Cambodian kick-boxing was on the TV. I watched and waited for my happy pizza, minus the 'happy'. ('Happy' being a little marijuana sprinkled on the pizza. 'Happy happy' being a lot of marijuna sprinkled on the pizza.) Tourists strolled by the river. Children begged. The restaurant had a good crowd for a Sunday night, three or four tables full.
A bored waitress was sitting next to me, watching TV.
"Do you like boxing?" I asked.
"I like boxing very much," she said, both her English and enthusiasm surprising me. I didn't expect a positive response; what woman likes boxing?
"You like it?" I said.
"Yes," she said. "In school, I used to box in school."
"They taught boxing in school?"
"Yes," she said, nodding, the words coming quicker. "I was very good. My teacher, he boxed in Cambodia and Thailand and Laos and Vietnam. Now he's very old, eighty, so he doesn't box anymore. He teaches."
We watched the TV some more. I waited for my pizza. A slight breeze came, went.
"You from Phnom Penh?" I asked.
"No, Kompong Chhang province."
"How often do you go back home?"
"Three days every year."
"That's it?" I said. "Only three days?"
"It's okay," she said. "I like to work. I don't like to go back home. I don't trust my parents. They say bad things, they lie, they take things."
"You don't trust your parents?"
"I don't trust anyone," she said. "My friends, they call me, they want to go out, but I don't go. I stay here, I work. They do bad things, sometimes. I don't trust anyone."
"You have any days off?"
"No days off. But that's okay. I don't trust anyone. I trust myself." Pointing at her chest.
My pizza was ready. I had already paid, so I stood up, smiled, asked her her name. She told me hers, and I told her mine.
I went outside to get a moto. She turned her attention back to the TV, to the boxing. I felt a little sad. The air was cool and the sky was a little gray and I hopped on a bike and left.
3 comments:
this IS sad. do you think a lot of people in that part of the world are sad like this? and untrusting? do you think that a lot of people are not to be trusted? because of their poverty or whatever they are forced to only look out for themselves?
Amanda, the answer to all of your questions is: Yes. After living here, I've found that very few people trust anybody outside of their own family -- and sometimes not even their own family. I think a lot of it's because of what happened during the Khmer Rouge era, where you really COULDN'T trust anybody. As a foreigner, too, everybody is always trying to get money out of you in any way they can.
And yet, at the same time, I've had a street kid collecting bottles run up to me and hand me the dollar I accidentally dropped without knowing it. So, there you go -- just when you start to make generalizations about a people and a place...
regarding the abover comments...
do you think that most people you know trust others? do you think that most people are generally happy? i don't think that money has that much to do with it.
i can say similer sentiments of Thais when I was living there and now of the yacht club folks on cape cod.
it is just more obvious when we are looking at it from a lens that isn't our own.
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