Welcome to the Asylum

There’s been much controversy of late regarding the resettling in Cambodia of asylum seekers who were trying to reach Australia, but were intercepted before they managed to get there and are now residing on Nauru, a tiny Pacific island state, and Manus Island, Papua New Guinea.

The brouhaha over the plan has been vocal and vociferous. Many international institutions deride Australia for not meeting its commitments towards refugees; in some ways it has to be recognized as a cop out. On the other hand I can sympathize with the country since not being really tough in discouraging the migration might result in a torrent of people seeking an escape route to Aussie from their hardscrabble lives. After all, there are at least a billion desperate people in the world that would go to great lengths to do that.

(As this is being written about 250,000 Cambodians illegally working in Thailand have been driven out of that country. People desperate to improve their lives are found in a lot of places. But note, Lao and Burmese working illegally in Thailand are not facing the same pressure to leave, so this is just an excuse to dump on Cambodians. But Thailand needs those workers so this is also a blow to a lot of Thai businesses.)

On the local front, the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, a network of several local NGOs, has called for a halt to the plan saying it wouldn’t be fair to asylum seekers since local security forces are “known to commit abuses such as killings, torture and arbitrary detention”.

That sounds more like the USA than Cambodia. Yes, there have been several people killed in the recent past who were involved either in political or land-grab demonstrating or workers’ strikes and several more environmental or labor activists have been killed in the past decade, but innocent people are killed every week in America by hyped up, militarized, trigger-happy cops, with minorities especially targeted.

Torture? Remember America’s rendition program where suspected terrorists were and maybe still are abducted everywhere the CIA operates and sent to third countries, like Syria for instance, to be tortured? Or how about the man associated with the 9/11 bombers who was waterboarded 180 times after the CIA had gotten all the information they were going to get from him? After 179 times were they actually looking for information on the 180th try or were they just having fun? BTW, waterboarding was one of the favored techniques of the Spanish Inquisition and has been used ever since by people and governments who desire to inflict fear and pain.

But in Cambodia? That’s news to me. Admittedly the cops here can be brutal when told to prevent demonstrating, but that’s true probably everywhere but Scandinavia and a few other pockets of exceptional humanity in a violent crazy world. About 10 years ago in Genoa, Italy at the time of an international finance meeting, the police walked into a warehouse late at night where demonstrators were asleep or peacefully talking and busted heads with 100 people injured and needing medical treatment. On that basis Italy would not be fit as a place for asylum seekers, but in fact gets tens of thousands of migrants seeking refuge yearly. You certainly would never accuse America’s cops of being gentle and law-abiding. Police are supposed to apprehend suspected law breakers and turn them over to the courts for justice, but are all too happy to administer nightstick justice on the spot. Not everybody who’s apprehended is guilty so it’s totally wrong for the police to abuse people before they’ve had their day in court.

Arbitrary detention? Nothing beats Guantanamo for keeping people for long periods without charges. About fifty of the current inmates were cleared for release years ago, innocent of all suspicions, but still languish behind bars. Having spent some time in the slammer myself, I strongly believe that it’s better to let a guilty person free than imprison an innocent one. While the government here has put people in prison on politically motivated charges, international pressure assures that they don’t remain very long even if their original sentences were for extended periods. In contrast Thailand just sentenced an anti-coup activist to 15 years in prison.

By the above I don’t mean to gloss over the very serious problems and unfortunate backsliding occurring of late in Cambo. It feels sad and depressing to see my adopted home treat so many of its people so harshly, but they still keep fighting back and while the recent killings have certainly dampened many people’s enthusiasm for protesting, the desire and spirit for change and improvement has not diminished. There are demonstrations and strikes happening nearly every day in spite of prohibitions against the activity. But keep it in perspective. When the military overthrew President Morsi in Egypt, more than 1000 protesters were killed and 15,000 imprisoned. Closer to home when the Thai military broke up the red-shirt protest in Bangkok in 2010, 90 people were killed and 1000 injured.

Now I can understand people seeking asylum in Australia - most of those coming lately (as of 2012) are from Iran, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka - not wanting to be shunted over to Cambodia instead. Getting resettled in Oz would be like striking it rich, whereas Cambo?: Welcome to the Asylum.

I mean, if a guy is truly fleeing persecution, rather than an economic migrant seeking a better life in Oz, then I reckon Cambodia is as good a place as any to seek refuge. When you come down to it, a lot of us expats here are refugees from the real world of freeways and alienation and overregulation and McDonald’s 15% meat hamburgers. Many of us think it’s paradise or pretty close so I don’t see why it should be a problem for legitimate asylum seekers.

 I expect many of those true asylum seekers, if they understood they could only show up at the airport in Cambodia with a valid passport and stay as long as they liked, would choose that option over paying thousands of dollars to people smugglers and taking grave chances with their lives on rickety overloaded boats. Besides, with Cambodia already welcoming an international community of expats, it seems they’d fit right in, as easy as adjusting to Australia anyway. And with most of the country’s economy being informal they ought to be able to find a way earn money and supplement their Aussie subsidy.

Many might not have passports or not be able to leave their country the legitimate route through border control, so they would still be left with the smuggler option. Still if they came here by way of being captured offshore by Australia and that country is willing to give Cambo a reported (but not confirmed) $40 million to take a mere 100 refugees, they’d certainly be well taken care of. They wouldn’t have the same cushy life as in Oz, but it’d be quite comfortable nonetheless… it might not be western standards, but still very doable.  

Cambo is certainly more acceptable and logical a place to resettle refugees than Nauru or Papua New Guinea, the two nations now holding asylum seekers. Nauru as an independent state has the world’s smallest population outside the Vatican; less than 10,000 people. It once had a thriving phosphate mining industry but that has been totally depleted and 80% of the country’s environment has been degraded. It has received tens of millions of dollars from Australia since refugees were first shunted there in 2001 and there are currently about 1100 people at the country’s detention center. It’s very far from everything and too small to absorb asylum seekers. They also had a big riot which caused a lot of damage last year.

PNG is certainly big enough but it’s got one of the lowest rates of urbanization in the world and most people live in tribal societies – Wikipedia calls them customary living arrangements, evidently the new euphemism for tribal. It’s so underdeveloped the only way to get between its two largest cities is by air. It’s not a place that could easily absorb international migrants. So once again, Welcome to the Asylum.

Meanwhile, in Kampot, my own little corner of the asylum, there’s lots happening, though a big topic of conversation lately is the government push for every one of us to obtain a work permit, whether we work or not, and the backdating of fees – at $150 per year (permit $100, health certificate $30, processing fee $20) for up to 7 years, which can get to be a big chunk of moolah. It seems they are starting in Kampot because being in a small city we are easy targets. Most of us have known right along that the country would eventually tighten up its regulations and paperwork. It had to happen.

Most people urge waiting till they come for you, but we’ve been warned that there will be arrears to pay if we don’t have the permit by July 1. Some people have gone down to the Ministry of Labor office to inquire (thus the info I’m imparting) and a few have paid up. One guy, who refused to cough up $1000, got a visit from the police two days later who offered the permit for $450, so there’s room for negotiation. We somehow need to make a fuss about the backdating since it’s kind of unfair to expect us to pay for 7 years when permits were never mentioned previously and probably not even available. It may be easy to ignore a few hundred Kompotians wailing, rending their garments and gnashing their teeth but when it comes to tens of thousands (or is it hundreds of thousands) of Penhers getting hit up, there could be an uproar and maybe a softening of the rules. More on this as the story develops.

In fact work permits is not the only place where the government is tightening up. Paying road taxes has also become more formal. Previously when I went to pay my tax I only had to show the previous’ years form and they gave me a new one. Now they want a copy of the registration card and passport. I took the new form in and Wow, Fiasco. It turns out the form I’ve been using to pay my taxes isn’t for my car, it doesn’t match the registration card… I’ve been paying somebody else’s taxes for six years! The guy behind the desk refers me to the Ministry of Economy and Finance, supposedly to fix the paperwork… now that would cost some money.

Even better - a lot worse actually - after delving into the paperwork to try to figure things out, I discovered that the registration card also isn’t for my car! It doesn’t match the year or ID number. Evidently, at least very likely, the plates and registration were pulled off a wreck and put on mine to avoid paying import tax. My car’s an illegal alien!!! If that’s the case it’d cost more to pay the import tax, not to mention the tons of money (read baksheesh) for all that new paperwork, than the car is worth.

