Cheerios Takes The Step

It is so incredibly refreshing to see these kids react the way they do towards the prejudice and injustice stirred from this Cheerios commercial! Watching videos like this gives me so much hope for the future. Maybe a future full of race equality, gender equality and marriage equality is not so far-fetched after all. Finally, it is so great of Cheerios for taking the step and making a commercial like this in the first place; I definitely hope to see more of them.

Next Steps

I’m graduating in less than one week. It feels unbelievably strange to say this out loud, especially because I remember every day of frosh week like it was just this year! I remember my parents dropping me off at the Ron Eydt Village Residence building, I remember unpacking my things in my new home, and I remember waving goodbye as I stared from my window while my parents drove off. These last four years have been remarkable and I have learned so much – more from the experience of progressing through university than any book or lecture taught me (but of course that’s no surprise, especially for our generation).

I came across this article some time last year. Although I wish I read it before beginning university, I’m content to say that I can cross off a lot of the items on this list!

Take a read!

Reintegration

It has been a little over two weeks since I have returned from Vietnam and have started to reintegrate back into my lifestyle in Canada. The first week upon returning home was more difficult than the second because reverse culture shock hit me like a big Hanoi city bus. However, as time progressed and my jetlag weakened, things more or less started to feel normal again; I don’t know how to feel about this. A part of me feels as if the last 8 months of my life were a dream. A blurred dream, because the memories have now meshed together and the details of my experience are starting to fade.

One of the requirements of my undergraduate program, along with the 8 month overseas internship, is to participate in a two week debriefing period upon our return as part of our reintegration process. I think participating in this debrief really helped me re-enter into the Canadian lifestyle without losing the identity the past eight months gave me.

My classmates and I joined in numerous sessions that required us to reflect on our international experience and connect this experience with our life in Canada. I never understood how important it would be to discuss what I had gone through immediately after returning home. One of our sessions focused on reconnecting with our overseas selves and merging that identity with the one we have in our home country. I like who I was in Vietnam, and I want that person to carry forward in Canada; despite what some people may think this is a difficult task.

I try to stay connected with the people I met by regularly emailing them and Skyping them. I have printed off some of my most reminiscent pictures, and I try to continue some of the habits that I picked up in Vietnam such as walking everywhere. Though my placement abroad is over, I don’t want it to stop being a part of me. This was one of the most influential experiences of my life and I plan on continuing to let it shape my character, today and in the future.

- Madiha

Cambodia

Last month I visited Cambodia with one of my friends. Coincidentally, we both had work trips in Southern Vietnam the same Week, and decided to use some of our Vacation days to do some travelling. It was the first time in Asia that I crossed a boarder by land, and because we took the bus from Ho Chi Minh City, I was able to cross an item off of my bucket list – standing in two countries at the same time! I am aware that I could have done this with USA and Canada, but it just does not cut it the way Vietnam and Cambodia does!

I did not know much about Cambodia prior to planning the trip, but before our journey I did my research and read up on its history... and I was shocked at what I read. In the mid 70’s, Cambodia underwent an awful genocide that wiped out over 2 million citizens and left the country in shambles.

History Lesson

In 1962, Cambodia was governed by Prince Norodom Sihanouk and his Royal Government of The National Union of Kampuchea, which was overthrown in 1970 by a USA-backed military coup lead by the Prime Minister General, Lon Nol. You see, the American army was in the region because it was trying to eliminate the Northern Vietnamese Guerrilla forces known as the Vietcong that were hiding in Southern Vietnam during the Vietnamese Civil War. The Americans bombed the border of Southern Vietnam and Cambodia to eliminate any rebel forces, and until 1973, they caused much havoc in Eastern Cambodia, killing thousands of people and causing many others to flee the country and take refuge in the capital city of Phnom Penh. These events stressed the Cambodian economy and military forces, and gave popular support for the leader of the Cambodian Communist Party Pol Pot and his movement the Khmer Rouge. After Sihanouk and his rule were overthrown, Lon Nol became the new leader of Cambodia. Nevertheless his position of power did not last very long as he was quickly overthrown by Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge. In 1975, The U.S. troops moved out of Vietnam after the South lost the war, and therefore also withdrew their influence in Cambodia. Pol Pot decided to take advantage of this and on April 17^th 1975, he and his troops invaded Phnom Penh to seize control of the entire country.

