SE Asia - Impressions - Phnom Penh, Cambodia

[Iron Flatline]

NOTE: Several images added much further down the thread.

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Hi all.

This will be the first of several threads over the next few weeks. I just spent several weeks entirely by myself (no wife, no kids) moving around South East Asia. Just me, and some cameras.

Parts of it was quite exciting, but Phnom Penh, and Cambodia in general, was actually quite depressing.

First, some context:

A pawn in the cynical game of geopolitics, Cambodia was dragged into a war it initially didn't belong to, by being carpet-bombed into submission by the US because the Khmer king let the Viet Cong use Cambodia as a supply route. After the US withdrawal from the region, it was left stunned and bloodless by the second-largest genocide of the 20th century: an estimated 1,7 million people died during the 3 years, 8 months and 20 days of the Khmer Rouge regime. They killed anyone who had any education at all - or just looked like it (wearing glasses, for instance). The K.R. outlawed all currency, all books, all calendars and watches. The farming "old people" under Pol Pot forced the urban "new people" in the cities to evacuate within a few days, and worked them to death in the fields. Finally Cambodia was liberated/occupied by Vietnam for ten years and was ostracized by the West for it. After the 1991 Paris Peace Accords it was kept breathless by a civil war which lingered on until 1998 and by political unrest, and killed hundreds of thousands more. Today it still has a heavy price to pay for its reconstruction in a ruthless market economy where literally everything, from governmental property to human dignity, seems to be for sale (Cambodia is ranked nr 151 out of 163 on the level of corruption according to Berlin based Transparency International). The countryside remains littered with small land mines, and the number of limbless people is incomparable to any other conflict.

Cambodia is not a happy place. One of the things that happened is that the Khmer Rouge forcibly married people to one another, and then forced them to have children. Many of those children are living homeless in capital city, Phnom Penh.

I have some friends in the various places I visited (mainly working as part of cultural exchange NGOs and one focused on the KR Trials). One of them explained to me why this young girl is wearing lipstick and nail polish. The obvious answer is enough to depress you for a long time...

Another homeless child, with another child

Nudity and shoeless feet do not necessarily mean homelessness though. At Wat Phnom, a small but important Wat in the middle of town, there were lots of kids playing, their parents not far away.

The a young girl selling snacks to packed travelers crowded into a minivan. Yes, those are fried bugs... and though I'll eat just about anything, I found those to be simply kind of bitter.

... and if you need gas for your scooter, there's a station at every corner...

 

[schumionbike]

Thanks for the series, the first shot is truly depressing. I never seen gasoline being sold like that before either. That's also depressing.

 

[Trenton Romulox]

I don't find the shots depressing, it's just their way of life. To them, that's normal, right? It's only bad if there's something to compare it to, and if they don't have another life to compare it to, then their life is okay for them.

Very nice series, the last shot is my favorite.

 

[KOrmechea]

I feel like I should respond to this, but I'm not really sure what to say...

Some strong people live in South East Asia (and other parts of the world). I don't know if I could do it. Seeing stuff like this reminds you how lucky you actually are.

 

[Iron Flatline]

No, TR, that's a very common misperception, and a certain form of denial... at least it was for me. I always thought "well, they don't know what they're missing..." - But they do. Everyone there has TV, and for some odd reason they all watch things like E Entertainment and US Reality Shows.

... and no one wants to live like those girls, on the street with babies, without a place to wash, access to health care, or protection from predators.

 

[schumionbike]

I don't find the shots depressing, it's just their way of life. To them, that's normal, right? It's only bad if there's something to compare it to, and if they don't have another life to compare it to, then their life is okay for them.

Very nice series, the last shot is my favorite.

Hey man, I have to disagree with you here.

First off, I think there are somethings that I considered universally wrong. Murder is a good example, you can't go shoot some innocent person and then say that is your way of life and normal therefore it's okay. In the first picture, such a young girl who is force to live on the street and force into prostitution at such a young age due the economic problems should be considered universally wrong and the problem need to be adress. I understand that different cultural have different norms and a lot of things are just the matter of preferences and opinions, one prime example is the way people get marry in different cultures. However, that's not the case here.


