Further thoughts on the expat condition

Since my last post I've been thinking and observing, and wanted to take the time to expand my thoughts a little bit. The previous post was a very visceral emotional reaction, one that quite surprised me with its force, and since then I've been trying to attach words and concepts to decode what was actually going on. From that, I've been trying to figure out why -- why, that is, most expats think/behave as they do, and why my vision is so completely different.

I want to add a disclaimer here -- the following is quite scathing and I have to note that not every expat follows this. I know some who are different, and some who, if they don't agree, at least more or less get where I am coming from. Maybe this is not what people are actually thinking, but it's what I see.

So last time we had the grand issue being most expats only view Cambodians as lazy, stupid, annoying, and generally making life difficult. Something I've noticed is that the vast, vast majority of their interactions with Khmer people involve the Khmer in an inferior position, most often offering a service the expat requires or requests.

In that regard, the expat is constantly in a world where they are asking for something, and if it is not given promptly, accurately, and straight-forward, then it is annoying and frustrating and blamed on the person responsible for doing the serving, the Khmer. Even in volunteering, teaching, or what have you, they are in the higher position, responsible for teaching the inferior how to do something they don't know how to do yet. If they do not understand, accept, and promptly assimilate the training, then it is annoying and frustrating and blamed on the person responsible for learning, the Khmer.

As an example. Someone I know has a few Khmer staff. The guy is nice, but he micro-manages to a fault. He wants things now, responses upon receiving things, and things returned in very certain manners. Everything must be double-checked, edited several times, etc. Of course, that's just the way he works, and I'm not faulting him. In his own country, they do things like that.

I've talked to the staff. If you tell me to do something, I'll do it, one of them said. I won't necessarily do it right away just because you asked, or tell you I've done it, but I will do it. You don't have to keep telling me.

But the expat doesn't understand. Isn't it obvious that their way of doing things is more efficient, more professional, and generally better for everyone? Actually, no, it's not obvious. It's one more detail added to a pile of stupid details that really don't seem to add anything if you don't know, if you haven't had the years of training, years of discipline in a culture that prides itself on efficiency and detail. No, it's not obvious at all, and even once it's been explained, it takes months, or years, for the effects to truly be seen and understood.

But the expat doesn't spend years. They come for a few months and then leave, having seen no real progress and made their judgments.

There's another barrier I've noticed : the language. The vast, vast majority of expats do not speak it, barely a word besides "turn right/left" and "hello." If they get to hello. So they sweep into places where they expect to be served, not bother to learn a word of the language, and then have the gall to complain about being misunderstood, as though they are entitled to always have someone with perfect English and understanding of their culture to respond immediately and understand everything.

Usually, just saying "How are you?" or just a word or two more is enough for Khmers to say to me, with surprise and delight, "Oh, you speak Khmer a lot!" That dismays me. How are you is the easiest thing in the world to learn. "Sock sah bai." When I take the time to greet the staff at the places I go and ask that before I get around to saying anything about what I actually want, everything changes. We relate differently. We are equals now. They are not as flustered or uncertain, jumping to do something, anything, quickly because that's what the expat wants to see, even if they don't really understand. Therefore, in the end I am rarely misunderstood.

But once the expat makes their judgment, it is made, and everything they see reinforces it. Inside is a bubble, where everything should work just like it does back home and on the edge are these really annoying, hovering creatures that mess things up. And to them it will always be like that, no matter how hard one tries to enlighten the poor Khmers.

We've talked about this before. Yes, the country is messed up. Yes, it's corrupt, and poor, and badly run, and the government is...well. Yes, that is all true, yes there is a lack of education and professionalism and training.

But come on. I want to say to the expat in our examples above, open your mind a little. Try to think, for a second, that this is Cambodia. You are in their country. You are not entitled to be here, and have no divine right to make things all better because come on, clearly the west just knows how to do it better. Your way is not necessarily the only way, or the best way. It might be a good idea to open your mind and heart to this country as it is, to the people as they are, as people. Learn a bit of the language. Have patience. Try to see Cambodians beyond the maid, the waitress, the hostess, the guy behind the counter, and as people, like you, doing their best.

It's completely changed my experience of the country, and for the better.

