In Search of Christmas Lost

For six plus years a 'proper' Christmas was denied me. I wallowed in the lushly green and buffalo ridden heartlands of Malaysia. It was a very Muslim place, with nary a mincepie to espy or sausage roll to feed this yule starved Englishman. It was nearly enough to send this Christmas lover all Christmas crackers.

Last year, in a small town in outer regions of Penang, I set about recreating my ideal Christmas. I was with my wife, oven roasted chickens and non-roasting Chinese relatives on a cookery morning in a kitchen which was as hot as any Turkish wrestler’s jock strap. I got pretty close to rediscovering Christmas there, what with sherry trifle, bisto/oxo gravy and Paxo stuffing to accompany my home cooked Christmas fare. But it was one hell of a lot of cooking for me and I lay exhausted, unable to entertain.

This year, a whole twelve exciting months later, Christmas was being spent in a Christian country - the Philippines. It was there that I had severely hoped to be swept off my feet by a welcome wave of yuletide bonhomie, welcoming wassailing and good ole Christmas cheer. But I wasn't.

Despite being a seriously Catholic country, the Philippines, at least that presented via Makati and Manila, felt less like Christmas than my new home - Muslim Malaysia. In the marvellously materialistic Makati Greenbelt mall, the Christmas trimmings were there, but the heart appeared to be absent.

Desperately in need of some familiar festive fare, I had dragged my poor Buddhist wife into Marks and Spencer, now rebranded as a cool M&S. We hastened to the food section for me to buy luxury mince pies, Christmas pudding, sausage rolls and perhaps mulled wine. I like to do things properly at Christmas. No half measures.

Oh calamity,  as an aged American comedian was wont to say. Nary a one was there. No mince pies, no sausage rolls and no figgy pudding either. We looked and looked, but no yule log was evident.  The only vague remnant of an English Christmas, in M&S, was a tin of Scottish shortbread. But what could I have expected in a country of cock-crow church mass (Misa de Gallo - 4am), roasted pork (lechon) instead of turkey and Christmas cheese. Yes, you read correctly - Christmas cheese, eg Edam, all nicely round and waxed red.

Our visit had, thus far, teetered between the sublime and the ridiculous. The ridiculous being the service and breakfasts of the BSA Tower hotel in Makati, where cold egg, cold sausage, toast with no butter and stewed coffee arrives some time, up to 45 minutes, late. The sublime was the caterpillar clad, rosette lipstick wearing Filipina models who mock flirted with me for photos during my book launch.

Perhaps the lack of Filipino Christmas enthusiasm came as an aftershock, a tremor visa vie post tragic tornado and post viscous gun attacks, leaving many dead, right there in Manila. Or, perhaps, it was my unrealistic expectations, and the fact that Christmas there is a family thing and we had no family other than those we took with us.

I was suffering the acutest attack of high humbug. It was never going to be Thomas’ A Child's Christmas in Wales, or a merry Dickensonian romp ending all smiles and sloshing Harvey’s Bristol Cream around the fireplace. Maybe Christmas, once you stop being a child, is like that. Maybe Christmas is forever a disappointment. But my naive English optimism imagined something much, much more from a land brimming with countless confirmed Christians.

Christmas Day emerged from out of a bottled margarita fueled haze. Orchid Gardens Suites, in Malate, Manila, had released their barman early for Christmas. There was no alcohol to be had there on Christmas Eve. Luckily our friends had bought a bottle of margarita, which we hastily consumed in the hotel lobby, in lieu of the Southern Comfort on the rocks I really wanted.

It was all getting quite out of hand, and a teansy weansy bit bizzare.

Christmas breakfast in our new hotel consisted of two types of cooked fish (one smoked), Chinese style salted egg, Tagalog (Filipino) Beef, an assortment of fruits (including banana), veggies and a waffle replete with a very smooth peanut butter and marmalade. Needless to say, it would not have been my usual Christmas breakfast, but it was leaning towards interesting.

I thanked whichever deity for the hotel lobby pseudo Christmas tree. It had baubles and tinsel. I also thank the caterpillar clad eyes, and roseate lips which uttered Merry Christmas sir, as a timely reminder that it was, in actual fact, a Merry Christmas. We sat, the two families and I, some time after 11am, Christmas morning, in Starbucks,  at the Harbour Square, Manila. My wife was sketching - it’s what artists do apparently. There was one stepson reading, the other playing a game on his mother's iphone. One friend was sending text messages, another rustling in her handbag. One of their sons was drawing on their ipad, another drawing on paper and the final son gaming, also on his hand phone. I sat writing, disconnected from our group, but also totally aware of my surroundings and the predominance of elder white men, escorting much, much younger, Filipina women. I idly wondered who was whose trophy.

