The end of June and I have already been in Hong Kong six months. A 29-year-old Indonesian maid contracted Japanese encephalitis from a mosquito bite while working for a Chinese family in the new territories. The disease is so rare that it makes the front page. After testing the family she worked for, the authorities found no other cases.
The weather is so hot and steamy that standing outside you sweat. While waiting for the shuttle bus, I am stationary for less than three minutes. The stop is just outside the main doors of the apartment complex, shaded by a marble awning and surrounded by trees, low bushes and flowering shrubs.
I have my workbook on Chinese measure words and am pouring over it, trying to memorize various characters and sound out new sentences. As I am reading, I shift my weight from side to side and lift each foot off of the ground as if I am marching in place. Left, right, left, right. It is rhythmic and helps me concentrate on the musical sounding pronunciations and rhythms of the language.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a team of three gardeners. Each is wearing a bright orange shirt with green colored pants and white canvas sneakers. They wear straw hats tied round their chins with bright fabric and protective gloves. On their faces, they don white surgical masks. One of them, the only male, is dragging a large plastic barrel on a trolley. The other two are helping to push it from behind. Attached to the plastic canister is a long, white spraying hose which the man occasionally stops to use. He sprays the bushes and into the trees. They slowly make their way around the perimeter of the grounds, the hose hissing as it sprays a light mist of liquid.
I assume it is insecticide they are spraying. The masks and gloves suggest that it is a fairly strong concoction. It is too hot to be wearing so much clothing and I wonder if they like their job.
Once the bus pulls up and I climb aboard, I notice that I have five small round bumps on the skin of my calves. Despite the spraying, I have been bitten.
Half-seriously and half-jokingly, I have been warning my friends about dengue fever. There has been a report that mosquitoes that harbor the disease are at an all-time high. Though no cases have been reported, the government is seriously worried about the tightening circle of disease surrounding us. Already in remotes areas of Cambodia, Thailand, and the Philippines, the disease is endemic. They are frightened that it might become endemic in the city. There is talk of a major mosquito eradication campaign.
Dengue fever is no picnic. Though almost everyone recovers from the onslaught of the bone-racking pain and fever, if caught a second time it is 50 percent more likely to cause death.
Japanese encephalitis is much worse. Not only does it cause extreme discomfort and a very serious condition, it kills up to one-third of those it infects. While still in New York, I went to a travel medicine clinic to be vaccinated for everything that the doctor could think of – ironically everything except for Japanese encephalitis. I am susceptible.
“No need,” the immunity specialist had told me. “Hong Kong doesn’t have it. It won’t be a problem.”
“I can always get it later,” I said, agreeing. “If I need to.”
“Besides, you want to stay away from mosquito bites in Southeast Asia anyway,” the specialist said. “There’s no prevention for dengue fever and malaria is rife as well.”
“I can always take anti-malarials.”
“Yes,” the specialist replied. “But if you’re like some of my patients, you won’t like some of the side effects.”
“Which are?”
“Severe headaches, bad nightmares, insomnia,” she said and listed each one out on a fingertip. Then she smiled and added, “Plus, if you’re really lucky, they can sometimes, though very rarely, cause psychotic episodes or breaks. Especially if there’s a family history of mental problems.”
“Just what I need,” I said, smiling back at her. “I think I’ll just stick with some serious bug spray.”
“Suit yourself.”
***
The ancient Cambodians had three ways of dealing with their dead. The first involved burning the body and burying the ashes. The second, a makeshift wooden raft was constructed and the body would be placed upon it and floated out on the lake. Finally, since they were surrounded by dense forest teeming with life, the relatives of the deceased would carry the body far out into the surrounding jungle and simply leave it there, unburied, to decompose naturally. As we are bumping down the road, headed for the elephant terrace, I am looking out the car window at a row of smaller temples thinking that I might prefer the last choice.
We have been in Cambodia for only a day and my senses are overwhelmed. Temples rise out of the greenery at scattered points throughout the countryside. In addition to the famous main temple complex of Ankor Wat, there are tens, hundreds of smaller sites in the area. In the past, the entire place must have been filled with people and wealth.
