Foreigners welcomed with a smile in Cambodia
on Phnom Penh Pal (Cambodia), 04/May/2014 07:31, 34 days ago
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We live in the Cambodian equivalent of Mayfair. A house in Boeung Keng Kang 1can cost $2m, in a country where GDP per capita is nearer $1000.This is one is definitely more than $2m - owned by the family who have the license for Tiger beer.Apartments with swimming pools can be rented for $2000 per month; coffee shops with air-conditioning can charge $5 a cup; food can cost $30 in a restaurant; and flash cars are parked everywhere. This is ex-pat ville.Amidst all of this are the cheap local market, street food stalls and Cambodians eking out a living, often by serving the needs of wealthy foreigners. My sense of inappropriateness if eating a lavish dinner or drinking an expensive cocktail comes from my fear of what these people will think when they see me.They see us come to their country, mangle their language, remain ignorant of their culture and spend exorbitant sums on things that are strange and foreign to them. They see the places that they know change to look more like the places we come from. And then these places remain too expensive for them to access.People in developed countries get annoyed when people from developing countries live in their country and take the low paid jobs. Can you imagine what it would feel like if it were all of the high paid jobs that they took?Whilst they would become doctors, engineers and bankers, you would work as a waiter, in a shop or as a taxi driver. You would practice for hours without books or teachers to learn their language, whilst the foreigners are pleased with themselves because they can say no and thank you in yours. You would copy phrases that you hear to greater endear yourself. Everybody becomes a sir or madam and you never stop enthusiastically offering your services because it might help you get another dollar. Any feeling of resentment is submerged by the need to earn money and the knowledge that it is through serving these foreigners that your family can eat.What do you think that this would do to your feeling of pride? Yet, I do not see any resentment but experienced kindness from people we work with, tuk tuk and moto drivers who take us places, staff who serve us and people who we see in the streets. A smile as wide as their faces is usually what greets us.In other countries, tourists can complain about being ripped off and taken advantage of. So far, that does not yet happen to a great extent in Cambodia. Either, the Cambodians have not worked out how much they can rip people off or they are just not willing to do it. Sometimes, if you ask for a price, you can sense a hesitation whilst they consider whether they could get more than normal and if so how much more. Could they try to eke out an extra 500 riels (less than 10p)?In fact we have experienced the opposite: people giving us stuff because we're foreign. Children at a pagoda in Kratie gave us fruit that they had for no reason other than that we foreign guests in their village. Teenagers in Battambang made a grasshopper from coconut tree leaves and gave it to us because we were talking to them. A food seller in Takeo gave us extra snacks whilst we were resting after climbing a hill. They gave to us even though they had less than us.Our local moto taxi driver invited us to join a family celebration at his house, where not only were we treated to as much food my belly would allow, but he also gave us how home brewed wine that he had kept special for years.As more tourists come, attitudes may change, but maybe not. I do feel that we are lucky to have been here at this time though.GordonNormal0falsefalsefalseEN-USJAX-NONE/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}