Sap Sa Bye (Hello)
Hello everybody, it has been a looooonnnnngggg time since I have updated this blog. A lot of has happened since so I have a lot to type. Get a cup of coffee, find a comfortable place, and relax while you read this somewhat long update. First thing first, I want to thank Father for His extremely generous blessings upon me this summer. Thank you Papa for allowing me to work at my home church in Vancouver this summer. It has been a wonderful experience. Four plus months of many challenges, many ups, many downs, many relationships strengthened, and many relationships loosen. But needless to say, Papa is always present throughout those times. He has trained and shaped me in so many ways. The people that He has blessed me with are unbelievable supported, emotionally and financially of course. Here is a sample picture of what we have been doing over the summer.
Secondly, I want to also thank Papa for giving me the opportunity to serve here in Phnom Penh (phnom – mountain; penh – full). Again, His hands of protection have allowed me to arrive here safely without any trouble. Flight schedule was on time; customs did not give me any trouble. Everything worked out in every way possible. Papa is pretty good in smoothing things. I arrived here on Tuesday the 18th at noon. The first thing I noticed after landing was that it was extremely hot. I was already sweating buckets when I stepped out of the airport. It brought back many memories of my trip to Vietnam a couple of months ago. Same degree of dryness and hotness. Lucky for me, Duc and his dorm RA, Phaerom (pronounce Pay-rom), were already waiting at the entrance to the airport so we quickly grabbed my luggage and jump on the tuk tuk. If you don’t know what a tuk tuk is, it is basically a metal cart attached on a moto(motorcycle – also the main mode of transportation for the people over here). See picture to the right for explanation. The tuk tuk belonged to the neighbourhood chief’s son. It was very customary to create relationship through business dealings here from what I have heard so far. Duc and I, however, got on his lover, Bumblebee, and followed the tuk tuk back to the dorm which Duc is staying at. It is a very long and dusty ride. But I learned three important things about Phnom Penh during my trip from the airport to the dorm.
1. The bigger vehicle ALWAYS has the right of way. Even if it is driving on the opposite lane. I think I saw a couple of trucks driving on the wrong side of the street and people just move out of the way. It is also normal for moto to drive on the wrong side of the street. To sum it up, there are two lanes but you can drive on either side in either direction; smaller vehicles yield to the bigger vehicles.
2. TO SERVE AND TO ………….. extort. From what I have heard from many, the police here are no different than the police in Vietnam. Their purpose is to serve their own interests and to extort money from people. On the way back to the dorm, we passed by many police road blocks. Basically, these road blocks are to stop foreigners’ tuk tuk, indicated by the luggages visible to them, and fined them for no apparent reasons. I think we passed at least three road blocks on the way back. Each time, the tuk tuk driver carrying my luggages just drive through the road block without stopping. Apparently, this is how the locals avoid the police. Drive off without paying attention to them. If they can’t catch you, they can’t fined you. All the time, the police will be too lazy to try and catch you so they just let you off.
3. FOREIGNERS ARE CASH COWS. This is extremely apparent and there is no attempt made to hide it. On the way back, as Duc was talking to me about his experience here, he has also posted this on his blog, he revealed that if you don’t look locals or don’t speak Khmai properly, the shop vendors will charge you an arm and a leg for anything they sell. It is normal here.
However, not all are that bad. There are many things here which I love here. Actually, there are three things which I really love here.
1. NO TAX. I love this rule the most. All prices here are NO TAX. Those words are magic to my ear. It is so nice to be able to buy things without worrying about how much tax is because there is no tax. I don’t know if tax is included or not but it’s nice to pay exactly what the advertising price is. This is going to be one thing I missed the most about Cambodia when I go back to Canada. Everything is tax free.
