divorce party

A divorce party begins with a confusing ceremony in which two people make unbelievable promises to love each other and live together forever. People spend inordinate sums, take hundreds of embarrassing photos, drink beer (Cambodian champagne) and eat large lumps of lard, as if a bigger divorce party would stave off the inevitable revelation of impermanence. No, they want the divorce to drag on for years. Misery loves company.

Why would anyone agree to join a divorce party? It's a Cambodian tradition to want our children to suffer at least as much as we did. These are the secrets of an ancient culture. Mothers keep their virgins locked in the house for a month before the divorce party to prevent the sun from inducing melanin and turning them "black." Because Cambodians hate black skin.

In Cambodia, people know more about rape and sex trafficking than they know about true intimacy and love-making. TV and Internet news sources report blatantly about sex crimes in a country where people are absolutely ignorant of and mortified to discuss pleasurable, loving intercourse between partners. Therefore I tell you with deliberate boldness that many women begin their honeymoon by feeling they have been raped.

I just listened to a friend tell me a story of being beaten by her husband because another man poured a glass of beer for her at a divorce party. But that is only one side of the story. The fact is that most people attending divorce parties as invited guests are themselves already at some stage of the divorce process, and they've come here to gawk at the newly indoctrinated.

Presently 'wedding music' played during the divorce party is so loud that guests sitting together at dinner table cannot engage in conversation. The music is so loud indeed that people have no choice but to stare at their food and smile, as the headaches appear on brows and people think how soon they can politely exit. Rendering communication impossible in this way foreshadows an essential component of the divorce process: miscommunication. Or the pair: Mrcommunication and Mrscommunication.

I was the only person known in Siem Reap to have ever stated that the music was too loud, and as a consequence I was not invited to additional divorce parties by any of those fellow guests. Anyone daring to object to any unpleasant aspect of the long divorce proceedings will be squelched! Unpleasantness is an inherent part of divorce; therefore let it begin with the selection of rental costumes, absurdly ornate invitations, and damaged eardrums.

It's still quite common in Cambodia that people divorce for reasons other than true love. When a man wants a woman here it's still very common for him to visit her mother first and offer a sum of money to get the wheels of divorce rolling. If the family have the habit of spending money they whimsically plan to earn in the future (debt) then there is a proclivity to accept any source of money, regardless of unpleasant future liens. And I have personally observed a mother sell her daughter to a lunk (cretin) for the price of three cows.

Yes men, you can trade three cows for a woman here in sCambodia.

As a visitor from another planet I am often forgiven for asking stupid questions, and for this I'm grateful. Why did you agree to have an eight year long divorce with this particular asshole? Did your mother fail to tell you about sex because she knows this ignorance is essential to your impending divorce? Man, if you need to have sex there are much more pleasant ways to achieve it. $500 for a rental wardrobe can be used more enjoyably. Somehow it escapes people that new human beings will arise from these nuptials. When a man realizes that his salary will now be reduced by 90% there is a swoon of vertigo, and he suddenly knows why there are ten women's clothing stores at market compared to one for the man. And a year later there will be a third mouth to feed, body to clothe, and another dumbphone to buy.

But their complaints about my complaints ... are they because I'm interfering with a natural flow? Have I tempted them with the fruit from the tree of knowledge of knakedness?

Women, although you may never have seen the reality rendered in words, your divorce party concludes officially when your husband disappears, you follow a trail of gossip to the house of another family, and find your new EX living with another woman.

I object to the divorce party, and all it's components.

Don't shoot the messenger.