Writing memoir turned out to be more of a challenge than I had expected...
Jacqueline Lehmann
Finding Meaning in Retelling
When writing autobiography, one is of course drawn to the life experiences that are the most telling of one’s history and identity. Often the most significant times of ones life occur while traveling.
Travel writing as a genre of autobiography has a long history but the field has changed in recent years as humanity becomes increasingly mobile through faster methods of travel. “People are traveling widely, not from need but from curiousity, and the travel literature which reflects this curiosity is a most legitimate form of ‘literature’” (Hilton 837). It is important to first consider why travel itself can be a vehicle for personal transformation, and second why travel writing is hence so important.
One experiences the world in a completely different way when in unfamiliar surroundings. “…Awareness is heightened, routines left behind…” (Roorbach, 422) and the traveler must adjust to existing, for the time being, outside of their comfort zone. Most Americans lead lives mired by daily routine. Breaking out of this pattern is not an easy feat.
Yet there is so much to be gained by spending time in a vastly different location. As Mark Twain said, “travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts…Broad, wholesome charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime” (Caesar 24). It is impossible to see one’s own world in the same manner after being part of a wholly different world for any period of time. “When many of the tings you fervently believe or practice are turned upside down by your experiences in another country, you can’t help but develop a little healthy skepticism toward your own beliefs…This kind of immersion travel really cures national and personal smugness” (Asma 4).
When a trip becomes a pilgrimage the implications for the individual’s development are even greater. A pilgrimage does not necessarily have to take place through the traditional religious sense of the word (defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “a journey {usually of a long distance} made to a sacred place as an act of religious devotion”). A pilgrimage may also take place through “the act of physically going to a place of symbolic meaning” (Becker 7). These types of journeys represent “performative rituals because they are dependant on the body and because the going to and the being there all require preparation” (Becker 9).
A pilgrimage differs from a trip or vacation in that “there is a purposefulness which separates it from the randomness of travel. The intention of such a journey is not to change the world, but to change oneself and to achieve a level of understanding, consciousness, and spiritual transformation while connecting with the energy of others who have trodden the same path” (Becker 11).
The purpose of travel writing should be, then, to allow the reader a glimpse of what the author has seen as well as insight into its implications for the author’s being. According to Hilton, travel writing will continue to grow in prevalence as, “despite the gross commercialism which prevents their development, the literary forms characteristic of today are the movie, the television program, the newspaper-and travel literature” (Hilton 837). One who has been fortunate enough to travel, especially on a personal pilgrimage, is also fortunate enough to have the means to write in a form that is both relative and influential. “Such are the responses of those who travel to respond. Pilgrims who come armed with cameras,…notebooks, all in preparation to creatively reuse the traumas of the past. Not to hide from them, or to hide them from us, not to obscure, but to clarify knowledge by moving it through the body, allowing it to leave its mark on us…” (Becker 21).
“Sip-ha roi baht.” The ticket agent smiled at me through the window as I reached for my money belt. I glanced back to where Christina slept, sprawled on a cement bench with her arm around her pack.
I reached into the pouch of my money belt where I kept my bills and pulled out what should have been a few thousand baht. I thumbed through my money and found a sum total of five hundred baht.
My heart immediately began to race. I mumbled “nung na-tee,” and backed away from the booth. The line for train tickets began to move past me as I checked my money belt again. Sure enough, it was all but empty.
I stumbled over and shook Christina. “Wake up, Chris, my money’s gone.”
She rubbed her eyes and squinted at me. “What?”
“My money, it’s almost all gone. I…I don’t know what happened.” I sat down next to her and fought to avoid tears in the crowded
“That’s impossible. Did you check your purse?” I handed it to her and she pawed through my things.
My heart sank as I realized what must have happened. The night before, on the hot and stuffy bus from Chiang Mai I had taken my money belt off, put it in my purse and had fallen asleep with my bag on my lap. Someone must have gone through the bag while I was holding it and found my cash. And they had been nice enough to leave me small change.
