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Read the travel blog for hope Go


After a few months of being in Cambodia

I've been living in Cambodia for the last few months, and a few things that I have realized have really changed the way that I see the country.  First, its a wonderful place to visit.  The culture is interesting, the country is unique, the monuments are great, the history is sad.  There are so many people here who are absolutely wonderful, and it has been a real pleasure to have met them.

However, there are a few things that have completely discusted me as well.  It's very hard to accept, because most of the things that have really surprised me, where I would have expected so much more, were not from the Khmer culture but from my own.  This would be the summary of my thoughts,

Most of the NGO groups suck.

Sorry to say it, but about 90% of the people involved with an NGO in Phnom Penh have really let me down.  The 10% who haven't were as equally discusted and they left.  You are there to help people, using other peoples money.  Yet, somehow many of you feel its OK to eat in the most expensive restaurants the country has to offer, drive around in your flashy cars like your untouchable, and wave money in the faces of the poor to make yourselves feel better, because the reality of it is that most of you are considered to be shat in your home country.  Actions of a non-violent bully, your small people.  Quit eating your pills, drinking your whiskey, your fine dinning, and bragging about all of the local girls your chasing around.  You have totally missed the point of why your there, and I dread the thought that you are living this lifestyple on donated money.

Bible thumpers go home.

If I have to deal with lame Christian missionaries coming here any more and preaching things like "You are a poor country because you have the wrong religion" I promise I will send you straight to "heaven" myself.  Why is it that you all buy into this lie that you are over here helping people, but outside of preaching the Bible none of you have done a thing to help.  Lets not talk about real education.  Lets not talk about training anyone with a skill.  Lets not talk about helping to build a place for people to live.  Lets not talk about schools.  Lets not talk about thousands of people without families, food or water.  No No..  Lets talk about God, and how your wrong for not believing the same things that I do.

Feminists get over it.

I am a woman.  I see Khmer women all the time living a happy, traditional lifestyle that has worked for them for a thousand plus years.  To them, there are certain things that women do, and there are certain things that men do.  You arriving in your arrogance and preaching how the sexes should be 50/50 is not doing any good.  You come to this country, stay for a month, plant all of these seeds of thought in local women, and then leave.  The problem, and the thing that you don't realize is that many of these women look up to you, and they want to mirror you because they see you as being smart and beautiful.  What you don't see comes right after you leave.  In your short two or three weeks of damage, you know have completely disrupted this womens home, her husband often abuses her because she is acting out of the tradition that is accepted in their culture.  These husbands have their own gossip, which then leads to tension between them and foriengers, as they look at all of us (especially foreigner women) like we are corrupting their family.  I am all for womens rights.  I am not for rapidly injecting and enforcing problems into peoples lives as part of a two week vacation.

Doctors, try getting a girl over 18.

Enough said.

When I arrived here, I was pleasantly ignorant.  I really believed that most of the people who came over here did so because they wanted to help the Khmer people.  Now, I realize that 90% of them do not.  They are here because they can be something, or do something that they can not be, or can not do back home.  The whole situation is rank of corruption and misappropriated funds.  I know that there are a few good people over here, and those people who are doing good know exactly what I am talking about.  It's about time that we start thinking about how we can help these people, and not taking advantage of them in the light of helping them.  Your "help" is just a poor justification which gives you a reason to be here.  It makes it OK for your family and co-workers.

I don't believe I've ever been so discusted with my own kind.

Sorry for the rather crud post, if you remove it I understand.  Part of the reason for posting was to tell my experiences, and maybe voice my concerns in hopes of finding an idea, or a way to do something about it...

 

Posted over 2 years ago by hope

Comments

ali

Comment ali posted a comment over 2 years ago:

Hi,

I read your post and while i agree with some of the things you say, i do think there is a lot of generalization, judgement, and lack of openess to dialogue in what you are saying.

That being said, i am not responding to your post to criticize, but rather to open up the dialogue a bit more.

