In for a penny...

Tales of woe and need. They're almost as common as poverty in Cambodia. Every expat hears them, often with a request for assistance (i.e. money.) To help or not to help is the question. And if 'to help' is the answer, you still cannot help them all. There are too many, their needs often great, and resources are limited. Not to mention the problem of liars and scammers who would exploit your charitable inclinations. A degree of distance and discrimination is necessary, if for no other reason than to shield yourself from ruin. But how distant? When to listen and when to turn your head? When to help and when to protect yourself? And once involved, how deep do you go?

Over the years I've been suckered more than once, wasting my money and time. And there have been times I've turned my head, when in hindsight I should have listened and helped. The following is a story from several years back when, grudgingly, and somewhat by chance, I got it right...I think.

-------------

Phnom Penh. Mid-monsoon season. Early-afternoon. Black clouds building in the southern sky. The air began to cool and the wind picked up. It would rain soon. I decided to try to beat it home. Riding up Street 13 I could see a foggy sheet of water moving across the city ahead. I wasn't going to make it. I pulled off just as the first drops hit my visor, taking refuge in a little Vietnamese coffee shop near Phsar Kandal.

I sat just inside the open façade near the sidewalk, shielded from the rain by the overhang. I ordered an ice coffee with milk. I love Vietnamese coffee - a little tin-pot strainer perched atop a long glass, slowly dripping jet black coffee onto cracked ice and a big blob of sweetened condensed milk…drip, drip, drip...thick and opaque, the glass slowly filling. It's a lovely wait.

The rain was full on now, pissing down monsoon hard, the street flooding fast. As motos and cars plowed through the rising waters, waves began lapping onto the sidewalk. The intense downpour and encroaching waterline dislodged customers who had been sitting farther out, sending a couple of young VN girls my way. Walking towards me one offered a jaunty, bit too familiar 'Hello, you!"' At first I thought it was a come on, but on closer look I realized they were friends of sorts - a couple taxi girls I've known for years. Dressed casually, out of the bar context and in the stark light of day I hardly recognized them. I motioned them to sit and join me.

The better spoken of the two, Mai, was a pretty 20-something from the British pub in Sihanoukville. Good pool player. Sweet talker. The other, Thi, was a older working girl from Sharky's here in Phnom Penh - always something of a Sad Sack and a bit of a mooch. They sat down across from me and called for a couple of glasses to pour tea from the table pot.

We sipped our drinks and chatted -  cordialities and weather-talk, as our limited language skills allowed.

As we spoke the conversation turned rather quickly to the story of a "sick friend" who was staying in an apartment above the coffee shop. Being a cynical sort, I doubted the tale's veracity and suspected it was leading to an appeal for money, but held my tongue for the moment.

Mai said the sick friend was "very hot" and had terrible stomach and back pain, motioning dramatically to the relevant parts. "She's very poor."

'Ah,' I thought, 'the money move is coming soon.' I waited for an opportunity to change the subject.

She continued, "very hot, wet, stomach big, same like have baby (pregnant,) but no baby. Pain. Ooo, pain a lot. Very sick. Do you want to see?"

The offer to show me lent credibility but I begged off reflexively, not wanting to get deeper. I told them I wasn't a doctor. Still, the symptoms did seem serious and were a bit intriguing, especially the swollen abdomen. 'What could cause that?' I wondered. Against my better judgement, I engaged a bit, asking if she had been to the doctor or was taking medicine.

"No doctor, no money. Medicine come out (vomit), and she no shit, no piss many day."

Even to my non-medical ear that sounded bad. Not just another case of food poisoning or AIDS or whatever. 'Perhaps an intestinal blockage' I thought, which  can be very dangerous.

Though still wary, my curiosity got the better of me. I agreed to go see her, while emphasizing that I hadn't any medical training. I figured I could satisfy my curiosity, and if the story wasn't complete BS, perhaps offer the girl a few dollars and urge her to go the doctor.

We went upstairs. It was colonial era apartment block, now sporting the post-apocalyptic look - heavy old concrete structure, unlighted corridors, barren soot-blackened walls, laundry hanging here and there, the smoke of cooking fires in the air and sounds of crying babies and playing children echoing through the halls.

I entered the apartment and immediately felt I had made a terrible mistake.

More than a half dozen people were crowded into a tiny room and all eyes were instantly upon me. Sad, desperate eyes. All poor, uneducated, bottom of the heap Vietnamese. Probably 10 years of school between them. The place was dimly lit and thick with incense smoke. My eyes burned. A 20ish year old girl lay curled on a bed against the wall - face beet red, sweating profusely, hair matted wet, breathing fast and shallow, seemingly semi-conscious. Two young women knelt at her side massaging her hands and feet. An old couple with bald heads, black silk pants and teary eyes squatted in the corner staring at me, hopefully, pleadingly.

"What have I gotten myself into?" I mumbled to myself.

Mai said something in Vietnamese and a middle-aged woman handed me a little zip-lock bag of pills they had bought at the pharmacy - 6 ampicillin, 6 paracetamol, 3 vitamins and what looked like a several antihistamines.

"Is this right?" Mai asked.

This is a common practice. Too poor for a real doctor, these people go to the pharmacist for both diagnosis and prescription. The pharmacist is a lot cheaper and will dispense drugs on a mere description of symptoms, sometimes even with the patient sight unseen. They don't have a medical degree and maybe not even a degree in pharmacy, but that doesn't stop them from diagnosing sick people and prescribing drugs, often in combinations that seem chosen as much for color coordination as medicinal properties.

In fact, there does often seem to be some crude medical logic to such prescriptions. It's a scattergun approach to treatment, putting together a drug combo that may not cure the problem but will make many patients feel better, if only temporarily, regardless of the disease. Paracetamol to kill pain, B vitamins for a little energy boost, antihistamines in case of allergies or cold and enough broad spectrum antibiotic to slow down a variety of infections (though never a proper full course.) In lieu of affordable care, the limited medical knowledge of these ad hoc practitioners is probably better than nothing. But nevertheless, much (perhaps most) of it is a cynical scam to separate poor, ignorant people from their pennies with only cursory regard to their actual health.