The ‘real’ Manila had revealed itself in the jeepney crowded streets and the exhaust fume nightmare which had been Chinatown, Binondo, Manila. Binondo Church, also known as the Minor Basilica of St. Lorenzo Ruiz stood as a crumbling relic amidst the grotesquery of ‘modern’ architecture. Street living poor crowded urine soaked streets outside Mc Donald's and Starbucks. Thoroughfares were a cacophony of jeepney horns and belches of black smoke, as cycle rickshaw (trisikad) riders pounded pedals into the smoky morass which could have doubled for one of the outer regions of a Christian hell. Right there, right then Christmas seemed further away than ever.

Later, sitting on the remains of Fort Santiago wall, I watched a pernicious tugboat ease its way up the Pasig River, sending pink, grey and blue waves against the citadel, creating sleek water sculptures with its wake. The Filipino sun was setting on our last day (Christmas Day) in Manila. Firecrackers sent salvos across the river as green galleon islands of water hyacinths floated by. Christmas had sunk in the area in which a Muslim Raja (Sulaiman) had once reigned.

It was a lesson in expectations, mine had been high in that Catholic country, and they were dashed. Christmas, of course, was not out there but in here (he says pointing to his heart). I carried Christmas with me. It was revealed in the kindness of others - our travelling companions. It was revealed in their thoughtfulness, their kindness and their consideration for others. On Christmas Day, we passed survivors of the tornado Haiyan (seabird) living on steps not far from our hotel. There were several whole families living there, women, children, babies all dirt covered and trying to exist somewhere, anywhere. As we sat in KFC, we decided to do at least a some very small thing to relieve the burden of those step dwellers, if only for a day. Between our two families we bought eight packs of KFC ‘Streetwise Box’, each box containing six pieces of chicken, and took them to those brave souls, the survivors of tornado Haiyan. It was all we could do, but at least it was something and it revealed Christmas in the giving, not the expectation or the taking but right there, on those steps, in Manila, in the hearts of my Buddhist Chinese friends (and wife).

After note, I did approach the day manager of the Harrison Plaza Village Square branch of KFC, and told him what we were doing, but he said it was company policy not to be involved in such charitable undertakings - this was on Christmas Day, in a Catholic country, but that’s alright because it is company policy.

Nominally Phnom Penh

Snail shells shine in the unshaded nightly light. The remains of a deep fried frog lay greadily on the small red plastic plate, and the egg embryo I just ate is working its eggy way down my gullet, to be digested.

It is our first day in Phom Penh. We survived the mammoth seven hour bus journey from Siem Reap, the narrow cratered roads and the rigors of that vehicle's narrow chamber of torture, laughingly referred to as a toilet.

To save us all from terminal boredom,  or is that sleep,  the bus crew bombards us with a selection of films, shown on a single screen, at the front of the bus. Due to the rockiness of the roads, and the quality of the videos/video player, all we eventually get is a succession of half viewed Jackie Chan films.

We arrive, and immediately want to sort out accomodation. We need somwhere to lay our weary bones, stretch a little and generally get the kinks of travel out of our racked bodies. We ask art teacher Seney, who is along for the trip, to help us, and end up in a small hostelry called the Sinh Foo Guesthouse.

Sinh Foo Guesthouse is right by the river. Our room has a stunning view of that river and strolling tourists but, sadly, no tea and coffee making facilities. The room is two flights up, threatening to give me daily exercise, and make me healthier. I shiver at that possibility.

All I seek is a simple burger.  My tongue needs a break from fish Amok. The alure of escargot (snails) and the other Cambodian night food, drag me to sit down at the roadside, under a partially open green tarpaulin. The blue hatted proprietor seemingly enjoys practicing his English on us. He is extremely helpful and jovial, this is why I sit with empty snail shells, remains of some bird embryo and deep fried frog on various small dishes before me.

My wife, as usual, gathers attention by watercolour sketching. Neighbours, staff and passersby all stop to watch her weave her painterly magic. Soon a crowd has gathered to watch, chattering away in Khmer. One small girl, with silver coloured bangles, is fascinated with the rhythm of brush to water, to paint to paper. Eventually, the crowd began to disperse.  Staff go back to work, others leak away into the night, including the two blonde English girls wanting a supper of snails.

