3rd Week Into The Kingdom...

I’m not so sure what to make of Cambodia, even though I had been here for three weeks now. Admittedly, whatever I think of Cambodia now may well change in September once my love joins me. When you are not exactly pining for someone, you tend to make more positive observations!

Having lived here before some seven or eight years ago (had it really been THAT long?), I can’t help but wonder – what happened to the old charms of this place? Phnom Penh, in particular. Of course, it is also a little biased now to compare because my memory of Phnom Penh is so vague, some of the charms I remember might most likely be a figment of my imagination! One thing that hadn’t changed though – is that love-hate relationship I have with the country and her people. Most certainly, some things never changed!

You’ve got to love that beautiful sunrise at the Mekong River… when the sun is just creaking its way up the horizon. The cool, quiet time of dawn where traffic is at a minimum and you were just thinking to yourself “what a lovely morning!” and that peace and tranquility is quite shattered by a burst of exhaust fumes and the whirling of dusts that blew right into your eye because some 4WD would like to make a statement with his or her driving. Welcome to Cambodia.

I do love Phnom Penh when it is at its quietest. Like during the General Elections weekend where curfew was imposed and people stayed indoors, constructions came to a halt and all businesses were either closed or operated at a minimal level. It was indeed a lovely time to stroll on the streets, take a lazy walk down one of the beautiful tree-lined roads. But I hate Phnom Penh on any given days now as it is congested with disorganized traffic and unplanned development. The Kingdom of Cambodia, the City of Chaos. I do, do believe that Vietnam, though congested, is better planned but most Cambodians will disagree with you, including some “oh-I-know-Asia-so-well” barangs (the khmer slang for Westerner). You have crazy drivers and equally maniacal motorbike riders who do not seem to know what are traffic rules and road safety, let alone road etiquettes! But of course, who can blame them? After all, you can ride a bike when you are 13 (was it 12 or 13 years old?) and it only takes you eight hours of driving lessons around Phnom Penh to get your license. No tests, no exams. From lesson straight to license. How fabulously crazy? Only in Phnom Penh.

The people of Cambodia, the Cambodians…. Very interesting people these ones. Well, to think of it, when are people not interesting? The human race is generally interesting. Whether they be good, bad or plain evil. When I was here long time ago, you just gotta love them for their innocence. Of course, they were just picking up the pieces of their lives and trying very hard to get past the 1975 – 1979 genocide. Of course, everyone wanted to carve a piece of gold out of you, but I wouldn’t call the Cambodians cunning, nor sly. Not like their Vietnamese neighbours or the Chinese (and I am Chinese). They were generally a ‘softer’ breed, if you could call it that. These days, with the rapid development and the returnees coming back in throngs, you do find that they are starting to be cunning after all. To be fair again, which human race doesn’t learn to be sly with development? Everyone wants a piece of the pie.
I love my Cambodian staff for their sincerity and their outright honesty. I remember a first conversation I had with one of them.
“Are you smart, Udom?”
“Thank you.”
“No, Udom, I asked if you think you are smart.”
“Yes, I think I am smart, that’s why I said Thank You.”
It was a bizarre conversation albeit a refreshing one. You just had to laugh at their blunt wit. In the face of authority, they do clam up. But when you treat them with patience and kindness as well as generous doses of sincerity, they reciprocate. Yelling doesn’t work with them. It makes them climb back into their shell. But a very quiet threat of firing them from their jobs would get them working round-the-clock to impress you. Yes, they are smart. At the same time, you feel like whipping them on their behinds because they are just…. S-L-O-W. And I don’t mean mentally. I just mean it is that whole laid-back attitude and because everyone in Cambodia is just slower than the average people of developing nations, one just has to learn to slow down in synch with them. In the face of looming deadlines, you’re like “Ok guys! Let’s do it! Go! Go! Go!” and then it’s like………. nothing happens till two days later. This is when one really needs to summon all the patience in the world… I had almost forgotten how everything in Cambodia is in slow motion.

What about the other general masses? There are the nice ones and then there are the hooligans. And then there are also the returnees. I had the honour of hitching a ride with a motordop (Cambodian mode of cheap public transportation) guy who spoke brilliant English and who had the kindness to tell me to be aware and alert when I am walking out on the streets alone, especially at the slump area just outside of my apartment block. He even told me if I were alone, it would be wiser and better to take an alternative route though it might be a longer walk. I was utterly grateful. Not because he gave me a piece of advise which I don’t already know but because he showed kindness. A girl, alone in a foreign country the likes of Cambodia can be rather daunting. Of course, I asked if he had a mobile phone in which I could contact him by and his answer to me was “No, I’m very poor. But I am always at Himawari Hotel.” And you know how much he charged me for the ride? All of 2,000 riels.
There was also this one other tuk-tuk (another mode of public transportation in Cambodia – one class above the motordop) driver who really thought that I had the word “stupid foreigner” engraved across my forehead. The one time I took a ride from him, I had no idea how short the distance was and I thought I had earned a bargain when I managed to negotiate the ride from USD3 to USD1. Of course, once bitten, twice shy. This little Khmer driver had the audacity to call out to me one day when he saw me walking my usual route and said “Take my tuk-tuk! You remember? Only USD1. Very cheap!” I snorted at him. Cheap indeed huh, you conniving little bastard! Though I didn’t say it out loud.

