September, 2001

Indeed, Cambodians Do Think White People Taste Like Cheese

Master Rolf,

In your Salon article "Up Cambodia without a phrasebook," you talked about the older woman in the countryside who licked the fleshy part above your hip while you were drying off outside the watering hole. I have an interesting edge on that particular experience of yours. You may have been told this before, but I'll share it anyway.

When I was volunteering with the Cambodian community in Philadelphia, I heard countless remarks about the American diet (particularly, the causasian diet). My Cambodian friends and acquaintances teased me relentlessly about my complexion and the foods I was raised on. Milk, cheese, dairy-based dessert products, to name a few -- they were all on their hitlist. I didn't know until I had been around them for a few years that they attributed my fair skin color to ingesting those same foods. Much worse, they reasoned that the taste of my skin was ALSO altered my the crazy milk-products I've been fed since birth. Hence the equation... milk + cheese in the diet = milk + cheese in the skin.

Congratulations, friend — You were part of an experiment decades in the making. In your own small way, you baffled the propagation of a deep-rooted Khmer urban legend. Americans DON'T taste like cheese after all!

Keep up your great work,

Chris Milton
Salt Lake City, UT

Vagabonding the Heartland: Arkansas Rhapsody

Rolf,

More travel news for you from the American heartland. My domestic vagabonding recently took me to visit a friend who has a condo on a big lake in Arkansas. My hosts are good friends and great folks, but, as occurs whenever one with an eye for social settings travels, I felt somewhat foreign in a familiar setting. I found that the boating crowd is a society unto itself. At the very bottom are the folks that have fishing boats. They sit in the middle of the lake, trying to fool their finny friends (though some are even catch and releasers who don't have long term harm in mind) while they are at the mercy of sun, weather, and any other boater who goes by. They try to look patient when bobbing on the wake of some hot shot's waverunner or ski boat and only occasionally protest when a really powerful boat goes by, leaving them in a heaving wake, a cloud of blue smoke and a din on the order of two out-of-tune chain saws mating. The family sized pontoon boats are only a little less at the mercy of the larger, meaner craft. They have their children scattered on inner tubes, rafts, etc. around the boat while dad drinks beer and mom struggles at the ice chest making bologna on white bread sandwiches with Miracle Whip and yellow French's mustard.

Another social strate is composed of the water skiers and waverunners whose only function in life is to make endless circles around the lake and annoy every and any poor soul seeking solitude and communion with nature. These folks tend to be teenagers and young adults. The big speed boats, the Bajas and Cobalts, are the dragsters of the lake. They are mostly piloted by males in the second childhood/male menopause stage. They look for races, cruise the bikini clad nymphets and generally play the role that rogue bulls play in the elephant kingdom.

Above all these, at least in their own eyes, are the locals who remember how the lake was before all of the outsiders came in. They meet in cafes and coffee shops (where real American coffee is served and mochachino is unheard of) to lament the type of people that the lake draws. They used to be fishermen, but now only use the lake out of season, when all of the summer folk go home. A few lucky retirees who have "gone native" might be admitted to these circles, but not lightly or without lengthy apprenticeship. The man with whom we stayed had attained this "good ol' boy" status, though he had a Cobalt with a 502 cubic inch, 400+ horsepower engine. He got up early to have coffee and often breakfast with the locals, respected local sensibilities and told war stories. His wife admired and bought the local handicrafts which even the rankest tourists would not give a second list. They know the local craftsmen, utility workers, fry cooks and others who make the area run. With them, we were (for better or for worse) welcomed wherever we went.

Until my next vagabonding sojourn in the mighty middle of the USA...

Bill Jenkins
Wichita, KS