Chances are good, in spite of my best intentions to be an exemplary non-citizen and pay my taxes, that I’ll be running illegally from now on… at least I’ll save $25 per year on taxes… but maybe need to pay a few bribes on the road for not being up to date. The nightmare scenario is that they someday want to check the registration against the car ID…

In other news an expat community project of building a playground on the riverfront, for which $7000 dollars was raised, has been wildly successful. Around dusk every afternoon the structure is packed with screaming joyful kids..

Hugh of Bodhi Villa is working on the old Alaska disco building that sits over the river across from the new (old) market. It’ll be a restaurant and a live music venue. Judging by the success of Bodhi’s live music cum disco Friday nights, which have been going for 10 years and are always jammed, it’s bound to be a hit. In the process of totally redoing the old blocky, ugly, nondescript building, the original structure, built in the 1930s around the same time as the market, has been exposed: it’s a beaut, matching the design of the market. The market is now completely occupied, at least all the outside shops, and the large open areas at both ends are now hosting successful restaurants.

A new boat dock is almost finished which will include an immigration office so travelers will be able to go direct to Vietnam’s Phu Quoc island from Kampot. The island is much closer to Kampot or Kep than Ha Tien in Vietnam.

Eric is leaving Bokor Mtn. Lodge after 9 years managing it. He held a great end-of-an-era party with Kampot Playboys providing music… they’re getting really good. He provided food and six kegs of beer. It was a great time; everybody (almost) showed up. Recent specialty-food additions to the restaurant scene include Auberge, owned by a French-Swiss, which has some tasty gourmet eats. To test the market he provided 12 of us with a 7-course gourmet meal for a paltry five dollars… the first time anyway. Davino Italian restaurant gets good reviews and soon NOLA will open with authentic New Orleans Cajun.

Gettin’ up in the world… which also means a new Mad Monkey guest house – they have two others in Cambodia. It seems out of place to me and represents a trend we residents are not especially fond of. Friend of mine went there to check on the pool: too small and surrounded by thirty backpackers was his assessment. A lot of old-time Cambo expats have a very low opinion of backpackers. I don’t see it; I reckon they were all backpackers once. If you’re young (or old) and out traveling you of course want to talk to people about where they’ve been and where they’re going and you’re cheap because you want to stay a long time on a little money. Besides suitcases are weird in a place like Cambo with sidewalks all ragged and trashy. They limit your mobility.

Just the idea of having so many more people passing through makes you feel a bit uncomfortable. We don’t have any grand tourist attractions or girlie bars and the town is still really small – about 40,000 people - so maybe the growth that’s inevitable will stay under control.

One heartening note is that most of the new construction in Old Town is either restoring the old structures or building new in the old style. Only a few dolts have bucked the trend.

Buying Votes - Democracy to the Test in Thailand and Cambodia

Thailand is in turmoil again and the divisions, once again, seem irreconcilable. At least not in any way consistent with democracy. This time it’s the yellow shirts who are on the warpath with the aim of shutting down the capital, Bangkok, until they achieve the ouster of the government of Yingluck Shinawatra, brother of the despised Taksin Shinawatra. The yellow shirts have the backing of the Bangkok elite and voters in the south. The principal political party they back – the Democrat Party – hasn’t won an election in more than 20 years. They consider any government affiliated with Taksin to be controlled by him from his self-imposed exile. At this point, they are as opposed to democracy as they are to Taksin. Their plan, once they bring down the government, is to install an appointed people’s council and, I surmise, change the electoral rules to prevent the majority from office.

Yingluck’s backing, the red shirts, is in the more populous north and northeast. Starting with Taksin’s win in 2001, he or parties affiliated with him have won every election and by wide margins. His first win was the first time any single party had won a parliamentary majority and their hold of the majority of Thailand’s people is rock solid. The snap election called by Yingluck for early February to try to ease tensions is certain, absent a military coup before then, to return her to power.

The yellows complain most about his corruption. On that score they’re correct, he’s an unmitigated sleazeball. This is best exemplified by they way he had the tax laws changed to exempt the $2 billion sale of his telecom empire from taxes just before the sale.

I consider him reprehensible on another account; that is, being responsible for mass murder. He promised in his first campaign to eradicate drugs within three months. Once elected he directed the police to kill lots of drug dealers. Within a few weeks about 2500 ‘drug dealers’ were summarily executed. In quotes because without access to fair trials and the ability to defend themselves, it’s absolutely certain that hundreds of innocent people were murdered. Maybe they were small-timers who sold only to supply their own needs. Others just happened to be on some police captain’s hit list. His mass murder campaign was supported by the vast majority of Thais, so you won’t hear the opposition complaining about that.

But they hate him most for the way he ‘bought’ poor people’s votes, you know, free health care, easy credit for the peasantry, development money for villages. That is rich coming from them since political parties in Thailand have a long history of actually using cash to buy votes on election day.

Step back for a minute. If an American politician proposed increasing Social Security, instituting true universal health care, making higher education more affordable, would you call that buying my vote? Yes, it would benefit me personally, but I also think those changes would be good for the country. Would I vote for a party that proposed to increase taxes on the poor so they could lower taxes on the wealthy? Hell no, that’s a vote for the greedy elite.

Whatever you think of Taksin, he’s the first Thai politician to ever consider the needs of the lower classes. Maybe you think he actually hates the peasantry and only bought their votes to gain power. Regardless, he’s the first to actually put money into Thailand’s majority. I spent a lot of time in the country in the early 1990s, including living and working there for most of 1993, and what I came away with was that the needs of the poor were totally neglected. It was always a government for the elite. For instance, When Bangkok’s skytrain, its first mass transit line, was completed in the late 90s a ride was priced at about $1. That was at a time when the minimum wage was about $90, so impossible for the poor to afford. The middle classes sped through town in air-con comfort while the poor spent hours in slow-as-molasses traffic sweltering in non-air-con discomfort. 

After Taksin was deposed, his party was still in power, so they chose another prime minister. He was ousted because of a conflict of interest: He earned $50 hosting a cooking show on TV. His replacement was kicked out by the Supreme Court on another technicality in the midst of the yellows shutting down the international airport and generally causing chaos. At that point a member of the opposition, Abbisit Vejijjiwa (forgive my spelling and minor discrepancies in my timeline) was put into power which in turn brought out the red shirt Taksin supporters. Their turn to shut down the city was broken up by the murder of 90 of their demonstrators. Meanwhile it was a forgone conclusion that the red shirts in the leadership of Yingluck would win the next election.

The country remained relatively calm for a few years until Yingluck proposed a blanket amnesty that would have included her brother as well as Abbisit and other elitists who are currently under indictment for the deaths of those 90 demonstrators. That sent the yellows into a state of apoplexy. Regardless of what it might have meant for their side, the idea that Taksin might be able to return set them into an artery-busting rage. Yingluck quickly removed the amnesty law from consideration, but the elitists were already fired up beyond reconciliation. So that’s where it stands now. They want to change the electoral laws to prevent the lower classes from gaining democratic power, thus abrogating the fundamental tenet of democracy; that of one person, one vote.  

Many countries have electoral systems that favor one group or the other. In Japan, Malaysia, the US, for instance, rural voters have disproportionate power. In Malaysia the smallest population district has 9 times the voting power per person of the most populous one and the ruling party remained in power after the last election even though they lost the popular vote. But can you imagine what will happen to the country if new laws created at the behest of the minority attempt to permanently prevent the majority from power?

The yellows have lost touch with reality. The red shirt majority will never abide by being stripped from power without a fierce struggle. Personally, I can’t help feeling that the elite hate Taksin more because he gave the poor hope for the future than for his corruption. This is similar to the Repug party in America which can’t stand the thought that the government  actually should put public resources into helping people. Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Medicare, whatever it is, if it’s designed to help anyone but the moneyed elite, they’re against it, since in their minds anyone who isn’t rich isn’t deserving of government largesse.

Cambodia, right next door is also in turmoil with the first mortalities from demonstrations happening at the beginning of the year. Sam Rainsy, leader of the opposition CNRP – Cambodian National Rescue Party – has kept his elected legislators out of parliament in protest of voting irregularities. Latest studies have shown that the areas with the greatest problems were where Hun Sen of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party did best. Still, as mentioned in a previous post, the manner in which the seats are allocated strongly favors the CPP and even if the CNRP had won the popular vote they still could’ve lost the election. The major problem for them now is the reform of election laws. There’s no sense in having new elections until the voting laws are reformed and I see no way for that to happen if they’re not in parliament.

