One morning I woke up before dawn. I walked out of my gate at the exact moment the “Ming” across the street walked out of hers. We were meeting to go walking together. The previous evening when we made plans to go walking, I had met one of our other neighbors from down the street, another “Ming”. As Ming and I journeyed to the end of the road I asked her the name of her friend- the other Ming.
She said, “Ot jam aye.” (I do not remember.)
Huh. I shrugged. It seemed somewhat weird to me that she wouldn’t remember, but soon we were talking about other things and my mind was thinking in Khmer with little room to think of much else.
The other Ming joined us in the middle of our walk- apparently they walk the same route together each morning. As we rounded the corner to head back to our street. I asked Ming, how long she and the other Ming had been friends . . . 20+ years she said.
“WHAT?!?!” I thought, “You have been friends for 20+ years and you don’t remember her name?!?!” I struggled to wrap my mind around it.
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One of the first things you learn when studying Khmer is that in Cambodia everyone is addressed by a “title,” which is literally translated “you” but varies depending on age, (with the exceptions of Ming and Bpooh which are literally translated “Aunt” or “Uncle”.)
Someone younger than you, you call “Boh-oan”. Someone your age you address as “Bong”. Someone older than you that is around your parents’ age you call “Ming” for a woman, or “Bpooh” for a man. For someone older than your parents you address them as “Oam” or “Loke”.
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About 36 years ago the Khmer Rouge slaughtered about 1/3 of Cambodia’s population in one of the least talked about genocides in history. The Khmer Rouge successfully reduced their countrymen to nothing. The Citizens of Cambodia were viewed as disposable, less than nothing. Babies were smashed against trees or thrown into the air then caught by the end of a musket. Adults’ necks were broken with shovel heads; their temples bludgeoned with pick-axes; their skulls crushed or their throats slit; all because the soldiers told them they weren’t worth wasting the bullets.
There is a sense that still perfuses the culture of this nation which says,
life holds little value.
Is it possible that the two are related?
If we build intimacy with one another when we speak each others’ names, is it possible that using the generic form of “you” to address everyone in the exact same way, subconsciously perpetuates the depreciation of an individual life’s value; a concept that climaxed during the era of the Khmer Rouge and still permeates culture today?
Of how great an importance is it to be called by your name?
Is my astonishment merely the result of a different cultural world view?
Or is it something more? Really, what’s in a name?
Why was it important to God that Adam named all the animals?
How important is it to God that we be called by our rightful names?