Pol Pot envisioned Cambodia to be a self -sustainable agrarian utopia enthused by Mao Zedong’s communist China and his Great Leap Forward Program. Pol Pot then began “purifying” the society by exterminating western influence and culture, all religion, and city life. The Khmer Rouge shut down television stations, newspapers, and educational facilities. They eradicated foreign products (including medicine), businesses, and mail and postage facilities. In the 70’s, Cambodia had a film industry which rivaled Hollywood before the Khmer Rouge’s rule, and after, this entire industry was shut down. City dwellers were forced to evacuate their homes and travel to the countryside. Over 2 million inhabitants were forced to relocate, many travelling by foot, and thousands perishing along the way. During Pol Pot’s regime, over 2 million people were killed from overwork through forced labour, malnutrition from insufficient food rations, diseases, and plain execution. Those who were accused of being true to the old society (the educated, wealthy, and religious) and disloyal to Pol Pot were exterminated. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, monks, artists, and former government officials were taken to prisons and the killing fields to be tortured or executed in large masses.

Pol Pot held his rule over Cambodia until January 7, 1979, when the Vietnamese army successfully invaded the country and Phnom Penh fell. The Vietnamese were threatened by Pol Pot and his regime operating so close to the border, and therefore stepped in to overthrow his rule. However, after the four years of his rule which wiped out 2 million inhabitants of the country, and the succeeding 17 years of his counterattacks which lasted until the 1990’s, Cambodia was left unstable, taking five steps backwards with regards to development. To this day, there are landmines all over the country because the Khmer Rouge planted numerous bombs in the earth and made no record of where they were planted. There are many signs throughout the country, warning people not to stray too far from the main path.

Our Trip

While in Cambodia, we had the chance to visit The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum which was formerly the Security Prison 21 (S-21). We saw photographs of those entered into the prison, the torture chambers (and photographs of people being tortured), and the jail cells. The place exerted an eerie vibe because 1) we were there in the evening when it was getting dark, and 2) because it was evident that many horrible ways of man slaughter were performed in the buildings and many lives were lost. I felt pain for those who were brought to the prison grounds on the backs of trucks with blindfolds covering their eyes. They were men, women, and children who simply wanted what you and I want – a chance at life – but sadly were never given the opportunity. What’s most ironic is that before S-21 became a prison, it was the Chao Ponhea Yat High School – an educational facility altered to torture and dispose of the educated.

While walking on the streets, I saw numerous people without limbs – results of landmines – and whenever I came across anyone who looked to be over 40, my heart hurt because they had gone through the genocide. They experienced the very grotesque acts of human injustice and cruelty I read about... that I couldn’t imagine actually living.

Thoughts

I cannot believe that four years passed before the genocide was stopped. Was the UN not established at that time? Weren’t they supposed to be the peacekeepers and prevent crimes against humanity such as this? Shouldn’t the UN representatives have stepped in? But no, instead the Khmer Rouge continued to hold a seat at the UN during the course of the genocide. The UN did little to intervene and stop Pol Pot’s massacre, and as a result over 2 million innocent people perished.

Anyways, this has been quite the hefty blog post. I apologize that it is not the happiest, but I think it’s extremely important to become aware of historical events such as these so that we can (hopefully) avoid similar tragedies in the future.

Some Sources

http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/pol-pot.htm

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/hafa3/cambodia.htm

Also, a great book to read is First They Killed My Father. It is a story written by a woman who lived in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge takeover, and is told through the eyes of her as a young girl. Click here to buy a copy!