The unfairness of the situation hit me like an upset stomach. I had been saving money for weeks for our trip to
Christina tried to smile at me. “At least you found out before we got on the plane.”
“Yeah…I know, I better go to the ATM. I would have been real screwed if we had gotten to Siem Riep before I realized.” According to Lonely Planet’s guidebook, there were still no ATM’s in
“I’ll go pay for the train tickets,” Christina offered. “Close call.”
A few hours later we boarded a tiny propeller plane with about twenty other people, most of them farang like us. I tried not to feel nervous about the flight. All that was ruined when Christina grabbed my hand and said, “This plane is so small that if we die no one will even miss us.”
I shot her a dirty look, but I squeezed her hand at the same time.
The little plane bumped and skidded down the runway and somehow managed to take off. I felt a sense of relief until I noticed that there were clouds leaking through the vents into the cabin. I decided against pointing that out to Christina and closed my eyes until I felt the plane getting ready to land. This trip had already turned into the adventure of a lifetime. “While…traveling to a designated place, the act of getting there is as important as the arrival” (Becker 10).
We made our way through customs quickly since we had gotten our visas while still in Chiang Mai. The tiny Siem Riep airport looked more like a bus station than a center for international air travel. The stagnant, humid air inside added to the stifling atmosphere.
We grabbed our packs and went outside. Immediately we were accosted by several taxi drivers, each promising to know the best deals on guest houses. We chose the driver who seemed to be most friendly and spoke English fairly well.
We quickly discovered that in
The guest house that he brought us to was affordable and seemed clean enough. It was a nondescript, two story building with a small office and restaurant on the ground floor. We thanked the driver, even though we knew he would be getting a commission from our business, and agreed that he would drive us to the temples in the morning.
Once in our room, we cranked the air conditioning, took turns showering, and fell quickly asleep.
The next morning we awoke to the blaring of static on the radio. It was
We groggily went through the motions of dressing and gathering our things for a day spent outside in the brutal April heat. (In
Our cab driver drove carelessly through the narrow streets, skirting stray dogs and vendors rolling carts to their daily locations. It was clear that tourism was the main industry in Siem Riep as the streets were lined with guest houses, restaurants, and the occasional small shop. Even at
On the outskirts of town we passed a “Children’s Hospital” whose sign beseeched donations from passers-by. Our driver told us that the hospital was renowned for its work on land mine victims.
We saw the famed Grand Hotel d’Angkor, which has “five acres of gardens, a large swimming pool, tennis courts and a health spa….it had been renovated…at a cost of several million dollars…One night’s lodging was more than a year’s salary for the men who had restored it…” (Carrier 74).
We arrived at a gate that resembled the entrance to a theme park and paid twenty dollars American for a three day pass into
As we walked across the wide stone bridge straddling a vast reservoir and leading to what was supposedly one of the largest religious monuments in the world, the sun began to peek over the hundreds of spires and towers of the temple. A few palm trees grew almost as tall as the central tower, silhouetted against the pastel sky. The scent of the fresh morning air was occasionally interrupted by the smell of vendors frying eggs. Entering the huge courtyard, I found it hard to assure myself that I was really there, that this was my life. “This feeling of dissociation often accompanies arrival at a much anticipated place or event and causes a sensation as if one were not actually all there, or that the experience was not really happening. Or that if it was happening, it was in a dream, or then if in a dream someone else’s dream” (Becker 8)
There were hundreds of people around, but the quietude of the moments of sunrise seemed to enchant all.
As soon as the sun completed its ascent, the temperature began to rise noticeably. I was already beginning to sweat as we made our way towards the central tower.
The steps leading up the front of the tower hardly looked safe. They could have been no more than five inches wide, and there was at least a foot of height between each step. My camera swung around my neck as I swallowed the feeling of vertigo. I did not look down to where Christina climbed below me.
The view from the top was well worth it. I felt like I was the heroine in an Indiana Jones movie. Before us lay a maze of spires and columns, and beyond that the
In the small room at the top was a shrine to the Buddha, much like the shrines we had been seeing all over
The climb back down was even less inviting than the climb up had been. My size six feet had always seemed small before, yet here I had to turn my foot sideways for it to fit safely on each step. We sat for a minute at the bottom to catch our breath and decided to explore the many passageways of Angkor Wat before moving on to any of the other sites.
