THE YEAR OF THE HORSEPOWER
As usual, the Chinese calendar is playing possum and only telling half the story.
More than ever before, people are up and rolling, with a motor attached. Whether it’s a Honda step-thru or a Tata Nano (the world’s cheapest car – which is dying a slow death because, it appears, no one wants to be associated with ‘The World’s Cheapest Car”) or a 150,000 dollar Range Rover… everybody onna move.
Blithely skirting around such issues as fossil fuel consumption, air toxicity and ‘greenhouse’ effect, in my world it just means carnage. Rage too, but I’ll get to that later. In Cambodia, where I am working right now, there are, on average, 5 deaths and 14 mutilations daily, courtesy of traffic accidents. Getting even closer to my milieu, most amputations in SE Asia now are the result of ‘moto’ (read: scooter) crashes. It’s mayhem out there. I’m treating lots and lots of moto accidents.
I came here to treat landmine victims, but there is the smell of burning rubber in my nose. It’s not as ‘sexy’ (from a media standpoint) as bombs, but motos are ripping more limbs off by far. In a way that’s good news. There were 111 casualties (deaths and horrible mutilations) due to landmines just here in Cambodia in 2013. That’s bad, for sure, but WAY down from previous years. It’s the culmination of decades of effective bomb-clearing and nation-wide education programs focused on Pounding into the people – young and old – to leave the fucking shit alone when they find it. And to report it.
Most of the UXO (unexploded ordnance) accidents now are, brace yourself: detonations due to scrap metal salvaging or dynamite fishing. None of us could possibly get our minds around that level of poverty and desperation.
Meantime, in Kratie Province (about 3 hours North of Phnom Penh, near the Mekong) 5 out of 10 of Leng Lal’s chickens died all at once. This is the land of Avian Flu. Lal knew it was a bit risky, but the family’s stomach was growling and he ordered his 8 yr-old son to cook ‘em up and have a big ol’ chicken feast. Shortly thereafter 2 of his kids died at the Provincial Referral Hospital.
The latest top-of-the-range Range Rover makes well North of 500 horsepower and costs way more here (or is supposed to) than in the West, due to dues. Cambodia is one of the poorest nations on Earth and Hun Sen (the president) is often cited the richest man in Asia. He is certainly a multi-billionaire. There are far, far more top-end Range Rovers in Phnom Penh alone (nevermind Siem Reap or Battambang) than there are in Beverly Hills or even Kerrisdale, Vancouver. It’s grotesque. They all roll with these ‘VIP’ placards on the dash and, again like Vancouver, there really is no such thing as a Cambodian VIP. There couldn’t be, could there? For one thing, any person I have ever known who actually is a very important person would Never accept that moniker.
So you have Thousands of these douche-bags ploughing around Cambodia and taking out everything in their path. They have outriders too – guys on motos with guns. So think twice if you’re gonna ‘flip him the bird’. They are ‘Corruptniks’. Half of them are lower-level military functionaries whose salaries are public and certainly don’t allow the purchase of a brand-new 10 ton luxury tank. Oh, but then there are the real, the actual tanks. They’re cruising around like landsharks too.
So maybe it’s not the year of the HorsePower after all. Maybe it’s the year of the JackAss.
Since, say, November, Hun Sen has murdered only, maybe, maximum, 12 people. Lots and lots hurt though. Ding Dong il of North Korea doesn’t even blink without killing 100 peeps. And then there’s Thailand. Oi. Ukraine. Venezuela. Central African Republic. Sudan. Somalia and on and on. So, ya, it’s the year of the JackAss.
New smoking laws are in the wings though, here in Cambodia. That’s a relief. Cambodians smoke almost as much as the French, and have far more good reasons to do so. So the Ministry of Health just issued a non-binding circular on the need to ban smoking in public and in the workplace. I love that: ‘a non-binding circular’ – sounds cool!
For the moment though, you can still smoke in Freedom Square. Hun Sen won’t hassle you (he’s a smoker himself) and nor will his wife, Bun (I’m not kidding), even though she is titular head of the ‘Cambodian Red Cross’, an empty sham if ever there was one. She’s Very Imelda Marcos, right down to her shoes. So knock yourself out smoking in Freedom Square. It’ll be lonely for you though, because Freedom Square is Free of People. They all back at work or in the fields. It’s amazing what a little AK fire, some vigorous truncheoning and a lot of aggressive intimidation will do. All quiet for now. He knew that too, Hun Sen that is, and never broke a sweat. The opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, it’s hard to get much out of him; he’s often skiing in Gstaad.
So there are landsharks everywhere, but they are not a threat to the Mekong Dolphin. He’s out there, but he has other things to worry about. I’m looking at the Mekong right now as we speak and – they say he’s out there – all I can think is: ‘That’s one tough motherfucking dolphin.’ He prolly got some propeller-nicks on his back, I’ll say that. They also call him the ‘Irrawaddy Dolphin’, which makes more sense, plus it’s quite a bit prettier. Irrawaddy is in Burma, and I’m sure the Mekong is a little more hospitable up there. I wouldn’t even wanna be a lowly bi-valve down here.
But in keeping with Hun Sen’s policy of selling off the Entire Country lock-stock-and-barrel, so that there is Nothing Left, not even for one generation further… there is a big and highly controversial dam on the point of being built upstream in Lao. That will leave the old Mekong dolphin, one way or the other, high and dry. Ok, and so, 75% of all Cambodians get 97% of their protein from either the Mekong or the Tonle Sap (a big tributary). The rest comes from mostly bugs. And Vietnam is further downstream, man. So, is damning the Mekong a good idea? Not so much.
It’s a magical river; it starts up on the Tibetan Plateau at, like, 17,000 feet and in the snowmelt above that. Then it flows through 6 countries. I don’t think any other river on Earth does that, though I might have to Google this. Don’t mess with the Mekong, please, I’ll give you a Coleman lantern and some spare whatchamacallits.
The Mekong gets pumped full of water on the way through China, but that ain’t the only pumping going on in China, a country of some 2 billion people. 7 people just got arrested in Guangdong province for injecting dirty pond water into lamb meat to plump it up – ‘Plump it Up, Plump it Up!’ on the way to market. A bunch of other low-lifes got arrested for selling ‘gutter oil’ to restaurants for cooking. In other news, WAL-MART INC publicly apologized after a Chinese supplier of donkey meat snacks was found to have adulterated the product with fox meat.
I could never make that up.
So maybe it’s the year of the ‘Fonkey’.
Hang on, I was gonna talk about mirrors…