The opposition has been holding daily demonstrations since December 15, blocking major thoroughfares and causing massive disruptions. The government had been showing tremendous restraint until military police were brought in who started bludgeoning at random, which in turn brought out the worst in the demonstrators who started throwing rocks and burning tires. In addition to being a flaming racist bigot, Sam Rainsy has been piggy-backing on the dissatisfaction of garment workers who’ve been demanding a doubling of their wages. The workers were not much of a force for that change until the opposition took up their cause.

As opposed to Taksin who could promise government largesse for the poor and deliver, since the Thai government clearly had the resources, Sam Rainsy is blowing wind. It’d be great for the workers to earn a minimum wage of $160 month, but that is not something a government can take lightly. Not only might it put the current 20% annual growth of the industry in jeopardy, but it would also likely distort the job market. A large percentage of garment workers, most of whom are women, send money home to their families even at the current $80 month. While that pittance provides only a very hardscrabble life, nearly all of them will say they are much better off earning the current minimum than they would be living in their villages where jobs are practically non-existent. They certainly can be and have been an unruly bunch in their fight for better conditions but having the backing of Sam Rainsy has emboldened them and brought them to join the opposition’s demonstrations. At the present time almost the entire industry has been shut down.

Hun Sen clearly has been shaken, he even rhetorically asked, ‘What have I done wrong’. His major problem is that he’s been in power too long, almost 30 years. No matter how good you are as a leader you are going to offend and anger a lot of people in that time. Moreover, you lose sight of your human fallibility and make things happen without a lot of consideration of their impact on ordinary people. His strong focus on development has propelled the               country to multiple years of high growth - 7.5% this year - but this has involved over the last decade the forcible relocation of hundreds of thousands of people in both urban shanty towns and rural villages.

All of the capital’s former shanty towns have been leveled and nearly all of its lakes and wetlands filled for development. In the filling of one large lake close to the center of town 4000 families were displaced. Some of those families are still demanding fair compensation three years after they were removed and have taken up demonstrating and blocking roads at the same time the other demos are happening, adding to the capital’s traffic woes. (The desire to concrete over park space is not unique to Cambodia; massive demonstrations took place in Turkey when the government announced plans to build on the last green space in central Istanbul.) When added to demonstrations by the opposition and garment workers and lately teachers demanding $250 per month, the PM is getting it from all sides.

Nearly 10% of the country’s land area has been granted to agro-industrial businesses. While this is an excellent development model in the World Bank view of things (but not mine; I think it’d be far better to divide the land up amongst many small holders then single large agribusinesses) it has involved large scale removal of villagers. And not just ordinary public land is being sold off – actually 99 year leases – but large parts of forested national parks and protected areas are also being leveled for sugar, rubber, acacia, oil palm and more. This all adds up to a disgruntled population and an easy target for Sam Rainsy who mostly focuses on Vietnamese concessions to further stoke racial tensions, even though they make up only a small part of the land sold off.

Hun Sen is often been portrayed in the international media as a dictator. That’s over the top in my opinion since true dictators only stay in power through intimidation and force, torture and incarceration of political opponents. He has no feared secret police. His party has consistently won elections. Though they aren’t perfect, it’s nothing like dictators who win with 99% of the vote. The fact that he only narrowly won the last election is proof enough that they are largely free and fair: not totally, but neither are elections in America.

Strongman, however does fit. In the past he has closed down whole businesses on a whim: Several years ago sports betting parlors employing thousands were closed down literally overnight when he gave the word. About three years ago he warned functionaries in the police and army that official license plates were not allowed for private vehicles – they get some free fuel and other perks. When the practice was not ended a year later, he gave them two months and threatened to impound any vehicle that still had official plates. They disappeared by the deadline, though they are now creeping back into use.

Until this latest election he talked about staying in power for another 20 years and back at the height of the Arab Spring, he smugly and confidently assured the people that it could never happen in Cambodia. I don’t think he’ll be ousted by street demonstrations, but he may be forced into new elections before his mandate ends.

The most unfortunate part of the whole mess is the total inadequacy of the opposition, especially the racism. Already Vietnamese businesses have been torched and destroyed. The way Sam Rainsy has played to the people’s prejudices, there can be no surprise if innocent Vietnamese citizens of Cambodia are attacked and even killed. He’s got many Cambodians thinking the biggest threat to their country is Vietnamese taking over even though they make up at best about 8% of the country’s population. According to him, illegal Vietnamese immigrants are a vanguard force that will eventually help the Viet government take over all of Cambodia. It’s total crap, but the people believe it. The greatest irony is that many of the young demonstrators screaming anti-Vietnamese epithets at police and CPP supporters and demanding Hun Sen’s ouster would not be alive today had Vietnam not intervened to stop the Khmer Rouge genocide which was taking tens of thousands of lives every month.

His attempt to buy garment workers’ votes by promising a doubling of the minimum wage would either unattainable if he was elected or if instituted could cause havoc in the economy with college grads earning less than garment workers. Much as I sympathize with their plight, those changes need to be more gradual, a condition which now seems impossible for the workers to accept after being stoked up by Sam Rainsy.

In latest news the government, using some violence, has cleared demonstrators from Freedom Park, a centrally located square capable of holding about 5000 people, and has temporarily prohibited further demos. The government had seemed to be showing a lot of tolerance towards the demos, but it’s not surprising they would crack down after violence resulting in casualties.

Finally, no matter how good a leader is, after 30 years in power it’s time for a change, except in this case the alternative would be worse.

Race to the Bottom, Bangladesh and Cambodia

Race to the bottom refers to governments competing for jobs by offering corporate subsidies and in the case of poor countries, repressed workers who work cheap and don’t cause problems. It’s not a phenomenon that applies only to poor countries as US states and municipalities also lavish corporations with public money to lure their facilities. The competition that Boeing set up when it wished to move its corporate headquarters provides one of the most egregious examples. They didn’t look around for the best location, they searched out suitable locations and chose the one that offered the biggest subsidy. Did they really need to do that? Was the corporation going through hard times and requiring a handout? Was it really right for the people of Chicago where Boeing landed – many of whom are in difficult straits, not to mention the city itself which has mountainous social and financial problems - to spoon feed one of the world’s largest and wealthiest corporations? And yet that’s where we’ve descended as a society – starve the poor to feed the rich. I’m not referring just to America here, but a large part of the world has adopted that corporate philosophy.

In Cambodia, race to the bottom involves granting tax holidays of 5 or 7 years to new factories. Recently a minister mused that Cambodia should end those generous tax benefits since the country really needs to increase revenue. He want on to speculate that many businesses close up and move when the tax holiday ends, with some merely changing their names and starting over with new tax breaks. The news article then pointed out that all the neighboring countries do the same, so it might be difficult to implement such a change. Public subsidies for private businesses is just as evil in a developed country like the US as in Cambodia, but at least workers in the US pay income taxes to make up part of the shortfall in revenue. In Cambo workers are too poor to pay taxes so all the additional costs caused by providing infrastructure to the new factories or education for worker’s children, etc. is born by the people as a whole. Bangladesh also provides tax holidays of 5 years to new businesses. Countries get jobs for their people, a good thing for sure, but not the money to provide social services to improve their lives.

Bangladesh has been in the news a lot lately. In its desperation to provide jobs for its people, one of the world’s poorest, they’ve gone through great lengths to repress worker’s rights and income, thinking that was the way to make international corporations happy, since that gives them the ability to provide extra cheap garments for people in rich countries. The country is also hopelessly corrupt, which means common sense safety rules are routinely and easily ignored, like having factory doors locked so when a fire erupts, workers have no exit. They do that to prevent workers skipping out surreptitiously and to prevent theft. Late last year more than 100 workers died for that very reason. They can do that because small bribes there can solve all problems.

More recently, more than eleven hundred workers died in a building collapse in which multiple illegal and/or unethical and/or corruption factors were involved. In the first place the factory was built on a former wetland, which doesn’t automatically preclude developing an 8 story building there but does require extra care and higher costs in construction, which obviously didn’t happen in that case. Secondly, the building permit was issued by the local jurisdiction, though only the central government is authorized to do so for that type of building. The area is not zoned for industry so the building should’ve never been allowed in the first place. The permit was for a 5 story building to which an extra 3 stories were added illegally. None of those reasons would have necessarily caused the building to collapse if it had been designed properly for its purpose.

