I've outgrown my current novel. Now wait; hear me out before you react.
Traveling companions and fellow abolitionists, it's not the trafficking issue I've outgrown, and I haven't given up my passion for The Story in its essence, nor the setting of Cambodia.
Writing colleagues, I know there comes a point in the birthing of every book when the writer begins to hate the work. I don't think this is one of those times. My characters bore me, my plot seems flat to me now, and I just want to scrap the whole thing and start over. So, I am. Same high stakes issue, new plot, new characters.
Critics, I am not defeated. This is a step up, not a step back.
So, here's my goal: a new completed draft of 75,000 words in six weeks, a first revision by the end of September, and a finished, polished product to pitch at Surrey by the third week of October.
There it is, out in the blogosphere. Feel free to ask me how it's going (read: nag me to make sure I'm sticking to my plan). I have freshly ordered a copy of No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty. Chris is the National Novel Writing Month guru, so he knows a few things about working on an ambitious (insane) deadline.
And so the next journey has begun.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
A Man is Like Gold, But a Woman is Like White Cloth
There is an old saying in Cambodia that states, "A man is like gold, but a woman is like white cloth. Once it is dirty, it will never be clean again." Cambodia is a country full of friendly people with a very different culture than ours in the U.S. Their beliefs are so different from ours, that it's difficult to reconcile the hundreds of friendly faces and genuine hospitality with their beliefs, which sound harsh to our ears. So let me preface this post with a request to my fellow Westerners to refrain from judgment, and the encouragement to try to imagine living in a country where the following is all you've ever known.
When dining, eating order is determined by age. The elders eat first, the youngest eat last. In a country of extreme poverty, this sometimes means that small children don't get enough to eat. Children are expected to help earn money to support the family. For this reason, it's easy for parents to be tricked into selling their children. With the promise of a job in another town, parents accept a sum of around a hundred dollars American and send their children off, expecting to receive money sent back home by their children. Sometimes they never hear from their children again. Many of these kids are sold into slavery in various forms. Labor trafficking, like domestic or industrial labor are common, as are sexual slavery situations in brothels. Cambodia is known for its problem with illegal prostitution, and its child prostitution woes are particularly heinous. I'm told that some parents do know what they are selling their children into, and I have to believe that at least some of them think this is a better option than watching their children go hungry and slowly die at home. At least they can hope their child is being fed regularly.
But there's more going on in this complex and painful dynamic. While most Americans want their children to go on to lead better lives than they themselves have, this is not so in Cambodia. There is a sense of being true to one's roots, and in a culture so reverent of its elders, it's not considered okay to live better than the previous generation. So, a mother who was previously trafficked may consider it more acceptable for her own children to be trafficked. It's how she survived, so it's good enough for her kids.
Added to this is the country's 95% Buddhist population that believes in reincarnation and karma. A child sold into slavery is likely paying for sins from a previous life, and an abhorrent life situation is believed to be justice served.
Once you wrap all these ideas and circumstances into one package, it's easy to see how incredibly difficult it must be for trafficked children to recover from their experiences, before ever factoring into the equation the unspeakable acts of violence and abuse they've endured. But Cambodia is country of survivors. They've survived one of the bloodiest and most violent civil wars and genocides in recent history. The children I met that had been rescued from their slavery laughed and played like any other children I've ever met. They didn't curl up and die, they didn't brood and withdraw, and they didn't rage continually at a world that had treated them so horribly. They made friends, they cared about other people, and they kept growing. I can't imagine that I would have responded this well in their situation. Their bodies bore scars that looked like the top of baked bread: cracked in spiderwebs designs where flesh had been torn and never stitched, but their faces wore ready smiles more often than not.
The Cambodian people have found a permanent place in my affections, and I have a deep respect for their tenacity and heart. Theirs is a country that is struggling back to life from a deep abyss, and they are doing it with a grace and an open-hearted attitude that inspires hope for what they may become. My prayers are with their continual healing, and a rooting out of the darkness that still runs through their troubled streets. Because neither man nor woman is like a white cloth. We all get dirty, and we can be made clean again.
When dining, eating order is determined by age. The elders eat first, the youngest eat last. In a country of extreme poverty, this sometimes means that small children don't get enough to eat. Children are expected to help earn money to support the family. For this reason, it's easy for parents to be tricked into selling their children. With the promise of a job in another town, parents accept a sum of around a hundred dollars American and send their children off, expecting to receive money sent back home by their children. Sometimes they never hear from their children again. Many of these kids are sold into slavery in various forms. Labor trafficking, like domestic or industrial labor are common, as are sexual slavery situations in brothels. Cambodia is known for its problem with illegal prostitution, and its child prostitution woes are particularly heinous. I'm told that some parents do know what they are selling their children into, and I have to believe that at least some of them think this is a better option than watching their children go hungry and slowly die at home. At least they can hope their child is being fed regularly.
But there's more going on in this complex and painful dynamic. While most Americans want their children to go on to lead better lives than they themselves have, this is not so in Cambodia. There is a sense of being true to one's roots, and in a culture so reverent of its elders, it's not considered okay to live better than the previous generation. So, a mother who was previously trafficked may consider it more acceptable for her own children to be trafficked. It's how she survived, so it's good enough for her kids.
Added to this is the country's 95% Buddhist population that believes in reincarnation and karma. A child sold into slavery is likely paying for sins from a previous life, and an abhorrent life situation is believed to be justice served.
Once you wrap all these ideas and circumstances into one package, it's easy to see how incredibly difficult it must be for trafficked children to recover from their experiences, before ever factoring into the equation the unspeakable acts of violence and abuse they've endured. But Cambodia is country of survivors. They've survived one of the bloodiest and most violent civil wars and genocides in recent history. The children I met that had been rescued from their slavery laughed and played like any other children I've ever met. They didn't curl up and die, they didn't brood and withdraw, and they didn't rage continually at a world that had treated them so horribly. They made friends, they cared about other people, and they kept growing. I can't imagine that I would have responded this well in their situation. Their bodies bore scars that looked like the top of baked bread: cracked in spiderwebs designs where flesh had been torn and never stitched, but their faces wore ready smiles more often than not.
The Cambodian people have found a permanent place in my affections, and I have a deep respect for their tenacity and heart. Theirs is a country that is struggling back to life from a deep abyss, and they are doing it with a grace and an open-hearted attitude that inspires hope for what they may become. My prayers are with their continual healing, and a rooting out of the darkness that still runs through their troubled streets. Because neither man nor woman is like a white cloth. We all get dirty, and we can be made clean again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)