My reality is somewhat distorted at present (a disclaimer implicit in any post to an Internet forum), but isn't Cambodia a rather ordinary place: its people a bit friendlier than average, not greatly disposed to manifest envy of privileged foreigners, possessed of a handful of the usual prejudices, mainly unconcerned with others' eccentricities, pissed about this and that but dealing with it, no more or less cohesive than other societies, tolerant of lengthy comma-separated lists, not greatly given to violence, half-credulous but wary, charitable up to a point, demonstrably successful at both arithmetic and procreation, just kinda like most people?
It seems to me that, as everywhere else in the region, modernity messed them up but good, and they picked themselves up and brushed themselves off and got on with it. No distinctive craziness here. To the contrary.
But my reality is somewhat distorted at present.
My reality is somewhat distorted at present
Sure is.ratcho wrote:My reality is somewhat distorted at present.
Cambodia is about as far down the rabbit hole as you can go these days.
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Indochina had its period of distinctive craziness from roughly 1949-1999.
The 15 years of relative prosperity and normalcy has given the freshies iPhones and Angry Birds, thus relegating insurgency and civil disorder from a viable career to merely a few wage protests and maybe one or two ultra-nationalist mobs every so often. The lack of a large scale drug problem - despite the efforts of a few dozen Nigerian citizens each year - and a gun control law at least a decade old means that expats aren't in any real danger of crime than in the inner city areas of most of their home countries. There have been more grenade attacks in urban Sweden this year than Cambodia.
The marked deterioration of the average expat criminal from prolific ex-SAS-or-CIA-or-KGB drug kingpin to prolific child molester to prolific con man to prolific Wild Turkey robber now means the average expat discussion has evolved from the lovechild of a Tom Clancy novel and a Hunter S. Thompson article to an analogue of a college student's Facebook page.
Give it another 25 years and Khmer expats will probably be grumbling about Singapore beer prices and trying to track down the criminal record of a drunken Cambodian who stuck his Range Rover into a Parisian bar at 3am.
The 15 years of relative prosperity and normalcy has given the freshies iPhones and Angry Birds, thus relegating insurgency and civil disorder from a viable career to merely a few wage protests and maybe one or two ultra-nationalist mobs every so often. The lack of a large scale drug problem - despite the efforts of a few dozen Nigerian citizens each year - and a gun control law at least a decade old means that expats aren't in any real danger of crime than in the inner city areas of most of their home countries. There have been more grenade attacks in urban Sweden this year than Cambodia.
The marked deterioration of the average expat criminal from prolific ex-SAS-or-CIA-or-KGB drug kingpin to prolific child molester to prolific con man to prolific Wild Turkey robber now means the average expat discussion has evolved from the lovechild of a Tom Clancy novel and a Hunter S. Thompson article to an analogue of a college student's Facebook page.
Give it another 25 years and Khmer expats will probably be grumbling about Singapore beer prices and trying to track down the criminal record of a drunken Cambodian who stuck his Range Rover into a Parisian bar at 3am.
Seems to me you're quite UNdistorted in your perceptions. As to give them 25 years...that seems like now. Now my view may be off, but many if not most "new" to Cambodia sorts seem to be about largely recreating their western favs HERE. (has anyone done a poll about how many expats run AC everyday?). Long threads about where to get the best burgers, pizza's, italian food, etc. Oh and the threads about budget (can I make it there on $3000 a month?).
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