Corruption takes on many guises. In South Asia – Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal – corruption is social and ethical as well as financial. For instance, during the great flood in Pakistan in 2011, people who lost everything were denied basic food aid if they couldn’t show ID. Their whole lives had been washed away but they didn’t qualify for basic sustenance because of bureaucratic callousness and intransigence. In India, it takes 29 permits to open a supermarket, each one in a different office requiring a separate bribe unless the permit seeker is willing to wait interminable lengths of time for the permits.

The following is an experience I had at the Kathmandu Post Office on my first trip there in 1992; I doubt if it’s changed all that much. I was sending some paintings to the states in a mailing tube. I went into the office and stood in one of three lines with my package. When I got to the front – it took a while, there were about 10 people ahead of me – I was told I was in the wrong line, so I went over to the correct one. When I got to the window the clerk weighed the package, put a little scribble on it and told me to go to another line. A little odd, but okay, next line, another long wait, the clerk looks at the scribble and sells me stamps and tells me to put them on the tube and to go to a third line to mail it. What? All that rigmarole to mail one package? Well, at the time the largest denomination stamp had minimal value so I had to practically fill up the tube with stamps. That required that I separate long strips of stamps from a whole sheet and a half of them. In the process, I ripped off a very small portion of the corner of two of them, partly because they were printed on low quality paper. I thought nothing of it, but when I got to the head of the third line where the stamps were to get postmarked, the package was rejected for the two little corners that had gotten ripped off. Well, I freaked, said some decidedly unkind words to the clerk and stormed out, only to be forced to return some days later if I actually was going to get the thing mailed.

In all three cases you have bureaucracy run amok, seemingly almost gleefully devising rules designed to harass the citizen, and by the way stymieing growth, progress and advancement. That is in contrast to Cambodia where the permit process, with a little facilitating money thrown in, is very speedy and hassle free. Bureaucracy here also has its flexibility. For example, recently the process for obtaining a license plate for motorbikes was changed in a way that required long waits in an uncomfortable setting and was very confused since the government hadn’t properly made the process clear. Previously one paid an agent who charged a little extra but did all the paperwork and the plate was obtained very quickly. After a week of complaints the process was simplified and streamlined.

My personal experience with Bangladesh is very limited but telling nonetheless. The first time was in 1992 when I chose to fly Biman Air, the Bangladesh national carrier, from Bangkok to Calcutta, to save money. That involved a long layover in Dhaka. During the wait, I was able to observe the main waiting room being expanded right outside the big picture window. They - mostly women - were bringing concrete for the floor by carrying one bucket at a time on their heads up a flight of stairs... at an international airport.

I used Biman a second time in 2000, also to save money. On that trip I spent overnight till mid-morning in Dhaka at a special hotel run by the airline near the airport. The special hotel was supposed to be for emergency use only when flight connections didn’t happen, but obviously wasn’t an emergency in our case. This time it was a flight from BKK to Kathmandu, but since they had little traffic on the Dhaka-Kathmandu leg they used us travelers to add to the nearly empty plane. They served us a very simple dinner and breakfast the next morning and I got to walk around the neighborhood for about two hours before the mid-morning flight. The meal served to the hotel staff consisted of rice colored with spices and a small amount of eggs, no vegetables or meat... not much to it.

Though the immediate area around the hotel was middle class, just a short distance away the poverty was impressive even compared to India. One picture that stands out in my mind was seeing people breaking up new bricks with small sledgehammers, which I assumed was to take the place of construction rock. Almost the entire country consists of the vast delta formed at the confluence of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers. Except for some foothills in the north and far southeast of the country, there’s just no place to quarry rock. Being a delta makes it a very fertile land, but it’s also one of the most crowded places on Earth. It has a population of about 160 million in an area the size of Wisconsin in the US – about 55,000 square miles or 135,000 square kilometers. It’s about 2/3 the size of Cambodia which has less than one tenth the people.

The industrial makeup of Bangladesh is very similar to Cambodia’s. In both cases garments make up 80% of export earnings. Bangladesh’s garment industry is ten times the size of Cambodia’s, which matches the population differential. Per capita income is very similar - $2000 for Bangladesh, $2400 for Cambodia - based on Purchasing Power Parity which is a better indicator of wealth than merely converting to US dollars.

Treatment of workers, however, has been very different. Minimum wage in Bangladesh’s garment industry was recently raised from $25 per month to $38, whereas Cambodia’s wage was recently raised from $61 to $75 – almost twice as much though Cambodia’s income is only 20% larger. Where the countries diverge is in worker’s rights. Cambo, being dependent on the international community for the last 20 years was forced to allow unions and today the entire industry is unionized with several unions vying for worker support. Some buyers, like The Gap, for instance, purposely have located here so they can say the workers that make their clothes have the right to join unions and are treated fairly. Cambodia’s garment workers are not at all shy about work stoppages and asserting their rights. Manufacturers and the government don’t like it, but they live with it.

In contrast, Bangladesh has prohibited all union organizing. Change towards improving worker rights is being talked about with the recent disasters affecting so many workers. It’s possible, maybe even likely, that unionized workers would’ve refused to enter the building that later collapsed. It was evacuated the day before because of serious cracks in the concrete, but workers were told they had to return to work. With no rights whatever and in fear of their jobs, they felt they had no choice.

At the time of the collapse, I was thinking that it couldn’t happen here, or at least wasn’t very likely, but then in quick succession two events in Cambodia caused death and injury. In the first an illegally constructed mezzanine floor collapsed killing two and injuring another 20 or so and then only four days later a dining area on a raised platform fell down and injured about two dozen. Both were cases of shoddy construction and careless thinking. Still a sharp contrast to the large numbers killed in Bangladesh. There, because of extreme population density, they have no choice but to build multistory. There’s no way they could take very large greenfields, as in Cambodia, to build one story factories.

Multistory factories in themselves are no problem but require good design and conscientious engineering. They’re an efficient use of land and in some ways, in my mind, preferred to sprawling Cambodia style factories build on open land in the middle of nowhere. Many Cambo workers are forced to travel as much as two hours each way to get to work, a tremendous burden added to an already long workday. The industry of late has been having difficulty recruiting workers; getting to the worksite is one of the drawbacks of current development.

Even if only one story, it’d be far preferable to locate compact factories in or close to population centers. There’s a factory located close to the heart of Kampot which, until recently, employed about 300 workers (I’m not sure why it closed down). The vast majority of its workers were within 15 minutes of the factory by walking, bicycling or motorbike.

Cambodia and many other places in the world are being designed as if fossil fuels will always be cheap and easily available, a dubious proposition at best. They’re obviously oblivious to shortages that are inevitable and not in the distant future.

In America, good planning principles encourage industrial zones near the heart of the city since that’s where the workers are. Industrial jobs need to be balanced with retail, commercial and office jobs since there are a lot of people who are not suited to the latter. Having people travel long distances to work is never a good idea for the individuals involved or the increase in traffic that results. A few years ago a multistory garment factory employing hundreds of workers which was located on Street 51 in the center of Phnom Penh was replaced with an English school. Few would suggest that a garment factory is a better use of very valuable land in that location than an English school but it made it possible for large numbers of workers to easily get to work. Instead factories are being built 20, 30, 40 kilometers from the city in former rice paddies. This will at some point constitute a big problem.

Romneybot

One of the most insensitive, clueless and just plain warped statements Romney has made in the campaign was when he spoke in Israel and said that the reason why Israel had a per capita income of $20,000 while the Palestinians only had $10,000 was due to a superior culture. To begin with his numbers were off by a factor of ten: The true numbers are $31,000 for Israel, $1500 for the Palestinians. You’d think someone in his entourage would take a minute to do an internet search to get the correct numbers. His statement was roundly criticized by many Israelis, and rightly so.

In the event, I’ve been pondering for quite a while how culture impacts a nation’s intellectual and economic advancement. Why is it that some nations are hopelessly poor while others are fabulously wealthy?

All peoples are not the same, all cultures are not the same, though political correctness places taboos on us making certain types of judgments and assumptions.

