A Bad Romance

“I survived Cambodia,” quips a yellow T-shirt that a sweaty vendor gazing blankly into traffic sells from her stall. Yes, all you eternal optimists back home who wished me luck wading through thickly grown over fields dotted with unseen landmines, the Cambodians are in on your joke.

In a cavernous TV station that - with its dirty cement floors, high raftered ceilings, and smoggy cloud of mosquitoes, cigarette smoke, and dust - has the feel of an abandoned warehouse, five other foreigners and I worm our way onto metal bleachers opposite a boxing ring. We are the only non-Cambodians present, and everyone seated in the bleachers snaps their heads to watch us settle in our seats.

Every Friday and Saturday night, the TV Station broadcasts live kickboxing from the dimly lit space, in which hundreds of Cambodians crowd around an elevated ring and cram into creaky bleachers set against the walls. Most are men, though there are some tired-looking wives carrying their wide-eyed babies, who gape at us over their mothers’ shoulders. Little boys mock fight and chase each other around the space, nawing at corncobs from plastic baggies.

Two fighters enter the ring – one in blue shorts and gloves, and another dressed in the red. They pace serenely around the ring, pressing their hands in prayer position and bowing their heads to each of its corners. As they warm up in the ring, the guys I’m with size them up and bet the girls the blue fighter will win, mostly because they don’t like the red fighter’s slick, spiky hair.

With an undetectable nod of yes, let’s begin now, the two fighters begin to circle around one another. A small orchestra of pounding drums and some sort of woodwind instrument sits on the overlooking stage with the newscasters.

The fighters step in time to the music, always seeming to come to a strange pas de deux with their arms clasped around one another as though hugging, while desperately jerking their knees at each other’s sides and thighs.

“It looks like Red is in trouble,” mutters the other intern, who is sitting next to me, as Blue pins his opponent to the side of the ring and slugs him until the referee shoves them apart and back to the center of the ring.

When a bell dings, the two fighters’ aides (probably not the technical term) rush to them, pick them up, and carry them two feet to stools on opposite ends of the ring (why they cannot walk these two feet is a mystery to me). Their fighters seated on the stools, the aides rapidly massage their sweaty thighs and stomachs, pour water over their heads and in, again, for reasons I can’t discern, their shorts, and send them back to the ring’s center.

The fighting gets more aggressive as time goes on, and things take a turn in Red’s favor, who, small and spry, nails kicks to Blue’s head that send visible sprays of sweat into the cloudy air and make the men gathered around the ring yell with approval.

When the second bell dings, and the fighters are again lifted back to their stools, blood dribbles out of Blue’s mouth as his aide whips out his mouth-guard to furiously scrub it clean and then pop it back in.

With the drum beat increasing in tempo, the men yelling louder and louder, and the fighters, with nothing left to lose, seemingly in it to knock one other unconscious, it’s impossible not to get sucked in. When the referee collects the white slips of paper from the on-looking judges, two of whom are seated on each side of the ring, and swings up spiky-haired Red’s arm in victory, the girls cheer as though personally responsible for his win.

The next night, I’m on a stool at the bar waiting for two friends at a trendy lounge at which patrons can sit on bed-like cushions surrounding a gleaming pool when Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” comes on the speakers.

The Spanish tourists who have been splashing each other in the pool squeal, leap out, and start wiggling to the beat. The Asian couple sitting behind me start to sway in rhythm. The British woman next to me gasps in excitement and begins to dance in her seat. The Cambodian bartender with whom I’m playing tic tac toe and thumb war (apparently, these are cross cultural games) nods his head to the music and smiles.

“You like Lady Gaga?” “Yes, everyone does!” The other bartenders – all twenty something men– nod enthusiastically in agreement. They play Lady Gaga songs for the next hour. I may just have to stay in Cambodia.

Though, for those who would rather dunk their heads into the pool when they hear Lady Gaga’s music than jump out and dance to it, this evening may have been legitimate cause to buy an “I survived Cambodia” shirt.