I felt like a little kid as we ducked through the hallways. I shot roll after roll of film, each frame seeming more perfect than the last.
As I stood in a vestibule connecting two hallways waiting for Christina to catch up, a Khmer man approached me. He was dressed in black pants and a white, long-sleeve, button-down shirt. We nodded “hello” to each other, and suddenly he started pounding his chest with his fist, still smiling at me.
I turned my head to look for Christina, feeling unsure of exactly what was going on. I turned to look back at the strange man as my ears picked up on an echo within the chamber.
I looked at him quizzically. He nodded and very deliberately pounded his chest again. My ears had not deceived me. There was definitely an echo each time he hit his chest. I returned his smile, feeling now only slightly guarded, and he nodded at me as if to say, “Now you try.”
I pounded my small fist against my chest and, sure enough, an echo sounded. I started laughing, partly out of relief and partly out of fascination. When Christina finally rounded the corner, this is how she found me, standing opposite this man, laughing as we both pounded our chests, letting the sound reverberate. She shook her head at me, gave a wai (bow as a sign of respect) to my new friend, and kept walking. I also waid and said, “Aw khun,” (thank you in Khmer) and followed her, still giggling. Some of the mysteries of
We walked along the pathway leading to Ta Phrom, one of the temples that has been left much as French explorers found it, with the jungle threatening to swallow the structure back into oblivion. I heard classic Khmer music emanating from the woods. It sounded mystical and sweet in the rainforest, and I hurried to catch a glimpse of the musicians.
We rounded a corner and saw four men in the band. One of them was missing a leg, one had a stump for an arm, and one looked like his left eye had been sewn shut.
These particular ruins were a mesh of shadow and light, filled with more shrines and countless headless statues. (Many of the heads have been stolen as relics over the years.) In some places a passage would end with a “Do not enter” sign, beyond which the temple walls had avalanched and lay still as they had fallen. 
“Everywhere around you, you see Nature in its dual role of destroyer and consoler…” (Asma 222) Giant strangler figs seemed to be the only thing keeping parts of the temple intact. “Their giant trunks, roots, and vines wrapped themselves around the ruins like gigantic boa constrictors, crushing and swallowing the overturned stones…” (Ung 68)
The remains of
We flew to
The bustling city was a strange mix of Khmer culture with French food (cheese products were readily available) and architecture. Yet it somehow retained the look I had seen in other cities in
No matter what time of day it was the streets were filled with motos and vendors. “One of the main ways Khmers in Phnom Penh practice their Buddhism is by subjecting themselves to traffic…The ‘roads’ can only be charitably described as ditches…If you have to turn left, you just drive straight into oncoming traffic and hope everyone sees you…” (Asma 16). I had grown used to the familiar site of entire families riding one motorcycle, five people with no helmets, and one person surely holding a television or a suitcase. In the intensity of
In preparation for our trip Christina and I had both read First They Killed My Father, a firsthand account of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge. The book was written by Loung Ung, who like many Cambodians lost more than half of her family during the genocide. It would have been callous to visit the great religious monuments of
We decided to visit Tuol Seng, which was once a school and had later been turned into a torture center by the Khmer Rouge. The entire cement building seemed to be crumbling, and the air felt like it held a constant chill. I felt like I had swallowed a tennis ball as we walked past the tiny chambers that had held prisoners with barely enough space to lie down.
Much like the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge had been meticulous record keepers. There were pictures of every person who had been housed there with their number pinned to their clothing. One young boy had his number pinned directly through his skin. The faces of defiance, anger and fear were impossible to look away from. We learned that when the Vietnamese drove the Khmer Rouge back into the jungle, there were only seven survivors out of the 17,000 souls to have entered Tuol Seng (Asma 153).