Leftover clothes in the Killing Fields. This was the site of many mass executions 

Security Prison 21 (S-21)

This rod was used to hang the keys for shackles that kept prisoners in their cells

Rows of jail cells

We are One

Adam, Nafisa, and I created a video from our three placement countries to demonstrate that despite our geographic locations, languages, cultures, religions, and traditions, we - the people of this planet - are more similar than we think!

Cultural Full House

So many of you know that in Vietnam, I live with a host family consisting of a mother (Nhan), her 15 year old son (Kien), and her cousin who sometimes comes to visit (uncle). Life has been great in our homey little 18^th floor apartment on Hoang Dao Thuy Street, but many times things have been so ridiculous and bizarre that I feel as if I’m living in a real-life sitcom.

Take last night for example. But first, a background story: Nhan (my host mother) loves hosting exchange students and for the past month has been looking for someone to fill my room since I leave at the end of April. I guess with a small family of two, it’s always nice to add another person into the mix. So last week, she filled the room with a boy from Korea who is running a cell phone business in Vietnam.  The boy asked to move in a little earlier, so for the time being he is staying in the spare bedroom until I move out. The boy does not speak anything but Korean, Nhan speaks only English and Vietnamese, uncle who visits every couple of weekends does not speak anything but Vietnamese, I speak English, basic Vietnamese, Urdu/ Hindi, and French (the latter two are irrelevant in this case :P), and Kien speaks a bit of Korean, fluent Vietnamese, and intermediate English, so he translates for us. I bet you can imagine how much of a riot dinner must have been.

Anyways, last night after Nhan, Kien, uncle, and I had finished dinner, the Korean boy returned home and insisted to cook dinner for all of us. Nhan didn’t understand this until Kien translated it after the boy had already begun preparing food. Nhan is not a fan of Korean food, so she jumped out of her chair like it was on fire, ran to the Korean boy, and attempted to explain that we did not want any Korean food because we just ate dinner. Her way of using charades to explain the situation was just about the funniest thing I’ve seen all week; it involved flaring hands absurd gestures, and speaking slow English to the Korean boy who did not understand a word of it (I don’t understand why, when we share a language barrier with someone, we speak to them slowly in our native language in hopes that it will help them understand. It just doesn’t make any sense, but I’m definitely guilty of this too!). Anyways, the Korean boy thought Nhan was feeling sick, so he got her some hot water and made her sit back down, while Kien, uncle, and I just stared with confused looks on our faces.

In the end, the Korean boy ended up making enough food for all of us, which I thought was pretty delicious! So good that even Nhan tried some and enjoyed it despite being pretty full from dinner (and not liking Korean food). Being in Vietnam has allowed me to become exposed to many different cultures as I have had several opportunities to travel and meet people from all over South East Asia, and even other parts of the world (other expats, travelers, and volunteers). I’ve learned so much and I definitely want to continue exploring this beautiful planet with so many languages, foods, cultures, and hidden treasures!

This was just one of the many shenanigans that have happened at home, and I can imagine them to only increase with the new house dynamic! One thing is for sure though - I am definitely going to miss every minute of living in our homey little 18^th floor apartment on Hoang Dao Thuy Street. 

I'm Not Asking For It

Pennsylvania Public Service Announcement Blames Rape Victims

I think the most outrageous thing I have heard to date is that rape victims are to blame for the rape. The first time I heard this line of defense for the perpetrator, I thought it was a joke. But after hearing this justification time and time again – through cases from all over the world – it became clear to me that this sickening excuse is actually what some people use to justify rape.

Oh and I suppose it’s also okay to steal that watch in the store display because of the way it is presented – in an "inviting" way. This is exactly the same concept.   

Rape is not and will never be the victim’s fault; it doesn’t matter how they dress (fashion is a form of personal expression that everyone is entitled to), and it doesn’t matter if they’re intoxicated – it does not mean the victim asking for it, it does not mean they want to be taken advantage of, and it does not mean you are allowed to do whatever you want. Saying the way a person dresses or acts is inviting rape is not a justifiable line of defense and to be quite honest, I can’t believe how prevalent victim – blaming is today.

We live in the 21^st century; let's dismiss the ignorance!