Cambodian Beggars in Bangkok

3 or 4 year old Cambodian boy, begging cup in hand, working the tourists on Sukhumvit, about 1:00AM

I was in Bangkok last week. Stayed in the heart of the Sukhumvit tourist area, Soi 4. In my 3-day stay I was a bit surprised by the number of Cambodian beggars I saw there – all women and young children. Seemed to be a lot more than usual. I don't know much about the foreign beggar situation in Bangkok. I’m in the city every couple of months for a few days or a week at a time – shopping, doctor, perhaps a bit of R&R. I know the place mostly from the perspective of a tourist.

There have always been both Thai and foreign beggars in that area. Of the foreigner beggars I’ve noticed, it’s been mostly Cambodians and some Vietnamese in the past, often children. One or two at a time here and there. What seemed unique this time was the sheer number of Cambodian beggars, and that they seemed to be working in family groups. There were at least a dozen and a half that I saw, comprising 3 or 4 family (or family-like) groups working a relatively compact tourist area around Sukhumvit Soi 4, including 3 or 4, 22-32 year old women with infants, several very young (3-6 year old) children begging and selling gum, and also several, mostly female flower sellers, around 9-12 years old. They all seemed to know one another and from what I could overhear they all spoke Khmer i.e. Cambodian Khmer, not Khmer as it is spoken in Thailand. These people were from Cambodia, not ethnic-Khmer from Northern Thailand.

They were likely trafficked here from Cambodia.

One evening I sat in front of the hotel for more than 3 hours, drinking beer and lazily watching the street scene including watching the beggars work. That area is solid tourists and those feeding off of them – punters and prostitutes, shoppers, street sellers, travelers and, of course, beggars. There was an easy dozen Cambodian beggars working that block alone. No men. All women and children. The youngest beggar children carried plastic cups to collect money, as did the infant toting Moms. The older children sold flowers and chewing gum.

A three year old boy was working the sidewalk right in front of where we sat, pacing back and forth hitting up passing tourists for change and doing a pretty good job of it. Seemed about 1 in 3 or 4 would give something, highlighting why he's been put on the street to beg. Because it works.

My wife called him over and asked him in Khmer where he was from. He said, in Khmer, that he was from Siem Reap and that he had been working in Thailand a ‘long time,’ (whatever a 'long time' may mean to a 3 year old.) One of the flower girls saw him talking to us and yelled to him in Khmer, ‘Don’t speak.’ He went back to begging, working long stretches unsupervised. He sure was a puffy-eyed, tired looking little guy still working at 1AM. He’d lay his head on the railing in front of us to rest, but would go on auto-pilot when he heard a tourist coming, automatically waving his plastic cup in their path. He knew how to do it in his sleep, so to speak.

A few times the whole lot of them went dashing up the street in a panic as if they were running from something, but we never saw anybody give chase. I asked a Thai street seller what it was all about and she explained that they probably spotted the police nearby and were fleeing for fear of arrest. Apparently the local constabulary is not on the trafficker's payroll.

I noticed in the Pattaya Daily News a couple of weeks ago that there are reports of Cambodian beggars of similar description working the tourists (and now arrested) in Pattaya – all Cambodian women with infants and children. While noting that there are Cambodian beggars in Bangkok would not be news, in my limited observation this time there seems to have been a recent influx and numbers are up. And I wonder why. Is the increase because of the beginning of the tourist season? Or did some new trafficking route just open? Or did I just fail to notice all of them before?

Cambodian girls selling flowers on Soi 4

Cambodian mother with infant (well, presumably she's the mother) working as a beggar on Sukhumvit Soi 4, Bangkok

More:

The Nature and Scope of the Foreign Beggar Issue (especially as related to Cambodian child beggars) in Bangkok

Criminal Logic

Purportedly an Angkorian era lintel from Baphuon temple that the author of the article ("Taking Home a Piece of Angkor Wat") was considering buying from an antiquities dealer in Bangkok, Thailand. Photo lifted from the article "Taking Home a Piece of Angkor Wat"

Your television has been stolen from your living room. The thief sells it to a fence, who puts the word on the street that he's got a nice big-screen plasma for sale. Prospective buyers, Joe Suburbia and his wife, hear about the TV and would really like to buy it, but they also know it is of dubious origin and, considering themselves to be a 'good people,' feel conflicted, if only a bit. The fence offers some soul soothing logic…

"Well, who really 'owns' stuff, so to speak? I mean, his Dad gave him that TV, so it's not really his anyways. Besides, why should he be the only one to get to enjoy it? Why shouldn't we be able to move that TV to your house where you and your friends can enjoy it? And on top of that, he didn't even take very good care of it, so doesn't that mean it's not really his?" 

