The Refugee Is Me
It was not White Guilt that led me to live in a Khmer village. It was something worse. A desire to help my fellow man. I wanted to share my privileges……in an exotic country with nice beaches.
The fact I am still here bears testimony to the patience of the Khmer people who, after recovering from decades of war, now put up with the tide of Western sentimentality washing up tattooed boys and leggy girls to “help them help themselves”.
There are two types of Westerner living in Khmer villages: Peace Corp volunteers and voluntourists. The Peace Corp guys are selected on academic ability and their ability to follow orders. Banned from riding motos, you can spot them cycling down the dusty highways with wraparound shades and Colgate smiles. Their placements are for two years and they are employed as English teachers at government-run schools.
People who run NGOs usually live in towns and have outreach projects in the villages. It is the voluntourists who actually live in the village – Westerners who think they can expunge their White Guilt by eating sour soup and taking bucket-baths for a few weeks. Hell, I know, my guilt was as white as the rice I ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I entered the village on a TukTuk stacked with boxes of books, my bags and a table tied upside down on the roof. With me was the Khmer-American girl I was volunteering for. She had set up an NGO to benefit the village her mother fled from in the 1980s. I was her only volunteer. In the first weeks, we had 4km of broadband cable laid to connect the village to the internet. We set up a library and classroom and recruited locals to help with the project. The head monk gave me a room in his house and breakfast and lunch at the temple. The founder of the organisation stayed with her relatives in the village. After I had been living in the temple for a month, she left to return to the States and raise money. I stayed on.
The biggest headfuck I had on arrival was the realization there was little I could do to help by virtue of being Western. A Khmer village already has all it needs. They have been farming rice and keeping animals for thousands of years. They can cope. Sure, there are people who live in palm-leaf shacks but there are also villagers with healthier bank balances than mine or yours. Their genocide is over. But ours continues. The destruction of family and personhood in the West by stress, media and hyper-individualised culture is massive. It’s carnage back home. In the Khmer village – it is me who is the refugee.
The founder of the organisation decided to stay on in the States and I have been released of my responsibilities as a volunteer. I was a crap English teacher anyway. I decided to stay in the village and continue to work as a writer. Some of the villagers don’t like me. They call me an “immigrant” behind my back and say I’m only here because I cannot earn money in my own country. The fact that this is true notwithstanding, it’s a pretty ignorant attitude. But luckily, the majority of village people have taken me into their hearts. And I discovered that, when I gave up my role as a Western volunteer, I was paradoxically able to help more.
Now I help as part of the community. Not because of my bad conscience. The Khmers don’t have a concept of infringing on your time or privacy – they expect everyone to help out according to their means. My meager writer’s salary is beyond what most of my friends in the village can earn. Sure, I could try and some Weil-esq solidarity and work myself into a hospital bed huffing rice-sacks around but I am put to far better use working the job I’m good at. I make money and bring it home to the community that supports me. When it comes to teaching I leave aside my Western-style approach and put myself at the disposal of Sambo, the village English teacher. After all, he’s been doing this a lot longer than me. He sits me in the hot classroom where I clarify pronunciation and have slow English conversations with bashful Khmer teenagers.
The spectre of White Guilt has left the feast – even though the feast is still rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Today, the people I live with are not objects to satisfy my bad conscience but neighbours. To them, I am the bumbling Barang, hitting his head on low tin roofs and spending a small fortune on coffee. My Khmer is abysmal and now the children have got bored at shouting “hello” at me. I spend my days typewriting in my room with a rattling fan blowing hot air in my face. These days I’m the one chasing the temple kids for a bit of recognition.
I am not beatific vision handing out education and life lessons to the Khmer people. As a wise friend told me, “you need to give up the idea of having an egalitarian relationship with the Khmers. The power differentials are too great; your relationship will always be one of patronage and the sooner you learn to live within that role with integrity, the better”.
Nathan Thompson
Very interesting reflection. Excellent article!
excellent indeed. short and sweet, and complete. thank you for sharing your relection.
Excellently well written and incisive. Thanks for sharing your story.
Nathan’s writing just gets better and better. As does his insight.
wow. well written and incisive. Thanks. I’m a few years (and obligations) away from my experience. Thanks for the heads up.
I think one should avoid helping them for nothing, because they never appreciate it. You should focus on earning money or improving your own life, like they do, in order not to end up being more disadvantaged than them or at their mercy. They will always treat you like an outsider or slave, that are not entitled to any comfort or respect or one that they can push out or ignore, at their whims and fancies.
Nevertheless, it is a very well-written, interesting article.
Perhaps, you should write why one should avoid volunteering in Cambodia.
“them”, “they” – fan of meaningless generalisations, are you? Given that Nathan is actually interacting with real people, I’d say his insights carry a bit more weight than yours.