Second, homeless kids walking around and force into prostitution is not normal in Asian societies as you seem to assert. These people don't have a preference for being poor and have their children on the streets and these conditions are not acceptable to them either but sometimes, there isn't much of a choice. The first picture would have depress them too.

Eating fried bugs might be normal and culturally acceptable or even prefer and definitely not considered to be universally wrong!! That picture wasn't depressing though =)

The last shot with the gasoline being sold like that show that the country is very low tech and probably not by choice but due to the economy after generation of wars.


Just my 2 cents.

 

[Iron Flatline]

Some of the same kids, the older ones playing cards in an alley just off the river where the tourists come to drink.

 

[Iron Flatline]

This one is a little out of context, in the sense that it is not part of the Phnom Penh series. But it's also a kid, in this case a boy on the road to Chong Kneas in northern Cambodia.

 

[rob91]

I don't find the shots depressing, it's just their way of life. To them, that's normal, right? It's only bad if there's something to compare it to, and if they don't have another life to compare it to, then their life is okay for them.

Very nice series, the last shot is my favorite.

I suppose starving your whole life is only a bad thing if you've ever known a full stomach.

Iron, the first shot strikes me the most, her expression is so strong and it really gets me. Good series.

 

[Steph]

I really like this series. I think you did a very good job at giving us an idea of what life is like on the streets of Phnom Penh. I went to Cambodia about 13 years ago; what depressed me in your pictures is to see that not much seems to have changed: children on the streets, child prostitution... are still present.

What else did you see in Cambodia? Did you have a chance to go to Angkor Vat? Apparently it is an amazing place.

I am looking forward to seeing more of your pictures.

 

[The_Traveler]

I never seen gasoline being sold like that before either. That's also depressing.

This is not depressing but just a societal difference. Motorscooters need gas by the liter so there is no need for the huge expense of in-ground tanks and pumps. This way gas can be distributed to places where tanker trucks would never reach. A 'store' in a town reachable only by dirt roads might sell 20 liters of gas a day, do a service and make a profit.

 

[schumionbike]

This is not depressing but just a societal difference. Motorscooters need gas by the liter so there is no need for the huge expense of in-ground tanks and pumps. This way gas can be distributed to places where tanker trucks would never reach. A 'store' in a town reachable only by dirt roads might sell 20 liters of gas a day, do a service and make a profit.

I understand that motor scooter don't need a lot of gas, however, when I was Vietnam over 10 years ago, there were filling stations like they have in the U.S, a bit more rusty but it's along the same line. I guess for me, a gas station mean modernization. A gas station like this to me mean people know of life in the modern world, want to modernize, but can't due to their economic conditions. Poverty is the word that come to my mind when I see that picture.

 

[Iron Flatline]

Yup, it's actually a sensible distribution system. The only problem is that people are definitely smoking around it, and you have to assume there's an occasional accident.

 

[Iron Flatline]

I understand that motor scooter don't need a lot of gas, however, when I was Vietnam over 10 years ago, there were filling stations like they have in the U.S, a bit more rusty but it's along the same line. I guess for me, a gas station mean modernization. A gas station like this to me mean people know of life in the modern world, want to modernize, but can't due to their economic conditions. Poverty is the word that come to my mind when I see that picture.

I agree though, there is definitely a side to this tied to poverty. You DON'T see this in Saigon on Bangkok or other SE Asian cities. Possibly out in the countryside, but not in the city. There is one beautiful totally modern filling station on one of the main intersections of Phnom Penh that just opened up, and people are crowded around it like it will somehow reflect modernity on them. Esp. the women prefer getting gas there... it's well lit, and clean.

 

[The_Traveler]

There is also the fact that the number of cars/trucks is relatively small in rural SEA and thus the need to fill up large tanks is small. It just makes sense that, if your customer base requires 2 liter fill-ups that there is no incentive to
build the infrastructure.

Thailand is the most advanced, followed by Vietnam and trailed by Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. There are only 2000 miles of paved roads in all of Laos. Most of those miles are in Vientianne, at the border near Nong Khia (Thailand) and at the border with China in the North.