Persuaded, the prospective buyers wipe their brows in relief and say, "So, how much do you want for it…" 

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Do you accept the fence's logic? Does it matter that your Dad gave you the TV or that you don't take good care of it? Are Joe and his wife right to buy your stolen TV?

I would answer no, no and no. The fence's logic is a weak and obvious rationalization for theft. Who gave you the TV or how well you took care of it have no bearing on your ownership of it. And Joe and his wife are not only receiving stolen goods but doing so knowingly, as evidenced in part by the fact that they would entertain such specious and self-serving logic. 

In fact, the logic seems so weak as to be unrealistic. Would anybody really offer such a transparent rationalization for buying stolen goods? Well, in an attempt to justify buying Angkorian-era Khmer antiquities in Bangkok, the following blog entry comes very close.

In an entry shamelessly entitled, "Taking Home a Piece of Angkor Wat," the writer explores the "gray area" of buying stolen antiquities:

"Who owns cultural relics from generations or millennia ago?  Just because people were born within the modern borders that a historical sight sits, why do they have the ownership right?  Why should cultural relics stay in a place rather than cross borders and share their beauty with people that can’t make it to their original location?  At what point of destruction or lack of care does a culture relinquish it’s (sic) ownership right?"

Somewhat general questions. We might at first imagine that he is exploring the issue in abstract or perhaps some borderline or potentially debatable case such as some antiquity of unknown origin or something that is comparatively common like Roman coins or cuneiform tablets. But no. In the following paragraph he almost immediately identifies the piece he is considering buying - a lintel from the Baphuon temple in the heart of Angkor Thom (see photo above) - a specific, unique, irreplaceable piece from one of the most important temples in the center of the old Angkorian capital in Cambodia. It would be difficult to imagine how such a piece (if authentic) was not looted.

From there his concerns turn to the pragmatic - the authenticity of the piece, how to skirt US import law and finally, the price, which turns out to be the determining factor in his decision of whether to purchase it or not.

He does pause in the next paragraph to touch on the ethical questions he posited, if only abstractly and in brief. But it seems to me this surfacy address is little more than a half-hearted exercise in self-absolution. The beginning and end of the article reveal the author's real feeling on the subject. The opening paragraph is a giddy account of what can be had in Bangkok for a price, everything from "endangered animals" to "ill-gotten antiques." And in his final words of the essay he decides against buying the artifact, not because of the ethical considerations but because it is too expensive:

"Upon arriving, excited and scared, to purchase our piece of the Angkor Kingdom we received bad news.  The price we had been quoted was incorrect by one zero.  Previously it was very expensive, but attainable, but now it was just too expensive.  The lessons we learned in the process though, were worth it, without finding a piece we loved, doing the research, debating among ourselves, and deciding, we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to think through the right, wrong and grey area of being a tomb raider."

The last sentence sums it up nicely - a straightforward admission of what he is trying to justify - "…being a tomb raider," i.e. a thief. 

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For more see:

It Surfaced Down Under!: Reprehensible

Safe Corner: The ethics of "tomb raiding?"

Allison in Cambodia: Taking home a piece of Angkor is NOT OK

Red List of Cambodian Antiquities at Risk

Wikipedia: Baphuon

BBC: Cambodia completes Angkor temple renovation 'puzzle'

Heritage Watch

Street Meat

Street meat for deep fry, Sukhumvit Soi 4, Bangkok, Thailand

A passing encounter

Bangkok. Out of the hospital with a clean bill and no required follow-ups. Not quite what I was but a helluva lot better than I could have been. I'm done with them and almost home.

Feeling tired and weak and a bit beaten up by the doctors, but nevertheless past it, I decided to make a night out, recoup some strength, if in attitude only. I began at a Soi 4 bar, perchance talking to an old (35ish) Thai taxi girl with whom I had one of the most disturbing conversations I've had.

I think she was trying to talk me up, hoping that I'd become a customer, but she spewed so much hatred, such unrelenting bile for everybody and every kind of person, that she literally made me feel physically ill. Any other time I would have been able to take it in stride, perhaps knock her down a few pegs, but my weakened state left me vulnerable.

