Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Cambodia Random Musings





OK…on to the part where I digest what I’ve seen and experienced. For Cambodia (and some of these hold true for other SE Asian countries as well):

1. Cambodians love white skin. In fact, it’s such an obsession that they (a) constantly complement white travelers on how beautiful their skin (I’m too dark now to get that but I see it all the time); (b) completely avoid the sun – now this gets ridiculous at times when it is 100 degrees outside and locals are wearing long sleeve shirts (I’ve even seen a turtleneck!), hats, pants and sometimes even umbrellas and gloves; (c) generously apply “whitening cream” which is available as a lotion, as part of the sunscreen (huh?) or even face wash. For them, white is beautiful and tans/brown skin is not. Such a shame because most of use would die to have their mocha colored skin tone.

2. Not sure if this one is related, but it cracked me up…women during the day are dressed in full-on pajamas – like the set you had as a kid with a matching top and pants with some sort of funky little design. I guess it’s all about comfort before fashion in Cambodia.

3. And speaking of comfort, you also see scores of butt naked children running around in the streets – I guess it makes sense considering they will outgrow clothes so quickly and the parents probably can’t afford to spend so much on clothing (it tends to be the poorer kids who are naked of course).

4. Another strange custom was that many males have long fingernails. When we asked one about his nails, he said it was for scratching and cleaning out his ear/nose. But given the widespread drug use I’m not convinced it doesn’t have an alternative use.

5. I might have alluded to this one in another posting, but speaking of alternative uses, the river is also a toilet. At our rest stop on the 9 hour boat from hell, we had a chance to use the toilet. When you open the door you realize it is literally a wooden floor with a hole in the middle that leads straight to the river. I definitely didn’t go for any food at that rest stop.

6. Finally, if you thought having a Lexus in a developing country isn’t flashy enough then you must be Cambodian because on the sides of all the high-end cars are huge labels saying the brand. I guess the owners truly are proud people.

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