But even before you start judging a nation’s cultural status based on per capita income, you’ve got to step back and check for outside forces that might’ve affected those numbers. In the case of Israel versus Palestine, you have Israel, an already wealthy nation that receives $4 billion per year in military aid as well as an additional large amount more in private donations from Jews around the world and ‘Palestine’ – in quotes because it’s not a nation – which has been under military occupation for 45 years during which time it’s seen its land stolen, its water stolen, its access to the outside world strictly controlled by another country, which decides, based on how much pressure or difficulty it wishes to burden the Palestinian people with, what can be imported and what can be exported, it’s people subjected to more than 500 checkpoints in an area equivalent to Delaware, America’s second smallest state, so that merely going from one village in your ‘country’ to another is regularly designed to be a frustrating and humiliating experience, where guards routinely make Palestinians, including the elderly and pregnant women, wait out in the elements - women have been forced to give birth out in the open because the guards won’t to let them through to nearby hospitals, where... well I could go on and on and on, but suffice to say it’s a ludicrous comparison to make considering the circumstances.

However, it’s entirely possible that, even on a level playing field, Israel would have a higher income than a true, free Palestinian state. Culture undeniably has an impact on a people’s drive for financial success, though concurrently, financial success isn’t the only determinant of the value of a culture. It’s especially dangerous, not to mention morally and philosophically corrupt to try to equate a nation’s value based solely on its income.

First a little digression on per capita income. There are two ways to calculate it. One is to simply covert local currency to dollars. That method seriously understates quality of life in developing countries, since a dollar goes a lot farther in a poor country than in a rich. Before you come to the third world, you just can’t imagine how people can survive on $800 per year, Cambodia’s current nominal per capita income. But I can go to a local produce shop, which is a bit more expensive than the public market, and get two tomatoes, a small green pepper and an onion for 35¢. The same is true for almost everything produced locally. The second is Purchasing Power Parity in which the skewing against poor countries is corrected by adjusting for the greater purchasing power of a dollar in those places. On that basis Cambodia’s income is more like $2400 per year.

Back on subject: Qatar, calculated by PPP, has the highest income in the world at about $100,000. Does that mean Qatari culture is three times better than Israeli culture? Or merely superior? German income is close to $40,000. Do we really want to suggest that German culture is superior to Jewish culture because their income is higher? In the cases of both Germany and Israel there are special circumstances that have brought their income down. In Germany’s case they spent fabulous amounts of money in the cause of bringing East German society up to western standards. In Israel’s case they’ve spent vast sums on their colonization project in the West Bank and concomitant occupation and suppression of the Palestinian people. Still, setting the mitigating factors aside, one may well have a ‘superior’ culture when it comes to income and maybe other factors also. Every race, nationality, culture is different.  

Income is an essential factor in determining a country’s progress and advancement. Without a certain minimum income some people will be hungry, or be without access to education or health care. But that doesn’t mean a low income country has an inferior culture, only that it either isn’t focused on income or mitigating factors have brought income down.

Cambodia’s current poverty is mostly a result of its sordid history. Back in the sixties the country was one of the area’s wealthiest. While nobody but the Khmer can be blamed for the gruesome years of the Khmer Rouge, their takeover of the country did not happen in a vacuum. In the early sixties, King Sihanouk abdicated his throne to become the country’s political leader. That time was the heyday of Cambodian culture. While he wasn’t faultless, he was a respected and often revered leader; he also was a leftist with affinity for Mao and communist China. This did not sit well with the CIA so they staged a coup in 1970 in which the former king was deposed and Lon Nol, an imposingly corrupt right-winger was put in his place. That in turn did not sit well with the Khmer Rouge and the king who sided with the KR. Nixon’s ‘secret’ Cambodia bombing campaign in which more bombs were dropped per capita than any time in history, gave the KR a fantastic recruiting tool and sealed Cambodia’s fate. BTW, 40 years after the bombing ended Cambodians are still dying from UXO’s, unexploded ordnance, left in the countryside. The US always has the money to start new wars but somehow can’t find the relative pittance needed to clean up after the old ones.

While only the Khmer people could produce a Pol Pot, it’s reasonable to conjecture that the KR might never have been able to take over had the US not intervened in Cambodia’s affairs. Cambodia’s $2400 per year per capita income doesn’t compare favorably with the US income of $45,000, but is it entirely culture that made the difference? Had Cambodians been left to their own devices, they would be far above that figure today, but who knows exactly where they would stand?

Cambodia’s people may not compare in income, social advancement or intellectual attainment but it’s a hell of a lot easier to live here than in the states. The atmosphere is friendly, easygoing and relaxed, exemplified by the fact that the country has 26 public holiday days a year and that underestimates how much time people take off for Khmer New Year. The official holiday is three days but the private schools I taught at scheduled a full week off and nobody ever showed up for classes the last couple of days before the scheduled break. And that also doesn’t include Chinese New Year, a three day unofficial holiday that almost everyone who can takes off. We celebrate the new year three times in Cambo.

Speaking of the Chinese, when it comes to financial success, they undeniably have a superior culture. Nearly everywhere you go in southeast Asia they control a disproportionate share of the businesses and own an outsized share of the wealth. But does that mean their culture overall is better? For instance, when Chinese summon a waitress they use the term for servant and it’s always spoken in a gruff haughty voice. In contrast when Cambodians do the same they use a word that roughly translates as good person and they speak naturally.

I could go on, I intended to go on, but I’d just get into trouble. Suffice to say, there’s a lot more to culture than income. Leave it to vulture-capitalist Romney, the richest man ever to run for president, to see value exclusively in terms of material wealth.

There’s a ‘2’ in My Milkfruit Tree

Every day now for about a week an old-fashioned style 2 appears right around sunset on a lower branch of a milkfruit tree in my yard. (The fruit on my tree has deep purple flesh with a very sweet center; some milkfruit trees have green flesh. Its taste moves towards the chalky as you get close to the skin, and, as you would expect, it exudes a milky white juice.) All other times I’ve tried to see that 2, it’s just a clump of leaves. But then, against a subdued gray twilight background, it’s just above eye level when I’m sitting in my soft chair on my front porch and blares out to me like neon. It can’t last long, at any time a leaf or small branch will fall and my 2 will be history.

What’s doubly remarkable about that leafy message is that 2 is my number. Starting with my birthday which is on the 22nd, it’s been central to my numerical life. I spent a good part of my childhood at house number 20202. My house in Portland where I lived for 18 years was at 722. My Oregon driver’s license, which I’ve had for 40 years, has four 2’s out of a total of seven numbers. The number two signifies duality, the two sides of almost any question or person. Also the two parts that make a whole - positive, negative; male, female; left, right; right, wrong… and I’m as bifurcated as anyone.

About 10 or 11pm last August 21 I stepped out of my car at home after a night out and there was a large spectacular epiphyllum flower in bloom. (Epiphyllum is a spineless hanging cactus with thin flat leaves.) The bud stem had appeared several days before, but never having seen one bloom before (or for that matter since) I had no idea what to expect. Wow, was it showy  - It was six inches across with long blue petals radiating in a circle off a white center. And I’m thinking, Great display for the party tomorrow, but alas it didn’t even last till the morning. What a flash of brilliance to erupt and fade in such a short time. Are they - the milkfruit 2 and the epiphyllum bloom - omens that I’m about to abruptly fade away? Or do they mean my life is charmed?

For certain, I lead a charmed life, but equally, at the age of 70, who can say how fast I’m going to fade? Meanwhile, I’m having no trouble loving my life and having the greatest time of it, so I was set a bit off balance when my brother-in-law, being the brunt of my last post’s humor, took umbrage. Somehow in the process of defending himself he took my mention of my meager pension as an indicator that I was whining and feeling sorry for myself, whereas I meant only to contrast how great I feel with how little money I have.

On the other hand, nobody likes being poor. But being as I’ve spent nearly my whole life in that category - minus two short interludes after I sold my house in Portland and received an inheritance - I’m (relatively) very comfortable without money.

During a two year period living on the commune I had a total of $16 in my possession. Food, shelter and fuel were covered and I did my share (usually) of work around the place to compensate for having no dough. It seemed just natural then to extend that moneyless status out to the road where I did about 30,000 miles of hitching without money (out of a total of about 70,000). Amazingly enough, looking back, I survived quite well sans cash and sometimes even today wonder exactly how I managed those weeks at a time on the road, fed and taken care of by the cosmos, as it were. As recompense for going ‘naked’ I had experiences and insights no amount of money could replace. (Read all about it in my new book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Enlightenment…forgive the shameless plug.)

At the same time, I always took money with me when I had it. More recently I did a couple of quite long hitches around the middle of the double oughts, but had enough money with me to stay in motels and pay for meals. Meanwhile, if the occasion arose, I’d have no problem sticking out my thumb and going anywhere I needed to (in the states anyway) on the spur of the moment, without cash. But once again, I wouldn’t do it voluntarily, so there’s your duality.