One of the reasons I went to the bar was to try to relax and buck up a bit, put on a light, listen to some music, watch some people, get into a better frame. I just wasn't ready for her. Not that she directed any of her venom at me - after all, I was a potential customer. But no-one else was spared.

She began when I entered, harshly forcing some other (younger, prettier) taxi girls to relinquish their choice streetside seats to me, referring to them as "buffaloes." Granted, as a paying customer I was entitled to the seat, but I wouldn't have asked them to move, taxi girls or not.

I sat down.

She plopped down next to me and immediately began about the 'half-brained idiot farang bar owner' who lets these "useless buffaloes" do what they want. She went on…and on.

Trying to change the subject to something completely different, I asked about a katoey fortune teller that used to sit on the sidewak in front of the Dynasty Inn a few doors down. A deck of cards, a candle and a kerchief on the pavement - he was there for many years and I noticed in my last couple of visits that he had disappeared. I thought maybe he had moved. To be honest, I have no particular sympathy for katoeys and probably even something of a prejudice against them, but would never dream of wishing harm on somebody who had done me no harm. And this particular guy (girl) had always been kind to me. He spoke decent English and turned the cards and told my fortune a couple-few times over the years, doing a pretty good job of it. Anyway, when I asked about him she told me bluntly and with something of a smirk that he was dead - "dead of AIDS," she enunciated.

I felt an immediate rush of sadness. I knew this guy, or at least who he was. She went on to revel in it a bit, telling me how he deserved it because he was a katoey, how all katoeys deserve it, "butt-fuckers" that they are. I pressed for more info, received little, and in hindsight, I'm not sure she was telling the truth anyway. It may have all have been an exercise in wishful thinking.

She then went on to attack, in turn, the stupid Khmer beggars, the job-stealing Burmese, the thieving Vietnamese children who sell flowers on the street and, of course, the "smelly Muslims" that inhabit Soi 3. With a big smile she used my almost empty beer bottle to demonstrate how she would crack the skull of an 8-year-old Vietnamese 'match-girl' who was working the street nearby. And even though I went from a polite smile, to defending these people, to a blank stare, to a disgusted stare and finally quite obviously just looking away trying to ignore her, I don't think she ever got the idea that I was anything but enjoying her vile banter. I guess I should have just laid into her, but really wasn't up for a fight. That's not why I was there.

In the end, after only two beers, I called for my bill, paid the exact amount, and left. As I was leaving she followed, proffering the standard lilting "where are you going?" and a sweet voiced "come again," probably hoping for a tip or an offer to have her join me, but I wouldn't/couldn't even look at her.

I went on to better places and better people and made a pretty good night of it.

I have no moral to this story or conclusion to offer, just a vaguely sick feeling from the encounter, slowly fading as the hangover wanes and my strength returns.

Nana

Sukhumvit

Nana Station, Sukhumvit Soi 7, Bangkok, Thailand

Medical Care in Cambodia

Recently I have had the unfortunate opportunity to survey some of the local medical facilities. Personal health issues have sent me to the hospital more than once in the past couple of months, most recently in need of emergency surgery. While this has impacted my ability to blog regularly, it has also given me opportunity to reflect on the medical facilities in Southeast Asia, in Cambodia and Thailand in particular.

I am not a medical professional, have no significant medical training and am in no way qualified to make a professional evaluation of the local medical facilities, doctors, nurses, medical staff or equipment. Nor have I made a comprehensive survey. The following is strictly the opinions of a layman and born of nothing more than my personal experiences with the medical facilities here in Cambodia and Southeast Asia. Please do not take it for any more than that.

First, a note on Cambodian doctors. As a general rule, I do not go to Cambodian doctors in Cambodia. I do not avoid them because they are Cambodian, but because most of them were schooled in Cambodia.

While the medical schools in Cambodia may be perfectly fine educational institutions, the endemic corruption in this country leads me to question how those who have graduated earned their degrees. For those people honorable enough to have studied and passed their exams based on medical knowledge, their resulting medical degree may represent that of a competent and well-trained physician. But because of the corruption in Cambodia including various educational institutions, I simply do not have confidence that the sheepskin on their clinic wall represents the successful effort of a medical student rather than his societal station and/or wealth. If I must go to a Cambodian doctor, I look for a medical degree earned outside the country - e.g. in France, the US, or for older doctors in the old USSR.

