Sihanoukville

A beautiful ocean side beach town in the south coast of Cambodia, Sihanoukville is the place for vacation for Cambodians. It's become a bit of a tourist spot, but in low season where the sun isn't exactly shining (instead, a couple hours of sunshine and mostly crazy rain) it was a nice quiet town to swim out and ride the wild storm waves on rented inner tubes.

Doesn't a nice quiet town sound nice? Not to Cambodians really. And now, not really to me. Even though I enjoy the luxury of unspoiled tourists spots, the people in Sihanoukville were much pooerer than those I saw in Siem Reap or PP.

I had a very interesting conversation with a Spanish humanitarian worker name Nuria in Sihanoukville. The often unseen reality of nice quiet towns is the people. Truth be told, I thought the people in Sihanoukville seemed pretty happy. But they live in the past, a time reality different than mine. I still remember how shocked Cambodians are every time I take out my contact lenses. They looked like they just found out I was really a robot.

This is a concept I kept struggling with while in Cambodia, that I felt like someone turned back the clock on this country. The traditional quality of the people, their way of life, and the things they cannot buy even if they had the means. The reality I live in, is not only drastically different from theirs, but utterly unavailable. I myself am guilty of romanticizing the past, but when I think about the availability of technology to me, I must agree with Nuria that a nice quiet town, isn't very nice at all. Equality is impossible, but equal opportunity isn't.

Now comes my rant on prostitution. I didn't see much of it in Siem Reap or PP, but Sihanoukville is the beach and seeing beautiful 20 something Cambodian girls with old foreign men still gets my blood boiling. It reassured me that this bothered Phil and Tola as well, but they couldn't understand how poverty could cause more prostitution. Phil felt sorry, he said something like: "Even if I was a girl, I wouldn't sell my body no matter how poor I was."

There are two things here. First is poverty we cannot understand, I think this is self explanatory. The second is that the idea of the prostitute lives with every woman from the moment we hit puberty. Maybe even earlier.

In our presentation of self, women must decide how much of the prostitute they want to embody. No matter our social status, when we put on a particularly revealing outfit or socialize with men we are face to face with the idea of the prostitute. Is this outfit too sexy? I don't want to seem like a prostitute. Or from the other side, rebelling against society's female conventions for equal sexual liberty. Just listen to Nelly Furtado's Promiscuous Girl, it's absolutely about the negotiation of the prostitute and the modern woman.

The prostitute haunts and liberates the modern woman every moment of everyday.

With that said, it's easier to see that being a prostitute isn't a far stretch for some women as it is a concept society has put us up against since the beginning of time.

Why Phnom Penh is a ballin' town

Going back to Phnom Penh after being in the country side, I realized what a wealthy town it was in the great scheme that is Cambodia. Siem Reap, despite its massive tourism industry, has managed to stay clear of big supermarkets and malls with escalators. In fact, there aren't many tall buildings in Siem Reap save for the 5 star hotels. The local town consists mostly of wooden houses and small huts.

Reaching to outskirts of PP by bus, I saw many large houses built from cement. Some complete with garages, gates, and fountains in the front yard. And it hit me: PP is a ballin' town.

We went to my favorite restaurant in PP, around the corner of 130 street where a waitress name Ah Ling spoke Cantonese. I was a little shocked at the $10 bill, having been spoiled by $3 meals (for 3 people) in Siem Reap. Phil quickly reminded me that this was the restaurant we nicknamed "the baller restaurant" last time we were in PP. The nickname spawned from our first time here as the tables near us popped down Benjamins for football bets, leaving us shocked in the midst. They also demanded Ah Ling to bring them every single item we, the foreigners, had ordered on top of their food. These were shot callers my friends.

I was quickly reminded of how cruel the city is, when Ah Ling laughed that it was Tola's first time in PP. City dwellers have forgotten about the country side; where there's no houses, no electricity lines, no AC or hot water, and no way make it to the city.

With Tola, our tuk tuk driver from Siem Reap, with us we rented a moto to get around town. Tola sat still as the rental service guy explained to him in English how to drive a moto. I could hardly contain my laughter, as Tola is a professional moto driver who speaks perfect Khmer. With us, Tola was no longer viewed as Khmer. People now saw him as a Canadian tourist, which was very strange but always hilarious.

I asked Tola why he's assuming the role of a Canadian. It was such a curious thing to do. He told me: "It's the chance to be a tourist in my own country! To see how tourists are treated. And now I can understand."

Not a bad reason at all.