Anyway, how am I to even begin explaining all this to them - the quackery and the exploitation and the blah, blah, blah? So I didn't. I said I wasn't sure but didn't think it was right.

I walked to the sick girl and felt her forehead. She was burning up. She really did look pregnant, her stomach protruding like she was 6 months along, though they insisted she wasn't. I reached toward her abdomen and she winced in pain before I even touched her. She looked like she was dying. Shocked by her deathly appearance, I blurted "You've got to get her to a doctor!" and reached for my pocket to give them some money. I was now thinking $20 or $30, enough to get her examined by a real doctor and buy whatever he might prescribe.

But Mai then explained she had already been to the doctor, in fact two doctors that day.

She reached under the bed and pulled out an ultrasound film and report from that morning. Surprised, I asked what the doctor had said. She said that they didn't understand, but that it required an operation and would cost $500. I looked at the ultrasound report. It was clear, right there in French, 'ruptured appendix…peritonitis.' Holy Hell, she really was in immediate danger of dying and needed emergency surgery to save her life.

"Did you read this?" I asked emphatically.

"Cannot."

Of course not. None of these people could read French. In fact they were probably all illiterate.

"Did the doctor explain this...appendix...her intestines…her sickness...what she sick?" I struggled for understandable vocabulary.

"Yes. No. No understand. Very sick. Very pain. Cut for $500."

So, nobody here can read and nobody helped them to understand the life or death nature of the information. This is so Cambodia - the ignorance, the poverty, the human misery,  the callous indifference of those with the power to help. I told them in no uncertain terms that she needed immediate surgery or she would die. "Go to the hospital NOW," I said.

"Two hospitals already…Calmette, hmm, one more…No $500, cannot. No money, nobody cut."

'Bastards!,' I thought. So called 'doctors' knowingly sending a 20 year old girl to a slow and near certain death for lack of a few dollars in her pocket today. "Quacks, incompetents, selfish racist cunts," I barked at the floor.

They stared at me.

So was I manipulated into this situation? Was I getting the whole story? It didn't matter anymore. Now I'm hip fucking deep in this thing. Dropping 20 bucks on the table and leaving was no longer an option. Now…now, with direct knowledge of her situation and the power to change it, I am now responsible. Knowing what I know now, if I was to walk away I would be no better than those bastard doctors, little different than killing her myself.

I phoned a western doctor who happened to be friend. He's not a surgeon, but I figured he could give some advice. He got right on it, made a few calls and found a Cambodian doctor who said he'd do the surgery for $290 (up front,) but it had to be at his office, not a clinic or hospital. I got the address and asked him to set it up.

I had $130 in my pocket. I put it on the table. I eyed the thin gold ('pla-tin') ring on Mai's finger. She pulled it off and put it with the money. With prompting so did the others. Two rings, a pair of earrings, a tiny jewel pendant, a little more cash and four broken pieces of gold necklace and we had something like the whole $290. Now we had to get her to the doctor.

Thi went to get help and returned with several cyclo drivers. Using a blanket as a litter, the group packed her down two flights of steep stairs with all the delicacy of a bucket brigade, her moaning and wailing all the way. They put her into a waiting cyclo and off she went. The rest of us followed on motorcycles to the doctor's office near Wat Phnom.

We presented the pile of money and gold to the doctor. He fingered through it, nodded his head and then did as he said he would, performing an appendectomy right there in his office. We waited out front on the street, huddling along the curb. I sat. They squatted.

About an hour later the nurse came out and said she'd be okay. We went inside to see. The girl woke in what seemed surprisingly short order, but after a while began moaning and crying in pain. I tried to get some more information from the doctor about her condition. In broken English he said that all had gone well and that with antibiotics she'd probably be fine. Good news.

And "why is she crying in pain?" I asked.

"Because she has pain from the surgery," he responded, adding, "patients can be very difficult in the first 24 hours."

Thinking that perhaps I had missed something, I asked what I thought might be a stupid question, "what about painkillers?"

"Not enough money" he said.

Ah, but of course. What's a sundae without a cherry on top?

I asked how much.

"$40," he said with a barely concealed smirk.

'Extortion,' I thought.

I looked behind me at the group. They looked back at me, nothing more to offer. I could hear the girl sobbing and moaning in the back office.

I had no money left, at least not on me. I took my phone out of my pocket and held it up. A cheap old Nokia. The doctor took it from me, looked it over, then smiled, nodded and handed it back. I pulled out the SIM and gave him the phone. Without missing a beat he opened the medicine cabinet, retrieved a vial of some drug, went in back and gave her an injection. She quieted almost immediately, seemingly more comfortable.

I stepped out to the street. The sun had set but the drizzle had returned. Tapped out and nothing more to do, I made my goodbyes. Everybody was smiling now and Mai gave me a rather formal sounding "Thank you."  The elderly couple in black silk kneeled on the wet pavement, satued and bowed and hugged the cuff of my pants, making me very uncomfortable. I got on my bike and left.

I saw the girl a few times after that, working as a taxi girl at Sharky's and Martini's, and then never again.  A couple of years later I asked some of the working girls about her. One told me she had died of AIDS. Another said that she was fine and had gone to Vietnam. I never did find out what really became of her. Come to think of it, I never learned her name either.

Originally published on Khmer440

Panto

The step sisters do Beyonce

Running about a week late on this post.

*CONTAINS (belated) SPOILERS*

Last week the local expat theater group, The Phnom Penh Players, did their annual Christmas pantomime – that peculiar form of traditional British family entertainment that includes risqué wordplay, slapstick, political in-jokes, rampant cross-dressing and, ideally, raucous audience participation. This year’s outing was entitled ‘Cinderella’s Hard Day’s Night,’ and like last year’s ‘Robin in da Hood’ it was a general success.