And if you can't, then maybe it's best if you go back to the place where people speak your language and think just like you, and stop the arrogant "but they need our help" trip. I'm being quite serious when I say I think that would be better for everyone.

Hey, those are my friends you're talking about

I get this question a lot from expats : What do you think of Cambodia?

Usually it’s said with a little smirk, a smile or a sort of knowing look in the eye, because they know what you’re going to say. It’s what everyone says, among expats. It’s the only story you hear, just with different variations, but for the most part it never changes.

They like the weather and they like how easy it is to make money and live. But the people?

All I ever hear is how Cambodian people make life difficult. How they have no ambition, only play around on their cell phones and never work, never learn, resist passive-aggressively, and generally speaking the country would be better off if Cambodian people were not as they are.

There are exceptions, but they are exceptions, few and far between. I can count them on a few fingers, the people who have positive stories and outlooks, who are not convinced that the people of this country are either lazy, stupid, or just generally annoying and frustrating.

Most people, when pressed further, will admit that they don’t really think Cambodians are stupid, just uneducated, and they know there is a difference. But either way, there’s nothing to be done. There’s nothing there.

Let’s be clear: Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge regime took a culturally and industrially advanced country and razed it to the ground. They killed the culture, the education, and yet still even now the tribunal has not yet officially established that what happened was “genocide.”

Let’s also be clear: the formal western professionalism and training and discipline does not exist, if it ever did, it is gone, vanished, lost. The education system is pitifully funded and the teachers have not been formally trained. I’ve asked a couple people what they are studying, because everyone is in university and studying something (that’s 60 percent of the country population under twenty-five). Banking and finance for one, and I wonder – to work where?

Where can he work with that? In a bank in Cambodia with the other thousands studying the same thing? What if he wanted to get out? You go anywhere else with a degree from Cambodia right now and they laugh you off. Another guy is studying tourism, with a few million others. That might get him a little further, but not much.

Someone described it to me as realizing this country is deeply intellectually and emotionally hurt, and that is true. Most Cambodian people I’ve met are emotionally much more immature than their western counterparts. But where have they learned? Their parents are scarred, and there’s a void of emotional coaching. Emotions aren’t discussed, treated, talked about—it’s Asia, for one, and why would you? There’s too much hurt there.

It is also true that there is a general lack of energy and ambition, and certainly a general lack of the cut-and-dried western professionalism I and my expat counterparts grew up with, were drilled with since childhood. Smartphones just got here, and everyone is always on them. There is no real professionalism training. The teachers are late. There aren’t role models for that.  

What I mean to say is, the genocide is over now. But the country, and it’s people, even those who never experienced it, are scarred by it. That is the truth, and there is truth to the expat stories.

But there are times when it is all I ever here, and I just get tired.

Because I’ve met young people who think differently. I’ve met Cambodians who are passionate. I’ve seen sparks, I’ve watched people push themselves, and be proud. I’ve talked with people who don’t like what they see.

Yes, of course, they do stuff that bothers me, like answer their cell phones at inopportune times or come late to important things.

But I see potential. Someone told me right now there is nothing, maybe the kids who are in high school right now. Yes, but I would also add those in university. The kids my age.

They aren’t going to change the country in two weeks, or two months, or two years. Does any country change so fast? Time takes time. They don’t know how yet, they don’t have the tools, and maybe they won’t ever. But at least a few of them will make sure their children do, however that happens.

The older generation cannot physically overpower them forever, because they are dying. There are so many young people, and there is potential. They don’t know it yet. They haven’t grown up, hit walls, fallen down. They haven’t had the hard teachers, the tough training. The survivors of the genocide are farmers. They have no education to pass on, and the young people now have to figure it out themselves – all while being bombarded with modernity that no one has ever taught them to use or abuse. They are faced with an enormous, fast-paced world, with very few tools to deal with it.

And yet.

Beyond all the potential or no potential, the future and the past, there are these few simple facts:  I work with Cambodians on a daily basis. They make me laugh, make me smile. They’ve comforted me when I’m upset, I’ve comforted them. They make me angry sometimes, yes, and frustrated. But we’ve talked, laughed, shared jokes. Sometimes we just shake our heads and say, yeah, it just doesn’t translate.

