Conversations With Monks

Before reading this post, I would ask the viewer of this public diary to do one simple task; expunge from your mind all knowledge of what a monk is or should be. Do not imagine the kind, sagacious, and ascetic man whose life is given for that of a heavenly purpose. Forget everything you know about St. Francis or his order, and let me describe to you what I have seen of their Buddhist cousins in this country.

Monks in this country are ubiquitous. You can see them riding on the back of a motorcycle with their saffron robes wrapped around their heads, or walking through a village as they beg for rice. Their heads are generally shaved, their robes drape over one shoulder, and more than a few of them sport tattoos on their body. Many of the monks who live at the Wat were troublemaking boys at one point in their lives who were sent to the pagoda as a kind of reform school. Many boys decide to stay following their period of reform and become monks. It is a way out of being a rice farmer for the rest of your life, and it is an honorable profession. Excluding the religious ceremonies and festivals that they preside over, they are the caretakers of the temple grounds. They perform maintenance on the buildings, tend to the gardens, and work on the other kinds of arts and crafts that go on there.

On late afternoon strolls through the village, I usually visit the chief monk of the Wat near my home. He stands at about 5’5,’’ has several metal teeth, and carries several cell phones around in a yellow pouch around his waist. His back is covered in burn marks from traditional Cambodian medicine, and he smokes expensive Alain Delon cigarettes. The first time that I met him, I was visiting the Wat for the first time. I arrived with another teacher from the high school, and the two of us went into his office inside a wooden gazebo-like building. We kneeled before him, and touched our heads to the floor three times before sitting down in chairs. From behind his desk, the chief monk smiled at us, smoked a cigarette, and gave me a welcoming speech. While he was speaking, a fish in one of the green water tanks behind him was gnawing viciously at a dead frog. I tried my best not to take it as a bad omen.

On my subsequent trips to the Wat, I have discovered that the chief monk maintains a collection of animals there that include four peacocks, three turkeys, two reptiles of some kind, a very large spotted snake, and an abundance of birds. He even has an enormous bird house, which I have a picture of here.

The man on the left in this photograph, the chief monk, is a jovial character, and some of the conversations we have had are pretty amusing. This is summary of what we talk about in perfectly fluent Khmer.

“Do you have a girlfriend in Cambodia?” he asks me.
“No, do you?”
He laughs. “Are you looking for one in Anchor?”
“Not really. I rather prefer American girls.”
“Really? Cambodian girls are not pretty for you?”
“They are pretty, but American girls can speak English.”
“Some Cambodian girls can speak English.”
“Not in Anchor.” We both laugh.

We talk about the weather, how much he wants to learn English but cannot seem to find the time, and what the students are like in Anchor. We also trade opinions about each other’s digital camera. My Khmer is not good enough to have any more in depth conversations than this with the guy, but I’m hoping it will improve with time.

Thanks to this man, the idea of what a Buddhist monk is or should be has been completely shattered in my head. If the same has not been done to you, then I have a done a poor job in describing this man to you.