Talking To Foreigners

Where I live, it is generally known that foreigners do not come to this little section of the country. If they do, it is probably work related, or they may have just gotten lost. That being said, it is a big deal whenever I see one and have the opportunity to speak to them (I have spoken to other volunteers about this, and even in larger towns the reaction to barang sightings is the same). Unfortunately, I tend to forget who it is that I am talking to. In western societies, it is generally not acceptable for a person to come up to you and suddenly start asking all sorts of questions like, "Who are you?" "What are you doing here?" "Where did you come from," and "How long are you going to be here for?" However, in Cambodia you can pretty much ask those kinds of questions from anyone you want. Sometimes the results from a Barang encounter can be just a little embarrassing.

This happened to me just the other day: I was sitting down at the café where I usually get coffee when I noticed that there was a Barang woman and a Khmer man sitting at the next table. The man was smoking a cigarette and the woman held her face and was looking away. As I unpacked a novel and a few notebooks from my satchel, I managed to casually ask the man where they were coming from that day. He said that they were coming from Siem Reap, and that they were helping to build a well in the district. The conversation took its course, and I learned that both the man and the woman were both living in London. At this point the woman turned around. She had kind of roundish face with brown curly hair. Unable to restrain my curiosity, I asked her where she was from. "London," she said with a frog in her throat. Halfway through that word I noticed that her eyes were red and puffy, and that she was holding a tissue. There was a slight expression of consternation in the man's face, and I suspected something was awry.

And I had stumbled in on their private matter! How embarrassing! I sat down, ordered a coffee, and opened by books, but the man kept talking to me. Not to be rude, I responded and kept the conversation going. The woman finally walked off to smoke a cigarette (I cannot imagine what the Khmer people thought of her; smoking and crying in public has to be a terrible violation of propriety) and the man and I kept talking. They finally left on a motorcycle, and that was the end of that.

The sad part is that I still have the feeling of wanting to run up to every foreigner I see and ask where they come from. I constantly have to remind myself that while I may be ecstatic to see them, the feeling is more than likely less than mutual. A year on, and I still have that urge...