For my lack of faith in locally trained doctors, given the opportunity I will almost always choose to go to a western doctor or international clinic/hospital. Amongst the western doctors and clinics available here, I have come to trust Dr. Reid Sheftall at American Medical Center, Dr. Gavin Scott at Tropical & Travellers Medical Clinic and International SOS Medical & Dental Clinic. None charge local prices, especially the latter, which is amongst the most expensive in town. But I have found all to be properly qualified (to the best of my knowledge) and, in my personal experience, medically competent at the very least. I have found Dr. Sheftall to be particularly helpful in matters of trauma and injury, Dr. Scott to be excellent with medical problems common to Southeast Asia and SOS to be well-equipped and quite helpful in the medical care of my children.

There is a certain Australian nurse in Phnom Penh who, in the past, has offered (and perhaps still offers) medical services and is popular amongst some foreigners in town. I have nothing against seeing a nurse instead of a doctor for minor ailments. But, personally, I would avoid this nurse like the plague. While she may be qualified and competent as a nurse, in the past she has misrepresented and wildly overstated her medical qualifications. I say this not from hear-say but from personal and direct experience. She told me that she was a doctor, even stating the sort of medical degree she had and the institution where she earned it. None of it was true. She is a nurse of some sort. Misrepresenting one's medical qualifications is, in my book, a cardinal sin amongst medical professionals and taints everything that may follow. For this reason, I do not trust her and will not use her services.

One Cambodian clinic with which I have had more than one positive experience is Polyclinique Aurora. They are equipped with X-ray and ultrasound equipment, are open 24 hours, are much more reasonably priced than foreign run places and in my experience have attended competently to both major and minor injury cases. If money is an issue, I would be relatively comfortable going to Polyclinique Aurora.

Of the various hospitals in Cambodia, I have had the most experience with Royal Rattanak Hospital here in Phnom Penh and Royal Angkor International Hospital in Siem Reap. Both are connected with the very reputable Bangkok Hospital in Thailand and neither is particularly cheap. Both are new and modern, fairly well equipped and staffed largely with Thai doctors, some Thai nurses and local Cambodian staff. I have found both to be something of a surfacey imitation of their counterpart in Thailand, but not too detrimentally so. I spent time as an in-patient at Royal Rattanak in Phnom Penh and received attentive, appropriate if not somewhat spendy care. The private room was comfortable and not unlike a three-star hotel. I had one significant complaint while I was there about a failure of their procedures and it was dealt with promptly and appropriately. My only other negative observation is that they seem a bit too anxious to order up expensive MRIs, but who am I to second guess a doctor's orders?

Royal Angkor International Hospital in Siem Reap has received a number of negative reviews from expats, not due to a failure of medical care, but centered primarily around claims of inflated prices and a two-tier pricing system seemingly aimed at bilking foreigners. That said, my single personal experience at Royal Angkor was positive. My son, being the boy he is, took a nasty spill and split his lip open, requiring stitches to put him back together. We took him to emergency at Royal Angkor where they attended to him promptly, properly and with appropriate sensitivity to a scared little boy. He was there for a couple of hours, received three stitches, and we got out of the place for less than US$100. I was satisfied with the experience.

All this said about Cambodian medical facilities, if you have the time, money and opportunity, it is still better to seek medical care outside of Cambodia in one of her neighboring countries - i.e. Thailand or Vietnam. Cambodia's rich and powerful all travel outside the country for medical care and there is a reason for that. Medical care is simply better in Vietnam and Thailand than in Cambodia - better facilities, better treatment, better doctors.

Vietnam's medical facilities are surprisingly good and getting better all the time. And Vietnam is easier to reach than Thailand, at least overland. It is only an inexpensive 6 hour bus or taxi ride from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City. If you are medically able to make the journey, Ho Chi Minh is probably the least expensive, closest  and easiest option outside of Cambodia.

Thailand's hospitals are undoubtedly the best in the region if not some of the best in the world. If I was in the US or Europe, had a medical problem and the opportunity to choose my hospital, I would fly to Bangkok for medical treatment - Bumrungrad Hospital in particular, the Cadillac of hospitals. Bumrungrad offers a full range of world-class medical professionals, facilities and services. The patient is king at Bumrungrad and the room facilities and service are like that of a five-star hotel. The level of attentiveness and kind assistance is unrivaled by any medical facility I have been in my life. Bumrungrad is perhaps the most expensive hospital in Thailand but is still only a fraction of the cost of medical care in the west. Other hospitals in Bangkok include Bangkok Hospital and Samitivej Hospital, both of which are very well-reputed and somewhat less expensive than Bumrungrad.

