It seems the less money I earn, the more I want to spend, the less I work, the more I don't want to work and the closer I come to a zero dollar bank account balance, the faster I want to get there.
Recently back in Phnom Penh after a month long tour of futility in Vietnam, I'm seriously low on funds and seriously lacking motivation to get employed.
Locally produced Cambodian silk handicrafts have been re-surfacing in recent years and Catherine Théron is at the forefront bringing international attention back to high quality Khmer silk products. Cambodian silk is admired for its strength, softness, purity and ability to absorb colour, while its workmanship is well received for its distinctive flavour inspired by the employment of traditional techniques. The quality of the material is what encourages Catherine to create and the customers to buy.
It may come as a surprise to the casual observer that many organizations never consider the consequences of seconding Culturally-incompetent Assignees to their global offices. They regard Intercultural or Cross-Cultural Training as an unnecessary or unworthy expenditure. Presuming that their current International Assignees have no complaints thus far, newly-arrived ones are also expected to fit in nicely.
I climb from my bed bleary eyed and trudge to the kitchen to gingerly sip on some hot green tea, prepared earlier by my wife (she's always up earlier than me). If it's one of those days when I was too lazy to do some morning exercise, then a few stretches have to suffice. I need to get cracking - don the work clothes, pick the least smelly pair of socks and splash my face with water. Grab the keys, money, and the godforsaken parking ticket - always losing it.
It started with the seasonal flight from Phnom Penh to Pakse where we (my wife and I) found out quickly that Lao Airlines has great service but older than dirt airplanes. A quick turn of the propeller later we were going through customs at Pakse International Airport. Of course we did not bring proper photography so my half Lao wife (Junlah) turned up the charm with words in Lao that I could not decipher.
The one supermarket I boycott here in Siem Reap is the one just in front of Sok San Palace, called Huy Meng. It has expanded recently because of demand, taking over the MaxMart that was previously beside it (MaxMart itself has expanded its other premises, about 200m south of Huy Meng). The reason I boycott this supermarket is because every single time I shop there, the cashiers try to short-change me. Not by a lot, by a hundred or two or maybe five hundred riel (USD0.125), but for me, it is the principle.
More than 80 airport taxi drivers demonstrated angrily outside Phnom Penh International Airport's arrivals terminal Saturday on the first day officially sanctioned airport tuk-tuks began work there.
"If they [tuk-tuks] are here, we will die," said Penh Rith, a taxi driver. "We have families; they are taking the food from their mouths...Maybe all of our jobs will be lost."
With a budget of over US$6 million and a staff of almost 40,000 officials - 28,635 interviewers, 7,204 monitors and 1,459 other officials - Cambodia's 10-day population census, beginning today and ending Mar 13, is a major undertaking, said San Sy Than, director general of the Planning Ministry's National Institute of Statistics (NIS). Each interviewer will gather data on 120 families, he added.
Citing Transparency International's latest report, which finds Cambodia in the top percentile of most corrupt countries in the world, Dr. Scott elicits his point that Cambodia is a function of money and not a product of progress. "The absence of a sound rule of law is a more important issue here than poverty", states Dr. Scott, who has lived in Cambodia for 15 years. Further elaborating that while the disparity between the rich and poor may be 'ok' for now, history has repeatedly demonstrated that such tension will eventually boil over.