National Bank of Cambodia in Battambang
The most charitable reaction I can attribute to someone’s recent comment to me is that I was taken aback. Somehow, it seemed like a criticism, and whose skin is thinner than mine?
What that acquaintance said is my blog seems to center on money. “It does,” I thought? How can that be?” Then I thought again.
Perhaps Continue reading
Blind Nang Sokearath, 25, is typical of disabled Cambodians trying to scrape up a living. The powers that be have vowed to remove such folks from Phnom Penh’s streets. The city periodically sweeps up ordinary street beggars too, then essentially jails them. Source: Phnom Penh Post
The kind of remark I hear all the time was addressed to me an unprecedented three times in one day, on Tuesday, a record that surprised me.
This being Southeast Asia, indirection often is the way questions are answered, criticisms are provided and requests are made. My experience on Tuesday was all about requests, though no one actually asked this barang (foreigner) outright for help.
The English dailies these days seem to be accelerating their coverage and analysis of corruption, the wicked stepmother of deprivation in a nation with great potential that is far from realized. As I have written previously in this regard, I keep thinking about thriving Singapore, the tiny city-state that was approximately at the same stage of development as Cambodia half a century ago and that has far fewer natural resources.
The veiled requests concerned Continue reading
This is not my local market, but, other than its spaciousness, it’s typical of indoor markets found everywhere in Cambodia. I recall that I took this photo on an important Buddhist holiday.
Closing in on two years in this country, I relish more than ever my daily encounters with Cambodians and the chance to practice my atrocious grasp of the language.
It is one thing to try to speak and understand Khmer with waiters and gym trainers who are bilingual to greater or lesser degrees. They seem to enjoy my struggles with pronunciation — you try to articulate as one sound the diphthong “ng” and the triphthong “pdt.”
It is quite another thing to climb the Mount Everest of fathoming a normal rush of words that I know yet fail miserably to hear when they are strung together in speech.
I long ago gave up trying to read or, horrors, write the language. But words and some grammar are beginning to sink in and I now can engage in the most rudimentary of short conversations such as ordering food in a restaurant.
The big problem with learning Khmer where I usually range is that almost everyone seems to speak enough English that I am not called upon to use the local language. Moreover, they usually don’t expect me to speak Khmer and I don’t always expect them to speak English, inevitably causing confusion. Still, I persist stubbornly.
In the last several weeks, I finally have become emboldened to Continue reading
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Change is good: Weekly Roundup, which I will continue to post on Fridays, will now be combined with a shorter (and admittedly less work-intensive) version of The Big Apple. I hope you like the results.
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And condo conversions are coming back
By the sea, by the beautiful sea sees rising. . . interest
Lower Manhattan becomes one of city’s fastest-growing residential sections
Fed’s Beige Book finds continued ‘sluggish’ residential construction and sales in tri-state region
NYU launches subsidized housing information project with information on 235,000 rental units
Appraiser assesses impact on housing market of two memorable events
Region’s foreclosure rates continue to rise, exceeding the nation’s
I, on Cambodia 