Aside from the odd ascetic or monk, nobody who’s poor ever turns away from mammon. There are people who eschew additional money when they already have enough, but even those are few.

Even living here in Cambodia where everything that’s important - food, shelter, clothing, transportation - is dirt cheap, my $800 per month income (Social Security plus writing) is not living high, though it does provide a good and healthy life and still affords lots of good times.

 Bro-in-law pointed out that Social Security is based on what you put in and I had my choice so why was I whining. Maybe there was a little whine there. I worked hard enough when I was working, just didn’t make any money because during the bulk of my working life in the states - 14 years - I was doing recycling, the bastard stepchild of American industry. The US gives a tax break for cutting down a tree but nothing for recycling paper. We also recycled certain materials for the good of it even when they were big losers on the balance sheet. As a result, I never earned more than $11,000 in one year in my life, though for more than half those 14 years, I kept longer than 40 hour work weeks and had a lot of responsibilities. That accounts for my meager pension, which is now, with this month’s raise, $660. 

(Don’t tell anyone but Social Security is part of an income-redistribution, communist plot to steal money from the haves and give it to the have-nots. The person who put ten times as much as I did into the system only gets out three or four times as much as I do.)

Had I been willing to wait till the age of 65 years and 8 months, I’d be getting about $800 now. The average pension is about $1200 per month. That would not finance the good life in Portland, say, but it would be just barely livable with enough to pay for the cheapest one bedroom apartment, keep an old clunker on the road, eat healthy but almost never go out or indulge in any of the dearer foods, drink low-down beers and rarely do it outside the house, always be late with bills because you are juggling your limited resources… well, you get the picture. That’s the way I’ve lived almost all my life, it’s second nature and to some extent I’m still doing it now.

But $660 in Portland? Painful. What if I didn’t know how to live outside the US? Well, I’d be whining for sure. Here I’m very comfortable though it’s still not a cushy life, and, as you might expect, I would like a bit more money to spend… another few hundred dollars would do; in fact, $1200 would be just fine. At the same time I still love my life the way it is and I’ll get along with what I have for sure.  

In two countries that I’m aware of - The Netherlands, Australia - everybody gets the same amount, in both cases about $1400 per month. That makes sense to me. The whole idea is to keep geezers off the streets and out of the poorhouse. And for we old-timers to be able to maintain a little dignity while our life forces are fading. A state pension is a form of insurance in case you made poor choices, were too lazy, indifferent or indigent to save for retirement or maybe had a run of bad luck. Whatever, it’s hardly the life of Riley.

            I chose to work hard for little, and now I’m paying for it, though karma being what it is, you do what’s given to you. It’s your choice but it’s even more a part of the grand plan, so you carry on day to day, month to month, year to year and before you know it you’re 70 years old. If you’re lucky like me you’ve found a place to be comfortable where you can take life easy. Working hard is great when you’re in the prime of life, and it’s good to be able to do it in spurts in your twilight years, but at 70 stress and hard work will only wear down the parts that much faster and shorten your life so once again I’m fortunate to have found my home.

            It’s been ten years since I came to Cambodia looking for work. I had tried to figure out a way to survive in the states, but my prospects were dismal. Like many events in my life, I was forced by circumstances to move on only to discover the perfect place for me.

            And a charmed place at that.

           

Guilt Tripping

I’m beginning to agree with my brother-in-law: My life is too easy, I’m enjoying it way too much. I should be like him: At the age of 80 he’s still working full time doing his part for the American and world economies. There’s not much made in America anymore so the new cars he buys on a regular basis and other trappings of the good suburban life he works so hard for mostly provide jobs for Japanese and Chinese, but what the hell, they need to work too.

Meanwhile, the only endeavor-like activity I can muster lately is a couple hours of writing a day and it rarely involves significant remuneration so my contribution to the world’s economic well-being is mostly limited to my meager pension, so, realistically it’s not much more than negligible. Otherwise all I do all day is putter around with my 250 plus potted plant collection, either gazing in awe at the beauties or fretting about those that look sickly; or riding my bicycle around a pacific tropical countryside or staying informed by reading and listening to lots of news or taking long afternoon naps or hanging out with friends drinking beers in the local bars. Is that any way to live?

I especially feel guilty now that the weather here in Cambodia is as good as weather gets; you know, low to mid-seventies at night - cool enough in the morning for me to want to put on a long-sleeved shirt - and a balmy mid-eighties in the daytime with humidity low enough to preclude perspiration except with serious exertion - I can walk for an hour without working up a sweat. Around April when the temperature here goes up near 100 and barely goes below 85 at night and the sweat pours off of you even when you’re not lifting a finger; well then I wouldn’t feel so bad about old sis and bro-in-law all bundled up against the deep-freeze Minnesota winter, but now I’m just racked with guilt about having it so easy.

Maybe I should assuage my guilt by going back to states and supplementing my $636 per month pittance of a pension by getting a job as a minimum wage Mall*Wart greeter? I’m good at smiling all right, though my weak back might make standing on my feet all day a bit of a challenge. Alternatively, I could always make do in one of the new tent cities that have sprung up around America. I love the outdoors so spending the winter in a tent shouldn’t be all that difficult. Think about hanging around the campfire roasting marshmallows and singing camp songs like Good Night Irene, that’s got to be lots of fun.

I dunno, maybe I should just resign myself to slackerhood and leave the consumerism and concomitant production of CO2 to more upstanding and responsible members of society. I am, after all, an old hippie so it would be kind of fitting to live out my remaining years being counterculturally unproductive, so to speak.

On the other hand, spending my paltry pension here in low-income Cambodia where it actually makes a difference, not to mention provides me a decent standard of living, can’t be all bad, can it? I thought not.

Meanwhile, in the midst of debilitating guilt and remorse while plagued by congenital lethargy and just plain laziness, I have managed to create a blog of news, views and stories from Cambodia: if you’re interested go to http://stanscambo.blogspot.com.

Death to Barking Dogs

(Apologies in advance to sensitive dog lovers)


The above statement appeared on one of my favorite bumper stickers and perfectly represents my feelings on the matter. Well, okay, death is kinda drastic and terminal: How about; A Good Smack Across the Snout to Barking Dogs. Anything to shut ‘em up.



A gal I once knew who was from Vietnam said they don’t have any problem with them there; If they get too noisy they quickly find their way to the dinner pot. Once again, kind of a Final Solution for someone’s beloved (or otherwise) pet. I don’t necessarily want to see them go to dog purgatory or hell (they definitely don’t go to dog heaven; not the barking ones, no way). I just want them to quit their useless, maddening yapping.



I especially dislike it when they disturb my peace and reverie as I walk along by surprising me with loud angry barking. In the city they are usually tethered or behind closed doors. Just walking past their door late at night will start some dogs barking. Sometimes I get my revenge by barking back at them. Wow, that really sets them off and they bark like crazy for a long time after. I always hope in those circumstances that it wakes up their owners and maybe even their neighbors who would then pressure them to teach their dog to shut up; meanwhile I’m long gone. One time, during the day, a large tethered dog shattered my calm as I was walking by. When I barked back, it was so taken aback that it turned tail and ran into the house. The owner, who was sitting outside clearly thought I was nuts, but what did he think of his own dog, some protector it was.



I admit my ears are very sensitive, but who likes the shrill sound of barking dogs? Khmers evidently don’t mind, or don’t care, but that’s maybe because they’re all half deaf from the many times their ears have been deranged by loud noises. Every wedding or party I go to is a painful experience for my ears even when I’ve got my regulation foam earplugs firmly in place. I feel really sorry for little kids when I see them hanging out up close to giant speakers blasting out at full volume… oops, I’m getting off topic.



For a long time I thought Khmers let their dogs bark frequently because they were too lazy to train them or didn’t know how but I was recently forcefully disabused of that notion. Two years ago the owners of my Phnom Penh flat, who own three different buildings at the end of my alley, got a pair of really small, really shrill, really stupid dogs. There’s now about five of them - I’ve lost count - each as dumb as the other. They bark a lot, nobody ever tries to shut ‘em up. Even after two years they still don’t know me and bark at me quite often when I access my place. For sure, every night when I come home late they get all worked up and create a real din.