Written by local expats Claire Barker and Zac Kandall, Cinderella’s Hard Day’s Night tells the story of a provincial girl from an ill-fated family – her widower father dies suddenly (of 'a broken heart' according to local officials,) then their mango trees mysteriously burn down and a development company rubber plantation pops up in its place. Her inheritance lost, she moves to the city where she ends up doing factory work and acting as a servant to her self-centered, bearded stepsisters played by Mark Twine and Dom Sharpe. Interspersed with adapted Beatles songs, the story winds its way rather unpredictably through the Cinderella tale, from her abuse by her adopted family (and their threats to traffic her to Bangkok,) to the 'connected' fairy godparents, the royal ball, the insecure (and busty) Prince Charming, the climactic cake baking contest judged Chef Ramsay (whose every other word is a censorial "beep") and ultimately to a ‘happily ever after’ ending and a grand romantic kiss between the Prince and Cinderella (both played by women.)

The writing was sharp and knowing, the songs fun, the actors all in good form and the play as a whole a bit rough around the edges, just as a local performance should be. I feel I must make special note of the play's bitingly timely local in-jokes, and of Tim Johnson as Buttons, Cinderella’s love struck sidekick, whose merry muggings made many a moment. Great stuff Tim. Consider quitting your day job.

Last but certainly not least, the over-the-top rendition of Beyoncé’s ‘Single Ladies’ by Cinderella’s cross-dressing step-sisters was uproariously funny, the highlight of the show. I've never really seen the humor in drag, but this sketch had me belly laughing. I hope somebody caught it on video. It was a keeper.

It was all great fun. A touch of home in the Christmas season, even if I’m not British. The audience, made up mostly of expats, many families and children, obviously enjoyed themselves. Having no idea what it will be or even if there will be one, I highly recommend next year’s show for the whole family.

At the Russian Cultural Center. The crowds await.

Program

Hamlet introduces the traditions and rules of Pantomime

"Lakeside this, lakeside that. If I knew it was going to be such a big to-do I would have done things differently. Yes, I definitely would have shut down the newspapers..."

Fairy Godmother, Buttons and Cinderella

Fairy Godfather (and writer, Zac Kandall)

Domino and Buttons

'All you need is love...'

Finale, 'All You Need is Love'

The cast

More:

EAS: Panto Time: Cinderella’s Hard Day's Night

Phnom Penh Post: New panto combines Beatles and fairytales

Pedophile!

It finally happened.

As a result of the hysteria generated by the western press, and perhaps a bit of racism as well, today I was accused of being a pedophile, for absolutely no other reason than being a white male in the company of brown children – my son and daughter. 

First, just a bit about us. I’m 50+ years old, white, a businessman and have lived in Cambodia for more than 18 years. I’m married to an Asian woman. We’ve been together more than 10 years and have two beautiful children - a 9 year old girl and 7 year old boy. We are the natural parents of both. They are wonderful children, the loves of my life. They are well-behaved, excellent students and speak perfectly accented American English as well as 2-3 other languages. And though it sickens me that the situation requires me to make note of their racial features… though they are not distinctly Asian, they are darker than me and not 100% European in appearance, to anybody with an eye, clearly ‘kon kut’ (mixed race.)

I work a lot, perhaps too much, but always reserve Sundays for my family and children. It’s become a Sunday afternoon tradition in our family to give Mom a break, some time for herself. The kids and I always go somewhere together on Sunday afternoons - the Museum, the park, the Palace, the Russian Market, or quite often the riverfront for snacks and CD shopping, as we did today. 

We took a tuk-tuk to the riverfront, got out at K-West (Sisowath Quay and Street 154) and started walking up the riverfront road. My children were dressed in their Sunday best, happy and smiling. We strolled hand in hand, my daughter anxious to buy the newest installment of Harry Potter at the CD shop, my son looking forward to strawberry and passion fruit ice cream at K-West.

We hadn’t got but 40 meters when I noticed a woman – white, 50ish, seemingly a tourist - walking toward us taking photos in our direction. A man, presumably the husband, stood next to her. As we got closer I thought she might be trying to get a riverfront shot, perhaps of something behind me, so I stepped slightly to the side to get out of the way. But she tracked us with her camera. As we got closer and she kept shooting I furrowed my brow in a ‘what are you doing?’ sort of way, but didn’t actually say anything.

She held up her camera, pointed at it and said, “Internet!” I wasn’t sure I got the meaning so I said “what?” She pointed at her camera again and said with a smirk, “Internet,” pointed at me and said, “you pedo!” Hearing clearly but not wanting to make a mistake I stepped closer to her and asked again. She repeated, “Photo you, internet, you pedo…for police,” in a distinctly Italian accent. I said something like “These are my children.” She just shook her head and started to raise her camera again. I said, “You want police? You want to call the police?” She nodded. I said, “I’ll call police.” She nodded again and we stepped to the side of the pavement together. My children backed off a few steps, frightened by the obvious tension in our voices. I pulled out my phone, called my staff and asked them to call the police and I called the police myself as well. I told them where I was and asked them to come quickly.

We stood there uncomfortably for a moment. I considered grabbing the camera, but didn’t want to start a fight, especially with my children there. I motioned my children to us and told my daughter to explain who she was. I figured my daughter’s thick American accent alone should be enough. My daughter started to tell her name, age and such when the Italian woman cut her off. “No English. No English,” she barked. Startled, my children moved behind me.

We stood there another uncomfortable minute, waiting. The woman started to get nervous. She said “I go,” and tried to push past me. I said “No, we wait for police.” She repeated that she was going. I told her to either wait for the police or delete the photos. She said, “No, you pedo,” and tried to push past me again. I stood firm and told her we were going to wait for the police. She pushed me back but I stayed in front of her like a blocker. I didn’t touch her myself because she was a woman, but she pushed me back repeatedly. It became a jostling and yelling match, her pushing, me blocking, staggering down the riverfront back toward K-West. Khmers and tourists stood and stared at the commotion. I just kept repeating, “wait for the police or delete the photos,” as did she, “no, no…go, go.” 