Essentially, I’ve found them to just be people, trying like the other five billion people in the world to be happy, and these are the stories I never hear from the expats. It’s always about how life is being made difficult, or how the country is messed up, but not about people being people, people you can talk to, people who worry about their health (like anyone else), who don’t know if they can really do what they want (like anyone else), who get upset with each other (like anyone else) and wish things were different (like anyone else).

Those are the stories I live with every day. Not good,  not bad, just life, like anywhere else, with anyone else. Yes, in a completely and totally alien culture, but people like me. And when all I hear, day after day, time after time, is how frustrating, annoyed, uneducated, difficult, and generally upsetting Cambodian people are, it really gets to me.

When it comes down to it, the fact of the matter is that those are my friends they’re talking shit about. My friends they are putting down and dissing. Yes. Sometimes I do want to throw things at them. And so? Do we understand each other perfectly? Absolutely not. And so?

At the end of the day, those are my friends, and hearing them constantly put down hurts, as it does tonight, and the reason I took the time to write down these words and send them out to the world. The expats can have their reality, but I'm not part of it. 

I'd like to keep it that way. 

The Phnom Penh Traffic Drinking game

I wanted to find a fun way to explain to you just how stupid the drivers here can be. I've said before there are no traffic rules, at least, none really observed, and driving a moto makes me realize that seriously it's very surprising how there are NOT about a thosand accidents per second.

So here is my Phnom Penh traffic drinking game. To be played only in the back of a tuktuk, safely far away from the wheel or handlebars of any moving vehicle. Since Angkor draft is the way to go here, we're going to go with that -- take a drink or empty the glass.

Take a drink every time:

--A moto cuts across oncoming traffic on the red light to turn left

--Anyone suddenly cuts in front of you to turn right, with no blinker.

--A pedestrian starts walking across the street at the very second that the light turns green.

--Anyone is on their cellphone while driving.

Take two drinks every time:

--Any two vehicles make physical contact at a stoplight, handlebars or wheels or what have you.

--A car turns left from the right turn lane or right from the left turn lane.

--A moto drives on the wrong side of the road after turning left before cutting across all lanes of oncoming traffic.

--A car swerves to the wrong side of the road, with oncoming traffic, to pass a slower moving vehicle.

--You see something truly ridiculous on the back of a moto, such as a dead pig, a few dozen live chickens, four people plus a baby, twenty cartons of ramen noodles, etc.

Empty the glass when:

--Some hotshot jackass goes through traffic like a slalom course.

--You get stuck for ten minutes at an intersection because everyone is trying to get through at the same time and only later realized that the tuk tuk and the car at the middle can't squeeze past each other.

--You see something exceptionally stupid not mentioned here, such as a guy on a moto approaching a busy traffic circle and using both hands to tuck his cellphone back into his pocket.

And the bonus, if you happen to be on 278 and see the young, handsome Khmer guy dressed to the nines in a suit and tie, riding on a piece of crap motorbike with flowers on the handles and a boom box on the back and selling noodles (while singing), take a shot. Gotta love showmen...

Bless you if you're still standing.

A moto of my own

Goodness knows I've been talking about it long enough (if not on this blog then to those who I talk to on a regular basis and they've been hearing about this for a few months now.) I've been spending close to 12 dollars a week on motortaxis ("So, 4:30 on Friday you go to CTN?") and relying on the goodness of my dancers' hearts (sometimes an iffy proposition) to get around, but that only takes me from point A to point B. Adding point C is not an option without some hassle.

I've been wanting one for a long time, and slowly building up the funds and the courage to do it, snitching a friend's moto to practice and generally psyching myself up. I don't know if I was ready or not, but either way, when I showed up to work on Monday and discovered no one there for yet another holiday that I forgot about (in my defense, this was an American holiday and how the heck should I remember those if I don't live there???), I knew it was time.

I got the resident handy man/driver to come with me and we found our way to the used moto bazaar near Olympic Stadium and got accosted by everyone wanting to sell us something. He explained, and we were led into the midst of everything, passing rows and rows of motos to the back, where The Moto was presented.

An old Honda Dream, 450 starting price, something about Japan and a warranty involved (something of which I am still doubtful.) My compatriot hopped off his bike and began the inspection, looking at the engine and the battery and goodness knows what else, while I was escorted in grand fashion to a plastic chair to sit and watch the whole process.

