Tourists of either sex do not treat children in their own countries the way they treat children here. Hugging a brown child is more important than seeing Angkor Wat amongst western women in Cambodia, general treating them as pettable objects of pity, giving them sweets, playing with them on the street, taking photographs with them, carrying them, holding them, letting them crawl on you while they try to sell you something, buying them food at the restaurant...what's a holiday in Cambodia without a facebook photo you holding and looking sadly into the eyes of a brown child along with a story about how you sang her a little song and gave her a little food and how she managed a little smile and how the experience changed you forever?RBD wrote:Men don't generally play the Ukulele or whatever to kids they don't know in the streets of their own country - not sure why they come to Cambodia to do it. No fan of these obviously over-zealous NGOs, but when I see foreign adults here playing with kids they don't know and generally treating them like cute monkeys, I find it creepy. I've never walked down Oxford street and come across a man playing with poor kids he doesn't know.
All kind of weird and mostly inappropriate in a variety of ways, and perhaps even self-centered, but is it really "creepy" to have pity on poor kids and want to make things a little better for them by singing a song or showing a little caring?