contemporary art in Cambodia and have realized how we, the West, impose this sort of image of what is supposed to be Cambodian art and Cambodia as a whole. The five plus films I have watched, two books I have read, museum exhibitions and talks I have attended, and more JSTOR articles than I can know have given me mixed media filled insight.

In this post as well I was planning on describing my expectations for this summer, but I am not going to do this. One of the main teachings of Buddhism says that expectations are one of the greatest sources of suffering and can lead to unhappiness. Letting go to expectations makes you a freer person. I am going to be living in a rural village about 15 kilometers outside of Siem Reap for at least one month, but rather than form expectations, I am just going to go for it. Rather than wonder how I am going to shower or more pertinently, exactly what I want to get out of this summer, I am going to go with the flow. By creating an expectation, I might try to cater my experience to fulfill this expectation, rather than wait and see what happens. This is not to say that I will have no ambition, but rather I do not want a long list of objectives. I can say this: I hope to learn, I hope to do something meaningful, and I hope to make a connection to the place.