The dark sedan we are riding in pulls to a stop under a shade tree. As we pop out from the back seat, we are accosted by an array of children selling postcards, bracelets, hand-carved wooden toys, woven straw placemats. Each one insists that we buy something. When we smile and shake our heads no, they change tactic. Maybe we only need one thing? But if we do, then we must buy from only them. It is impossible, even if we were interested in purchasing something, to decide from whom to buy. The children are identical in dress, stature, and health. In other words, they are all equally poor.
One boy’s smile is a bit brighter than the others. Instead of smiling for us, he seems to be merely smiling for himself. The top of his head doesn’t even come up to my shoulder. I have to lean my head down a bit to answer him or to listen. His feet are bare and he takes inordinately big strides to keep up with me.
“Where you from?”
“U.S.”
“The capital of the U.S. is Washington, D.C.” He says this matter-of-factly, as if he is showing off at a school competition, rather than trying to sell me trinkets or souvenirs.
I notice that his white-striped shirt is unbuttoned and his smooth, brown-colored skin is gleaming from sweat. His hair is cut short and when he smiles, his teeth appear as white as an ad for teeth whitener. Despite myself, I cannot help warming to him a little.
“That’s good,” I say.
Encouraged, he tries something else. “The U.S. has 285 million people.”
“Wow, that’s more than I know. You must be the best at your school.”
He doesn’t really understand me. I wonder if he goes to school at all, or if this is his full-time occupation. If I buy something from him, will his parents be pleased?
“The capital of Maine is Bangor,” he says brightly.
I am impressed. Some Americans wouldn’t know that fact. If pressed, I would have had to think about it for a moment.
“You buy from me when you get back.”
I smile at him. Trying to give him a false promise, I steer myself away from him and follow closer to our guide, Mr. Choeun.
“You buy only from me, okay?” he asks, still smiling.
He is still asking the same question as his voice fades into the background. The children are not allowed to go into the attractions. I don’t know this for certain, but because they never follow us, I assume that they have been warned from hassling the tourists too much while they are visiting official sites.
“Does anyone ever get bothered by this?” my husband asks as he pulls up the rear.
Choeun shakes his head and laughs a little.
“Oh, no,” he says, “most people understand. It took me awhile to get used to it, but now I don’t mind.”
We follow him up some stone stops to the top of the terrace. Since I am directly behind him, I am following his footsteps exactly. He must know which stones are better for holding our weight. Rundown, some of these sites are a bit dangerous – loose rocks, sections falling away, no guardrails, steep steps.
“Children here are very lucky,” Choeun tells us. “Siem Reap is lucky to have a free children’s hospital. Free treatment for diseases.”
“You have a problem with malaria here, right?”
He turns his round face and looks at me with his dark eyes. His large eyes are so dark that the white part of them are almost light tan in color. As he talks, he often uses his hands to communicate. His English is excellent, but he makes good use of his gestures to help us to understand.
“Oh, yes,” he says, waving his hand all around him, “malaria is very bad. Also the diarrhea sickness kills many. I think that one in eight or ten children die.”
Standing on the side of the terrace are two small children. As we pass them, they stare up at us. Unlike all the other children we have seen, they aren’t holding anything for us to purchase. For a moment, I think that they will beg from us instead, but they do not. They are just looking. Their eyes are dark and almost vacant, as if they have no thoughts at all or do not know what to think. The truth is probably that they do not know how or what to think about us – two stark, white people with new-looking clothes and sneakers, snapping digital pictures and talking in a foreign language.
When we have gotten a few feet beyond the children, one of them says a faltering, “Hello.” The word is spoken hesitantly, as if it is being tried out for the first time. It is also vaguely hopeful.
It makes me stop to wonder whether or not I am still hopeful. As a person, I feel as though every word I speak sounds like the child’s greeting. I am uncertain, vague, almost terrified. And there is hunger inside of me. Even still, it is an indistinct craving for something I cannot possibly name.
We stop at the edge of the elephant terrace and look around. It is a grand, commanding view. Behind us lies the old king’s quarters. The only thing left of them is a high stone wall adjacent to the terrace.
“The king would come out here every morning,” Choeun explains. “To watch military processions or to meet diplomats from other countries.”
“Must have been quite a sight,” my husband says, his hands resting on his hips.