2. BARGAINING ALLOWED. As if no tax is not good enough, you can bargain for anything and everything here. This is my second favourite thing here. The best part for me is not about getting the item I want but haggling to the price that I deemed worthy of the item. I have been to 2 major malls and 2 major markets here and everything is hagglable (if that is even a word). I know the vendors here will mark up the item up at a ridiculous rate if they see that you are a foreigner. Haggling is the only way to deal with this. Haggling to me is not just a skill but now it’s a sport for me. It’s like a battle of tug of war during the bargaining process. Whoever gives in first lose. I know for a fact that I am still paying a little more than what the locals pay for a certain item but the discrepancy between the prices the local pay and I have to pay is a lot closer than if I were not to haggle. Needless to say, I love haggling. It’s fun to haggle in my baby Khmai language. Clyde Boon Mang, How much, and Clayde Klun Na, too expensive, are the first two phrases that I learn after learning numbers and the day of the weeks. Very, very useful in the art of haggling.
3. IT IS EXTREMELY HOT HERE. Another aspect which I love so much about Cambodia. There are only two seasons here. Wet and dry; hot and hotter. It is the perfect place to live if you want to lose weight. Everything you eat will be sweat out within the hour or two. I think that working out here is like working out twice as hard in Canada. Sweating is my preferred choice of cardiovascular exercise. And I am doing a lot of that here by just walking outside or sitting in my house. Regardless, Duc talked me into going to the gym with him. I believe that Papa has blessed me with this time in Cambodia to serve Him as well as a time to train me physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Like Duc repeatedly say to me, “Use this time wisely as you will never have this chance again. Do not go back to Canada with regret.” Sometimes I wonder if I am the younger brother. But thank Father for blessing me with a wonderful brother, whether he is older or younger.
Aside from the lessons above, I feel pretty much at home here in a way. It is strikingly similar to my memory of my birth city, Saigon, before moving to Canada. You see a lot of motos, bricked houses separated by a wall, the people and the way they dressed. It almost as if I am rewinding back to the childish days. So far so good for me. I have been here a week and it slowly feels more and more like home to me. I guessed I have to thank Papa for raising me in Vietnam when I was younger to dampen my cultural shock now. Papa always has His reasons for doing things even though they may not seem so transparent at the time.
I stayed with Duc at his dorm for a couple of days. Most of the students who stayed in the dorm have gone home for Water Festival (a celebration for the end of the raining season?). The dorm is pretty much made up of Duc, Phaerom, and I. It was quite nice. The streets, however, are different. It was extremely more busy than normal as people from the Provinces (outside Phnom Penh) all gathered in Phnom Penh to celebrate the Water Festival. Regardless, we went out and eat out everyday that I was there. Duc’s called it the adjusting period. I called it getting to know the city. We went to various malls here. The first day I arrived, Duc took me to this mall call Sorya. It’s probably the equivalent of Metrotown of Vancouver. Lot of shops. The neat thing about all the malls and markets is that all the stores selling similar merchandises are all gathered in the same section / floor. No need to travel anywhere. One interesting thing I noticed is that some people from the Province (outside Phnom Penh) are scare of escalator. Serious, some were hanging on the railings for their lives. Some jump off, instead of walking off, the last steps. There are even escalator service personnel to ensure that people are using the escalator properly. It was quite a shock for me to see this, probably the first cultural shock for me in Cambodia.
Over the next few days, Duc and I went to shop for my necessities here, phone, moto, shorts and shirts, etc. It was quite a week. I got my cell phone the second day I was here. I got a used Nokia N73 for $150 USD after a few hours of looking and haggling. It works very well. I love it. From what I have heard or seen, probably 70+ percent of the people here use Nokia. So you are guaranteed a genuine Nokia when you buy one. The danger of buying other brands includes cheap imitation, no warranty, or consistent signal loss. All in all, I went along with what is safe here. Even though it is a little expensive for a used phone but it is a lot safer than $300 iPhone imitation. It was pretty easy making the decision of which phone to buy. However, not everything is an easy decision as a phone.