What about the returnees? Frankly, so far, my experiences or rather, my observation of the returnees hasn’t been all that positive. I think they are far too much of a show-off. It’s like “I am one class above the local Cambodians” kind of showy. They speak with a very effortful accent, be it American or French or whatever and if they are able to speak another language (French being the most popular), they love to flaunt it whenever possible. Especially when they know there’s a girl like me standing within earshot. For those who speak with the American accent, they like to do that whole Kanye West or P.Diddy shit. I’m like “Oh, puh-lease! You’re no black bad-ass hip-hop rapper! You’re a freakin’ scrawny Cambodian! So dontcha come wassup dawg to me cos I’m gonna whup your ass so hard you’d be cryin’ bitch!”

But up to this point, after 3 weeks of observing people, and forgive me, but I do know 3 weeks is too short a time to get the right picture… but after 3 weeks, I find that the middle-class to upper-middle class actually have no class at all. Whether they be men or women. For example, they would rock on into the gym with their Nike outfits and Adidas shoes and heavily adorning their bling-blings (yes, who wears blings to the gym??!) and they would hog a machine, taking their own sweet time with it and talking at the top of their voices like they owned the gym without a care of disrupting other people’s work-out. Or at the shopping centres or supermarkets, they would hog the aisle and they would be oblivious to the fact that you just said “excuse me” and in the event that they do, they stare at you like you’re some moronic fool disrupting their grocery shopping. Maybe “oblivious to the rest of the world” is more a phrase I should be using on them. But really, I find the ladies especially, totally classless despite their branded attire and fine jewelries. And what’s with the heavy dose of perfume that smells like my toilet wash?? For some reason, they are very annoying.

I hate Cambodia for all the poverty that one can still see in every nook and corner. It makes me feel helpless and I don’t know what to do. But I’m happy with the fact that some of the NGOs are making headway with the work that they are doing – especially people like FRIENDS who work on keeping kids off the streets by providing them with vocational training, etc, etc. I do so want to get involved with the NGO work, once I am more settled. And also make more frequent visits to the orphanages. No, I’m no Angelina Jolie. I just want to be part of the efforts on helping kids help themselves. Though, I think, the NGOs still have a very, very long way to go. It might have to do with all that governmental red tape.

You have to love Cambodia for the little conveniences. You get food delivered right to your doorstep – and a wide variety of choices at that. You can get your fruits delivered to you fresh every week or your meats, or vegetables. In other words, you don’t have to go out. It’s like online shopping, but this is done through the phone. You can eat at your favourite restaurant and keep the tab running for 2 months if you’re out of cash. You can get a manicurist to come to your house because it is raining and you do not wish to be out. You can get the guard to carry your groceries to your fifth floor apartment. You can get your shoe polished while you sipped coffee at a little al fresco café (though I don’t approve of the idea of a little 5-year old kid shining anybody’s shoes to earn a few pennies). You can keep a running tab at your regular DVD shop too! Oh – and if you do not want to push your trolley while grocery shopping, you can even get the security guards to do that for you. How much you tip them thereafter, is up to you. The general attitude is that the better tipper you are, the better the service at your next visit!

I also love Cambodia for the incessantly wide choices of F&B outlets. There are the budget places that dishes out great comfort food to the luxury fine-dining at the King’s residence places to the champagne brunches et al. The best part is – if we’re talking about Russian food, it is authentically Russian. If we’re talking about Lebanese food, it is authentically Lebanese. So on and so forth. They’ve even got directories and directories featuring all these food outlets! No other places I have been to offers such a tremendously diverse choice with so plentiful options for each choice in such a small place! I have my list of favourite budget places, mid-budget places and high-end places. Sure. Comparatively, it is pretty cheap to eat at the high-end places. I mean, free flow Moet Chandonne for champagne buffet at USD38 per person? Where else can you find that? And you can free flow from 11am till 5pm. Which by then, you probably find yourself either crawling out the door or just simply passed out cold at the table itself. On the hindsight of it, I hate seeing the street kids of the slump areas picking leftover garbage as food. It makes me feel really guilty. Helpless. It makes me very aware of myself. I am able to keep my tummy full and I am able to make a choice of what I want to eat, where I want to eat and what price I want to pay for that day. But they don’t have a choice. And this happens to be their land, their country. I guess above all, this is also a journey of humility.

For whatever reasons, I intend to be here for a long, long time. It is still an exciting time to be here, despite however disorganized the development might be. It is nevertheless, developing. Maybe, in time….given a longer assimilation with the locals and the culture, I would embrace this love-hate relationship I have for this land of stark contrast and learn to let live. And maybe in time too, the disparity between the haves and the have-nots might not be so wide a gap. Viva la Cambodia!