Through all this her husband did nothing to help her. I kept expecting him to jump in. Rather hoping he would actually.  But he just looked uncomfortable, slowly, silently, wimpishly following behind his wife.

In front of K-West they jumped in a tuk-tuk. I thought about getting in too. Or perhaps grabbing a motodup. I saw my children standing about 15 meters away, wide-eyed. I didn’t want to involve them in a chase. This was already too much. I pulled out my phone and aimed it at the woman to take a photo. She screamed, “No photo! No photo!” and covered her face. It took a few seconds for my camera to work allowing her time to cover. I took several photos, all of her with face covered.

After they left, I called the police back and told them she was gone and to not bother coming.

My kids and I went into K-West, got some tea and sodas and we talked about what had happened. I tried to explain, leaving out the bit about pedophilia and replacing it with ‘she thought I was trying to steal you.’ “Why?” they asked. I could only say because I’m white and they look Asian. “But we’re a family,” they said. They know that their Mom is Asian and I’m a barang, but they haven’t yet learned that this is an important distinction in the minds of some.

I know there is more to it than that, but how do I explain that to a 7 and 9 year old?

In moments of silence, as they tried to comprehend what this woman had done, I tweeted about it. The whole thing left me rattled. Bitching about it on internet seemed to help relieve the tension a bit.

My daughter made an astute observation in the aftermath. Thirty minutes later, as we walked to the CD shop she said, “She knows nothing about Cambodia. Doesn’t she know that Asians and Americans can have children? She doesn’t know anything.”

I think my daughter is right about that, or perhaps even understated it a bit. The woman doesn’t know anything about Cambodia. She, in fact, probably only imagines she knows something because of what she has read in the western press, which is something less than nothing in many cases.

If this Italian woman isn’t simply a racist, her mind has probably been twisted by the constant stream of sensational, repetitive and often wildly-overstated stories of western pedophiles and abused children in Cambodia.  And not only by the western press but by NGOs that profit from it and feed the beast with exaggerated stats and a constant stream of rehashed horrors stories that keep the funds flowing and the presses humming.

Back in the US a few months ago I saw MSNBC playing their 8 year old ‘Children for Sale’ video yet again, about a brothel village that hasn’t existed in more than half a decade. Some NGOs are still pawning off the ’33,000 child prostitutes in Cambodia’ stat when there aren’t 33,000 prostitutes of any age in Cambodia (link). Some Christian NGOs tell their people that there are women chained to beds and being raped in hostess bars in the center of the tourist district on the Phnom Penh riverfront. Every westerner busted for pedophilia in Cambodia is repeated in the international press for weeks while the fact that they make up a tiny fraction of the pedos in Cambodia goes unmentioned. Nicholas Kristof parachutes into Cambodia to do a sensational live-tweet of a brothel raid, painting himself the cowboy hero riding to the rescue of women and children in the Wild West (link1 link 2). Some NGOs in Cambodia parade their rescued victims (link) of trafficking in front of an insatiable press and voyeuristic tourists to repeat their stories of victimhood again and again - donations accepted. Sex in Cambodia sells. 

Don’t get me wrong. Human trafficking and trafficking in children for sex is a real and present problem in Cambodia, and the rest of the world. There are pedophiles, especially amongst the Khmer and Asians, and certainly westerners too. It all needs to be addressed, there is no doubt about that. But the western press’s manic fixation on abusive sex in Cambodia has made the country name synonymous with pedophilia, unfairly and inaccurately so.

From her exposure to the press, tourists like this Italian woman think that pedophiles are as common as cockroaches, that any white man with an Asian looking child must be a pedo who can simply waltz through tourist areas in broad daylight with a prepubescent child on each hand. (And I can’t help but believe that if my children had been white, she wouldn’t have made this judgment about us.) Kristof’s sensationalism has 3-day tourists believing they too can play super-hero, identifying pedos at a glance, swooping to the rescue and saving a child in between their afternoon visit to the Royal Palace and authentic Cambodian Curry dinner on the riverfront.

Ultimately, as good as their intentions might be, as important as the problem is, the press, some NGOs and these misguided tourists are doing the country, the victims of trafficking, and yes, even little people like me a terrible disservice, while enriching and glorifying themselves in the process. This needs to stop. This isn’t a game or an action hero movie or an opportunity for tourists to feel righteous pity. The problems need to be addressed realistically and not in the context of sensationalism, mania, big-money, and dare I say, racism.

If, unlike this Italian woman, you have a reasonable, rational belief that you have seen a child in a risk situation, by all means, call the ChildSafe helpline, if possible keep the child in sight and wait until the ChildSafe team arrives to sort things out.

Anyway, I figure that when my photo turns up on some Italian website as another pedophile operating openly and with impunity in Cambodia, it will also include a story of my powerful police connections that were on their way to protect me and how she had to flee for her life. A narrow escape by our heroine, just like in the movies. Cambodia is a very dangerous place, you know. And her harrowing tale might even generate a few donations for some Cambodian anti-trafficking NGO.

Children Are Not Tourist Attractions

Tourists, listen up...

Today, Friends-International launched its new 'Children Are Not Tourist Attractions' campaign, including the article below, a new website and an ad campaign with banners on tuk-tuks in Phnom Penh, all to raise awareness about the orphanage tourism game and related child exploitation and voluntourism issues. The goal is to put an end to orphanage tourism in Cambodia. Such a campaign is long-overdue and sorely needed. The article and website are brilliant. I've been railing about this issue for years and it is very near and dear to my heart. (I only wish I could have been so eloquent as Friend-International has been in their website and article.) I wish them the greatest success in this endeavor. Please read, learn and heed their advice.

Photo by Friends-International from the

'When Children Become Tourist Attractions' article.

When Children Become Tourist Attractions

Posted on 20 October 2011, by Friends-International

Each year, thousands of tourists visit orphanages in Cambodia thinking they are helping some of the most vulnerable children in the world. Recent reports however have found their visits may be doing more harm than good.

