BOOK: "The Gods Drink Whiskey," by Stephen T. Asma (HarperSanFrancisco, $24.95)
TARGET AUDIENCE: Seekers of enlightenment and marijuana pizza.
"You can never really be ready for Cambodia," says Asma, a Chicago-based professor of Buddhism. "It's sort of like seeing a really good punch coming at your face, bracing yourself as best you can, but getting knocked senseless anyway."
In 2003, Asma went to Phnom Penh to help "reconnect young Khmer with their own lost culture." But he ends up learning as much as teaching, especially from his students. His personal cause is "to take the 'California' out of Buddhism"-- to strip from its Western interpretations "a mishmash of . . . pseudo-Eastern-quantum-herbal beliefs."
Each travel recollection launches an essay on some aspect of the faith: a school party aboard a boat on the Tonle Sap River (Buddhism vs. American pop culture); his witnessing of a political assassination (compassion); a visit to the infamous "Killing Fields" (karma). It's Buddhism 101 and a fascinating look at a land where every day is a challenge.
-- Jerry V. Haines
