Frequently Asked Questions About My Back

WTF is that on your back?!?!

I got myself a Khmer tattoo the traditional way in a village somewhere in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

WHO DID IT?

It was a family affair. The mother, a bald old woman, called on the spirits and prepared the offering: five small yellow candles, five rolled bodhi leaves and five incense sticks. The younger son, a former kickboxing champ, made the ink out of juice from pounded sugarcane mixed with charcoal stick. The eldest son, probably in his early forties, did the actual tattooing. He learned it from his father, a half-blind old man who performed the final prayer rites. Some of their friends also helped gather materials and prepare lunch.

THAT MUST HURT LIKE HELL.

Hard to say how fast, the rate, the needle pricked the skin of my back. The man's fingers vibrated like a sewing machine. For seven hours, I imagined teeth, like a piranha nibbling on my back.

SURELY, THERE WAS A LESS PAINFUL WAY OF DOING IT.

I suppose you can get a tattoo the modern way anywhere nowadays. But perhaps not with these symbols. The last time the family did it was the year before. It took us two days to find the Tattoo Master, the one who could do the ritual properly, the keeper of the sacred signs, symbols and spells.

IT WAS BELIEVED TO HOLD POWER?

Protection in times of danger. It’s not enough that you have them in your back. You need to know the spells too.

DO YOU BELIEVE IT?

I’m not sure. I believe in the experience. In times of danger, it’s still the Judeo Christian God I pray to. Let me add that I practice Theravada Buddhism too and deeply respect the rituals of folk religion. I pray the rosary. I have that tattoo in my back. Byzantine icons move me. Each was never meant to serve as a spare if the other didn’t work. They all work together. Even when they clash. Especially when they clash. I raise questions. I am plagued with doubts. My faith thrives in tension.

WHAT’S A FILIPINO DOING IN CAMBODIA, BTW?

I was just across the border, based in neighboring Thailand for more than ten years, working for an intergovernmental organization. My work allowed me to go on mission all over Southeast Asia -- but for some reason, I was never assigned to travel to Cambodia. It was very near but so many things held me back, mostly what I’ve read and heard and my impression of the country. But when I completed my term in 2005, I ran out of excuses. There was no way I was leaving Asia without traveling to Cambodia.

DID YOU PLAN ON GETTING A TATTOO?

No. I knew I was going to backpack all over the country for a month but really, I’d left mostly everything to chance. I had planned to write a story but I wasn’t sure what about. I think I ascribed to what Pico Iyer wrote in his introduction to the Best American Travel Essays of 2005. “No one has written with pitiless clarity about a traveler who is so ready to lose himself abroad that he gets taken in entirely and cannot put the pieces together at the end.” So no, it wasn’t part of the plan. Although I must admit, I was bent on traveling to Rattanakiri. I had imagined the province to be the Heart of Darkness, the way Conrad, Pol Pot and Coppola did.

SO HOW DID THIS END UP HAPPENING?

My translator/guide in Siem Reap, formerly a soldier and drug dealer from Phnom Penh, sensed right away the kind of journey I was predisposed to. I was not unique. He had met my kind before. And so after six days of exploring Angkor, he introduced me to his friend, an old man, a farmer and a former Khmer Rouge leader hiding under a false name. We all spent a week together, drinking with the old man's comrades, eating duck fried with jackfruit, and sleeping on wooden boats and floating huts in the middle of Tonle Sap, the largest lake in Southeast Asia. His wife did not approve of him going out in public. I met the old man at a time when local news headlines bannered the public’s growing frustration on the setting up of an international tribunal that will try former Khmer Rouge leaders who were responsible for the killing of two million Cambodians in the seventies. The discussions at that time, in June 2005, seemed to be heading towards a deadlock because of the government’s inability to provide financial counterpart to support the trials. Still, the old man insisted in going out with me. He had an excuse. He was with a traveler. He wanted me to try the fermented palm juice, to go hunting with him at night in the forest. We never talked about the past (that was the only condition my translator/guide asked of me, to never ask questions about the Khmer Rouge) and I wondered if he could sense the end coming, either due to old age or his capture. We drove around in an old truck in Siam Reap, where he showed me his vast tracks of land and the orchards his brother kept for him. He said all he wanted was for his children to finish school. Two transvestite peasants worked for the old man in hauling logs from the slashed and burnt hills and bringing them to town (ninety percent of the country still uses wood as fuel). The old man met the transvestites when he first went into hiding. They hid him for three years. I figured that made sense. The whole time I was with them they never spoke a word to each other. One morning, he invited me to have lunch in the village with his old comrades. We sat outdoors, on a bare wooden bed, shirtless with checkered cloths wrapped around our waist. They showed me their tattoos. One of them offered me a bolo and asked me to strike him. I didn’t take the offer; I smiled and said I believe their stories, how those marks helped them survive the war. The oldest of them became pensive. He said all his life, he did not even have to farm. All he had to do was kill. He killed for the King, for the Khmer Rouge, for the government, for whoever was in power – and all he wanted now was to just die peacefully. And inside me, no matter how fatherly they all treated me, I knew there had to be some reckoning, some accountability for the two million who died and disappeared. And then the old man pointed at the tattoo in his chest and asked me, “Would you like to have this mark?”

