Page 60 - ELITE PLUS MAGAZINE Vol 3

REFLECTIONS OF MY LIFEdrafting our own policies. Bangkokians’ image of Myanmar’smilitary government was certainly negative. News of civilian repression in Myanmar came though regularly. As I was trying to make close contact with the junta, I could have been the subject of gossip. But I wasn’t swayed by what people might say about me. I trusted my duties would greatly contribute to my nation.On that trip a Thai friend asked me to deliver a gift to an army acquaintance. It surprised me very much that the gift turned out to be a set of watercolour paints. A high-ranking soldier of the junta and a set of water- colours, that delicate art? To me, they didn’t sound compatible at all. I then found out that quite a few Myanmar soldiers painted as a hobby. And they were good at it. This finding challenged my habit of quick hypothesis and rush to judgement.However, I believe King Suryavar- man II’s order to construct Angkor Wat, and the Pol Pot-led Khmer Rouge’s orders to conduct massacres, shared some similarities – obviously not in the form of architecture, the number of lives lost or the period. King Suryavarman II and Pol Pot58 Elite+worshipped perfection and idealism. They built their powers and carried them up to the pinnacle of an ideal. In the 12th century King Suryavarman II, a devotee of Hinduism, ordered a religious site of stones amounting to over 600,000 cubic metres to be built by over 100,000 labourers. He transcribed stories of Lord Vishnu, Mount Meru and the circles of birth and death into architecture.In the late 20th century, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge wanted to turn Cambodia into a communist state overnight. The Angkor Wat of Pol Pot wasn’t an edifice; it was a sovereign state without social classes and status. He wanted to craft out a nation of 100 per cent socialists, as impeccably as King Suryavarman II’s slaves crafted out the flawless apsara images on the walls of the complex. But while the king ordered the stones carved out into sculptures, Pol Pot carved out his enemies’ lives in order to build his vision of a perfect communist Cambodia.I believe the stones left over from Angkor Wat’s sculptures and construction must have amounted to more than the used ones. But how could you possibly think of the bodiesof Khmer Rouge victims from 1975 to 1980 as part of an artistic creation? Leaving out the bloodshed, we can however draw one conclusion from my comparison: a social structure takes much more hard work and effort tobuild than an edifice.Stones and human beings aredifferent substances after all, are theynot?The next morning...The day before, we had fullyappreciated Angkor Wat. We visited Angkor Thom’s Bayon temple, which lies not too far away from Angkor Wat. We also went to see Ta Prohm. Its architectural style, similar to Angkor Wat, misleads people into thinking it’s a Hindu temple. But Ta Prohm is a Mahayana Buddhist temple ordered to be built by King Jayavarman VII as a token of love and respect for his mother.As usual I wandered off alone with my camera gear. The temple had a lot of visitors. It was difficult to take snapshots without people in the frame. Japanese visitors to the Angkor Archaeological Park alone numbered 60,000 a year. Together with the other tourists from around the world, Siem Reap and the Angkor Park must have seen a minimum of 100,000 visitors a year.And the Cambodian government was smart enough to have visitors to Siem Reap pass through Phnom Penh, where Tuol Sleng is promoted as an attraction. So the fact is that today’s Cambodia benefits from two historical sites created by a former king and the Khmer Rouge. That is a similarity the two sites share. When they were built, who would have thought they would generate massive tourism revenue for the nation’s future generations?In my opinion, the Angkor Thom complex is as stunning and beautiful as Angkor Wat, only smaller and built nearly a century after Angkor Wat.