One Night in Phnom Penh

One Night in Phnom Penh

A smiling middle aged man with just a touch of paunch is walking out as we are nearing the entrance. He is joking with the man at a small structure which looks like a s ticket booth. The jovial man is handed a long silver machine pistol from the ticket booth, takes a few steps away from the booth, lines his sights, and fires three shots into the night sky. “Yup, still works,” he chuckles to the weapons attendant.

My host, Kimtek, is non-plussed as he leads me towards the entrance. In an unusual twist, I, a foreigner, am frisked for weapons while my Khmer companion is waved through, despite the fact that (as I found out last week) he is carrying a handgun. We are walking down a long series of wide wooden steps towards a huge barge moored at the side of the river. A flashing light display that could hold its head up high in Las Vegas announces in English letters that we are approaching the Chaktamok Floating Dancing Restaurant.

A look up and down the river reveals three other barges similarly huge and similarly draped in lights. There are working girls leaning and sitting on the railing of the staircase down to the riverbank, as well as on the deck of the boat. They are all Khmers less than 25 years old and maybe 3/4 are teenagers. Most are quite stunning. They are smartly dressed, sexy but not necessarily slutty, and go for $20 to $40 for a night depending on the beauty of the girl and the wealth of the customer. Given that the city’s cheaper brothels offer services for $2, these sums are quite a premium for the class of a nightclub girl.

We walk down the stairs, up the gangplank, then into the dance hall. In contrast to the visible-from-space light display outside, the dance hall is completely dark. With my eyes adjusted to the dimness after a few seconds, I can make out a huge room, about half the size of a football field, crowded with tables and customers. The dance floor is small by comparison; an upper middle class living room - plus half again that size for the band’s raised platform stage. It’s pitch dark because we arrived during a slow dance. This is the Khmer appropriation of ‘slow dance’ and is exactly what you did at junior school birthday parties.

One of the most wonderful aspects of many Khmer love songs is that in between two of the verses, where we might put a guitar solo, the singer will literally sob into the microphone as the music plays in the background:

“. . .oh baby {sniff}, when you left me, I {choked sob} I thought I would die {sniff}. I will {sob, sniff} I will always love you, and {sob} never forget you. . .”
. . .and then on to the next verse.

Admittedly, it is corny and over the top, but it works.

My appreciation of the music is interrupted by a waiter shining a small flashlight who leads UK to our table. Immediately, a host of ‘marketing representatives’ from different beer companies swarm to the table, inviting UK to order their particular brand of beer. These women are pretty and are employed by the beer companies to promote their brands in nightclubs and restaurants.

Each company has its own uniform, from Tiger Beer’s modern dark blue jumper and yellow vest, to Angkor Beer’s classic Khmer dress which is just tight enough to be sexy.

After we order our beers, Kimtek asks if we should order a girl as well. This can be arranged through a nightclub employee, or can be done independently. Either way, as soon as a nightclub girl sits at your table, you are liable for what is straightforwardly called a “girl charge”. This is between $4 to $6 at most of the nightclubs and appears right on your bill. I still remember my surprise on first seeing such a bill. Translated from the Khmer, it read:

• Beer $4
• Juice $2
• Girl $4
  

This money goes to the house with the girl getting a percentage, and covers only sitting with you for a drink. I am told that any further activity is negotiated independently between the two parties.

The question of a table companion is deferred because the dance floor suddenly lights up for the rom wong.

The music, unlike anything we commonly hear in the UK, is perhaps best described as Islamic or Jewish prayer chants mixed with calypso music.

Dancing to it is as beautiful as it is simple. The foot movement is basically slow, small steps around a circle. The real action is in the hands. You move your hands up and down, curling and uncurling your fingers, and turning your hands inward and outwards, rotating them around your wrists. One can think of it as a slow belly dance with one’s hands. Depending on the song, this can be done very relatively slowly or quickly, but always incredibly gracefully.

One song has a relatively quick tempo and a heavy beat, and lasts quite a while. With the disco lights, the music, and the sight of all of these men (at least a few of whom had to check their grenades or pistols at the door) and women (who when they dance define the meaning of grace) moving around slowly in a circle as they wave and rotate their hands, I have but two sips of beer in me, but I feel thoroughly intoxicated.

All too soon, the music cycle rotates to disco, and we sit down. It’s about 10-15 minutes each of slow, ram wong, and disco. To while the time in between rom wongs, Kimtek is chatting up a beer girl, and he calls for a nightclub girl to sit and keep me company. Sovanna, as she is named, is of course young and beautiful, and she attempts to speak Khmer clearly so that I can follow along.

An hour passes pleasantly; beer is consumed, the rom wong is danced, Sovanna teaches me some Thai she picked up in her native province in the Northwest, and Kimtek and the beer girl are laughing away. At 11:00, Kimtek calls for the check, apologises to Sovanna for leaving her unemployed for the rest of the evening, but softens the blow with a nice tip.

We head out back up the stairs towards Kimtek’s car. Kimtek is an army officer, and his nominal salary is just over $63 per month. His $25,000 Toyota is either the result of extremely careful saving of his salary for the past 26 years, or is a consequence of corruption in the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. I know that he is stationed in an area of the country where there is illegal logging, but I inquire no further than that.

We wait in his car for a minute and the beer girl he was talking to appears as well. At $40 a month, beer girls’ salaries are comparable to those of army officers. Occasional tips make it conceivable to subsist with the job, but hardly live comfortably. Many live with their families and so have no expenses to speak of.

Others supporting themselves end up “adopted” by someone like Kimtek. I soon find out that this has been the case with Kimtek and Mom, as I am introduced to her, for the past couple of months. The “o” in Mom’s name is pronounced somewhere between “mom” and “moan”.

We are nearing my house, and I prepare to get dropped off. These Khmers are certainly a hospitable bunch. Last week when Kimtek and I went out, we retired to Kimtek’s house for some drinks after the nightclub closed. At about 1:00 AM, I told him I should be going home. Mentioning the late hour, he pulled out a pistol from his waistband and asked if I would like to borrow it for the ride home. Tonight, instead of offering me his pistol, he offers me his mistress.

As I understood it, he was to lend me his pistol, but the mistress; he wants to transfer to me outright. “She can be your girlfriend and wash your clothes and clean your room and cook for you. All you have to do is keep her fed and housed,” he says, as if explaining the obvious.

Mom, meanwhile, begins crying quietly in the back seat - I guess this is as much a surprise to her as it is to me.

Although this is certainly the most exceptional gift anyone has ever offered to me, I find that I am not Khmer enough to accept it. I explain that although Mom is quite lovely, I have a girlfriend. In try not to disappoint this man who is so eager to find a friend for his mistress and mistress for his friend. Although he is confused by my strange reaction, Kimtek seems satisfied. Mom, still sniffling, manages a brave smile. As I notice once again how pretty she is, I realise that I should get out of the car before I change my mind.

“I’ll see you tomorrow at noon,” Kimtek promises. I thank him, nod good-bye to Mom, and step out of the car. I shut the door firmly, as if confirming my decision not to take up Kimtek’s offer of a lover as well as a maid. Standing at the gate outside my yard, I watch as the car disappears into the darkness of Phnom Penh.