Nearing midnight on Pub Street, Siem Reap is buzzing. Hundreds, if not thousands of tourists roam from bar to bar, looking for a good time after spending full days wandering through Cambodia’s spectacular Angkor Wat temples.

Beggars follow the travelers around, while other locals sell flowers, fake travel guides and postcards to unassuming customers. Through the mayhem, a small team of professional junior entrepreneurs make their way down the street pitching a different product to the hordes – a visit to a nearby orphanage...Continue reading here

Learn more at the Friends-International CHILDREN ARE NOT TOURIST ATTRACTIONS website.

Please, do not engage in orphanage tourism.

(If I may indulge briefly in a bit of selfish told-you-so righteous gloating...as I mentioned above, I have been on about the orphanage issue for the better part of a decade and the child beggar/vendor issue for a lot longer than that. As an old white male expat, I have been accused of being jaded, heartless, a cynical old expat and much, much worse, because of my views on this matter - all while the name-callers bought flowers from 8-year-old vendors in the bar in the middle of the night, doled out dollar bills to glue sniffing kids on the street and told teary-eyed stories of the orphanage at which they voluntoured [for a price] washing dishes and playing with the children. Tourists, most often young and more often than not female, with big hearts and very little thought, all knew so much more than this old male expat with 25 years in Asia under his belt. I am thrilled to see this long-established, trustworthy, highly credible organization saying basically the same thing, though of course in a more affable, organized, less curmudgeonly way. Maybe now people will listen.)

Notes on the death of a friend

Notes on the death of a friend, a bit more than a month ago…

4:00PM - Terrible news. Our friend and colleague, Mrs. Dam Bopha, has died.*

She committed suicide, poisoning herself today around 10AM. Her husband discovered her at 11 when he came home for lunch. She was about 50 years old, the mother of 4, well-known and respected in the community here in southern Cambodia. We know the whole family. Apparently there was some sort of public confrontation with another woman at the market this morning. Comparatively minor stuff, problems between their teenage children - teenagers in love, girl's family doesn't want boy around their daughter, complains to boy's family, etc. A not uncommon tale. But apparently there was a loss of face. Mrs. Bopha, mother f the boy,  went home, locked herself in her room and did herself in with rat poison. A rough way to go.

A friend came to our place around 2PM to inform us. We all immediately went to her house. Things were already in progress. Chairs and tables set out. An awning and tent with trimming ribbon in Buddhist colors had been erected in front of the house. Women were cooking food at a furious pace. Mrs. Bopha was laid out on a daybed in her living room, covered with a white sheet. Her best friend, Mrs. Lim (a health care worker) was performing a medical procedure, perhaps some sort of minor embalming. She worked quietly, with stoic expression and red eyes. Mrs. Bopha's youngest children, maybe 9 and 11, were burning ghost money in an urn at her feet. They worked with purpose. An incense pot and photo sat between her and the urn.

We spent maybe an hour at the house. After paying our respects we moved outside to one of the tables where we were served several dishes. Not feeling the least hungry I picked at the plate. Mrs. Lim came out and urged people to eat. I did, out of obligation.

9:05 PM - Back at our place. The amplified chanting of the monks from Mrs. Bopha's house wafts across the town. Here, a half mile away, the sound of the monks and funeral music rises and falls on the wind, from nearly inaudible to jarringly loud.

Foreigners, including myself, often complain of the seemingly over-amplified music that accompanies Khmer funerals and weddings. I think this time, for the first time, I got a little hit of the cultural logic behind it. The whole town is, in some sense, part of the funeral. We, her friends and those who knew her, though not at her funeral at this moment, are still participating. We know what's happening at her house right now. The sad and nagging question, "I wonder how the family is doing?" has at least some answer so long we hear the monks and music. They're receiving guests, burning ghost money, praying, talking about her, serving food... No matter how far away her friends in this town, we all derive the benefit, the comfort of continued inclusion.

The amplified music would seem a tradition of a smaller community, a village tradition in which every funeral and every wedding was an event that affected the entire community. In larger, more disconnected communities where the death or wedding of some stranger has no direct impact on us, it seems an intrusion rather than inclusion. I have felt so in the past. But tonight, it's consoling.

11:00PM - Just back from a smoke on the roof. Orion is already past the meridian at 8:30. At 11 he's low and there's a waxing moon further obscuring the view. Perhaps a month of Orion left. The funeral music continues, though much more softly.

My first reaction to this whole thing has been, 'How could she be so selfish?' She has money, a good job and dependent children... But there is probably more to it. Possibly depression. She survived the Khmer Rouge, she survived the war in the 80s including a rocket attack on a van she was in. It killed several and permanently maimed her best friend Mrs. Lim. She told me the story several times. She always seemed a very delicate, fragile person. Nevertheless, it is bullshit to leave those children without a mother. I can't get past that.

Two days later…

They buried Mrs. Bopha today. We went to their house in the morning around 10AM. Pallbearers lifted her in her coffin onto the back of the hearse - a flat bed truck with dragons painted on the sides. Her photo and a megaphone hung from the front grill. The funeral music started with the engine, blasting from the megaphone, a mournful droning bagpipe like sound at 120dB.

As the hearse pulled onto the road a local beggar who's a couple of bubbles off plumb unexpectedly jumped on the bed of the truck, pulled out a toy cap gun and rode shotgun, brandishing his weapon as if to protect the hearse. Nobody bothered him. The procession moved slowly through town, littering the street with ghost money dribbled by attendants from the back of the hearse. The money swirled in the wake of the passing motos and cars. Children ran along side, playing and collecting the ghost bills. We left downtown and proceeded up the mountain to the Chinese graveyard at Wat Leu overlooking city.

It was one of the the longest, largest funeral processions I have seen in this town. She knew a lot of people.