It was hard to believe that this was part of the same history as
Near the end of the tour there was a guest book. We leafed through it, and found a range of inscriptions, some thanking those who ran the museum for helping them find out the fate of their family members.
The driver we had paid for the day wandered lazily through the museum behind us. He mentioned that both of his parents had been killed when he was a small boy. He wondered if we also wanted to see the Killing Fields. This is where many of Tuol Seng’s prisoners were taken to be executed and dumped into mass graves.
I felt obligated somehow to say yes even though I felt emotionally wrought. We drove through the countryside on rutted dirt roads; the car sounded like it would fall apart at any minute.
We passed bamboo huts built on top of stilts with random livestock running through the yards. The houses became more scarce the further we got from the city center. Christina and I didn’t say much to each other on the car ride. I tried not to focus on how exhausted I was and tried rather to enjoy the air conditioning for the time being.
This time the driver waited in the car. We walked slowly around the shallow pits. A group of young girls ran into our path and started yelling “Cheese!” I had heard of this scam and was prepared, though their huge smiles and black eyes were a tempting photo op. If we had fallen for it they would have demanded money.
They begged for money anyway. A constant stream of “Please, I need money, I go to school,
Christina and I wondered to each other where their parents were. We were hardly able to absorb the significance of the site we were seeing with the constant haranguing of the children. Finally I took a photo of them, realizing that they weren’t going to leave our sides until we got in the car and left. On the way out we quickly viewed the monument built to those who had been slaughtered at the Killing Fields. After such an overwhelming day the glass tower filled with skulls seemed almost surreal. “We felt the nightmare of the past, unequivocally and left transformed, decidedly different from when we arrived…” (Becker 6)
Christina and I sipped our Beer Lao at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club, which overlooked the intersection of the
I had paid for our beer with Thai baht and was given Cambodian riel as change. Cambodian currency is so devalued that the 80,000 riel I had received was worth about two US dollars. There was a group of young girls, probably around twelve or thirteen years old, standing in the street just outside the ring of security guards. A couple of them had babies tied around their necks. I thought it would be fitting to give the riel to them. I had developed the habit of buying food for beggars during my travels but my change was hardly enough to buy a bottle of water.
I had the money in my hand as I stepped off the curb. Instantly I was mobbed, the girls grabbing and clawing for the money. All of my learned Southeast Asian restraint was abandoned as my
Christina looked at me, wide-eyed. “Guess that’s why they have security guards.”
The next evening after a twelve hour van ride we arrived at the Cambodian/Thai border. It had been the longest journey of my life. For the first hour after leaving
We had also survived several harrowing “ferry” crossings. There were no bridges outside of the city. Three times our van was driven onto a raft fashioned from bamboo and plastic barrels, outfitted with an outboard engine. Three times said raft landed safely on the other side of the lake. At each stop people would board and exit the van. Some of them carried sacks of rice, dried fish, and one had a dead chicken partially covered by a sack. Upon having my passport stamped for re-entry into
In 1975 the Khmer Rouge took over the capital,
I felt really angry when I realized that in school I had never learned anything about what had happened in
Telling my story of my pilgrimage to
I can’t help but feel that if every world leader were forced to visit and spend time in a country so scarred by war, they would not be so ready to do battle over money, oil or “principle.” I realize that this is idealistic, and the hardened hearts of those who are in the position to push the proverbial button would likely not be changed by such an experience. I, however, will never be the same. This feeling has become so important to me that this January, three years later, I will again visit
I felt my soul shift in
Works Consulted
Asma, Stephen T. The Gods Drink Whiskey: Stumbling Toward Enlightenment in the Land of the Tattered Buddha.
Becker, Carol. “
Caesar, Terry P. “The Other Way Around: The Question of Travel in American Travel
Writing.” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 3 (1983):23-37.
Carrier, Scott. Running After Antelope.
Hilton, Ronald. “The Significance of Travel Literature, with Special Reference to the Spanish and Portuguese-Speaking World.” Hispania 49.4 (1966): 836-845.
Him, Charinthy. When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge.
Iyer, Pico, ed. The Best American Travel Writing: 2004.
