My Affective Cities

Recently, I went into Chicago for an improvisational workshop with Joe Bill, who teaches at iO. Anyways, he teaches a method of helping your scene partner, by gifting ourself and taking care of yourself, so that you can care for your partner. Anyways, the point is that this calls for introspection, for we are players playing, either in life or in improv. During our warm-up before our montage of scenes, he had us do an amazing reflective exercise that is still affecting me, and hence this post. In reflecting about the concrete experiences in cities that I have been affected by but have not called home, I found interesting connections (as any improviser does). And so, this post is my first attempt (on this blog) into delving into my experience in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

I am standing a bridge. It spans across a river whose name I do not know. It could be the Mekong. That is the only river I know around here; it's the main one that flows into the South China Sea after passing through Vietnam and becoming a delta. It comes from up in China or Tibet or something like that. It doesn't matter. It also spans a part of the city, the city full of chickens, motorbikes, monks, people, prostitutes, trash, laughter. Everything in every city. Most people here never live though. Especially those from the other side of the bridge. Over the bridge, left or right, down the river bank, into the trash and disease-filled water, where the refuges live. Refuges. Outcasts. Second-class citizens. Whatever they're labeled this decade. They won't escape, and most will die either from an STD or some other infectious and communicable disease. Most easily preventable. They'll never see the inside of an airplane, but they see them in the sky, going places they'll never go, met by loving people they'll never love or be loved by.

I am standing on a bridge. Between two worlds, or is it three? There are cigarette butts at my feet. Not mine, but I could use a smoke: it would be my first. What can I do? I won't wait for the world to change, but I must wait for something. Wait, but not passively. The children are calling; the children from the banks. They are looking for recyclables. If they find enough, maybe their mother won't sell herself or them. There is life in this city. There is. There must be.

I am standing on a bridge.