Maybe their owners just love tiny, noisy dogs or they possibly they like them to be noisy for the security aspect. Nobody can get by there without them giving notice. I feel sorry for the two guys who sleep out, who get woken up at the slightest disturbance. (I believe they are related in some way to the owners and in addition to night watch duties also chauffer the family around.) Thing is, I’ve never heard of a rip-off near my house and I attribute that at least in part to the fact that those guys are always there. A quiet thief could’ve gotten by them before the dogs arrived on the scene but in the three years I lived there nobody had, so there wasn’t much reason to fear.



The dogs have a cage where they are locked up at night and other times during the day. I was surprised when I saw one of the outdoor guys giving a signal, an almost subtle one at that, to the dogs to cage up, and they went quickly and easily, so training is not the problem. To top it off, they just got another dog; this one larger, louder and at least as annoying, if less shrill.



Maybe Khmers just like the idea of dogs running free and doing their thing. Ironically, one of my favorite Dylan songs, from the New Morning album, is “If Dogs Run Free”,



If dogs run free, why not we?
Across the sands of time…



While I get the concept, in practice it’s a real hassle, like when I got bit a few months back by a free running dog owned by the people who caretake the public toilet on the corner of Streets 13 and 178 across from the National Museum. It was about midnight and nighttime is when dogs yap and threaten the most. I had heard it barking at someone else as I approached about 50 meters away but didn’t think much of it; Khmer dogs bark a lot but don’t bite very often and this was kind of a small one. When I got within proximity it circled around me and without barking or any threatening gestures it struck, leaving a very interesting two rows of puncture holes in my calf – only the upper teeth sunk in.



I was really pissed, as you can well imagine, and chased after it like a madman while yelling obscenities and threats like, “kill dog” in my rudimentary Khmer. I kept searching for a rock to throw at it as I was running after it, but could find none, it’s all grass there. It would have evened things out a bit if I could’ve beaned it. Meanwhile I had roused the whole caretaker family (and probably half the neighborhood) and they were trying to figure out why I was so lividly irate and screaming about killing their dog. They understood pretty easily when I moved over to the light and showed them my bloody leg. I’m sure they were relieved that I didn’t demand compensation.



And as any sensible responsible person would do I went early next day to get a rabies shot: Not. I know you think I must be half crazy to take a chance on certain death for the small cost and relatively minor inconvenience of preventative shots but I weighed the probabilities and decided against it.



What I did do early next morning was check out rabies on the net. For one thing you’ve got a window of about 10 days to get the shots if they’re going to save your life. Also the speed at which you die depends on how close the bite is to your head. As mine was in the lower leg it would’ve taken about six weeks to reach my brain when I would’ve started foaming at the mouth and soon thereafter died.



I learned that an average of seven people a year die of rabies in Phnom Penh. Those of course are the ones who didn’t get the shots. I also learned that Cambodians are especially fond of dogs and have twice the number per capita compared to neighboring countries.



What I didn’t find out was what percentage of Cambodian dogs have rabies. In developed countries that number is now close to zero. I really don’t want to put weird rabies stuff into my system if I don’t have to so if the ratio is one out of a thousand, I’d take my chances. One in ten and for sure I’d get shot.



The thing about rabid dogs is you can easily tell, though I’m not sure if that’s true of all stages of its infection. They’re aggressive, they foam at the mouth and they look crazed. I remember seeing one back when I was very young. I may actually be remembering a picture or educational movie, but in any case, rabid dogs are easy to spot. This dog showed no signs of the disease; in fact, I’ve never seen or heard of a rabid dog since I came to Phnom Penh 8 years ago. At any rate I took my chances and dodged the bullet, however rare.



I did get a malady from that dog because I was very weak for three days after. Dogs have a lot of weird stuff in their mouths from eating shit and all kinds of strange foods, so it’s not surprising that I’d get something. I saw the same dog more recently as I was walking by late at night. I grabbed a nice chunk of wood to rap it with in case it got too close. It barked at me because it knew I was pissed at it, but no need for the wood, it was muzzled.



I’ve had dogs a couple times in my life but I did such a terrible job taking care of them I decided it wasn’t for me. It’s not that I don’t like them – as long as they keep their distance - I just never had the energy or desire to play with them or show them the affection that dogs like and need. I’ve decided it’s enough trouble taking care of myself and don’t need another living, breathing thing to be responsible for.



Meanwhile, just to prove my heart isn’t totally hardened towards them, I give my neighbor’s dog in Phnom Penh a little section of my morning toast and butter every day. The way the apartment is configured, she can look at me while looking all hungry and forlorn while I’m preparing breakfast so at a certain point I couldn’t resist sharing with her. She’s a mellow dog that doesn’t bark much except when she has pups so is worthy of my gift. Still, it does seem a bit wacky to feed butter, which now costs more than $10 per kilo, to an animal. She also gets chicken skins and fat trimmings from other meats from me so she hangs out at my place nearly as much as her own. I tried playing with her a little but it just isn’t in me.



Meanwhile in many ways Kampot, where my second home is, is a lot worse in the canine category because there they really do get to run free. You know, I can really dig it from the dog’s perspective. They get to run around and fuck a lot and sniff at everything. They get to hang around with their friends and have a good time and yip, yip, yip, bark, bark, bark to their heart’s content. They also get to harass anybody who dares to be out at night walking or bicycling, which is clearly my problem because I’m a night person.



My house is at the edge of town and almost rural so there are even more dogs than usual and I also have to pass through a severely pockmarked, potholed section of road. This was a big problem when I was on bicycle since I had to go slowly to negotiate the rough surface, which left me a sitting target, so to speak, for the dogs. It also meant my bike light didn’t work well since I was going so slowly. In town on paved streets I might not be able to outrun them, but at least I’d be able to get out of their way pretty quickly. It was especially bad in rainy season since I’d also have to dodge huge puddles and pools of water.



As you can imagine, part of my problem is that I’m not terribly comfortable around dogs and they sense that and think I’m an evil person who needs to be harassed. I walked home at night for a month or so when I first moved to Kampot and then bicycled for several months after that until I bought a car. I always made sure I had a couple of rocks handy in my basket. Barking dogs at my heels combined with trying to find my way on a rough road in the dark did cause me to spill out a couple of times causing a flurry of curses.



When I tried to stay calm and ignore them it worked out a lot better and anyway I managed to survive without getting bitten. Still it’s a great relief to have a car and really be able to ignore them. But I like to walk and bike very much so it’s kind of a loss and a waste to fire up the car to go such short distances – it’s never much more than a kilometer to anywhere I go at night. I walk in Phnom Penh at night so it’s nutty that I feel I have to drive in Kampot.



The barking dogs of midnight is practically the only thing I don’t like about Kampot. One or two will start their stupid yapping, sometimes totally unprovoked by any real event, and then are quickly joined by five or ten others in the immediate neighborhood, which very soon translates into every dog within a kilometer going crazy in unison. Ninety-nine percent have no idea why they are barking their heads off but are moronically happy to join the chorus just the same. Some people get positively deranged by the needless din. I don’t like it but mostly just let it pass me by… though at times I do think some of the worst offenders deserve the cook pot, at least there they’d serve a real purpose.

Cambodia Update

I write regularly about my doings in Cambodia for a website http://khmer440.com so I forget that some of you might also be interested.

So to recap: after six years in Phnom Penh I decided I had to find an escape from the big city. No matter how great a city is there’s something about it that demands I get some respite. As cities go, especially as Asian cities go, Phnom Penh is eminently livable but that doesn’t change the imperative to find greener pastures.

I’d been to quite a few places in Cambodia and easily settled on Kampot as my second home. It’s on a wide estuary (it’s officially called a bay, we all call it a river) with a national park as a back drop: hiking trails there are an easy bike ride away. It’s got a large old town with many centenarian buildings, some of which are in a terrible state of disrepair - gives it a little character. It has only 30,000 people so everyplace is within a ten minute bike ride and there is no traffic stress whatever.

It’s also close enough to Phnom Penh – 93 miles/ 148 kilometers - to be a tolerable commute, two-and-a-half to three hours. I make about three round trips a month. Kampot is a heavenly place – quiet, green, friendly, easy, beautiful – but it has no night life to speak of. As a result, I’ve been living in both places for almost two years now.

I also made a commitment to the area by buying land: actually I have a 50 year, renewable lease; non-citizens cannot own land here. It’s a sweet little piece of Cambodia and I have long-term plans to turn it into a tropical mini-Eden.