When we arrived at the pagoda her friends took the coffin from the truck and placed it on braces above the grave. The whole family was dressed in white, the boys shaved bald. Her teenage son held an incense pot and led the family as they walked in a line around the grave 2 or 3 times. The sun was high and hot. Monks prayed and most people squatted on their heels. Finally the mourners went to the soft, freshly dug earth around the grave and planted incense and flower bundles in the loose dirt. The family stood close to the grave and her husband received mourners as they passed. When I approached I saw her teenage son standing there, dressed in his white garb, holding the incense pot, his shaved head. He looked so miserable, so sad. This whole thing has been so unfair to him. We met eyes and I nodded gently. He responded similarly.

We offered our condolences, said our goodbyes, and left.

Rest in Peace dear lady.

(* Names and some other details have been changed for sake of privacy.)

2010

It’s the first New Year of the year. Two more to come.

And it’s harvest time in Cambodia.

The monsoons ended a month or so ago. It’s cool and mostly rainless, bringing an end to the primary growing season. Most of the rice has recently been cut and the paddies are dry and turning fallow brown.

Driving through rural Kampong Trach (Kampot province) yesterday I saw several groups threshing rice by hand - the ‘flailing method’ - beating the long stalks against rows of threshing boards and funneling the seed into baskets beneath. Piles of drying rice straw sat stacked in front of houses and bamboo and plastic mats lined the side of the road, covered with new rice seed airing in the sun and breeze. Toward the end of the day, as the sun was setting, women collected the dry seed from the mats into large sacks for storage.

Rural Cambodia is a busy place right now, bustling with harvest work. Not really an ideal time for a New Year holiday. Nevertheless, there will be many celebrations today (Dec 31,) and a certain amount of partying come Chinese New Year in February as well. Cambodians are never ones to pass up on a good holiday, even non-Cambodian ones. But the real New Year here - Khmer New Year (Jol Chhnam Khmei) - is still months away, in April, well after the harvest period has ended and just before the seasonal rains begin, at a time more in sync with the Southeast Asian rhythms of the monsoons and the rice.

Nevertheless, for a westerner like me, today is New Year Eve, my New Year Eve. So, naturally, with three hours to kill driving from Phnom Penh to Kep, I took to reflecting on the year for Cambodia - the news, the big stories, the not so big stories, changes, non-changes, lingering impressions and the state of things. I made a list of whatever came to mind, noting it into my iPhone as I drove. This is that list, with some references added.

* The Preah Vihear border dispute with Thailand was news all year in one form or another – a largely imposed crisis, its current incarnation born of Thailand’s recent internal upheaval. To date, Cambodia has held her own quite well throughout, the Cambodian PM deserving much of the credit for navigating difficult political waters, just bringing the Preah Vihear dispute to a seemingly settled calm... Through there has just been yet another incident spurring yet another crisis. It continues. 

* China is HERE in the most present tense, inking huge deals in aid, investment and development, throwing money at Cambodia like it grows on trees in China. The US (and the west) lost significant ground in Cambodia as China soared in the zero-sum game of aid/investment-bought influence and favor. ‘No-strings’ money from China won hands down over American-style hard bargaining aid-for-improvements approach. Uncle Sam isn't the only deep-pockets sugar daddy on the block anymore.

* Boeung Kak Lake is almost gone.

* The Japanese drainage system project in Phnom Penh that tied up traffic and parks for two years was completed this year, seemingly with no visible effect whatsoever on the drainage. In my non-expert observation, it floods now same as before, maybe worse. I’m no engineer but I can’t help but wonder if the demise of Boeung Kak Lake might have something to do with it.

* A mid-term year, the next national elections still 2 years away, internal politics were a bit slow. The government is stable and functioning, probably more so than any government since UNTAC. The CPP is in firm and sole control, holding the majority necessary to control Parliament. SRP is still percolating along, being provocative, getting accused, threatened with jail and touring the world. FUNCINPEC and friends burped and gurgled a couple of times.

* Mu Sochua of SRP distinguished herself, winning a big-stakes game of chicken with the government, standing her ground when others may have gone to France. Who has the cajones in that party, eh? Keep an eye on this lady. She’s going places.

* Land grabbing and evictions continue unabated.

* A Khmer Rouge guy was convicted. 'Enough is enough' was declared. And send more money.

* Boeung Keng Kang 1 is now the city's preferred hunting ground of midnight muggers.

* Yet another beach in Sihanoukville - Otres Beach - has been partially closed for development. Now, something like two thirds of the main beaches on the peninsula are either closed or suffer limited access. (Don't fret, beach-goers. There's still plenty of beach in Sihanoukville for you - Ochheuteal, part of Victory, part of Otres and Sokha if you can afford it.)

* Most of the islands near Sihanoukville remain completely undeveloped - beautiful, pristine beaches and untouched tropical jungle. But it’s not going to last. Plans are afoot. Experience it while you can. 

* An exclusive gym for the employees of 7NG Land Development Group has been erected on the site of the Dey Krahorm village eviction. All 7NG Group staff will be free to play different kinds of sports: football, tennis, volleyball, etc.

* Siem Reap managed to get even more touristy with Pub Street at ground zero.

* There are now several KFCs in Cambodia (Phnom Penh and Siem Reap) and Pizza Hut and Burger King are on the way.

* Koh Pich.

* Cambodia, long given one-dimensional coverage in the international press, got a little more comic book this year – a land of Villains, Victims and now Heroes.

* The rural countryside remains about the same - picturesque, poor, ignorant and traditional.

* The guy throwing bricks at foreigners on the riverfront seems to have stopped, and it turns out none of it ever happened anyway.

* Cambodia's first viral video, oh my.

* Pity tourism is still en vogue - 'volunteering,' orphanage visits, be-Angelina-for-a-day packages - providing potentially lucrative outlets for those who would exploit children and the disadvantaged. Study up before you do it.

* There seemed to be an abundance of sex industry focused Johnny-come-lately journalists, Christian saviors and new NGOs turning up this year – over-funded, under-informed and 10 years too late.

* On that same note, evangelical Christian groups seem to be arriving at an ever increasing rate, most involved in charitable work of some sort, all of them with an ulterior motive - hunting and collecting souls. However they have chosen to help - education, rescue, shelters, etc - it always come back to exposing people to the Word of the Lord Jesus.