It was a good bike, I was informed, the push start still worked and it wasn't dripping oil, there was still a warranty involved and all in all, they had already discounted from 500.

The haggling began. We didn't work too hard or throw any fits, which could have brought it down much further, but in the end they agreed to 420 and I signed the paperwork. Registration doesn't really exist here, as with driver's licenses (they do exist but nobody has them, at least not for motos.) They put some gas in, and then it was mine to drive away (I'd bought a helmet the day before.)

Just like that.

I discovered that night that the main light was out and warranty or no warranty they had me pay for it to get fixed, and the brakes could use some tightening, and every so often when I try to start it makes weird clunking noises and refuses to for a few seconds, but other than that, I have taken it all over Phnom Penh and beyond, up to rehearsal and to CTN and in circles to pick up and drop off things and add meetings and ---

It is sheer freedom.

I drive pretty slowly and intend to keep it that way, just for my own sake. I worry about the occasional strange clunking noises, because I already can't figure out what I did without it. I don't have to keep anyone else's schedule. If I decide I need to stop and get something, I can, and I do. If the boss (one of them, at any rate) needs me to come in and help out in a slight emergency, I don't worry about the extra biking. If I need to pick something up halfway across town and return it to work before going to rehearsal, I can. If someone wants to meet in Tuol Kork before rehearsal, I can make that happen.

I love it, and it's just in time too, as the next month promises to be just as insane as the past couple weeks, which have left me with no time to turn around, a period of intense transition and energy and creation (and the destruction that comes with it) -- but at least, when it comes to the actual traveling from one location to another, I got that covered now.

Yahoo.

Shit Happens

Especially here.

The thing is, the food is good. It takes a bit of getting used to, and I don't just mean the whole fish thing. The spices are different, the vegetables are different, and how it's cooked is different. Some of it is a little too strange for my taste, but on the whole, I do enjoy it.

But the thing is here, shit happens. It happens to barangs and khmers equally -- we're not just talking the delicate constitutions of westerners. It's just part of life. Yep, today is gonna be like that. Okay, well, it'll pass eventually.

Essentially food hygiene hasn't made it here yet, except in the nicest restaurants. There's no real sense of needing to refridgerate things during the day, so meat eaten in the evening may or may not have been cooked since this morning and lying around since. Cold cuts came from god knows where and aren't cold. At the local place, there's a huge cooler of water with several cups on top. People take a cup, have a drink, and leave the cup (I like eating there, but have never touched those cups).

I remember working for a restaurant a few years back and the breakfast buffet had to be kept at a certain temperature at all times, hot or cold depending on the food.

You tell that to someone here, and you'd probably get a look like you have two heads.

On the contrary, you bring the safety experts from America here, have them eat at the local corner place I always go -- one look at the fried eggs, cooked since who knows when, sitting in the cart with the cooked meat, with no refridgeration, and they'd probably keel over on the spot.

I don't mean to say this as an example of how backwards this place is -- but rather, how behind it is. I haven't been out of the country, but I'm told you see it the second you step out. The Khmer Rouge didn't just destroy the people, it destroyed all the modernity and industry that Cambodian had gained under King Sihanouk's rule in the 50s and 60s. The country is at least forty years behind many of its southeast asian counterparts in terms of infrastructure and standard of life.

It's not a bad thing or proof of any lack. It's just a fact. Just like it's a fact that if you live here, every so often shit happens.

And that's just part of life in the developing world.

Café hopping to avoid the power outage: Phnom Penh hobbies

When I was in Colorado, we had about a 40 minute power outage following a thunderstorm. The next day, I heard people talking about the "long power outage," which I found absolutely hilarious.

There is a lack of electricity in Cambodia. During the hottest days, such as in the last few weeks, everyone is using it, and since there's just not enough, grids go out regularly. Outages last anywhere from a half hour to several hours. Outages of one to two hours are not unusual.

Outages of five plus hours, or seven, or eight, are, but not unheard of. Case in point: today, when most of Phnom Penh has been dark since lunchtime. When I got home around two, it was out. I was already planning to go to a cafe and get some work done, and figured that, as it usually is, it would be back by the time I got home.

