Current Issue 2026

Once I stepped through the automatic sliding doors, I was instantly greeted by Cambodia’s November dry season. A misnomer, because there was nothing dry about it whatsoever. I couldn’t imagine what the wet season would be like. The temperature felt ninety-something but the humidity was in the high eighties, a kind of latent heat that offered no perspiration, no real way for the body to sweat and cool off; a demanding and selfish kind of heat. 

Everyone moved in slow motion, depleted from the twenty-two-hour flight from LAX: legs were atrophied and wobbly, hips and glutes tight from constrained mobility and of course the heat didn’t help. Nonetheless, it was a good turn out. There were twenty-or-so of us students, from all departments, excited for the study abroad experience and collaborating with foreign students from across the world.

 Me and six other students crammed into an old Toyota Masterace Surf minivan from the late eighties, a design with futuristic promises. The front window frame was wide and panoramic, sloping into infinity. The body, a blue-gray metallic paint, was decorated with cool sexy magenta stripes wrapped around the sides. It looked more like a spaceship than a van. 

We were compressed like sardines, compact and oily, praying the van would support our weight and luggages. The road looked like a work in progress—partly paved, a mix of concrete and asphalt and exposed laterite. A tropical soil formation full of reddish, brown-yellow, orange-gold, and purple tones—unlike anything I had ever experienced. The heckling bounce of the ride quieted, the wetness of the air dissipated, and the collective spirit in the van was lifted to savor the beautiful landscape.

We reached the capital, Phnom Penh, ten kilometers west of the airport, but it still took nearly an hour to get to our hotel. I met my roommate, Kakkada, another Cambodian like myself, who had never visited the country before, like myself. We hit it off in kismet fairytale fashion and were glued to one another the entire trip. 

The university, Paññāsāstra, was three blocks from the hotel. We were eager and nervous to meet the other students and learn more about the project. During orientation, everyone introduced themselves. There were lots of nods and smiles and giggles (mostly from the female Cambodian students) and handshakes and subtle bows here and there, and sometimes all of the above, simultaneously. 

I was surprised how quickly we moved straight into business. The mood in the auditorium shifted to adult-level seriousness. And although most of us were technically “adults,” the truth was, we severely lacked maturity. I couldn’t help but admire how grown-up the Cambodian students behaved. The American in me was embarrassed. The Asian in me was disappointed I wasn’t adult enough.

The mission of the program was to compile case studies based on the things we observed in the application of art and art therapy. Each group, a mix of CSULB students and those at Paññāsāstra, were assigned to a specific non-profit organization, and the goal was to build a genuine connection. We dove a little deeper into some of the organizations. 

“Some of these girls want to stay. They feel obligated to provide for their families,” one Cambodian student said, in a very matter-of-fact manner.

“But wait. These girls are young. Shouldn’t they be in school?” said one of the CSULB students.

“That would be ideal of course. But the reality is, some of these women, or girls, end up going back. If they don’t work, their families don’t eat.”

I looked around the room, mainly at my American cohorts, trying to figure out how to feel about girls being sex trafficked. I felt my body heat up but my throat was dry and the more I swallowed, the drier it got. The organs in my stomach were churning as if the eavesdropping got them anxious as well.

“And also, some don’t want the help. And it’s not for us to decide what’s best for them.”

That statement hung, suspended like a noose, taut and unearthly, like Cambodia’s own dirty secrets: not-so-long-ago history where sons killed their own mothers and fathers, where babies were swung to death against tree trunks in fear of revenge and to save bullets. Then there was the stench of judgment. The Americans, me, my classmates, sat still like paintings on a wall. But I felt it, that know-it-all-all attitude, how dare these people allow for such a thing to happen?

I realized at that moment how sticky the topic became. That such dirty topics were like double-sided sticky tapes; no matter how careful we’ve tried, our fingers would always leave prints. There I was, twenty-three, thinking I was going to go back to the motherland with all my American smarts and sensibility and righteous ideals, only to be confronted by other twenty-somethings who had lived a very different reality. I sat there, in my ignorance, and learned how little I actually knew.

Later that day, we all visited a student-run non-profit called Metta Karuna. It was located along the periphery of the city, a landfill-like slum, overcrowded with people and under crowded by infrastructure. The most noticeable being the lack of a sewer system, as the people who lived there, basically lived in a cesspool. An emaciated dog passed by, teeth rotten and missing, along with its dignity and ability to hunt and protect.

The school was nothing more than an old tarp supported by rusty roof shingles. There were a few picnic style wooden tables and chipped plastic chairs and an old dry erase board. The ground was completely muddy, soaked with runoff sewage materials, piss, dirty water from cooking and bathing and anything that would transmit cholera. 

The students however, were the most gracious and happiest I had ever met. They had the kind of manners parents prayed for. Even their shyness sparkled. They spoke with so much elegance and giggled incessantly that it became infectious and we all started to giggle. Kakkada and I looked at each other and smiled with tears in our eyes. We were proud. 

I was confronted with so much: the cruel heat and humidity where people showered just to stay dry, the leftovers of war, a non participating government, a sex-trafficking crisis fueled by foreign sexual perversion and appetite, a rise in the AIDS epidemic, and a new generation responsible to rebuild a better Cambodia.

The truth was, I had so much more to learn in that homecoming. Everywhere I turned, there were prints left behind to remind me of the stickiness of life. That one could ride in an old beat up Toyota and still admire the scenery outside. Or acknowledge a less than savory history by honoring the present. Or stand in the middle of a slum and be greeted by giggling faces.