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In a government office in Laos, there’s no such thing as being in the middle of something important, so you have to postpone lunch to work until it’s finished. 11:27, everyone is out the door for lunch. You’d think they were starved and it was 2 in the afternoon. Or that they’d arrived at 6 to start work that morning. No. They’ve been there three hours. Since 8:30. And their lunch break starts abnormally early, at 11:30. And it’s two hours long. Every day. To be fair, 11:30 is normal lunch hour in Laos. All the schools stop and the kids go home to eat at 11:30 each day.
In the government offices, they return at 1:30 for three more hours of work. And then every office is shut and locked at 4:30. There’s no working late. Maybe everyone knows you can’t get ahead, or maybe they don't want to make the others look bad.
These work hours baffle me. It’s hard to imagine work is at it’s highest efficiency with these two-three hours time slots per day. In a way it’s a lovely work day, that allows for a pleasant rest in the middle to enjoy yourself with
family and friends. Whereas in America we go to work and work like crazy from morning to night, and feel guilty if we don’t.
Here in Laos, that would be an unrealistic expectation. People would think it was stupid and unnecessary. Life here is not all about work. Government jobs don’t pay much, but the hours are pretty fabulous. I guess the average worker job, as a maid, in construction or sweeping the streets, doesn’t offer such cushy hours. Those workers arrive at work around 7, and except for a brief break, just long enough to eat at midday, work until 4 or 5 PM.
Traffic here is also baffling. When passing through an intersection, car drivers are expected to put on their flashers. This means that when their right or left light is blocked, the drivers behind them assume they are turning. If you don’t put on your flashers, it’s considered dangerous and rude.
When turning right to merge on to a road, drivers never look first. Somehow they just assume that whatever traffic is already driving on that road will yield for them to enter. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to
slam on my breaks or dodge a motorbike driving directly in to my path before looking to see what vehicles are oncoming.
Amazingly, I’ve never seen this behavior cause an accident. It’s like the opposite of road rules at home. Incoming traffic always has the right of way, so when driving down a road, one must be more aware and yield constantly, the way we might in the US when making a turn. The rotary/roundabout here also confuses people to no end. Incoming traffic also has the right of way, cars put on their flashers, and vehicles already in the rotary are sometimes stopped for ten or fifteen seconds, waiting to be able to continue on. Bikes and motorbikes come to complete stops to stare at each other, totally confused as to how to proceed.
Many Lao also think it’s OK to drive a motorbike, holding their baby in one arm, and holding on to the motorbike handlebars with the other hand. And we punish people in the US for not putting their kids in car-seats while driving! At least they put them in a seat! In a vehicle they can‘t easily fall out of! I’ve never seen
someone drop a baby while driving here though, so the people that drive with baby in one arm must be pretty good at it.
And may I mention that there are very few stop signs and no traffic lights here. The stop signs that exist are widely ignored. If a driver slows down at a stop sign, that would be cautious driving. At the main intersection in town everybody just slows down a bit, never stopping, and glides through, magically missing all the other vehicles doing the same. When riding my bicycle through this intersection, I just ride slowly, speeding up or slowing down as cars and motorbikes come at me from the other three directions. Stopping is almost never necessary. People here are skilled at avoiding collisions. They don’t need some silly light or stop sign to help them.
People ask personal questions here that are considered normal but that we would consider rude. For instance, I am frequently asked how much money I pay to rent my room. I usually try to get away with saying just, “It’s expensive.” But then the asker generally says, “No, in dollars. How much? Per month?”. Invariably when I tell
them what I pay they say “Oh, that’s a lot of money. You must have a lot of money.” I generally respond yes, as I do have a lot of money compared to the average Lao asker.
I’d prefer not to give them an idea of how much money I have by telling them how much rent I can afford per month. But refusing the question doesn’t seem to be a possibility. The asker generally keeps asking until I answer with a dollar amount. Oh well I figure, it’s obviously no secret that I have a lot of money if I’ve flown to Laos and lived here without a job. This morning, I was asked this question by someone working at the Red Cross, where I’d gone to volunteer help with English writing. He also asked me if I had a boyfriend, if my boyfriend was Lao, and how many boyfriends I had. I think these are all considered appropriate questions to ask in Laos. In America, we might consider it inappropriate for a stranger to ask the ethnicity of our boyfriend and how much money our rent was per month. Not in Laos! Here, that’s basic getting-to-know-you behavior,
whether for a friend or a new employee.
The other day my friend was working in a local village when he came upon some villagers with a pet monkey. The villagers immediately tried to sell him the monkey. Wanting to learn more about this random monkey, my friend asked what type of monkey it was. “Ling kadu”, the villagers responded, meaning a “naughty monkey” . Although the monkey was adorable and sweet my friend didn’t buy it. He didn’t even ask the price because he knew he’d be tempted to buy it. It didn’t seem like a naughty monkey by appearance but it must have been. Better not to buy a naughty monkey.
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Fred Appel
non-member comment
Naughty Monkey
Ah yes "naughty monkees" , I thougt it was just here. Funny how questions are and aren't O.K. depending on where they are asked. Nice blog! Freddy.