YOU LEFT CAMBODIA AND NOW WALK AROUND WITH THE MARK OF A MASS MURDERER?

Soldiers had it too. Common folks. The one who directed us to the Tattoo Master was a young Khmer who needed protection when he crossed the border to Thailand where he worked illegally for some time. He attributed his shielded crossing, dodging the bullets of the border patrol, to the tattoo and his amulets. He was so pleased to hear that I was getting a tattoo that he gave me all his amulets. He didn't ask for money. He just said he’s done with it. He has returned home. He was turning it over to me, reverentially wrapped in cloth. What I'm saying is that anyone can lay claim on an emblem. I think emblems are especially attractive to those who have fallen into cracks, who are neither here nor there or caught between a terrible past and an uncertain future. We need emblems to serve as hooks, anchors, to find connections.

WHAT SCARED YOU THE MOST?

It wasn’t the pain. We met a tattoed soldier along the way who warned me how agonizing it was. A big man like him cried like a child. That didn’t discourage me. That just got the adrenaline going. When they unfolded the cloth (the size of a small table) of signs and symbols and showed me what they were going to put on my back, the thought of backing out did not even occur to me. I was surprised, yes. Only because I had earlier thought that I could just choose one tiny drawing out of that entire huge map. But apparently it didn’t work that way. You either get the whole package or nothing. The design depended on what you wanted it for. Perhaps what scared me most was myself. That I had totally lost control at that point. I had already given in. They showed me the sterilized needle they just bought. I knew that could have killed me. That or the mosquito bites. My brain was flashing red with dengue and malaria the whole time. Part of me kept asking myself, what am I doing here? Who are these people? Why am I doing this? And those questions and worries just flowed and ran through me like water. THAT was scary.

WHAT DID YOU TELL THEM?

That I’m a traveler. They didn’t ask further questions. That was fine with them.

HOW DID YOU BEAR THE PAIN?

At first, I grabbed my translator/guide and gripped his hand. I told him I needed to hold on to somebody. I begged him. But the cold-hearted bastard pulled away. He said I had to take it like a man. So I bit on the strap of my Swiss sportswatch, a birthday gift from my brother. I still wear it. The teeth marks always look fresh. I like to be reminded. And when it really became unbearable, I asked for my Ipod. I never listened to Byzantine music, Philip Glass and Michael Nyman the same way again after that. There was also a lunch break. We had chicken broth, boiled with leafy stalks of marijuana. Even that did not help. It was that painful.

WHERE DID IT HURT THE MOST?

When they did the human figure on my lower spine. Most sensitive part. I was thinking instant paralysis. I just bit the watch strap hard. I tasted the trickling of my own sweat and tears. They were very concerned. But they did it. They did not stop.

WHAT WERE YOU THINKING THE WHOLE TIME?

There’s a passage in Graham Greene’s novel, The End of the Affair, where Sarah, played by Julian Moore in the movie, writes to God in her diary, “I believe the legend. I believe you were born. I believe you died for us. I believe you are God. Teach me to love. I don’t mind my pain. It’s their pain I can’t stand. Let my pain go on and on, but stop theirs. Dear God, if only you could come down from your cross and let me go up there instead. If I could suffer like you, I could heal like you.” I had similar thoughts. I was talking to God. I was thinking of my family, my friends, everyone I love and hold dear. My country. My people. Faces in deep suffering floated in front of me. The hurt I have caused, including those brought on by this world and those they inflicted on to themselves. I kept bargaining with God, I’ll take all these pain, just take away theirs. This whole denial of the self -- very Catholic, really.

WHAT DID THE SYMBOLS MEAN?

Hard to say. Even my guide/translator had difficulty explaining. I have a feeling the signs and symbols were meant to be indecipherable the way ancient spells were meant to be. You probably need a philologist to decipher all that weird cabbalistic jumble of ancient text and signs. At the same time, I know indecipherability could also serve as a tool of power and abuse. Anyone could claim it. They said I could dodge bullets, be invincible against any bladed weapon. Frankly, I’m not at all interested in finding that out for myself. One thing pleased me though: the power to disappear. Only because I have been doing that all my life. All my restless wanderings, I have relied on it: permeability.

IN THE END, WHAT DID YOU BELIEVE IN?

