Funeral Foodie

My knees ache terribly. I feel like I’m nine again, crammed awkwardly into a tiny church pew. Instead of a Greek Orthodox priest yelling about damnation in a language I never understood I now have a plinth of brightly robed monks chanting at me about salvation in another.

Don’t fidget.

But I do. My knee pops loudly and my neighbor opens one eye from prayer, smiles at my awkwardness, and resumes his devotions. The gathered mourners are dressed in their standard Buddhist mourning-whites, sitting respectfully, feet tucked beneath them so as to never show their soles to the monks.

I, In my french blue, sit cross legged on my own mat, feet tucked as much as my battered knees will allow. Others share four or five to a mat, but the sweaty, bearded foreigner has been given a wide berth.

I’ve been invited, along with a few other expats, to the funeral of an associate’s wife. A Cambodian builder and renaissance-man by the name of Deng. To be quite honest, I don’t think I ever met the woman, and her stock, unsmiling driving photo in the gilded frame above the shrine is unrecognizable. I’m told she was a lovely lady who had many children, which is about as much of an obit as most get around here.

Deng is a stoic, so I don’t expect the wailing and tearing of clothes that stuck with me after my one previous Khmer funeral. Indeed he sits calmly, probably the umpteenth hour of his personal meditations, half listening to the monks repeated words pouring from the ancient PA. His hands, once clasped tightly in prayer now rest in his lap.

Behind him, on the other side of a large silk curtain, children dressed in their funerary finest play on piles of steaming and smoldering trash. Little boys in Angry Birds shirts chase at barefoot little girls in frilly red prom dresses as cows chew the muddy embankment. Life carries on.

The funeral is set the same as for a wedding. A truck filled with scaffolding and workmen, now swaying in their hammocks, arrived that morning. Sweating in the hot sun they quickly constructed a large tent, laying reed mats down over the muddy ground of a nearby ditch.

I’ve passed this sooty little stretch of homes a thousand times – carefully skirting the naked kids and loose chickens on my motorbike. Always tinged with guilt. Safe in the unsettling knowledge that the families living in squalor amongst these ramshackle huts and open sewers were the same ones cleaning my rooms and cooking my food.

A hundred yards on down the road and the soot and the mud fall away, exploding into color like a painting – a spectacular beach, beautiful people, and row upon row of world class restaurants and hotels. But not here. Not in this ditch. Hard, sinewy, men and women, like the toilers in the coal fields of Gatsby’s New York, they fuel their golden city from the filthy fringes and make it boom.

I’m embarrassed to think that it takes a death for me to descend from my rickety ivory tower and get my feet muddy, but I simply don’t have much cause to be down here. My presence is mildly off putting regardless.

Kids interrupt the monk’s chanting to pull my beard. People gawk openly at the few strangely dressed barang who have wandered into their world, rather than focusing on sending one of their own into the next. We are a full blown funerary distraction.

I decide to remove myself from the equation, something I wish my 9yr old self would have been capable of, and step out to stretch my legs. The drone of the chanting follows me down the road as I make my way to the drink shop. One beer later and I can feel my legs again.

Behind the tent, a field kitchen has been arranged. The fact that the entire village uses this particular area as a bathroom has fazed no one. A group of old women laugh happily over massive steaming cauldrons the size of wading pools. Each holds my body weight in vegetables, pork, and of course, rice.

I can tell from past experiences that they are making an industrial amount of Borbor, a simple rice stew. When spiced correctly it can be better than Grandma’s. Since they probably are all Grandma’s in their own right, I figure it’ll come out nicely.

I am ushered to a seat by Mam, my closest Khmer friend and resident fixer. She is beautifully adorned in bright sequins and lace, her face done up in near kabuki style makeup.

Smiling widely, she makes a public show of seating my companions and I, pouring us all half a drink, toasting once (Chol Moi!- ‘drink one!’), then departing to attend to other matters.

The food is then served family style. A large pot of Borbor is placed on a small table grill. Around the table are serving trays of bean sprouts, mint, cilantro, and various herbs. All this flavor in addition to the trinity of spices and sauces found on every single Cambodian table: chili paste, Kampot pepper, and the ever pungent fish sauce.

The diners are then free to create, without need of hesitation or additional prayer, their own meal as they would like it.

I tuck in, picking out the bones that have arrived in my soup and spitting them on the ground like the rest of the congregation. It’s delicious. Savoury and filling, yet not too heavy – I have three bowls.

Borbor is simple. It’s simplicity lends itself easily to mass preparation without losing any of its character. Slow simmered stock, a variety of finely chopped country vegetables, and the local broken rice – too short and knobbly for export to wealthier places. Top this basic dish with fried shallots, a shimmer of garlic oil, and a dollop of chili paste and you’re all set. Crack a cold Klang (8%ABV), pour it over ice, and let it slowly soothe the burn. You’re going to need it.

The drinking can get out of hand quickly at these affairs, but it’s just coming on sunset, and people are pacing themselves. The awkward silences brought on by the language gap are still inevitably punctuated by the slightly less awkward toasts. It generally goes like this:

I stop eating for a moment, trying not to inhale the delicious food being continually heaped on my plate.

Wiping the soup from my beard I causally take in my surroundings.

A look in any direction makes eye contact with someone staring bullets at me.

Staring contest. Go!

Sometimes an old man, or a young child, they stare as if looking right through me to something far more fascinating.

It’s like being a D-list celebrity. People gawk, but they can’t remember your name with enough confidence to bother you.

At this point a decision is made – fight or flight.

The children often run away. Those above drinking age (say…13?) touch their forearm and cheekily extend a glass. They are delighted when I touch my elbow, an even higher sign of my respect for the toaster, and extend my own glass with a butchered pronunciation of their Chol Moi.

What was two can quickly become a hundred as others note the raised glasses and take up the call like a rolling wave.

When the floor is littered with enough cans to walk on without touching the ground, then the dancing will begin. A wall of speakers, aged and dusty, is waiting, piled haphazardly in the corner.

This one goes to Dop-Muoi.

The foreigner contingent I have arrived with has left sometime between my first and second bowl and I’m now alone. Enough eyes are painted on me to make a night of constant toasting a reality, and my liver decides to make it’s excuses.

I find the bereaved, Mr.Deng. He is at a table flicking idly through his phone. When I approach with my hand extended, he rises to greet me with a smile on his face. He is wearing a trucker hat with the word ‘KING’ across the front in massive block letters.

I summon what little Khmer I can and blubber out:

Qnom Som Toh Bong. (I’m sorry, Sir)

-pointing to the photo-

Srey Sa’at. (She was beautiful)

He smiles. The glimmer of gold teeth and a memory of a time when that wasn’t a sweet lie.

We hug, a rare thing, and I make my way back down the road towards sunset.