2004.
LaFleur, William. “Points of Departure: Comments on Religious Pilgrimage in
And Japan.” The Journal of Asian Studies 38.2 (1979): 271-281.
Mason, Mary G. “Travel as Metaphor and Reality in Afro-American Women’s
Autobiography, 1850-1972.” Black American Literature Forum 24.2 (1990): 337-
356.
Roorbach, Bill, ed. The Art of Truth: Contemporary Creative Nonfiction.
Ung, Loung. First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of
Jacqueline Lehmann
Marjane Satrapi-Persepolis
While reading
There were so many significant events that I had a lot of trouble narrowing down the most important. Certainly the first was when Marjane and Mehri went to protest (p 38) on their own. This streak of rebellion becomes more apparent in Marjane’s character as the story continues.
The next key event was when Marjane’s parents stop sheltering her from the horrors that were taking place around her. She hears stories of torture (54) and begins to realize the brutality that comes with the regime of oppression. The process of stripping her innocence is furthered when her uncle Anoosh executed (70), and when she sees violence with her own eyes (76) for the first time. All of these events contribute to Marjane learning to live in defiance offear. Though many children in
When Marjane cuts school and is reprimanded by her mother, her reaction is to go and smoke a cigarette in the basement (117). For many young adolescents this is a significant act of rebellion. Marjane even announces that she “kisses childhood goodbye.”
It is not long after that cigarette that the most final act of separation takes place, but it is not by Marjane’s choice. When her parents send her to
Jacqueline Lehmann
bell hooks-Bone Black
What stood out to me most in Bone Black was the way the narrator changed from first person to third person and back again every couple of chapters. It seems that the chapters dealing with the most serious subject matter such as death, spousal abuse, etc. are written in the third person while the more light-hearted segments are written the first person. This has the effect of somehow distancing
This memoir deals with so many issues of identity development. “Her mother says to be friends at school is fine but he cannot come to their house. She is shocked to find that racial barriers exist in her house, disappointed, ashamed.”
I can remember a similar moment in my own life and remember feeling exactly that way. I had hidden my relationship with my first boyfriend, a Puerto Rican, from my parents for as long as I could. I must have anticipated somehow that it would not be acceptable, even though my parents always taught me to be tolerant of other races and cultures.
When my folks found out they kept asserting that their disapproval of my choice did not mean that they were racist. I couldn’t get over feeling that it did. They just didn’t want their little girl dating a Hispanic boy, but interracial dating was fine for other people.
I remember feeling very disillusioned with my parents who had up until this point always seemed fair and just. Our relationship suffered because of this.
Jacqueline Lehmann
Reading Lolita in
“Then, of course, from time to time I would make part of me return, like when I wished to defy an obstructionist figure of authority and I would leave a few strands of hair out and make my eyes reappear, to stare at them uncomfortably.” (168)
I really enjoyed reading about different methods of resistance employed by women in
Both works clearly represent the theme of writing as resistance, but the differences and similarities lie in what methods both females used in their own lives at the time being.
The main similarity I saw was in that both characters would leave out strands of hair from their veil, which seemed to be based on both works, a widespread gesture of resistance.
Marjane’s physical or appearance resistance occurred through her embracing of the punk-rock style, wearing jeans and sneakers etc. This seems to make sense as a way many teenagers or adolescents would choose to express their rebellion. Nafisi however is a grown-up, and that is seen in how she chooses to resist. Nafisi pretends that she is invisible while wearing the veil and robe, almost internalizing the anonymity that is forced upon her by the political situation in
Resistance in both of their worlds manifested itself differently through social situations. Marjane and her parents would go to parties with drinking and card games, two things that were strictly forbidden. Nafisi and other women formed their reading group as an act of subversion. The idea of these secret sorts of societies existing despite an oppressive regime illustrates that resistance and hope often intermingle. If one doesn’t have the strength to resist injustice, one has practically given up hope already.