For the most part, as I have said, I believed in what the experience had to offer to me. An internal journey. It all ended with the old man’s prayer rites. Rules were given. Mostly things I wouldn’t find myself in a position of breaking anyway. Like I was forbidden to eat monkey meat. Apparently, monkeys are favored delicacies in the jungles of Cambodia. The old man also added that the shadow master on my back is normally always asleep. It would wake up when prompted by a spell that I’m supposed to recite. Only in times of danger. And since there was no way I could master the lengthy spell and its lilting tones, the old man would have to keep him awake the whole time with another spell. But I will have to be practice extra caution in showing my back to other people indiscriminately. There are people out there, he further warned, who are familiar with the image and who know of its power. These people could cast spells. The shadow master could leave my back and move to to theirs. All I’d be left with would be meaningless scars on my back. I have to be extra careful. The shadow master is on my back to protect me. It looks out for me and sees people and if they are perceived as enemies, it could cause them harm. I listened to the old man and nodded, wondering what that all truly meant for me. I asked how much I should pay them. They said it was up to me. I gave them thirty dollars.

There was one last warning. He said I should be prepared when I reach home. Something would take place the first night. A great battle. I should muster all my strength and willpower to fight it. Fight what, I asked. Just remain steadfast, he said. I took that all in with a grain of salt and went home. I was feeling okay and was just relieved that it was all over. I totally forgot what the old man had said and decided to spend the evening in a coffee shop at the central market of Siem Reap. I was inside and I remember I was looking through the glass window across the street. There was an Indian restaurant and on a table outside, a tourist was having dinner. Seated on the pavement below him was a Cambodian child, a girl, watching him eat. I remember imagining how hard that must have been for the tourist to concentrate on his food. And then another tourist came by with a camera and he started taking pictures of the child. The child ignored this other tourist. I remember how moved I was by this linked sight, the trail of attention flowing from the camera to the child to the food on the table and how all three were oblivious of, or perhaps trying to ignore, each other. That’s when it happened. Everything blurred in an instant. I blinked my eye and all I could see was a haze of colors. I felt this vertigous sensation of being lifted up, so high I could not feel the ground anymore. I could not feel anything. Everything disappeared and then reappeared again but in a form I could hardly recognize. It was then that I remembered what the old man had said. Before I could hold my bearing, I was suddenly falling, hurtling down fast. I looked at the cashier and the other customers and I could tell, from what I could make out of their expression, that they knew something terrible was happening to me. I tried to ask for help, but my mouth felt numb. I remember thinking, this is it Willi, this is how you are going to die.

I stood up and staggered on my way out. On the street, I saw a parked motorbike for hire and thought of going to the hospital. But it was all happening so fast. Life was being sucked out of me. Death could take place any moment. And then it occurred to me that my inn was just a block away. Right next to it was the computer shop where I made long distance calls. I staggered, crossed the street and held on, walking unsteadily, all the way to the shop to make a call.

I sat on the floor inside the phone booth. I checked the phone numbers in my wallet but my vision liquefied everything. All the names and numbers turned to water. The first memorized number that came to mind was that of a friend I had just met a few months before, an expat who came from New Zealand to teach English in Bangkok. I dialed the number and she answered the phone. I told her that I was feeling really sick, that something was happening to me. I wanted to tell her what had happened that day but my thoughts were all incoherent. I remember her saying that I should have been more careful in visiting the temples of Angkor. Spirits guarded the place. She asked me to go the hospital. But I was too weak. She stayed on the line and frantically prayed over me, calling on Jesus to save me from this dark, terrible spirit that was claiming me.

The first sign of deliverance was the slowing of the heartbeat, followed by a sudden consciousness on the air I was breathing. And just as quickly as it had happened, it was all over. I remember feeling very exhausted. I was drenched in sweat. A strange calm washed over me. As if nothing happened. I returned to my room.

My younger brother, a nurse, later explained that it was my body reacting to the toxins from the ink.

So was it all as the old man had warned? Was I prayed over on to deliverance in Jesus’ name?

In the end, I cast my faith on doubt and the toil it takes to tell a personal story. Sometimes the reward comes easily. A mysterious unfolding takes place inside me and suddenly, strangers would gather around the hearth of a certain epiphany. Oftentimes I just wait. It doesn't really matter. I have no choice. I can’t take everything on blind faith. The truth has to come from within. Jesus Christ, in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, said, "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."

AFTER WHAT YOU WENT THROUGH, WOULD YOU STILL ENCOURAGE OTHERS WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED TO GET A SIMILAR TATTOO?

I'm not sure. I would recommend extra caution though. A few friends who have seen it did not find the final result especially appealing, especially when it's compared to the aesthetically more sophisticated designs from modern tattoo salons. Mine’s are crude and faint. I had my personal reasons why I did it. I believe that it’s an important art form. Very few people do it nowadays. Perhaps it’s losing its meaning. But I believe it will remain intrinsically linked to the many lives it has bound, through times of dominion, danger and deliverance. I find it a comforting thought to have that history on my back. It was the beginning of my journey in Cambodia, my initiation through my forays in the heart of darkness inside me.

ONE LAST QUESTION. YOU HAVE POSTED THE IMAGE ON THE INTERNET. A LOT OF PEOPLE HAS SEEN IT. IS SOMETHING BAD GOING TO HAPPEN TO THEM?

Is the phone ringing?

(Click here for the complete set of pictures on my Flickr gallery)