So tonight's my last shift at Barnes & Noble. Reflecting upon the many humorous and non-humorous incidences that have occurred during my tenure there, there is one recent story that stands out as a moral lesson.

With Mother's Day coming up on 13 May, the store has been filling its seasonal tables and displays with all kinds of gifts and books related to the blessings of motherhood.

Mind you, a large percentage of customers - particularly during the daytime - are moms with kids in tow. On one particular day last week, a mom strided up to my cashier station as her daughter (perhaps 3, going on 4?) walked behind her at a more relaxed pace.

"Come on, we're going to buy these two books and leave!" the mom called out.

The child seemed distracted by one of our display tables in the "impulse buy" section in front of the cashier stations.

"Come on, I said!"

The little girl then picked up a book and ran around the table to meet her mom, now taking her credit card out of her wallet. She handed the book up to her mom, clearly indicating that they needed to add it to their purchases.

"No! We are NOT buying any more books today! Now put it back!" the mom exclaimed.

The child persisted in pushing this book up toward her mom, so the mom grabbed it and asked me did I know where it was supposed to go.

"Don't worry about it, ma'am. I can put it back for you," I replied.

The mom seemed somewhat relieved, as if one of forty million tasks had just been taken off of her to-do list. "Would you? That'd be so helpful. I'm so sorry for bothering you with this."

"It's not a problem at all. That's what we're here for."

After they left, I then looked at the book in order to see where it needed to go. Looking at the cover, I froze. If only that mother had taken the time to see what it was that her daughter wanted to purchase so badly....



Stuart Hample, My Mom's the Best Mom
(Workman, 2000).

Having recently watched Blood Diamond with my wife, we were struck at how blessed we are. We do not live in fear of attacking mobs, though I can recall such an experience four years ago. I always meant to put my Cambodian experiences into writing; I guess now is as good a time as any….

On 29 January 2003, we were traveling from one side of Phnom Penh to the other. We'd left the United Methodist headquarters during rush hour and had made our way through several of the city's hectic intersections (imagine every kind of transport - from a dump truck to a five-year-old girl carrying her baby sister on her back - competing to cross each other's path). We were about three quarters of the way to the Methodist Bible School, where we would work with the seminarians there to contextualize the Sunday School curriculum we'd prepared in the months preceding this trip.

Phnom Penh was still new to us, so these late afternoon drives through the city were anything but dull. The sights, the sounds, the smells - it was all so…interesting. But this particular drive would present something entirely new. We were going around a wide left turn, when all the vehicles in front slammed on brakes or swerved off the road to the right. Then a wave of oncoming traffic filled the road to our left, taking the entire width of the road.

It was a mob of angry youth, on the backs of pickup trucks and riding scooters , carrying signs written in Khmer (the Cambodian language). I couldn't read a word of it, but anyone could tell those letters were written with conviction…and anger.

Truck after truck, and scooter after scooter, of angry teenagers. Most were yelling at the entire world, completely ignorant of all the cars and scooters that had pulled off of the road to accommodate them. But every once in a while, one of them would look directly at us - and the anger in their face would increase as they yelled…at us!

It took about 3-4 minutes for the mob to pass, so I can only guess at how many hundreds of them there were. But we then pulled back onto the road and continued along our way to the seminary.

The drive home that night was just like any other late evening drive in Phnom Penh. But the next morning held the news of the night before - the television station had been destroyed. The resort hotel on the banks of the Mekong River had been burned down. One of the cell phone companies in town was also destroyed. The similarity between these businesses? They were all owned by Thais.

At one point in the evening, the mob even attacked Thailand's embassy. Thai nationals had to crowd inside, fearing the worst, when the police finally arrived and cleared the crowd. (There were rumors that the police then proceeded to rob the frightened Thais of their valuables, but this was never confirmed.) The next morning there was an airlift of all Thai nationals out of the country.

Why were the Thais in such danger? Because of a false rumor. (The Cambodian temperament is often guided by rumors, perhaps the most disgusting one being that their Prime Minister, Hun Sen, can monitor every conversation in every household by means of a spy satellite.) This time, the rumor was that an actress from a Thai soap opera (which had aired on the previously existent television station) claimed that Angkor Wat had actually been built by the Thais, not the ancient Khmer Empire. In the week that followed, this actress stated publicly that she had never said this…but the damage had already been done. Homes and businesses had been destroyed and, more importantly, racial tensions between Khmers and Thais had finally exploded into violence.

Let me back up by stating that my family was not happy about me traveling to Cambodia in the first place. It's not that they're against foreign mission projects…but they prefer mission work in Costa Rica, a peaceful country whose constitution expressly prohibits any form of military. When I made plans to travel to Liberia with the United Methodist Church in 1995, the family promptly ended my plans. They'd read the report of a local minister who'd gone to Liberia; they'd read how he was held up by drunk teenagers at gunpoint. I'd read his memoirs as well, but my reaction was the exact opposite - it made me want to go there and try to do some kind of good work.

Perhaps that was just a longing for adventure. Was I the kind of "action junkie" that Leo DiCaprio's character accuses Jen Connelly's character of being in Blood Diamond? Whether that was the case or not, I clearly remember that I did want "to make some kind of difference." Which is what, eleven years later, led me to Cambodia. The family wasn't happy about my plans, but a 26-year-old is much harder to forbid than a 19-year-old. But back to my story….

The next day, as plumes of smoke are rising from all over the city, I found an internet café, so I could email all my family and friends back home to let them know that I'm okay. Surely such an event would have made it into the news, proving my family correct about how dangerous it was for me to go there. I was certain that they were beside themselves with fear, wondering where I was in all this mess.

On the second day after the riot, I returned to that internet café to read and answer any replies I may have gotten. There were a few, but they all consisted of the same general question: "What are you talking about? Nothing has been in the news about Cambodia." So I checked every major news source I could think of: NY Times, Washington Post, BBC, ABC, CNN…and nothing. Not a single mention of any event in Cambodia. No Reuters or Associated Press bulletins, either.

Now I knew what it was like to be ignored by the West.

If you'd like to read about these riots, your best bet is this State Department report.