We are here to attend meetings, to discuss sponsorship for our charity Colors of Cambodia. A friend has very kindly given us contacts for tomorrow.

In the very slight cool of the Phnom Penh evening we walk back, then across the busy road to perform a romantic promenade by the riverside. Five minutes breathing in the river's stench and we high tail it back to our hotel for a night without tea or coffee.

In the morning, a rising sun paints the immediate sky a pastel pink, and washes the whole riverside in Van Gogh blue. At breakfast we are kindly reminded - one more cup of coffee not free.

A Quiet Khmer Day

It is a quiet Khmer day. I am interrupted only by the Tan Kang hotel maids stirring the insidious Cambodian dust around the room, and rearranging the inadequate bedding to make it look smarter, not cleaner. I spend the morning writing, such as I can, with a constantly interrupted internet. 

In time, my hard working, racing, wife returns from guiding her Malaysian Chinese chicks (20+ now) hither and thither across the outskirts of Siem Reap. I board the bus they travelled in, which reminds me not of American and Malaysian school buses, but of the colour of the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine. We head off to Wat Damnak temple to witness the Buddhist monks having dāna (lunch). Daily, early in the morning, the monks exit the temple with covered bowls and satchels. People give either food - in the bowls, or money - in the satchels, to sustain the monks for that day.

We briefly meet Director the Venerable Somnieng Hoeurn, who guides us to where the orange draped monks are sitting, cross legged, waiting patiently for their food. A chanting in Pali begins, first from the monks, then from the visitors offering dāna (which might be translated as giving, offering or alms). The food is distributed. The Venerable hastens off to  get his. We wander from the temple to the Life and Hope Association project set up by the Venerable Somnieng Hoeurn and established in 2005. It started as a singular project - Food for Education, and eventually grew into six.

A fellow Englishman - Clive Butler (Organisational Development Director), and his wife, have taken over the reigns of the sewing project and oversee the language learning side too. The ‘workers’ are having lunch, so we are able to see only resting sewing machines, limp lines of cotton thread and material awaiting loving hands. Those old machines instantly remind me of my mother, and the days she would spend sewing curtains, shirts or her skirts on her Singer treadle sewing machine, at home, in Essex. I sigh. Times change and Clive, his wife and I are a along way away from the London were we born in, both in time and in so many miles. We agree to consider the Life and Hope Association making some of the equipment we normally buy from outside, for the children in the schools Colors of Cambodia helps sponsor. There are cost considerations, but also ethical ones. By working with the Life and Hope Association we could be helping more Cambodians find work - something which in short supply in Cambodia.

It is a pleasant, welcoming, trip to the other side of the river. Sadly to say not all visits to other NGOs are as pleasant, nor as welcoming. In the evening we escort the Malaysian Chinese visitors to a small local orphanage. Siem Reap is full of orphans, and orphanages, some larger, some smaller, but all concerned with children’s welfare. I am looking forward to this walk. I have not been to this particular orphanage before, my wife has. We troop in the dark, balmy, evening by the side of the Siem Reap river, along the dusty road, past the usual sellers of bottled petrol, and past empty, resting,tuk tuks. We walk a little further than any of us thought, guided by the light from my small torch, attached to my house keyring. Eventually we reach the poorly lit orphanage.

We slide back the gate grill. It takes a little effort because of the build up of dust and debris, and enter the small compound. We are immediately confronted by two young, white, women who, evidently, are far from pleased to see us. True we have come outside of the normal visiting hours, but we had to wait for our visitors to use bathroom facilities before marching off with bags laden with goodies for these orphan children. We initially fear that we were being turned away after our walk. Perhaps we would have been, save for the smiles and the evident caring of a young male Khmer, who doubles as both a security guard at night and accountant during the day. Unlike the foreign volunteers, the Khmer (Cambodian) is most welcoming. He allows us to sign the visitors register and motions us to visit with the children. One foreign volunteer seems unhappy with this decision. He stands, folding his arms before him, closed off, unwilling to engage. As we approach the small area where the children are sitting with other foreign volunteers, we notice a lack of interaction between the volunteers and we visitors. The volunteers appear to be holding the children back from coming to greet us. There is no eye contact. 