Choeun points to a large stone structure just to the side of the king’s platform. Square-shaped, it rises higher than the terrace and has intricate carvings on all its sides. But none of elephants.
“That is the leper king’s terrace,” Choeun says. “That is where they would cremate the kings. They would burn the body on top and then keep the ashes within the walls.”
“Appropriate name,” my husband replies. Then he begins asking Choeun something about the current political situation of Cambodia, about its current king, the recent Khmer Rouge years, and how Choeun thinks things are progressing. As they talk under the hot, early afternoon sun, I drift off.
I look at the Terrace of the Leper King and ponder how the king could walk out of his home everyday to attend to state business and look upon the place where he would ultimately be burned. Each morning, he was the king. And yet on his left were presumably the remains of other, just as powerful, kings. A constant reminder of his own ultimate insignificance directly adjacent to the symbols of his ultimate rule.
How did it measure up? Did he ever look out of the corner of his eye and catch a glimpse of the fire that would consume him? Did it humble him or embolden him to think of his own death? Did it make for bold action? Perhaps Ankor Wat was merely a testament to the power of having death as a constant shadow over life. It pushed the king to create an empire, to leave something in his wake, to construct some of the most ornate and beautiful structures in the world.
Alternatively, maybe it was a spiritual gamble. Maybe constructing grand temples was a way to ease his own mind. As king, he wanted to be remembered, but surely he was also bribing his gods to let him into whatever heaven there was for him. Perhaps an early tribute to insure a good reincarnation.
What was it about ancient cultures that made them so good at living with the dead? Were they simply much stronger than us, capable of long, contemplative gazes at something we, as their descendents, no longer care to see at all? Their death was on their left, a living presence in their daily life. Our death is a murky shadow, a ghost that we attempt to keep directly behind us at all times in order not to see it clearly. But what is more terrifying? Looking at it, carving out its beauty – or hiding it away in hospitals, in cleverly disguised funeral parlors, or in nursing homes?
I stop myself from jumping down from the terrace to get closer to the Leper King and watch my husband chatting with our guide. He is different than me; death is not something he thinks about at all. He is more concerned with life as it is being lived. In the car of life, he is looking ahead with an occasional glance in the rear-view mirror. I am in the backseat with my face pressed up against the window, forever looking back.
***
Hong Kong Observatory has just issued a Tropical Storm Warning – Level 8. In layman’s terms, we are about to come between a typhoon and the mainland. I have been through loads of storms. From the Midwest, I am used to tornado warnings and violent thunderstorms. When I was in New York, I even suffered through a low-level hurricane. But I have never seen a typhoon and I have to admit I am nervous.
People have been instructed to go home, to stay indoors. In our apartment building, the management staff slipped some “typhoon instructions” under our doors. Apparently, it is a good idea to seal off any gaps in the windows, move any furniture away from the side of the apartment facing the harbor, and place strong adhesive tape across the big bay windows. I have done none of this, partially because I do not have any special tape. And I am not about to go out looking for some now.
I am unprepared.
Outside the window, it is the calm before the storm. The clouds are rushing past at quick speeds, as if I were watching a speeded up film of the sky. The cloud cover changes from ominously dark to so light that it almost seems that the sun might break through. The wind is constant. Looking down from the 37th floor to the poolside below, I can see the palm trees blowing violently. The entire city is hushed and hesitant. We are all waiting silently and patiently for it to begin.
I almost don’t breathe at all. My nerves are a little jittery and I am acting like a seven-year-old child before her birthday. I am anxious to see the storm, to see what kind of power can be unleashed by nature, but I am also scared to witness it. Not for the first time, I feel closer to another godlike realm here. Perched at the top of the city, I feel the electricity in the air. It is exhilarating.
My husband called me from the office to say that he is headed home. The shuttle bus back to our building has discontinued service. As I watch the winding road that snakes behind the trees below, I can’t even see any red cabs. He has told me he will probably just walk home. It is only twenty minutes and the serious winds haven’t started yet. Still, it makes me a bit worried. I don’t like the idea of him getting caught out in a sudden storm burst. But there is nothing that I can do about it. There are very few other options.
As I wait for him, I busy myself with small household chores.
There is something strange about waiting for a storm to pass over you. It feels like waiting for death to brush past your skin and blow you a kiss. In a storm, there is no telling.
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