It was not. A few minutes of waiting around, and a friend returned a call from the day before, asking if I was free right then. I was, and went to a second place, assuming, once again, the power would have returned when I got back.

It had not. I thought, you know if this was the US, I'd trust that someone was working on this. As it is, I don't at all. I imagine someone's idea of fixing it is waiting until it works again, though I could be wrong about that. In any case, faced with a stifling apartment, I plugged in my dongle and checked café hours.

Success: Brown was still open, for another hour. I packed up and went out, and that is where I started writing this. I was somewhat pessimistic this time about the possibility of power being on when I returned, but I did have a friend with power willing to let me loaf lined up just in case.

It's interesting -- sometimes the stoplights go out when the power is out, sometimes they don't. On my way home from the second café, I was really excited at the fact that the nearest stoplight was working again, but as soon as I turned down my street, I knew it was a no go, the whole street dark, except for the few fancy places with generators.

This time, on the way home, seeing promising signs like streetlights, but I wasn't convinced until I turned down my street and saw streetlights there.

It was like finding the promised land.

Honestly, I spent close to ten dollars -- green tea, a green apple smoothie, and a mixed berry chiller (being sort of sick was a blessing in disguise, as coffee and food, two things I wasn't much interested in today, are more expensive) -- just to avoid the outage, hunkering down in places with generators and air conditioning, internet and plugs for the computer.

Coming back in my room, with lights!, and turning on the air con (!), I thought, I would be absolute toast in a time and place without electricity. Seriously, what did people do? 

One thing's for sure -- they probably didn't run away from it, gathering all manner of electronic devices and running to the pockets where the lights go on when you press the switch. And you know what?

I think the ten dollars was worth it.

The rains, bubble tea, and oh yeah, I am living in Cambodia

It's not quite yet the rainy season, and I guess at the end of the dry season here, the world has been cooking for so long that heat has wormed its way everywhere, the walls, the air, bones, skin. Air-conditioning pushes it back for very short time, the epic battle of our time. I imagine the cold air doesn't even make it to the walls, just hovering there with the heat, waiting on the other side.

I took a friend's moto out for a spin today, as I'd like to more or less know what I'm doing by the time I buy one of my own in a couple weeks. It was in the heat of the day, and the sun basically laughed at my SPF 15 sunscreen and, while I'm not burned to a crisp, my skin is noticeably darker. I was out for 25 minutes, maximum.

When the rains do come, as they are currently doing, it cools everything down for a brief and incredibly welcome time. I've learned to tell that the hottest, heaviest days are usually the ones where the storm is coming. Whenever I do leave the bubble tea place that is my newest addiction, the rain will be gently leaking from the sky and the air will be cool against my skin.

The bubble tea place was introduced to me by a friend this week, and we became quickly inseparable. My apartment cooks in the day time, and since my room has no windows, staying in there with its flourescent lights is not that appealing, despite the air-con. I'm starting back with my old job this week and my free time will be cut down, but for the moment I've had a lot to spare and no interest in staying at home, so I've been here the past three afternoons, drinking bubble tea and working. I'm busy cooking my latest project.

I picked up a book the other day about moving to Cambodia, a kind of all-inclusive guide for expats. I flipped through it out of curiosity. I remember reading stuff like that, about ten months ago, CultureShock manuals and articles my somewhat panicked mother (she has since calmed down, by the way) sent me.

It was all useful information, but it seemed strange to see it on a page like that, that it was necessary to take this life and string it into words, paint pictures with language. I thought, reading the safety section, that the words made this place feel much scarier than it does, but then again, I don't walk anywhere late at night or carry purses that are easily pulled off anymore.

Mostly, it was just strange to look at all these words, trying to explain something that I'm living, day by day, things I've known intellectually since before arriving but am only truly understanding now. It was a reminder that I'm here, yes here, in this place that before was barely even a word in my mental dictionary. Yes, it is a place that needs to be bashed into words for westerners coming to live, and even those are completely inadequate for the daily negotiations. Some people do it more than others -- some trying to bash the world into the words they already know, some just trying to learn the language of life as each word presents itself, some diving deeper, to find what is underneath the words.

Really, what I mean to say is, I looked at the words and saw a surface, and underneath an ocean. Every day here is spent in that ocean, drinking in what you started to know before now, and are only knowing now.