It was an awesome trip… Only when you are in Angkor to see with your own eyes, can you appreciate the greatness of the architecture. You gasped at the architecture, the sheer brilliantness of the design. You wonder with amazement at how it was built at a time when machinery was not available. You immerse yourself in the fantasy of how people lived their lives in those buildings thousands of years ago.
It was also a very heart-breaking trip… I have never seen so much poverty in my life. But it was not the poverty that made me cried. It was the pride and dignity these impoverished people still hold so dearly that shattered my heart. People there are living in terrible conditions. They are struggling for basic necessities – food and decent shelter – is not accessible to a large portion of the people – not because they don’t yearn for it, not because they don’t work for it, and certainly not because they don’t deserve it. But the country is just too poor to stand on its own feet.
I didn’t understand why the market was so busy, from dawn to dusk. Then I realized that people don’t have refrigerators; they come to the market to get fresh food. I couldn’t understand why they barbequed eggs and everything else, then I realize they were still cooking with coals and wood, and it was easier to cook food that way.
Things that are so basic to us… but foreign to them, and unnecessary. Despite their obvious adversaries, they are happy people. They are at peace with the environment around them; they make do with what they have. In every Cambodian, I see more gratitude for life than I have seen in any Malaysian eye. I see more acts of kindness, and I see more love.
And I reflect upon my own life. We have so much and yet still want so much out of our lives. All these complex incomprehensible concepts that are so hard to define – understanding men, challenging jobs, stylish homes, fashionable clothes, tantalizing food and sounds, brilliant government, flawless systems and processes… endless needs.
We live a life of comfort and indulgence, so much of it is not necessary. We live in so much indulgence and comfort that we expense great energy to find imperfections around us, only to be perpetually preaching about the search for inner peace.
When we can afford unnecessary comforts, perhaps we can afford help to the poor. When we can afford unnecessary emotions, perhaps we can afford gratitude.
Don’t be blinded by comfort, don’t forget to say thanks. To say thanks for friends around us, to family around us, to strangers around us who make our lives more comfortable, to Mother Nature for giving us life.
