So, I've had some mixed feelings about Phnom Penh and Cambodia in general. Totally fascinating country, but there's an edge that can sometimes make me uncomfortable. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that, due to the last 30 years of civil war and consequent decimation of the population, it's a very young country and it has a raw, undisciplined energy. It's both exciting and occasionally off-putting, and the fact that the weak economy has opened up access to some unsavory markets is tough to swallow, although to be fair I haven't directly encountered any of that stuff, just read and heard about it.
But there are also a lot of positives here with the youthful energy, and last night I got a taste which was one of the highlights of my time here. It was a drag show with some unique Cambodian twists. Homosexuality is only slowly becoming accepted here, and a friend of mine who lives in Phnom Penh predicted that it will be like Thailand within 10 years, in terms of gay friendliness. We arrived just as the first drag show ended, and we had to sit through quite a bit of karaoke before they returned to the main event. One of the intro acts was a crew of Cambodian breakdancers, mostly in their teens, but there were two little dudes who couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 years old who would occasionally step up and do headstands and dance around. I don't use this word often, but it was very cute. There was an innocence and friendliness to the whole event that was quite charming. Then some queen incongruously banged out some air guitar to the proto heavy metal sounds of Deep Purple's "Highway Star." One of the first queens came out in an elaborate dress that kept slipping down past "her"nipple line as she flirted with two dancing boys on stage. The queen couldn't have been more than 15, but there was nothing perverse about the act, it was all in good fun. Although I'll bet she'll be a skank ass bottom in about 5 years!
The nightlife tends to end very early here, but the club was still kicking when we left at 1 a.m.
Edit: By way of clarification. My friend "A" (guest blogger of 23-Feb-2008), expressed concern that my "man-hating lesbians" comment from my "Wild West" blog referred to her and her GF, an old friend of mine (I refer to them as "my lesbros".) Not so. In fact, it's an old joke I use on my friend who shall anonymously be referred to as "MHLF" who once made the mistake of telling a story of how, as an undergraduate at Reed, she got totally hammered and somehow ended-up on top of a student building catapaulting tampons (thankfully unsoiled) at unsuspecting (no doubt heterosexist) males unlucky enough to be passing by. I use this anecdote as an excuse to designate her as "my most favorite man-hating lesbian feminist", a comment that invariably annoys her and earns eye-rolling and other visible forms of consternation. However, she's known me long enough that despite my more unfortunate characteristics (such as being a straight dude), I've apparently been grandfathered in and she patiently tolerates my blatant button-pushing. You have to wonder why, she already has a younger brother who enjoys getting on her nerves, no need for another one! (I'm a younger brother and I can assure you, youngers brothers are some of the cruelest, most remorseless and morally bankrupt human beings on the planet.) MHLF got some payback right before I left for Asia in January, though, when she asked everyone at the table at a going-away get together to say something about why they would miss me, knowing full well that such a protracted display of sentimentality would be like fingernails across a blackboard for a sincerity-avoidant sarcasm addict like myself. The urge to flee came suddenly.
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