Watching change happen...as tourists gawk

Located next to the Angkor temples, Siem Reap is a booming tourist city that is nearly unrecognizable compared to how it looked just three years ago. When I came for the first time in January, there were no ATMs, now there must be 15. It is dizzying to witness the breakneck pace of construction and the international throngs of tourists who come to gawk at and photograph Angkor (the variably Brahma, Hindu and Buddhist capital of the ancient Khmer empire). After spending a week here, one can't help but notice some general trends according to each country's tourist culture. The British and Australians mingle easily with the locals but are quick to flee to the nearest Western-fashioned burger joint. The French also mix and own numerous businesses in town (a relic of the colonial era) but often steer clear of the other Westerners. As in any Southeast Asian tourist town, there are the usual rotund, aging white men gripping the hands of their tiny Thai and Cambodian “girlfriends.”

At the other end of the spectrum are the overwhelmingly huge crowds of Japanese and Koreans, who usually travel in large package tours and instantly take over any restaurant or temple where their minibus lets them out. Westerners, who usually travel solo or in pairs or trios, have few opportunities to mix with their Asian counterparts. And then, my local friend Ly Phy tells me, there are the Chinese businessmen who now arrive to indulge in the free-flowing sex tourism industry, not even bothering to visit the wondrous Angkor Wat, which they refer to derisively as “the rock.”

For all they have been through, the Khmer (Cambodian people) are an impressively laid-back lot who seem to take it all in stride. They are quick to befriend tourists, more often to learn about different cultures and practice English than to extract those precious tourist dollars. My Khmer friends here are hard-working and honest. They toil 10 hour shifts in French-owned bars to earn 3000 riel (75 cents) but strongly believe that it is more honorable to work hard for little pay than to not work at all. We Westerners eye them, lounging for hours in hammocks and tuk tuks (taxi-carts), not knowing if they are bored or just relaxed. We jealously suspect that they are in fact able to “do nothing,” a quality we utterly lack – with often destructive cultural and psychological consequences.

Getting to know a Khmer indeed confirms this tranquil perspective, and I have often been taken aback at the pure kindness locals have shown to me, glad that I am intrigued by not just thei ancient history but their present way of life. Like other ancient societies I have visited, Khmer culture seems both adaptable to and impenetrable by modernity and globalization. On the surface, Siem Reap is being paved over into a cement Westernized mess of opulence and indulgence. But try suggesting to a local that things were better a decade ago, when true starvation was exponentially more widespread and the Khmer Rouge and war still terrorized this country. For now, this seems to be the available alternative, and it looks bright. Yesterday I read an article which quoted a Siem Reap official as saying that the city's goal is to become a green, sustainable city. Cambodia is on the upswing, and it is a very interesting time to visit.