Free Write 1
I shifted my weight on the hard ground. My hips dug in if I lay on my side, my backbone hurt but I stayed on my back, looking up. My sleeping bag felt like it barely existed, and my pillow (my purple down jacket rolled up and stuffed inside itself) was only a little more substantial. The desert air was cold; I was wearing almost all of the clean clothes I had left.
The stars twinkled brightly in the clear sky. I took a deep breath or two, getting ready to close my eyes. Out of the last few days this moment was crushing as a low point. I couldn’t stop admonishing myself inside my head, and when he and I said goodnight I couldn’t tell if he was mad at me.
I never should have trusted myself with the map. I know I’m no good at reading maps. But the campground didn’t look that far from the interstate, just like the last town we had passed through looked big enough on the map that I thought for sure there would have been a gas station there.
And here we were, bedded down in the
I finally stopped berating myself as I felt sleep tug at the corners of my mind. The last thing I heard before drifting off was the yowling of a lone coyote.
Free write 2
She was the saddest girl at the eighth grade dinner dance. She had spent hours getting ready even though her date had dumped her out of fear. She had tried to hope that tonight would be different somehow.
She should have expected it. As soon as he told her that his girl cousins were waiting outside to beat the crap out of her there was nothing to do but sit down among the green and white balloons and streamers and cry. Some of her friends took time out from dancing with their dates to try to comfort her but nothing would work. He sat across the gymnasium watching her every move. All the guys knew that they were not allowed to dance with her.
Todd and Crystal came over to her in between songs. “Look,”
“Then he’s going to go after Todd…” she blubbered.
He grabbed her hand and pulled her onto the dance floor. “I want you to look at me. Don’t look around. Just dance. Pretend he’s not here.” He took her face between his hands and centered her gaze on his.
She could feel all eyes on her as they began to dance. In that one moment she felt defiant and strong. She didn’t want the song to end.
When it finally did she thanked Todd and Crystal and resumed her seat. It was almost time for her mother to come. She felt anxiety rise as the clock ticked forward. She wondered if his family had really come to defend his honor.
She watched from the glass doors in view of the chaperones. When she saw her mother’s car she bolted for it, got in and fastened her seat belt in a matter of seconds. “Okay, let’s go,” she said, trying to sound cheerful.
She knew her mother could tell she had been crying. Her face was puffy and most of her eye makeup was gone. This had been a constant theme of the last couple months-her parents would ask what had happened, she would not tell them, and they would fight. They wanted to go to the police and get a restraining order. But when she told him that that was going to happen he responded, “That’s fine. But the cops can’t keep my family and my friends in check too.” She was terrified that if her parents did call the police his thus far empty threats would begin to come true.
Her mother started to press the issue. She felt hysteria rise within her chest and she couldn’t control it. She heard herself screaming, cursing, saying awful things she didn’t mean as if the night’s tension had finally broken within her. Her parents couldn’t really understand what was going on, what it was like going to school and knowing that the teachers all thought it was her fault for dating him in the first place. They didn’t understand that every option seemed riskier than the one before it and the safest thing to do seemed to be to wait for an end to somehow come.
Like a small child she wanted to kick and scream and throw a tantrum. Her mother was upset now, speaking more quietly but still trying to find out why her twelve year old daughter had left a dance so visibly upset. The last thing she remembers of her hysteria is raising her foot to kick the dashboard of the car in frustration. She didn’t consider the heels she was wearing. A crack the shape of a spider appeared in the plastic of the dashboard. When she realized what she had done she finally calmed down. They drove the rest of the way home in silence.
Reflective Statement
This course has definitely furthered my appreciation for autobiography and memoir, which is something I was hoping for when I signed up for the class. Looking at a wide range of women’s works through the different themes we found has helped me learn to look at autobiography in a different way-by not just reading the work superficially, but seeking to make connections to other works I have read.
I also really enjoyed the creative writing aspect of the course. It has been a long time since I have taken a class where I got to write creatively, let alone share that work with my classmates. It seems that everyone in our class has bonded to a certain extent, in that we all feel comfortable sharing with each other and supporting each other’s creative endeavors, even those that are painful. We have all grown as readers, writers, and as people.
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