Culture - Safety vs Paranoia

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So, this week, we had our first, public cultural clash.

We have been doing the Cambodian-thing, and driving our moto everywhere. So, one afternoon, after work, we drove home to change into our gym clothes. Since we would only be in the house for a few minutes, we decided to leave the moto outside on the sidewalk, rather than rolling it into the house. We didn't lock it up, since it was only 5:30pm and all our neighbors were sitting outside, enjoying the day and people-watching.

When we came back outside 5 mins later, one of our neighbors - an older man - walked up to us and started yelling in Khmer. From his gesturing, and our very limited Khmer vocabulary (we know the word for "to go"), we are pretty sure he was yelling at us for leaving our bike out like that. We were speechless - partly because we didn't know how to reply in Khmer, and partly because we didn't understand why he was so upset.

Here's what we conjectured as we rode on to the ride to the gym:

1. Ownership and safety of belongings is a really, really big thing, here. We have a lock to enter our apartment hallway. We have a lock at the top of our hallway stairs to enter into our back porch. We have a lock on our door. We have a lock on the door to our rooftop. We have a lock on the "cage" that contains our washing machine. Whereas we think of this as being "paranoid," the mentality here is that if you're well-off enough to own things, why would you not keep them safe? (However, we did buy a lock for our laptop before going to Cambodia, so maybe we are a bit Cambodian ourselves :-) )

(And, on a side-note, we've been instructed by our landlord to turnoff our entry light all the time. Whereas in the US, leaving the light on in the evening would keep robbers away because they'd think someone was home, here, it would show robbers what they could potentially steal....)

2. And, it's not just personal, it's all a community thing. So, while we thought it would be ok to leave the bike since there were so many people around, the neighbors were upset we would place that responsibility on them. We figured: well, if someone takes the bike, it's our problem. But, the neighbors were thinking: if someone takes the bike because the white people were too foolish to lock it up, it will look bad on the neighborhood.

3. Saving Face is huge, here. Basically, "saving face" means it is incredibly rude and unacceptable to ever embarrass someone or to "call them out" on something. If the parking attendant tries to make us pay twice the normal price for parking our moto just because we're white, we cannot get upset. We smile, laugh, and say "half price, ok?" etc. etc.

This is why it was so shocking for this older neighbor to raise his voice at us. We are sooooo not used to direct conflict, anymore. However...we think all rules are off when it comes to the elderly. He could make us "lose face" because we are significantly younger than him. If you are older here, you basically can do whatever you want, no problem.

Obviously, these are all our personal opinions and insights into the culture; this is not gospel truth. And, obviously, neither is right or wrong. They are just different.

We are here for 3 years. There will be plenty of these "cultural clashes" and we'll be sure to share them with you! Happy weekend!

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Comments

[Leland]

Cultural update
Thanks for the great updates and insights you are giving us. Can hardly wait to see you in your new environment.