My moto shopping is definitely one of those things. I have so many problems with moto shopping. There were many criteria which we are suppose to abide in when buying a moto. I believe that people in leadership here do not want us to buy an automatic or relatively new moto because it would serve as “STEAL ME, ROB ME” sign. Anything flashy is considered as drawing attention to oneself which invites scorns from the locals or thieves and robbers to “have a chat” with you. Duc learned it the hard way with his bling bling. I am trying to learn from his mistake. No automatic and no relatively new moto means that my choice are cut down by 70%. With the 30% left over, I either have to settle for Daelim City (which is probably like Pinto or the worst beater you can imagine) or Daelim City. As you can imagine, this is definitely not worth it. Duc told me that when he first went shopping for his bike, some people actually tried to sell a beater Daelim City for $500 USD, a very outrageous price. Lucky for me, Duc already found a solution to the problem when he bought is Bumblebee. The majority of the moto here are automatic (no clutch, or amp ya in Khmai) and they prefer automatic over clutch. So I followed Duc and went with a decent moto with clutch instead of automatic. Needless to say, the market for manual moto is small. To be more accurate, it is extremely small. Say about 1000 motos you see on the street, a generous estimate would be around 3 of those motos are manual. Also not a lot of people here know how to drive manual so it would deter a lot of thieves or robbers from stealing my moto. After a few days of looking, we narrowed it down it to two choices. (Actually, we only have two choices). The Yamaha manual and the Honda Sonic. The Yamaha is a 110 cc and the Honda Sonic (Bumblebee) is 125 cc. I am very leaning on the Yamaha because Duc already have the Honda Sonic (Bumblebee). If I get a different bike, we can always trade when we are bored with one. However, I ended up getting the Sonic for two reasons.
First, I did not like the vendor of the Yamaha moto, “not like” is an understatement BTW. So we bargained down the bike from $700 to $560. Before we left, he told us that we can get it for $560 if we pay him right away. We went away to look at other motos, and decided to come back and get the Yamaha moto. But when we came back, the same vendor who told us of $560 now asked for $600 firm. He knew that I like the moto and that the manual bike market is extremely small so he can set at whatever price he wants. I definitely did not like the dishonesty of the dealer. So we left. After a few days where we cannot find anything we like, we came back, biting the bullet and our pride as well, to buy the bike for the $600 asking price. Before setting out of the house, I prayed that God will find a good moto for me whether it is the Yamaha or something. I do not want to buy a crappy moto for an outrageous price. After much searching, I decided to come back and just pay the outrageous price for the moto because I need it and there is no other bike. Luckily for me, the day we come back to the moto market is the first day after the Water Festival so there were a lot more store opened. We search around for a while and decided that the best way to do so is to test drive the Yamaha to compare to Duc’s Bumblebee. After test driving both, I found out that the Yamaha pale in comparison to Bumblebee in performance and in condition of the bike. A good indication for me to leave and not buy the Yamaha was the dishonest vendor showed up while I was talking to the other vendor who was working there. Yeah, that was the last straw for me.
Second reason why I got the Sonic is that it felt nicer, faster, and the conditioned of the Sonic is a lot better. The person whom I bought the Sonic from is the same person who sold Duc’s his beloved Bumblebee. We went back and saw that he has three other Bumblebee which he is also selling. Two blacks and one exactly like Duc’s Bumblebee but is a year younger and with an electronic starter instead of the kick starter. He asked for $700 but agree to sell it to us for $620. He actually received only $600 because he gave $20 to Phaerom (Duc’s RA) as coffee money because Phaerom was the one dealing with him for both transactions, Duc’s Bumblebee and my Pegasus. Yup, I called mine Pegasus because it can “fly by” a lot of locals with their Daelim and other automatic. I pushed my Pegasus to its limit a couple of time. Not as fast as my “Black Delilah” back at home but Pegasus will do until I see my true baby again.
Personal note to Emma. If you are reading this, I know what you are thinking. “They better get helmets to protect them”. Don’t worry, Emma. CAMA required all its employees to wear a helmet when driving a moto. They are just as concern, if not more, for its employees as much as you are for us. To the right is a proof that I am following the proper protocol that you are setting out for us to follow. And if you are also wondering why on Earth did Duc and Hung get a moto, it is a necessity as it is the main mode of transportation around here. There is no public transit. (except for tuk tuk but they are not very cost efficient). We can get a bike but it’ll take us forever to get around the town. (very inefficient method of getting around town). Plus, most of the churches that I’ll be working with are spread around the city. Some are quite a distance away from Phnom Penh so I think it is appropriate to get a moto.
I think that is enough for today. Tune in for more update.