Lastly, a word about medical insurance and evacuation. Cambodia's medical facilities are limited in scope and capability. If you have a simple broken leg or burst appendix in Cambodia, they'll probably take care of you just fine. If you have a severe spinal or head injury, you're as good as dead in Cambodia. As has often been said in the guidebooks, major medical problems will require air evacuation to another country for proper treatment, probably to Thailand or Singapore. And evacuation is not cheap. A medical evac flight from Phnom Penh to Bangkok runs US$10,000-US$15,000. And they are going to want payment up front. While medical care is comparatively inexpensive in Southeast Asia, especially in Cambodia, evacuation is exorbitant and serious medical problems can cost you thousands of dollars at a good facility like Bumrungrad. Get expat medical insurance (for example, Aetna Worldwide offers a range of plans,) and unless your insurance guarantees payment in advance, have a stash of emergency cash or a credit card at the ready. When you're in desperate need of evac, laying there on a gurney at clinic with your brains spilling out of your skull after a motorcycle accident some Saturday night, it will be no time to start pleading for charity, bargaining over price or promising that your parents will send the cash when the bank opens on Monday. You won't make it and they won't care. Be prepared.

American Medical Center
Hotel Cambodiana, Ground Floor, Suite #3, Phnom Penh
Tel: 023-991863, 012-891613

Bangkok Hospital
#2 Soi Soonvijai 7, New Petchaburi Rd., Bangkok, Thailand 10310
Tel: +66 (0) 2310 3000

Bumrungrad Hospital
33 Sukhumvit 3 (Soi Nana Nua), Wattana, Bangkok, Thailand 10110
Tel: +66 (0) 2667 1000
www.bumrungrad.com

International SOS Medical & Dental Clinic
#161, Street 51, Phnom Penh
Tel: 023- 216911

Polyclinique Aurore
#58-60, Street 113, Phnom Penh
Tel 023-360152, 012-779824, 012-667561

Royal Rattanak Hospital
#11, Street 592, Khan Toul Kork, Phnom Penh
Tel: 023-365555, 099-631427, 099-674303

Royal Angkor International Hospital
National Route 6 (Airport Road), Siem Reap, Cambodia
Tel: 063-761888, 012-235888, 063-399111

Tropical & Travellers Medical Clinic
#88, Street 108, Phnom Penh
Tel: 023-366802, 012-898981

US Embassy, Phnom Penh - List of medical facilities

Canby Publications - List of medical facilities in Phnom Penh

Twitter Bangkok

From its inception until about a month ago I considered twitter an all but useless frivolity, good only for bored housewives and self-obsessed kids. Bangkok has changed my mind.

During the unfortunate events of the last week in Bangkok, twitter proved itself an absolutely amazing, invaluable tool for everybody involved - the people on the ground, the government, the protesters, the journalists and even for casual observers such as myself.

During our little war here in Cambodia of July 97 we were, for the most part, pinned down in our houses with little information about what was going on. I was lucky at the time. I had a cell, a shortwave, an Icom (military) and a television. And still, information was very sparse, narrow and always way late. Military chatter, two day old (incorrect) news on CNN, the occasional phone call from one of the few other people in town with a cell, usually looking for, rather than offering information. And it took four different bulky tools to get that limited information.

But during the Bangkok event, through Twitter, I had access to dozens of sources of information, right there on the ground, on all sides of the event, being reported in real time, in an easily monitored format - more than 3 dozen people in the heart of the action twittering what was happening before their eyes from several perspectives at that very second, and so did lots of people there in Bangkok, from their handphone alone. Except for analysis and summaries, it made traditional news sources all but superfluous - whether web, cable or broadcast.

From an information gathering point of view, it was even more powerful than actually being there on the ground, because you could be in 40 places at the same time, experiencing it from 40 different perspectives - the mad red shirt, the terrified tourist, the resolute governor, the crazy expats giving the blow-by-blow from the streets, the journalists making cynical observations or trapped in a pagoda under fire, people reporting troop and protester movements and confrontations, calling for help for the wounded, reporting fires and bombs, even Thaksin's lawyer trying to spin the whole thing from Europe. It was a mass of information, all as it was happening.

This was another landmark event for twitter, and a transformational event for me & twitter. I am sold.