Mikes Thoughts

power and no power

It seems we are in the midst or hopefully at the tail end of having electrical power yet not having it. This morning at 4am things kinda stopped. Not all things but stuff like the fan, kettle, AC. It happened all over our neighborhood it seems from neighbors out talking. In reality we have relatively few problems with electric power. In Phnom Penh there are scheduled outages. Many days I see news on the paper about power outages in the city.

People will say,

Oh it’s a third world country. This and that. Infrastructure not good.

Truth is it’s not a third world country. There is a gap between those that have and those that don’t. Name a place this does not exist. It has made strides in transformation and now we have leading banking and online services that I think rivals western countries. Some things lag behind. Living here is that wonderful mix. Can have the woman selling noodles on a bicycle combined with upscale western hotel and restaurants. It creates a stew. A mix of things where much can be found that makes life easier. Better. But...

One must have certain values or beliefs here. What I have found.

  1. There is no hurry to things. Things get done when they are done. We grow up in western societies wanting it all “now”. Now becomes a relative term often here. Does it matter? Yes and no. Do we expats get used to it? Yes and no. I’ve given up with expectations and a lot of what’s normal with things. I still have them. Buried inside my barang heart and soul.
  2. Privacy and community. Somewhere things lose translation. Like a closed door is a privacy thing. I insist on people respecting my privacy in the house. It’s no happenstance the things I love doing are alone things. Khmer people simply do not get it. They are brought up with the sense of community. This creates a strange and albeit eternal disconnect. I won’t change and neither will our neighbors.
  3. Us and them. We are fundamentally and eternally different. There is no fucking way to assimilate. Acclimate. Become one with. In fact I think Cambodian people do not expect us to. When I lived in Vietnam they did not either. My Vietnamese friends seemed to enjoy the differences. There is a bridge. We can get glimpses of that life. Over there. Like they can find us here. I think it all works best that way.

Now I sit at a coffee shop in the corner. Watch the ebb and flow of people. A mix of barang and Khmer. Everyone in their carefully sculpted space. Tables scattered not so much with abandon or cold calculation. Just how it works. Tables not crowded in. I remember at coffee spots in Hanoi I would sit outside. The chairs always seemed closer. The social nature there was to want to talk. I went to one place regularly and the manager had this one table he always wanted to give me. A little apart from others. Meanwhile the Vietnamese were scattered and closer both.

It’s strange how I remember things touching other things which have no real bearing on whether the electric kettle at home worked or not. It’s all how I find my words. My morning walking. Thankfully alone. I don’t try to violate the 3 rules above. I also don’t intend on living like a Cambodian. So a curious blend. I half remember this song middle aged crazy. Some lyric stuck in there.

A walking contradiction. Partly truth and partly fiction.

Yeah that is a life sometimes here. A life of power and no power. A kettle of life. Spent as a stranger in some land. I’ll leave with a memory of a place in Vietnam. A place that forever gives all of those things to me.

hanoi

Do I miss that world? Yeah. It was a thing that both gave and took. And I was a willing participant. Here in Cambodia I love this life too. Even when the hot water kettle doesn’t.