"It would've been a good school."

I first landed in PP in about March this year. I play football with a bunch of expats in Malaysia, and we'd arranged for a friendly against a bunch of expats in Cambodia. It was only a weekend thing, footy match, then an after match bar, and that was about it. I liked the vibe of the place- the people were friendly enough.

I didn't know anything about the history of the place. I sat up late on the computer researching it the night after I got back. As I was reading, I realised I'd noticed the disturbing lack of old people.
I remember the chills going down my spine.

If you're like me, and don't know what happened here within the last 35 years, then do some research. And then send an angry letter to your world history teacher.

This trip was going to be a little bit different.

I'd looked into visiting the Killing Fields. I wasn't too sure how I felt about it.

Both the Killing Fields and S-21 are now owned by a Japanese mob, and I'm not very sure about where the money goes. I think Cambodians have suffered enough without being robbed as well. I was pretty decided on not visiting either of the places.

I think it was boredom that got us in the end, and we found our way to S-21.

S-21 was a detention/interrogation centre where suspected traitors of the Khmer Rouge were house and inevitably executed. KR were very good at keeping records, so we can ascertain quite clearly that of the 20,000 inmates that entered, only 7 came out alive. All of the prisoners were photographed on entry, measured, weighed. The records are plastered all over the three main buildings that S-21 consists of.

Like many things in Asia, once you've passed the first few things, everything starts to repeat itself, and it gets a bit same-same. You start to gloss over.

I didn't want that. It didn't feel right to view the place without being shocked, traumatised even.

The whole place gave me chills.

S-21 was originally built as a school. The classrooms hastily and fairly crudely converted into some twisted asian version of Guantanamo Bay.

It still looks like a school. Just a non-descript set of white buildings. Creepily, there's still a set of varying height monkey bars in the yard.

Just like Drysdale Primary.

We walked back out the tuk-tuk, past the beggars and landmine victims. The legacy of the past still remains in Phnom Penh. The KR may have left, but the recovery isn't even close to complete.

We sat on the bike in silence and started our way back to the hostel.

"It would've been a good school," said Steve.

Once upon a time.

I began to think of the people who built it. The town planners, the teachers. The parents of the students.
A school is always a community within a community. Imagine how you would feel, the investment that you made into your community being used as a slaughter house?

The reality is that all of those teachers were either displaced or killed. Anyone with an education was seen as a threat to Communism.

Those parents, planners, and teachers lay silent in the graves of the Killing Fields.


It's not something that's easily put to words.