Buying land here is a bit of a gamble, but I’m hardly alone, lots of expats are doing it. Cambodia is in a very peaceful state and we expats are very welcome here: it has the easiest visa requirements for long-term residence that I know of. On the other hand, considering its morbid past, it’s hard to predict with total assurance what might happen in the future.

It wasn’t a whole lot of money so losing it through instability or other unknowable events wouldn’t be a big deal. I paid $14,000 for 3/4 of an acre, two miles from town. Ironically enough, I purchased at the same time was I counseling others to hold off buying property saying prices were going to go down. In the event, they have gone down. I’ve heard of people offering land at much lower prices (as well as some who are still clinging to the sky high prices of the past) but Kampot is an up-and-coming place. It’s Cambodia’s equivalent to an Oregon beach town in vibes and amenities, so I expect prices will rise back up soon. The same acreage on river frontage, even miles from town, still goes for three or four times the price.

One thing that will certainly help to raise its value is the planned upgrading of my access road. It is now a dirt track, which gets very muddy in rainy season and, for my Camry, impassible. It’s 2 maybe 300 meters from the highway so I’ve been able to bring plants and tools there quite easily.

Once the road is done I can theoretically build a house there. My latest plan is for a modest 1 1/2 story octagonal house of about 60 square meters – 660 square feet – which would cost 8 to 10,000 dollars. Typical ceilings here are nearly four meters – 12 to 13 feet - so they leave lots of room for interesting mezzanine levels. Windows would be an inexpensive type but all the floors would be in ceramic tiles. That cost estimate also includes all wiring and plumbing – third world style, of course – and a full bathroom - and accompanying septic tank - with the wall tiled up to at least shoulder height.

Alternatively I could build a wooden shack for a couple grand, with another grand for a separate toilet. Problem is, I’m not ready to live there full time and anything less requires hiring a caretaker; if not, everything not firmly safeguarded will get ripped off. Not long after I put up a barbed wire fence one of the neighbors cut it to bring cows in to graze. Ripe fruit also disappears very fast. Having a caretaker also means building a shack for him.

In addition to neighbor problems is the simple idea of taking care of an ‘estate’. Maintaining property is a chore under the best circumstances. Here the task is made a might easier because of the very low wages one is able to pay for help but made much more difficult from the language barrier. I am in a very lazy lifestyle mode at present so I wonder if living out at the land is what I really want to do.

Every time I go I visualize great things that can happen there but I still have my doubts. From my rental house at the edge of Kampot everything is an easy bike ride; out there, I’d tend to use the car. Owning property ordinarily affords a lot more security but not if you suddenly become persona non grata. I think Cambodia will fare relatively well in the coming ecological/resource-depletion/economic crisis since it has a relatively small population in a fertile land with ample water supplies, but who knows. And even if it did fare well, it’s not certain where we expats would fit in.

The other great irony is that Kampot is at sea level and we all know what global warming does to sea levels. The land wouldn’t be directly affected, but with the town under water everything would change.

I have absolutely no interest in living in the states at this point (nor could I afford to if I wanted) and I can’t imagine anywhere else I’d rather be than Cambodia so for now this is it.

I am, however, going to have to make a major lifestyle change before too long since my finances are not going to allow me to continue maintaining two residences without going back to work teaching. Problem is, there’s no work in Kampot so I’d be teaching in the capitol and visiting the small town only on weekends, holidays and term breaks.

Cambodia has lots of public holidays, 26 days a year, so some months I’d be able to go quite often, but it would still be painful to spend so much time in Phnom Penh. I hate it there in the daytime. Problem is, I love being out at night in the capitol; I thrive on it.

I haven’t taught in two years and part of me would dread going back, but it isn’t that hard a job and I would manage. There are parts of it that I like. (I am however getting a little spacey lately; doing a crossword recently I spelled humid with a t and raging without the second g …)

The alternative would be to stay full-time in my green little heaven but be poor and only visit the big city on occasion. Also a painful prospect. I feel totally at ease there but would get bored silly, not to mention a little despondent, without my night-life friends.

Editing work is a possibility; I like it and I can do it from anywhere. However, I’ve tried several times to get steady work but haven’t had a lot of luck. Alternatively, Y3K may suddenly start to sell: small miracles do happen. It’s up in the air: I’ll keep you posted.

On a related note, I’ve got to mention two recent surveys done by the Economist Intelligence Unit, an arm of the Economist magazine. I’ve read the magazine occasionally and have a lot of respect for it. I also have some respect for these types of assessments in general, but their recent ratings of Cambodia are on the level of absurd.

Last March they published a survey of all the world’s countries for being at-risk for political instability in the wake of the financial crisis. I’m not sure how the dynamic would change if the qualifier of the financial crisis weren’t added. At any rate, a cursory few days on the ground in Cambodia would make them so embarrassed they might be afraid to do any more surveys. Which points up the problem with these things; they’re based totally on crunched impersonal numbers.

On that March assessment Cambodia was placed fourth from the bottom of all countries. It was level with Sudan; only Congo, Chad and Zimbabwe lower. Not even dealing with the many other basket cases of Africa and the violent unstable countries of the Caribbean and Latin America (Haiti, Guatemala, for instance) just look at Cambodia’s neighborhood.

The Philippines has an ongoing Muslim insurgency in its south, Indonesia has an insurgency in its Irian Jaya province and communal fighting between Christians and Muslims in Sulawesi. Thailand has an ongoing Muslim insurgency that’s killed thousands of people in the last few years and recently saw an elected government, that still had popular support, overthrown by elitist-backed demonstrations and control of the courts. Malaysia has angry ethnic minorities who’ve been discriminated against by law for 40 years. Burma’s military rulers killed thousands of protesters recently to maintain their grip on the country. India has several insurgencies happening at any one time. Sri Lanka has hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the recent fighting. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, all more stable than Cambodia?

Contrast that with Cambodia which hasn’t seen factional fighting in 12 years. It has a sizable Muslim minority but not the slightest hint of dissatisfaction from them. A recent poll showed 80% of the citizenry approve of the country’s direction. The last three elections have all been declared free and fair by the international community. It’s enjoyed economic growth rates of 10% or more for several years now, though of course that’s going to slow significantly. Tourism has increased tenfold since I came here in 2001. In spite of the downturn a dozen new internationally financed banks have opened in the past year alone.

Cambodia does have its violent side. A motorbike thief unfortunate enough to get caught in the act may well be beaten to death by an angry mob before the police have time to intervene. The elite often act with impunity. Recently a big-timer’s vehicle hit another from behind, prompting his bodyguards to jump out and pull a gun on the guy who was hit. It got in the news because he was a foreigner. No action was taken because no one was hurt. On the other hand, I’ve been out walking the midnight streets of the capitol for seven years without a single incident; not that it doesn’t happen occasionally, but could you do that in Detroit or Mexico City for even a few months without being robbed at gunpoint?

More recently they came up with another survey, this time ranking cities for livability which put Phnom Penh at 128th out of 140 cities. Compared to Vancouver or Vienna which had the first and second spots, Phnom Penh would necessarily be far down the list, but compared to Bangkok (100), Manila (108), Cairo (114) or Mumbai (120)? Ridiculous: believe me, I’ve been to those cities.

Phnom Penh has no public transportation, but you can hop on a motorbike taxi and get just about anywhere in town in 15 minutes; just a little more in peak hour. Contrast that with Bangkok, which has about 6 times the population: If you need to go anywhere in peak hours that is not convenient to light rail it could take hours to go a few miles. Phnom Penh is said to have some of the worst air pollution around, but look closer and you see it’s nearly all dust. I’ve never seen hazy, chemically polluted air here: give me dust any day.

In spite of rising rents you can still get a comfortable apartment in the center of town for less than $200 per month, and ceilings are nearly always at least 10 feet – 3 meters – high which gives a spacious feeling and is ideal for the tropics. It’s a low rise, human scale city that feels comfortable to be in with a population that’s generally friendly and easy to get along with. It doesn’t have the cultural offerings of those bigger cities, but it’s definitely improving.

Health care is not so great; for anything serious you need to go to Bangkok. Here is an experience a friend had. He drunkenly crashed his motorbike causing multiple fractures in his leg. You can’t take a chance on getting that properly done in Phnom Penh so he flew to Bangkok (with the help of a friend, of course) spent four nights in the hospital at a total cost, everything included, of $5000.

There are many things the city lacks but it’s still one of the most livable cities in this part of the world and the Economist’s surveyors would have seen that very easily if they’d bothered to come. Problem is, how would they rate subjective responses?