* The real estate bubble that burst a couple of years ago remains burst. The Monument to Pointless Development at the corner of Monivong and Sihanouk has been completed. 

* The tallest building in the Asia was constructed on the riverfront, but sank in the mud and disappeared. (Just kidding, sort of.)

* Kingdom Beer is making a go of it.

* Overland border crossings evolved a little. Poipet immigration seems to have cleaned up it's act. If you can fight your way through the army of visa and money exchange scammers on the Thai side and get to Cambodian immigration, you can get a Cambodian tourist visa for about the right price - $20. The crossing at Koh Kong remains the same, steeped in its overcharging ways. And Prek Chak on the VN border seems to have picked up some of the same habits.

* Police are actually enforcing the helmet laws for motorcyclists and occasionally a smattering of other traffic laws as well. Most people even obey the traffic signals these days, at least during the day. Times change.

* Tourist arrivals are up, though the demographics have changed some. Roads continue to improve. Seems to be lots of small infrastructure projects underway or imminent around the country. Investment, especially Chinese investment, is way up. GDP is up. The country is, in many ways, moving forward.

* The Cambodian riel lost a bit against the dollar but gained it back by years end - settling in around the old standard of 4000R to the dollar. Petrol isn't cheap (US$1-$1.20/liter) but cigarettes and beer still are. A buck for a pack of Marlboros, less for local cigarettes. Can even buy them one at a time. There's still no closing time at the bars...

Participant-Observation

US Embassy, Phnom Penh, Christmas Eve

It was many Christmases ago, one of our earliest living in Cambodia and our Khmer maid's first working with a foreign family. Polly (the maid) knew a bit about the holiday, had seen it in movies and heard tell from friends, but had never really witnessed it up close. She explained that she figured Santa to be some sort of minor Christian deity (a neak ta of some sort) and the Christmas holiday a time of gifts and 'giant French chickens' (muong barang thom.) OK, close enough.

In the week before the holidays we put up a small Christmas tree in our apartment, hung a couple of big red Christmas stockings on wall next to the tree and tacked some garland and fairy lights around the front door. Polly seemed fascinated by the whole process, as an anthropologist might, observing and studying some exotic foreign ritual.

Christmas morning we all exchanged gifts, one small gift to me being a pair of mitt-style potholders (I like to cook.) After opening gifts and the usual Christmas morning activities, my wife and I went out to a restaurant for breakfast. Upon returning home a hour later we found that the maid, in a sincere attempt to join in the Christmas doings, had hung the new potholders on the wall with the Christmas stockings. I guess, for somebody who had no real idea but was trying to follow the logic of the tradition, it probably made a good sense to hang the giant mittens on the wall next to the giant socks. Clueless but cute, and in the right spirit regardless. We left the potholders there until we took all the decorations down a week and a half later.

Merry Christmas.

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

A Police Story

Cambodian police enjoy a less than sterling reputation in general and are not known for their fair and impartial dealings with foreigners. That said, I had a pretty good encounter with a few of Cambodia's finest a couple of months back.

I was walking along the side of Sothearos Blvd here in Phnom Penh when some kid on a motorcycle came weaving through traffic going way too fast. Not an uncommon occurrence. As he sped past he weaved wide and accidentally clipped me from behind, catching me in the arm and the back of the leg with his handlebar and foot peg. It knocked me down, but not him. He just kept going.

I was scratched and a bit bruised, but nothing too terrible. Picking myself up I watched him disappear into the traffic ahead, his distinctive bright pink sequined shirt flapping in the wind. I thought he was long gone. But a moment later I noticed that pink shirt turn into a house about 300 or 400 meters up the road. I kept on walking that direction and after a few hundred meters, sure enough, there he was, marked by his pink shirt and nearby motorcycle, kneeling on the sidewalk outside a house delivering instructions to some workers repairing the pavement. And there just happened to be three cops standing there looking at the work being done.

Now I know that, generally speaking, the foreigner is at fault in any accident regardless of the circumstances, but still feeling bruised and miffed I decided to go for it. I waded into the crowd, pointed an accusing finger and scolded him in English for hitting me and running away. I looked around. People stared at me. Nobody seemed to understand anything except that I was angry. So I switched to speaking Khmer and said almost the same thing, but this time to the cops, displaying my bruised arm and pointing back down the street in the direction it happened.

When I was done all eyes turned towards Mr. Pink Shirt. He got a big shit-eating grin on his face and denied everything. The cops were having none of it though. My story made good sense, it jived with the fact that he had just come from that direction and his nervous smile branded his denial 'bullshit.' The cops immediately started lecturing him and moving in on him. The other Khmers there backed away. He continued his denials, which seemed to be making the cops angry. Other people nearby started to look our way, attracted by the sounds of angry words. One of the cops grabbed him by the arm and stood him up.

With all this commotion, I decided it was time for me to move on and just strolled away, continuing up Sothearos. About 30 meters on, I looked back. A cop had him by the scruff, Mr. Pink Shirt was screaming, 'no, no, no...' (in Khmer) and a crowd was forming. I felt completely satisfied with the results and continued my walk.

Kudos to those cops. Good job.

No lights on Cambodia

As many new drivers, especially foreign drivers discover the hard way, it is illegal in Cambodia to drive with headlights on during the day.* While in many countries governments are encouraging, even mandating that drivers and especially motorcyclists use headlights during the day for greater visibility to other drivers, here in Cambodia it is a privilege reserved for high government officials only. And for some reason the police have taken this law to heart. 

Unlike most Cambodian traffic laws, the no-daytime-headlights law is one of the four or five that the police do actually enforce. Drive a motorcycle one-handed and blind-drunk against traffic on the wrong side of the street with a 25 kilo bag of rice between your legs, a necklace of 30 half-dead ducks dangling from the handlebars and three adults riding pillion with two kids and a baby balancing on their shoulders, and the cops won't blink an eye. But drive with your headlights on during the day and you will be stopped and fined if the police catch sight.

