Gender Roles and Wetting My Pants

Last Thursday I went on an excursion back to the ceramic water factory in Kampong Chhnam. Sunday had commissioned the folks there to build a pipe with a fork in it that could be attached to the base of a large electric blower. The blower was connected at the top to a large funnel. At the base, the fork stuck out into the two firing holes underneath one of the brick kilns. The pyromaniacs in the audience, including my sister the firefighter are going to love this…

The plan was to bake a batch of filters almost entirely with rice husks. Bag after bag of rice husks were poured into the funnel. Thousands of tiny little husks flew, sluiced, dribbled, or occasionally poured through the fork into one of the two firing holes and burst into small patches of brilliant flame. Jams were cleared. Alternative methods of pouring were tried. Husks were thrown in by hand. A variety of tools was used to mix the flames. Massive piles of smoking ash were stirred and removed to make room for more husks. Despite unseasonable cloud cover, everyone broiled in the sweltering heat. I didn’t know to bring a facemask. Sunday forgot his. It’s amazing just how much ash twenty-two sacks, each the size of half a grown man, filled with rice husks can make. The effect on one’s clothes and breathing though are fairly predictable.

The kiln needed to be heated from about 400C to 850C over the course of five hours using only rice husks. It was tiring work. We broke for lunch. I was offered some wine. Watching the other Cambodians down their wine in two and a half ounce shots, I followed suit. This of course meant that my glass was soon refilled. It tasted good. By the end of lunch I’d had about five glasses. I inspected the now nearly empty bottle. The only English on it said simply: Cambodian Herb Wine. I have no idea which herbs were involved.

Throughout the day, the women teased me in Khmer. One woman in particular really seemed to take joy in it, teaching me how to knock ampoul-tet (a bean-like fruit) out of a nearby tree, just so she could steal it from me. She was also a little crude at times, making the kind of jokes that come across with a minimum of translation. We ended the day semi-exhausted and more than slightly dehydrated from the heat and the wine. Sunday offered to purchase some palm wine for us from nearby farmers. Hear they tap their palm trees with a long bamboo tube that serves as both ladder and pipe. They use them for juice, boil the juice for sugar, and ferment it to make palm wine. Twenty-five cents provided enough wine for two. While Sunday busied himself with the purchase, I sat down with the women in front of the factory, grabbed a bamboo club, and began breaking raw clay with them.

Palm Trees Tapped for Juice

They roared with laughter. They continued to tease and I continued to blush and look puzzled. The woman who has displayed such enthusiasm in trying to get under my skin earlier began making girly dancing motions as I broke the clay. It would appear that at a factory operated by women, I had crossed a gender boundary. One of the few men around translated for me, “This one say she would sleep with you. They all think you pretty boy. Which you like?” I responded with, “They are all so beautiful. How can I decide?” I smiled, blushed, and added in Khmer, “Very pretty.” They offered me some candy.

Sunday returned. I continued to joke and make small talk with the women’s cooperative before sitting down under the landowner’s house to drink the palm wine with him. It was stored in a reused thin cheap plastic bottle, the kind the local spring water companies use. This stuff was volatile. Every time the bottle was opened, it made a sound like a champagne bottle shooting its cork and fizzed over the top like pop that’s been through several earthquakes. It tasted strange but good. We shared a glass between us, our small wine shots in turn. Sunday told me the story of his marriage, his separation, and his love for his wife. Two different fortune-tellers had told them that living together would cause them to fight incessantly. They separated. Eventually they divorced. He spoke of his current love life. We exchanged explanations of how love is handled in our two countries. I felt a warm wet spot blossoming on my groin.

“What the heck!” I thought. Looking down, I saw that one of the bottles had burst a leak. I have no idea how farmers brew or ferment this stuff but obviously no mere plastic can contain it. I wondered what I’d just allowed myself to ingest, concluding that it was probably no worse for me than the battery acid we call Coca-Cola. Sunday and I continued to chat for a bit before leaving the factory. I was slightly tipsy and horribly dehydrated. Returning the next morning to the factory, I retrieved the remaining bottle of palm wine from the table under the factory owner’s house to give to Sunday. He looked at me puzzled, sipped it and spat violently. I frowned and tried some. Picture the taste of salty warmed over vomit and you’ll be almost halfway there. I spat violently and reapeatedly. Sunday put the bottle in our pickup. “Good for vinegar,” he said.