Nevertheless, and because we are there for the children - not the volunteers, we distribute the toys, gifts and sweets to whoever manages to reach us, and give the rest to the Khmer guard/accountant to distribute later. We stay a short while. Those children who dare interact with us, do so, laughing and playing. As we leave, we ask the one approachable member of staff what the orphanage really needs - he says rice. They always need rice, and perhaps pork, but rice first and foremost. We leave, promising to deliver a bag of rice for the next day.

Cambodian Monday at Khnar Char School

It is Monday. The Cambodian sun shines. Skies are once again blue. A troupe of tuk tuks potter out of Siem Reap city heading for the countryside. Again the roads are dusty. One of my Chinese companions manipulates her green checkered Cambodian scarf, wedges it behind her large sunglasses, and masks the dusty, warming air. The further out we go from Siem Reap, the worse the roads are. The stretch of road immediately before the school we are visiting today, is laden with craters, it’s like we are rinding moon-buggies, but tuk tuks have little or no suspension. We bounce with every bump, slide with every swerve, and truly experience the questionable delights of Cambodian road transport.

Khnar Char School is an old friend to Colors of Cambodia, My partner has been teaching there as a volunteer, for years, but it is a new one for the sponsoring of children’s education. Recently taken on, Colors of Cambodia now supports 77 children at the school. Today we come to see those children and give them blue ‘goodie bags’ full of school equipment and clothing. Firstly, a classroom is organised. The children line up in two rows - girls and boys. They wait patiently in line, some wearing shoes, some not. White blouses and white shirts are no longer white, but grey or browning with stain from the reddened earth. Blue shorts are loose, threatening to drop with each step, or simply by waiting in line. One girl has a prosthetic leg. The children all have identically coloured hair and eyes.

The children are led into the classroom, seated. Colors of Cambodia volunteers help the children place their names on ‘thank you’ cards that have their photo, ready to send to the sponsors. Seney, our art teacher, writes what is required of the children on the blackboard, encourages the children to colour in small pictures and to add stickers, to make it all more personal. Eager children dive into their given bags, pull out small bags of school equipment - rubbers, rulers, coloured pencils etc. They investigate the clothing, comparing them, looking at others, seeing what they have. Everyone is busy with their bags, too busy to notice the growing crowd of children peering through the iron bars at the school windows. Those children are not sponsored and therefore ineligible for such bags, and attention.

Outside it is break-time for some children. A group of boys play kick-fighting in the dusty, leaf strewn playground, emulating films, TV. They smile, happily, under the imposing Cambodian sun. Mostly the children play barefoot. Rubber slippers are discarded all over the patch of grassless ground, to be collected before class for those that have them. 

Towards the rear of the ‘school yard’ are vegetable beds, neatly placed into rows with shoots just visible as plants. Elsewhere around the school are raised beds with some small bushes and flowering shrubs. It is all very basic, simple, easy to maintain. A small ‘tuck shop’ is adjacent to the last classroom. Like those in other Cambodian schools we have visited, it is staffed by a woman with small children. It sells some Western items - crisps of many varieties, and locally made jellies and other morsels or savoury snacks for momentarily hungry children.

 I sit and watch young girls playing. They sport small gold looking earrings, ‘Hello Kitty’ embroidered blouses, and one - a small craft made bag. She is a little smaller than the others. Her eyes are bright, intelligent. As I sit on a concrete seat, in the playground, she approaches me. Other children gather too, and watch as I write. She starts to read my writing, aloud, in English, stopping for me to prompt her when she had difficulty, not with English, but with my handwriting. The others copy her. Soon I have a large group of small children gathered around me, reading what I write. I write more carefully to help them read. That young girl presents me with a thin green book. In good English she asks me to read to them all. I am a little overcome with emotion. The moment is too beautiful for my clumsy words.

The book - Reading Books 2011 - The World of Stories - Phnom Doh Kromon is in dual language - Khmer and English. The children listen intently as I read to them, correcting me when I mispronounce the Khmer names, repeating after me as I read the English. When I stop, the girl thanks me most politely in English then Khmer. Another child places a small bunch of picked yellow flowers on my thigh, as I sit. Another, a boy, not to be outdone, goes off and comes back with a mixture of small yellow and pink flowers, which he has inserted into a straw to make a posy. He presents it to me and I almost cry, it is so touching. The school bell rings and the children have to go to class. I walk back to the waiting tuk tuks wearing the small posy in my hatband. My friends and my wife have many questions. I tell them this story.