Business sense

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Now, after having lived in Phnom Penh for a bit more than a week, something quite odd has become appearent to me. In Sihanoukville, some of the local shops would after a while lower their prices for you, basically showing that there are two official prices, one for foreigners and one for Khmers. Of course, the first time you come around they will all quote you the foreigner's price, but after a while you got the Khmer price, which showed good business sense.

But something else is happening in Phnom Penh. Maybe they are just more stupid up here. I normally buy water every day at the corner shop where I live. But, one day they told me that the price had increased with 20 per cent. I didn't really think much about it, since prices do change every now and then. But then, three days later, the price had increased with another 20 per cent. This time I started to become more suspicious, but it was when the price increased for the third time two days later that I really caught on to what they were doing. Of course the price hadn't increased, but somewhere along the line someone at the shop realised that as a foreigner I do have more money than Khmers. So, one bright soul figured out that they should try to charge the foreigner more, claiming that the price has increased. Of course, it worked once, and even twice, but at the end they will lose their customers, just because although foreigners do have more money than Khmers they are not more stupid, and they do catch on eventually.

After talking to other foreigners here I have realised that this happens more often than not. The first time you come around they will charge you the normal price, which of course will already be somewhat more pricey than the Khmer price. Then, when they think that they have gotten you as a regular customer, they will try to increase the price. Of course, after having lived here for a while, foreigners get wise to the scam, and thus take their business elsewhere, where the whole theater starts again. What I don't understand is why they don't understand that it is bad for their business doing these things. Instead of having happy customers coming back, and foreigners are already paying a higher price than normal, they so blatantly try to cheat them and thus lose them.

A friend of mine told me that he was renting an apartement from a local landlady. Next door was a small room, which she rented out to a local guy. When the electricity bill arrived, she tried to get my friend to pay for his electricity use,a s well as the local guy's next door. When my friend complained about it, and said that he didn't want to pay for the guy next door's use, even though it was only a couple of dollars, she told him that he was a foreigner and that a couple of dollars did not matter to him. In the end my friend did not pay for the guy next door's use, and my friend moved out to another apartement. Now, wouldn't it be wiser for the landlady to not have tried to scam my friend over the sake of two dollars? If she hadn't done it, he would have continued to live there, probably paying a fair bit more for the place than a local person would have, but over two dollars sake she lost the business.

Of course, not everyone is like that. There are people here who has a good sense of business, and even more, a good sense of moral. However, once in Bangkok, late at night, I bought some food from a street vendor. Since she didn't speak english, and I didn't speak Thai, I kind of had to guess about the price. So, I paid what I thought she asked for, and then went to meet my friends inside a bar. When I came out two hours later, she is still standing there. As soon as she sees me she rush over and hand me bacg 20 bath. It turned out that I had overpaid her and left to quick for her to give me my change back. So, she had been waiting outside for me to return so she could give me the change back. Of course, I reckon one place to set up shop for her was a good as the next. However, I can't really see this happen here i Phnom Penh.

The second day after I arrived here in Phnom Penh I gor mugged. I was taking a motorbike taxi and I had my small bag slung over my shoulder. Out of nowhere another motobike with two young guys comes up from behind, the passenger grabs my bag, and then they zoom off. As they calculated, the shouldstrap broke, and they got the bag. Luckily for me, the bag was very old, so when they ripped it off me, the seam ripped, and everything that was inside fell out. But again, this is not uncommon. I have even talked to a girl where they grabbed her laptop bag, sicne the strap did not break, they dragged her after the bike for 100m before they let go. And, with so much poverty, one can kind of expect a certain amount of crime with all these foreigners running around flashing money. But, these guys who grab peoples bag are not poor. They are normally two younger boys, 18-20 years old, on a brand new bike. Which only shows that they are only stealing in order to have some more fun, get some more spending money. And that is scary. These kids are willing to maim a person for the sake of $20, which they will later spend on beers and prostitutes.

Ok, enough of the horror stories. Of course, this is not the whole story. There are many good things about Cambodia. As soon as I can come up with one I will let you know. Nah, just kidding.

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