I don't know if this is your first time living abroad for an extended period of time. I don't know what kind of past travel experiences or other types of experiences you have had, so it is hard to know where you are coming from.

It's true, it is totally messed up going to a country and seeing the US or another powerful country try to impose their own beliefs and social systems on that country. An extreme case of it being the war with Iraq for example.

My first time abroad, I went to Bolivia to help build houses. It was awesome. The community decided on the project and we helped them get it done. We were pretty clueless teenagers without much of our own ideology, and I think that helped us leave a minor, but really positive foot print. We just wanted to soak it up instead of mold it into something else, and it was a great experience. But being there made me fell so sick about being an American, from this culture that lives off of materialism and "the american dream," and i returned home with a lot of bitterness and anger towards the US, and let's just say, that was helping anyone.

Then i kept traveling on my own, sometimes doing community building projects, and sometimes just traveling for the sake of it, and then I completed my entire college education abroad. I finally realized that anti-americanism or just in general falling into constant criticism and embarrassment of where you are from does not help the cause, and just sort of blocks you from bringing positive things to the new country you belong to. Instead of spreading the negative, it was better to embody and represent the positive. It can also have the effect of just closing you off to what is really going on, and you start sounding just as bad as those people that are attempting to pass their own beliefs onto, in your example, Cambodian culture.

I think the section you wrote that you titles, "feminists, get over it," was seen from a very limited perspective, and it attempts to make a much larger and complex issue into something concrete. As a feminist myself, feminism to me means having a choice. Being a housewife and living to serve your husband and family is not something i look at as an embarrassment for women. Like you said, it can be a beautiful thing...if it was the woman's choice. I think it is harsh to say people plant a seed and then leave. The only seed you seem to be upset about them planting is one that gives the woman a right to think for herself. You are upset that their husbands beat them when they start acting out, but the beating is a demonstration of the complete submission those women you speak of are facing in their marriage. Based on your blog, you seem like someone who feels free to express herself, and are fortunate enough to have the opportunity to live somewhere else and see the world. You are most likely educated and have been free to make your own choices. Why are you afraid of planting a seed which tells people to be their own owner?

There is a lot to discuss here and I hope you return and blog more. Again, I really just want to open up this dialogue and challenge some of the things you are saying.
Jason

Comment Jason posted a comment over 2 years ago:

What NGO's are you referring to? I have been to Cambodia many times, and have seen lots of good and bad people. Regardless of what people are over there doing, you will always have good and bad in everything. Certainly, not everyone is bad, but its unfortunate that you seem to have more of a brush with the bad than the good..

I guess I am fortunate, as my experiences over there have been pretty good overall. I have met a lot of people who are interested in helping people. I've met a few crazy ones here and there, but no more than anywhere else I guess...
hope

Comment hope posted a comment over 2 years ago:

I do understand what you are saying, and I think that in my moment I hit my points but didn't really clarify things very well. To give a little more background on what is the thorn in my side, its attitude.

I don't consider myself a feminist, although I do support choice. The reason why I don't think of myself as a feminist is because most of the women who do, seem to have a protest attitude toward it. This is the problem that I see in Cambodia, attitude. It is what I see. It is the way that women who I find uneducated and very narrow minded coming to a culture that they know nothing about, and protesting their own views, and finding it offensive that what they see in a foreign country is not the same as what they believe is "right" in the own country. Rather than accepting that they are in a different culture, and observing it, they protest it blindly. This then affects me, as it forms a stereotype of western women being seen as "home wreckers" and you can feel the tension. As a traveler, i believe that it is wonderful to be able to witness and experience other cultures, but not to interfere with peoples personal lives and disrupt their households the way that these women make it their mission to do so.

I am also a Christian. But, I understand that this is a Buddhist country, and I do not feel the need to preach my personal religious views to the local people. These are my views, and I don't expect others to feel or believe the same. Are they really different? I do not believe they are. I am also pretty secure in being a women, and do not feel the need to voice an insecure feminist power struggle attitude with people of a different culture, the same as I don't preach my religious views. I guess I am pretty secure in both.

