MRC Student of the Month - October 2000

Keo Chea

(Sophomore - Education)

"Traveling with Cultural-Sensitivity Requires an Open-Mind"

Ever since I was a young girl, I dreamed of visiting my parent's homeland, the land of Cambodia. I remembered the times when my dining room was literally set up like a classroom, with a blackboard against the wall and with my dad as "teacher." My siblings and I would come up with questions and have discussions about the country. In addition, my parents educated and motivated us to be literate in Khmer, the native Cambodian language. However, I still yearned to see Cambodia because I wanted to learn and see the country that literally went through hell and back. Being born as a "war child" at a refugee camp in Thailand made me all the more interested in the land, its people, and its language.

Indeed, during this past summer, I was granted and took the once in a lifetime opportunity to visit both Cambodia and Thailand. I had to experience Cambodia as a nation, as a people, as a culture, just to begin to understand it. For nearly 30 years, Cambodia has been synonymous with civil war, suffering, even genocide. And while it seemed this small nation was finally on the road to recovery, another political group is trying to shatter many peoples' hopes. Despite this setback, Cambodians have courageous spirits. The one on one interaction I had with the Cambodian children, full of words and smiles, was the best part of the trip. Visiting my family, who are rice farmers, visiting the genocide museum, a living instrument of the war, visiting the temple ruins of Angkor Wat and reading English books to the Cambodian children will be experiences that will be ingrained in me for the rest of my life.

When I got back to America, I decided to bring back my experience to the people I work with, the Cambodian kids in my neighborhood. In coming back to America, I volunteered at the local Day Camp and shared with them my experiences on the trip and asked them to appreciate the hardships their parents had gone through in Cambodia and still go through in America. Indeed, these kids in my neighborhood helped me decide on my future career as a teacher. During my middle school years and my high school years, I volunteered with a couple that worked with the Cambodian kids in my area. Their mission in life was to educate and love these young people. After years of teaching at summer Day Camps, tutoring, and being involved with children in general, I decided that my goal in life was to become a teacher, with hopeful dreams of working in the school district one day.

My trip to Cambodia and Thailand was a worthwhile experience. Being of Cambodian descent, I felt it was important to visit my country. I encourage everyone to visit a country, any country that is a far cry from America. In going to another country, you will bring your "cultural baggage" or your patterns of behavior, thoughts, values and norms with you. I urge that you visit with sensitivity and an open-mind to the new culture. This experience I had certainly reinforced my thoughts of becoming a teacher. I hope to go there one day again, in hopes of helping to educate the kids of Cambodia.

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