countrymen how to eat a hamburger — a culture clash that is more than
culinary as he tries to fit himself, like a lost piece in a puzzle,
back into the land of his birth.
His Cambodian name is Chenda Im, but after more than 30 years as a
refugee in the United States, he goes by Mike, and he is the founder,
owner, manager, cook and pitchman of Mike's Burger House, which he
opened on the lot of a gas station here after his return four years
ago.
"I'm American, and I already know how to handle burgers," he said, as
a salsa tune played in his restaurant. "The Cambodians, they eat the
bun and then a little bit here and a little bit there. I say, 'No, you
just press down on the bun and eat it.' And sometimes they say, 'Don't
tell me how to eat. I'll eat it my way."'
Mike's experience pitching hamburgers in Phnom Penh offers a look at
the particular kind of culture shock experienced by people returning
to their own culture.
He is a truly hybrid Cambodian-American — a survivor of the atrocities
of the Khmer Rouge period, when 1.7 million people died by execution,
forced labor and starvation from 1975 to 1979; then a mail carrier for
22 years near Long Beach, California; and now one of a trickle of
refugees who continue to return to restart life in the land they once
fled.
It is not a large number. Over the years some have returned to enter
politics and some to try their hands at businesses. Many leave after a
while. One group that does not have the option of returning to the
United States is made up of Cambodian-born U.S. citizens who were
convicted of felonies in their adopted country and sent back here
under a special deportation law.
Mike, who left at the age of 19 and is now 51, said he planned to
stay. Among others who have returned and stayed are Ou Virak and
Theary Seng, prominent advocates of a U.S. brand of human rights and
civil society, which at this point fits a little awkwardly with
Cambodia's strong-arm form of government.
Mike is a champion of the juicy all-beef hamburger, another import
that is struggling to graft itself onto the local culture. There are
no international hamburger chains in Cambodia, and Americans who live
here say Mike makes the only truly American burgers in Phnom Penh.
"Let me show them the way Americans eat," Mike said, describing the
training of his staff. "Show them it's clean, safe, how to wash,
really clean, from the bathroom to the kitchen. That's the way
Americans handle food. The more you keep clean, the healthier you
are."
Mike's Burger House has been open for about six months, and with its
sign advertising "I'm a Crazy Burger!" it is an almost perfect replica
of any hamburger hangout attached to a gas station in the United
States.
Its front counter displays packets of Americana: Pringles potato
chips, Slim Jim meat snacks, Rip Rolls and Reese's candy, Red Vine
licorice, Ritz Crackers, Oreo cookies and Chips Ahoy chocolate chip
cookies.
Americans who live here say Mike's offers a little taste of home. But
for many Cambodians, hamburgers remain a challenge.
"Sometimes the Cambodian people think I look down on them — 'They
don't know how to eat' — so I've got to step back and say, 'O.K., you
do it your way,"' he said.
Mike himself seems a little uncertain about his place between the two
worlds. "I have a warm feeling here, just a warm feeling," he said.
"Everywhere I go, I feel like I'm at home."
But he also said, "My heart is still American," and he speaks of his
fellow Cambodians with some of the bafflement of an outsider.
"On the street I don't feel it's hard to fit in," he said. "The only
difference is the way we talk in the United States. You say something
straight, and they think you're saying something bad."
But like Mike, all those of a certain age are children of the killing
fields, when most lost relatives, and many continue to live with
trauma.
"I've seen a lot of murdering," Mike said.
"It's just terrible when you see the bodies," he said, describing one
atrocity, "people screaming for help, women delivering babies on the
ground. I thought, 'How am I going to get through this? I'm going to
die, I'm going to die."'
Like many survivors of the Khmer Rouge, he also carries with him a
lingering memory of hunger. "Since then, I just love to eat," Mike
said.
"Me and my dad and my sister, we ate a lot of bamboo shoots," he
recalled. "Even now I can still do a chicken soup with bamboo shoots."
The memory spurred a panegyric to the joys of bamboo shoots.
"You can do a soup, you can do a curry," he said. "You can dry it out
and do sweet brown rice with pork. Then there's bamboo shoots with
water and salt, and along the road there's lemon grass. You can eat it
with a little rice or noodles."
Food was an entry point for many Cambodian refugees into the U.S.
economy. Hundreds opened donut shops and virtually took over the donut
industry in Southern California. The Cambodian donut shop became as
common locally as the Chinese laundry and the Vietnamese nail salon.
Mike took another path, and after graduating from Long Beach Community
College, he landed what he said was a dream job as a mail carrier for
the U.S. Postal Service.
"I was so excited!" he said, growing excited again. "Are you kidding
me? The post office! They started me at $10.75 an hour — I'm a rich
man!"
"I tell you, I love the job, I love the job," he said. "You just go
out there delivering the mail, you put the right mail to the houses, I
was running, boom, boom, boom, boom."
There was rain, there were dogs, there were long days, but he was happy.
"If you compare this with the killing field, it was heaven," he said.
"What are those guys complaining about? It was easy for me."
But as his marriage collapsed and his personal life came apart, he
decided to take a look at Cambodia, where he met and married a young
woman, Borey Mean, who is now 29 and works side by side with him at
the burger house.
It was love at first sight. "My heart just came out — boom — like
popcorn!" she said, throwing her arms into the air. As for her effect
on Mike, "She pulled me from the U.S.A. to here," he said.
After returning from a visit with him to the United States, where they
sampled every kind of fast food, Ms. Borey Mean said, she told her
husband, "I miss hamburgers!" So, he said, "I made hamburgers, just to
please her."
"I got a kilogram of meat and brought it home," he said. "I chopped it
and pounded it. You make the meatball first, make it into a patty, and
I fried it for her and put on the sauce, and she said, 'This is it! Oh
my goodness, this is it!"'
When Mike instructs his Cambodian customers on the right way to eat a
hamburger, his all-American enthusiasm bursts through.
"When you bite into it, you've got to feel it from top to bottom," he
says he tells them. "You've got to sink your teeth into the soft bun,
and when you hit the meat, the sauce, the crunchy iceberg lettuce, all
the way down, then you'll know what I'm talking about. Your body is
going to crave it. You'll call for more."
Back Home in Cambodia With Food as Comfort
By SETH MYDANS
Published: January 12, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/world/asia/back-home-in-cambodia-with-food-as-comfort.html