The NGO's and doctors that I am referring to are pigs and its better that I just make no further comments about them. I just hope that they find what they deserve one day.

I hope that explains my voice a little better, and I apologize if I offended anyone. I didn't think anyone would actually read this to be honest..
ali

Comment ali posted a comment over 2 years ago:

Offended is not exactly where I stand. I find that instead i just want to encourage a dialogue to help break down the stereotypes and blanket statements in your words.
Your clarification strikes me as once again dismissing feminism as something extreme, a group that only insecure women want to belong to. But, being a feminist really just means you believe women have the right to choice and should be considered as equals to men, not as inferior or better. Everyone should be on the same playing field. When people avoid calling themselves feminists because they do not want to be associated with the extremist feminists, they end up giving the ownership of the word to those extremists. So i encourage people to be more comfortable calling themselves feminists because it takes the stigma out of the word. Also, i know plenty of men who consider themselves feminists.
Am i making sense?
Making a blanket statement that NGO's and foreign doctors in thailand are pigs....well, that seems to me like a blanket statement that goes directly against the awareness you aspire to spread... Have you tried to make a positive impact on the community you are living in? and if so, would you be willing to share?
Thanks for continuing your blog and being open to discussion

hope

Comment hope posted a comment over 2 years ago:

Ali, you do make some good points which I agree with. I think the aspect that you are missing, is not with "feminists" in general, or the word itself. I have no personal issues with religion, doctors or NGO's either. I am referring to the attitude that these groups have in Cambodia (not Thailand, Thailand is a completely different much more positive situation).

My issues are with the extremist feminists that come here, and protest against the norm of the local culture. The religious that come here and protest against the norm of the local religion. The doctors that come to prey on the young. The NGO's who come here because they like to feel like they are living the life of royalty at someone else's expense.

That is my issue. It is not with any of the groups which I have mentioned. It IS with how those groups act in Cambodia, and the attitude the they flaunt.

I get the feeling that we are more aligned in our attitudes, and if you were hear you would clearly relate to what I am griping about :)
zipper

Comment zipper posted a comment over 2 years ago:

I can understand both sides of this, or should I say parts of both sides of it. I remember the first time I came to Thailand and noticing, appreciating, how different the culture was, especially in the youth as we have a boy of our own. Fifteen years ago, the younger crowd was very obedient and respectful to elders. I remember wondering what went wrong back in the UK for our youth to seem so rotten in comparison.

Now, it is a very different story. In the international areas of the country, much has changed because of western influence. I think that this example is fair play, regarding westerns pushing our culture on theirs. Now, most of the younger crowd in Bangkok copy the hip hop fashion, are generally rather rude, and you are starting to hear news reports of Thai gangs in the city, where only 10 years ago this was simply non-existent.

Every country and every culture is different, and they all have their own path, and this is what makes them special. Regardless of how confident you feel that your ideals are the right ones I do believe that it is wrong to push them on another culture. Let each culture proceed according to its own path, and simply observe as you pass through.

Ali, I think you make some good points but you also seem to feel strongly that your views on feminism are universally correct, and this is also a blanket statement. As like hip hop (something that I find quite dreadful) these are western cultural attributes.

Hope, I can understand your frustration, but you are also making statements that surely can not apply to everyone. If you have any real evidence of the doctors which you speak of, I am positive that a number of embassies in the area would be quite interested in that. Also, let us not forget that religious institutions have also provided much in building schools and providing health care to these areas, long before any of us were born.

ali

Comment ali posted a comment over 2 years ago:

It seems non of us will be able to come to an agreement, but i say that with no harsh intention. I think it is great we were able to sustain a dialogue, and in the end everyone's point is "to each their own" and in a way we have achieved that very idea through this dialogue. Thanks for blogging
Ali