I know what they are like. I was born in South East Asia and have mostly unhappy experience in South East Asia with those brown people in Asia. I have been to Cambodia and I do have experience interacting with those brown people in Asia. So, I do know what they are like.
Therefore, my generalisations(as what you called it) or rather my understanding of their mentality and behaviours are based on (unhappy) real life (general) experience too.
Okay. I can see why you choose to be anonymous. Easy to troll, eh?
I don’t choose to by annonymous. In fact, I know how intolerant those nasty Asians/Khmers are over any criticisms of them. So, I have to protect myself by not divulging my real name.
I think you are just out to call me a troll because you don’t like my factual generalisations. i know alot of people can’t accept the fact that brown people are indeed one of the most horrible people in the world, whenever they have the upper hand.
I think Nathan wrote very well based on his experience. And I think it is just weird that you are trying to belittle, when I was only replying to Nathan insightful article.
Annonymous – If you continue over-posting your anti-“brown people” drivel, you may soon find yourself banned from commenting with all of your comments deleted.
I think we’ve already reached that stage…..
I really disagree with you…I think you not really born In South East Asia..to Understand someone you have to go close to them..and to help them you have to share your time to seek what are they really need? For all over the world if you look back to see the history Cambodia Country is the one of best country that smile, shared, love other event though they dont know you…but something changes on their life-style…because of War in this Country about 20+ of foreign countries came and captured this wonder kingdom time to time..created a big change in their life time…and Khmer Rough as well…
Even though likes that Still there are good peoples as well..
To help someone no need to find the reason if you think they are important to you..and if you love other..
Another of your Asian nonsense. Most of you all Asians are so extremely selfish, expecting Westerners to give so much while most of you all Asians give so little or nothing in return. That is really unfair.
If you look at you Asian history properly, it is mostly you all Asians from various Asian ethnic tribes that fight among yourselves.
It really sucks to be you, anonymous.
here you go again! you made me laugh.
But belittling over half the world’s population (‘brown people’) is just fine is it? You’re too moronic to waste time on. Bye.
Andy, she is too negative about everything (brown people this, brown people that, life is so horrible …). It brought me down talking to her the other day
. She should stop whining or take the negativities somewhere else.
P.S. great story Nathan!
Great story Mate, ignore the ‘Troll’… More stories please
Thanks positive for the comments. LOL @ Gavinmac vs Anonymous
Very insightful and helpful. So much to learn from each other. Well written. Thanks. More please.
Wow, great and smart writing, loved to read it. Thanks
Powerful insights that would benefit as a case study for training NGO developmental and educational workers. Where can we read more of your work?
Well written and very perceptive. Just the type of information that I am looking for. I’m happy that everyone is showing their “true colors”.
Thanks for the feedback. My portfolio/contact is here: http://www.nathanathompson.co.uk
Nathan, please come down to Earth. You are way too high on your over sized horse. People are people, please let it be. If you want to do nothing with them, please let them be. They certainly don’t ever want to do anything with you. Have you ever thought about their general feelings about you and the rest of the Westerners at all? Westerners are always considered to be carriers of diseases and bringers of plague. Look at what the white settlers did to the native populations in America and Latin America and elsewhere in the world. While you may think you are superior to them in whatever capacities your imagination can think of, just remember this: The Khmer have a guiding saying that goes: “If you don’t feed my stomach, then I could care less about who the f*ck you are in this world.” With that said, now you can clearly see that the Khmer are born to LIVE and LIVE some more years until they finally exit this world. So Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs does not ever apply to the Khmer at this moment.
“The Khmer have a guiding saying that goes: “If you don’t feed my stomach, then I could care less about who the f*ck you are in this world.”…..
Isn’t that a nice summary of precisely what Nathan was saying.
“Westerners are always considered to be carriers of diseases and bringers of plague.”
What a silly generalisation. Does the ‘are always’ imply that others than yourself hold this ridiculous theory about how ‘they’ think.
And finally I would suggest Maslow’s Pyramid is just as relevant to every human on the planet.
“your relationship will always be one of patronage and the sooner you learn to live within that role with integrity, the better”.
Gold.
Agree with James that Maslows hierarchy of human needs will always prevail in LDC’s. Locals will always view the farang with a certain sense of apprehension. Given what Cambodia has gone through, is this surprising at all? In my experience tramping through Asia, I found that a lot of expats (non brown ones) were well meaning and had genuine intentions of helping the so called locals. But remember the old saying ” give a man a fish every day and he will be dependent upon you for his next meal, now teach him how to fish and he will fill his tum for the rest of his life”. I think a lot of westerners equate Asian life (and economic standards) with their standards back home. There is no social security here, Asia has and will never be a welfare continent. However the concept of family and close personal friendships and helping each other out prevails here. Maslows pyramid applies all over the globe. But just at different levels I guess. And expectations.