Indochina 2006: Sir, You Buy?

A conversation between Sean and a small, emaciated Cambodian beggar child attempting to sell him things he does not want:

Cambo Kid: Sir, you buy flute? 1 for 1 dollar.

Sean: (Remains silent, refuses to make eye contact.)

Cambo Kid: Sir, you buy? (Plays on flute.) You buy, sir. How many you buy?

Sean: No.

Cambo Kid: Sir, you buy? Cheap, sir. You buy, sir.

Sean: NO. NO BUY.

Cambo Kid: Sir, why no buy? You buy, sir. 1 for 1 dollar, you buy.

Sean: Go away. No buy. (Ignores kid, continues to walk away at a brisk pace.)

Cambo Kid: Why you no buy, sir? You buy, sir. You buy flute, sir. Sir, you buy. Why you no buy? You buy. How many you buy? You buy, sir. You buy flute, sir.

Sean: (Stops) GO AWAY. (Resumes escape.)

Cambo Kid: Sir, okay, for you. Discount for you, sir, you buy now. 2 flute for 1 dollar, you buy, sir. Sir you buy. You buy.

(Cambo Kid follows Sean for 100m, repeating the same “You buy, sir. Why you no buy?” mantra the entire way. Sean then boards tuk-tuk with Amber, whereupon Cambo Kid finds a new prey and begins again. “Sir, you buy? How many you buy?”)

I will make no attempt to write a treatise on the socioeconomic consequences of globalization and capitalism. I will only say that if I am to be thoroughly dehumanized into a walking wallet by these relentlessly annoying little vermin, I am fully willing to dehumanize them in my turn by treating them like rats to be shooed away, verbally or physically. There is nothing I can do. I have been accosted by beggar women who are clearly able to have four children but apparently cannot go in search of a job. I have had my pants’ legs tugged by small beggar children who will follow me around for a good 5 minutes with their palms outstretched. Other beggar children will shout at me to take their picture with my camera; when I do, they demand money. I have had amputees, missing arms, legs, and sometimes, their entire faces, beg me for Cambodian currency that basically amounts to 5 cents. There is not a thing I can do about this- because if I give money to the first, there is no way I can justify not giving money to the second… and the third, fourth, eightieth, and two hundred and forty sixth.

So here I am, the “typical” arrogant foreigner. All of them, from the beggars to the tuk-tuk drivers to the proprieters of the travel agencies and hostels with their inflated prices and scams… they are all just trying to survive. They need money- as the Thais say: “No money, no honey.” So they dehumanize us and treat us as resource nodes, devoid of respect or humanity, to be mined as expediently as possible. And when we, the foreigners, get sick of it, and tell off a beggar child, shout at a travel agent who scammed us, or refuse to engage the services of unscrupulously money-hungry locals, THEY GET ANGRY AT US. They become utterly resentful of the fact that we refuse to get scammed, and suddenly, we are those arrogant Westerners who think that we are too good for the rest of the world.

Anyway. Scary moment. We were on a bus into Siem Reap, the town that acts as a base for exploring the temples of Angkor. Do you remember the last email I sent, about the cops beating back the tuk tuk drivers who were swarming our bus in Phnom Penh?

Context: when a bus lands in a city, tuk-tuk drivers will swarm the bus, literally surrounding it, shouting at the top of their voices, trying to get the foreigners on that bus to get in their tuk-tuks so that they can earn a fare for driving said foreigners somewhere. Sometimes there are 50 drivers screaming. Sometimes more.

This time, at Siem Reap, there WERE NO COPS.

When Amber and I got off the bus, we were immediately mobbed, grabbed, shouted at, cajoled, pulled in five of six different directions, and basically borderline assaulted. I remember feeling a slight moment of terror; these brown, bestial faces, eyes gleaming and spittle flying, shouting incoherently over the next man; a solid ring of noise and flesh. If someone had decided to rob me, there would not have been a blessed thing I could do about it; I suddenly felt how statesmen feel when mobbed by the press, or how doomed men feel right before they are lynched or stoned by a mob.

Maybe I expected a little bit more respect towards us than can be expected from 50 different men, each of whom needed to mine a little cash from us dehumanized tourists in order to feed his own family.

So I shouted at them- and this is not a big deal in Canada… but in Cambodia it’s a cultural taboo. Maybe you can fuck each other, but you gotta fuck each other with a smile. Calmly. The crowd drew back in surprise, and gave us a berth long enough to grab our luggage, and 20 seconds later, they were back on top of us, screaming and waving placards in our faces.

In the end, we escaped and got to where we wanted, and today, I saw Angkor Wat, a bunch of different ruins, and Ta Prohm, the temple what had trees growing out of the ruins and was last seen in Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life.

Oh, christ. There is a bar here called “Angkor What?” I almost died. I also watched the England vs. Paraguay match at a bar called Molly Malone’s. Beckham struck a free-kick into the center of the box; the Paraguayan captain put his head on it, but it went the wrong direction- deflected off his own goalie’s hand and in. It was the only goal, and I was in a good mood for the rest of the night. Amber and I also relentlessly made fun of Peter Crouch, England’s 6′9 striker. How is a man that tall so quick on his feet? Every time Crouch touched the ball, someone in the bar would yell “Long legs!” or “Gangly man!”. I think they should call him Longshanks, after King Edward I. Maybe that’s too nerdy.

Tonight, Serbia plays the Netherlands. Whoooo, soccer! And tomorrow morning, back to the ruins of Angkor!

Also, please fondle Kevin’s biceps and nipples for me. Make him squirm.

Ok, peace. Buy now! …. I mean, bye now…