In Sihanoukville I unintentionally violated the no-headlight law. I forgot to flip the light switch off when I parked the bike the night before and didn't notice it was still on when I started it the next morning. I was driving up the main road through town when I got waved over by a group of cops at the roadside. I immediately glanced down to check the switch and seeing it was on I knew what was up. Cambodian police don't give traffic tickets per se. This sort of thing is always settled at the roadside, but it occurred to me that the smallest bill I had in my pocket was a US20, and cops don't give change. This was potentially an expensive traffic stop. 

I pulled over and shut off the engine (and the light switch.) The cop sauntered up. Using his limited English he said, "Lights on. Fine," his Khmer accent slurring the words together. 'Lights on' came out more like 'lice-ons,' very close to 'license.' Now I admit, I understood what he said, but it was a perfect opportunity for a convenient misunderstanding. I said "Oh, I have a license, see..." and showed him a copy of my driver license. He repeated himself, "Lights-on! Fine!" pointing at my headlight (which of course was now off.) Acting as if he is pointing at the bike I said, "Oh, you mean tax license," and lifted the seat to show the bike's tax tag stuck underneath. "See, I have tax license." Scowling a bit now, he responded "No. Lights on!" I looked puzzled and said, "But I have a license. I showed you already, see tax license, driver's license." Stressing 'lights-on' but just as poorly pronounced he said yet again, "No! LIGHTS-ON!!!" slapping at my headlight. I retorted calmly, "No, not there, my license here, under the seat," pointing at my tax stamp. He let out a heavy, frustrated sigh and dismissed me with a brush of his hand and a curt, "OK, you go, go now," which I did straight away.

Beat the ticket, so to speak. Cost me nothing but a couple of minutes of talking in circles. An old ploy but still effective. Sometimes it pays to be clueless.

And it's a dumb law anyway.

(*There is some debate about whether there is actually a law on the books making it illegal or if its just something the police do on their own. But whether really on the books or not, the Cambodian police enforce it as if it is an actual law.)

Annoying words and phrases heard in Cambodia

The Angelina Jolie Tree (ugh!)

Farang - 'Farang' is not a word general to Southeast Asia. It is a Thai word. Southeast Asia contains many countries, Thailand is but one of those countries, and each country has its own language. If you are going to use local lingo, use the lingo local to the country you are in. You're not in Pattaya anymore. In Cambodia, foreigners are 'barang.'

The Bodge - Duuuude, as cool as 'The Bodge' may seem rolling off the tongue, it just makes you sound like a pretentious wanker, much like that earring makes you look.

Kampuchea - 'Kampuchea' is the Khmer word for Cambodia. Pol Pot insisted the world say Kampuchea. 'Cambodia' is the English word for Cambodia. If you are speaking English, speak English. Saying 'Kampuchea' when you are speaking English doesn't make you sound in-the-know. It makes you sound like a Khmer Rouge sympathizer.

Yuon - For you Cambodians speaking English (or French,) a similar point. When you use 'yuon' when not speaking Khmer, your ugly implications are abundantly clear. If that is not your intent, when speaking English use the English word, Vietnamese.

'nom Penh - Dropping the 'p'  from Phnom Penh identifies you as having been in Cambodia about a month, just long enough to over-think it and get it wrong, which is probably not the image to are trying to project. In Romanized Khmer, 'ph' is neither said like an 'f' nor is it silent. It is pronounced like a 'p.' The city name is pronounced P'nom Penh.

The Penh - See 'The Bodge,' wanker.

The Angelina Jolie Tree - Iconic old tree towering from the ancient jungle-temple Ta Prohm, now reduced to a Hollywood cliché because it was in a big-name movie for a few seconds.

Maenamkhong, Ankor Vat, Pnum Pen, etc. - Archaic and foreign spellings and pronunciations say that you've done all your research on internet and/or never left your office in Phnom Penh.

"He bought her." - Employed by NGO types to add dark implications and a melodramatic flare when refering to a man who uses a prostitute. He did not 'buy her' any more than he bought the taxi driver who drove him to the bar. He purchased her services, not her.

clicks, Nam, ville, gook, etc. - The Vietnam War is over and you weren't there anyway. Distance is measured in kilometers, not 'clicks.' The country is Vietnam, not 'Nam.' A village is called a village, not a 'ville.' And 'gook' is just offensive.

LBFM - Why not just have 'SEX TOURIST' tattooed on your forehead?

Sustainability - NGO catch word of the decade. Formerly meant something like 'the capacity to endure,' but now designates all things good and PC, and as such has become all but meaningless.

War-torn Cambodia, emerging from war, haven for pedophiles, victims of the Khmer Rouge, jewel of Indochina, etc. - Tired old newspaper clichés from the 90s, still in use today. Journalists, if you're going to use clichés please write some new ones, preferably something up-to-date and relevant to today's Cambodia.

"I'm a volunteer." - No you're not. You're a pity tourist on a package holiday, likely on daddy's dime.

Have I insulted everyone?

The Secret to Surviving Cambodia

Surviving Cambodia (as a long-term expat) requires, if nothing else, self-discipline.

Cambodia is a free country in the clearest and rawest sense of the phrase. A libertarian paradise of sorts, and as such, hard on the weak, including the weak of character. Cambodia will happily allow you to drink every night away, or do drugs with abandon, or drive like a madman, or whatever your particular poison, she will let you indulge it (cheaply) until it does you in or, if you are lucky, drives you out. This of course can happen in this west too, but the west is also full of little nets and safety catches and other moderating influences. You drive a motorcycle blind drunk and helmetless enough times in the west and eventually you're going to get caught and end up in the legal system, forced into AA or whatever. You do drugs and drink to excess and eventually the girlfriend will leave you, family will get on your case, you'll get busted for drunk driving, etc. But not in Cambodia. You are king and master of your world here, even creator. You can do it here until your liver explodes or you become a splatter on the road. Nobody and nothing will intervene. In Cambodia, the only thing that is going to stop you is you. If self-discipline is not part of your personality, one way or the other, you will not be here long-term.