Memories are made of this

After reading this article, it reminds me of why I keep returning to Cambodia. I've always described to people that I knew I needed to return here after visiting in early 2003 because it always felt like I left home and needed to return. It's like the song "I left my heart in San Francisco" except I left mine in Cambodia.

Steve Levitt with a girl with no hands in Siem Reap, 1990.

Friday, 01 October 2010
By Steve Levitt

I AM planning my return to Siem Reap from my small home in Canberra, Australia, rifling through my old passports as an aid to a failing memory. The passports tell me that I have been coming to Cambodia regularly for just over 20 years.

First I came for adventure and stories as a photojournalist. Then as a communications officer with a global aid agency. Then as an uncle with a favoured niece. Now I’ll return as a father with his eldest son.

No other country appears so often in my packed passports, and no place other than Siem Reap has such a hold to keep drawing me back.

Perhaps it is because Cambodia, more than any other country, is never the same place twice, and because Siem Reap seems to change by the minute.

Read the rest of the article here.

A 10th Anniversary

I started this day unaware that today is the 10th anniversary of my dad's death. I was informed of this by my mom in an email this afternoon. It's not that I don't think of my dad or that I don't miss him, because I do nearly every day. I just don't want it to keep me lagging behind because I'm focussing on the past.

He was an amazingly capable man despite his social inaptitude. Sometimes I think I've inherited his limited social skills and abrasive manners. He was highly intelligent and capable of doing so many different things from plumbing, electronics, construction, car mechanic, and more. I'm thankful I've picked on some of those good traits, such as being capable of doing a lot of handywork and figuring out mechanical type things.

This entry is dedicated to those family members who passed before and after him:

• James Dennis Biddison - father - b.1946, d.August 7, 1998
• Eleanore Mack - great aunt - d.1980's?
• Kirk Buccholtz - cousin - d.May 1990
• Paul Eugene Groszmann - grandfather - d.December 1990
• Helen Adelaide Groszmann - grandmother - d.November 1999
• Elizabeth "Betty" Kingdom - great aunt - d.2005
• Robert "Bob" Biddison - grandfather - d. July 2005
• Constance "Connie" Buccholtz - aunt - d. January 2007
• Woleta "Lee" Biddison - grandmother - d. May 2007
• Lori Kingdom - aunt (really a cousin) - d. December 2007
• Judy Groszmann - aunt - d. June 2008

Horse head violin

Mongolian band "Ensemble Khan Bogd"

I head some music today that reminded me of my absolute most favorite instrument in the world: the horse head violin. This instrument is so moving. It takes you on a journey at full gallop across the expansive grasslands of Mongolia, or into the warmth of a family's yurt at dusk. From excitment to deep sorrow, all ranges of emotions can be touched upon.

I fondly remember my summer of 2002 spent in Inner Mongolia, the autonomous region in northern China. I felt I could have been a Mongolian in another life. I wish I could be more musicially talented to be able to play a horse head violin. Despite the lack of skill I will always remember the melodies I heard from the live musicians in that wondeful Mongolian night club in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia.