Unexpected Phonecalls from Khmer ‘Good Girls’
Unexpected phone calls from potential female Khmer suitors (of the Persil white variety, rather than the grey around the gills type or, heaven forbid, the black as the devil’s arse sort) can be a cryptic experience.
They can often go like this:
Potential Khmer Female Suitor: ”Where exactly are you right now?”
Barang Chap (in this case me): “I’m at Vannak’s bar, near the river, enjoying a tipple of not quite properly chilled Anchor Beer whilst pondering the modernity of Rodin’s sketches.”
Potential Khmer Female Suitor: ”I know. I just saw you there five minutes ago when I drove past on my Honda Dream.”
I doubt that alcohol was the problem here. Although I could be mistaken, and the girl in question may possibly have been hatching a fiendish plot to encourage angina, hardening of the arteries, liver spots, kidney disease and generally hasten a booze related death with the intention of inheriting the grand sum of $50 left in my Acelda Bank account, but I doubt it.
So we can rule alcohol out of the equation, even though both of Persil Girl’s chaperones were curious as to why I had managed to demolish a whole two jugs of Tiger Beer on a previous rendevouz at the ASEAN Beer Garden whilst the three fragrant virgins present had barely managed to sip half of their sugar/jelly/fruit -in-a-tin drinks. The answer -”I had a very dry throat this evening,” seemed to satisfy their curiosity.
I believe, and quite sincerely, that the ”Where are you?” phone calls, of which there have more than a few recently, are totally unrelated to paranoia, memory loss or any other mental heath issues and do, in fact, have an entirely rational (that is, to a Khmer Good Girl) explanation.
They’re just checking.
Her: “Where are you?”
Me: ”I’m at Sopheak’s Internet Cafe researching the possibility of guinea pig farming in the tropics. It’s frankly an impossibility.”
Her: ”Yes, I drove past on my Honda Dream and saw your bike there five minutes ago. My auntie has pigs, ask her.”
And so it goes. “Where are you?”
Me: ”I’m at home and have just put my head through a magic purple noose which has transported me into a virgin forest full of chocolate, moon dust and pipe playing dwarves wearing sparkling g-strings”
Her: ”Yes, I know. I drove past on my Honda Dream and saw your bike outside your house five minutes ago. Get me a Mars Bar while you’re in the magic place.”
Me: “I’m having a bowl of noodle soup at Poab Loab Restaurant and attempting to figure out just how Vann Mollyvann managed to successfully pull off a contemporary, yet specifically Khmer style of architecture which incorporated ideas of international modernism and hints of Corbusier.”
Her: ”Yes, I know. I saw your bike there five minutes ago. You were lucky to get parking space at 7am and are you having the pork soup again?”
Me: ”I’m at work sawing the heads off my students. It’s grimly compelling and I’ve still got three left to do.”
Her: ”Yes, I know. I drove past your school five minutes ago and saw your bike there. Have you had lunch yet?”
There is a logical explanation for these unexpected phone calls where the caller in question already knows the correct answer to the ”Where are you?” question. Here in Cambodia, much of the dating ritual involving ‘good’ Khmer girls involves them trying to find out whether one is a ‘bad’ Barang man, or to put it another way, a lying cheat and four-letter-word-kind-of-person.
For unlike Western women, they prefer to find partners for life, rather than partners for a few months torrid coupling followed by lots of messy rows and an eventual admission that ‘this person has shocked me by revealing himself to be a different person from the one I had thought I knew,’ so I’ll stick his name, photo and story on the internet. That’s what American women do.
And my friends who’ve emerged from this oddish experience and have married Good Khmer Girls are still married, and haven’t had their laptops and other expensive portable consumer goods taken to the market, unlike a few who”ve dallied with the noirish sort.
