Indelible Roots

1. Don’t try to help out the woman of the house, you’ll just get yelled at: On many occasions I tried to help out my aunt Meang out of politeness. When I tried to help clear the table she yelled at me. When we went to the market across the road and she had three bags of recently washed clothes, she still refused to let me carry anything. When I tried to bring some food dishes to the table she gave me the disapproving stare and then laughed.

2. Touching between the sexes: Thou shall not show public affection with the opposite sex. There is no casual touching between the sexes, no hugs, and definitely no kissing. Boy-girlfriends can hold hands at approved locations, but that also depends on the girl. Casual touching between the sexes is limited to girls hitting and pinching guys, forcefully and painfully. I’m to the point now where I will hit back, if only lightly. There is a lot of touching between guys though, which has gotten quite annoying. I tolerated it till now out of politeness, but no longer. My cousins used to lead my by the arm protectively crossing the street and uncle Chheang has led me by the hand before. This is very annoying to any independent minded individual above the age of ten. At work the male workers that I know more closely are always wanting to put their arms around my waist and grabbing my hands and arms. I’m now hitting them when they do. Quit molesting me!

3. Eat, eat, and eat some more: You must eat at all times. Skinny=bad as it means you’re poor and unhealthy. Between major meals you eat snacks, mostly fruits as most houses do have neither refrigeration nor cupboards. If you’re on a bus you eat every time it stops no matter how bad the food may be and no matter what time it is in the day. For the first month I refused to eat at CSC’s post-op room where everyone hangs out between surgeries. But now I do as the locals do and eat away with patients a few feet away dripping IVs. I usually try to wash my hands first though, which no one else does.

4. Love and marriage: Your sole goal in life here is to get married, have children, and make lots of money. If you don’t have a girlfriend you must be gay. If you have a girlfriend, when are you getting married? If you’re in your mid twenties, you should be on your third child and working on a fourth. I’m so sick of all the talk about why I’m not married, every day, from family, from co-workers. I’m hanging out less and less casually with my co-workers now, and more and more with the medical students and volunteers.

5. The love of money: Money means everything here. Your goal in life is to make as much as you can, because it will buy goods which equates to happiness. In a society without a social network to support those in poverty, I can see why it is so highly desired. This desire is fully entrenched in society. I see toddlers at CSC with a couple of one hundred riel bills in their hands all the time (about 2.5 cents). I remember my aunt trying to bribe me with one baht in the camps in Thailand when they were doing some very painful traditional medicine on me and I was kicking and flailing. But so is compassion for those less fortunate than you entrenched here. People routinely give money to beggars, charities, and at religious sites. Families take orphans in, trading room and board for household labor. Some fortunate orphans even get sent to school and get treated as a part of the family.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 at 9:02 am and is filed under Khmer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.