I Told Off Microsoft Internet Explorer In The Gazette
There was a story about Opera doing a big marketing push of its web browser. I was kindly asked my opinion on the browser war subject at the time. I said some good about Opera and some bad about Microsoft Internet Explorer.
However, Haran, like many Web designers, holds a deep resentment for Microsoft. The giant uses its own technology to interpret sites instead of using open standards like everyone else. This forces designers to spend extra time making sure websites render properly on Explorer.
“Opera deserves the success that Firefox had,” he said. “As long as good browsers gain ground (on Internet Explorer), it’s good for everyone.”
Impressions Of South East Asia: Cambodia
This is the continuation of a series of a blog post on my recent trip to South East Asia(SEA). The previous blog post was on Bangkok.
After leaving Bangkok, still jet-lagged and tired it was great to take only a short plane ride to arrive in Pnom Pehn after dark. We took a cab that swerved to the middle of the road a few times to avoid motorbikes and flashed his headlights almost incessantly to alert people he was there. He dropped us off in Lakeside: the backpackers district. There for only 4 dollars a night you can get a bedroom with private washroom; a luxury.
This luxurious washroom did not include hot water. It was one particularly shocking washroom for my occidental eyes, unfamiliar with the backpacking lifestyle. The sink spilled to the floor reaching the drain on the floor unless you think to put a provided pail under it. The pail has triple purpose. It recycles hand-washing water, minimizes splashes on your feet and is also used to flush the “manual” toilet. The toilet shares its vital space with the cold water shower. When I told my traveling companions that I was surprised they looked confused. In Africa they shat in holes in the ground. This was a step above what they had gotten used to.
I like my toilet to flush automatically. I must be a spoiled brat.
Understanding The Cambodian Culture
With my occidental eyes it is difficult not to have a judgment of another culture that isn’t biased in a certain way.
One morning I woke up a bit earlier than my wife and friends. Not looking forward to a cold shower I put on a pair of shorts and went for a walk with my camera. As I stepped out I saw the guesthouse attendant brushing his teeth using water from a hose in the garden.
I walked out of the guesthouse and further in the street I saw a man crouching at a stall plucking his facial hair with a small metal plier. I had a little conversation despite the conversational handicap between us and he let me take a picture of him. I was surprised by two things about this man and the guesthouse attendant. Grooming is done in very public spaces and crouching is done with feet flat on the ground. I have lots of friends I’ve never seen brush their teeth (my friends all brush their teeth I assure you) and I’ve seen a lot crouch at some point or another. None of my occidental friends would crouch like this. They would be on the ball of their feet. On multiple occasions throughout my trip I tried crouching like that but had trouble without the right pair of shoes but with flat soles it’s very relaxing.
I walked forward and was invited for breakfast by a family eating in front of their house. The eldest woman was cooking meat cutlets on a small grill above wood fire bbq. In the bunch there was one woman who spoke very good English and had spent some time in the United States before coming home and marrying a Cambodian man. Her and I talked more than everyone combined and although it was a bit uncomfortable at times I used the opportunity to learn more about culture here. She explained how people often eat together and in the street like this. Around our 2 foot high table people would gather, grab a stool, receive a plate of rice from the elderly lady, ate and left without uttering a single word. I asked politely who everyone was and it was mostly family and extended family, some were friends.
At some point I had to use diplomacy. Having asked the English speaking woman what she thought of her stay in the USA she told me she really enjoyed the space and cleanliness in public (I think she meant how clean the sidewalks were). She also mentioned that she didn’t like the scary black people there, adding that there was a real black problem in the states.
The conversation went like this:
Me: I’m not sure I understand what you mean.
Her: Well the black people you see they cause lots of problems. Like crime and drugs.
Me: I don’t understand. Black people aren’t a problem in Canada and we have plenty of blacks in Canada. What’s so different about them?
Her: Well they’re mean.
Me: I’m not sure they’re mean. Perhaps they’re just reacting to how poorly they are being treated.
Her: blank stare…
I could see I made her think a bit about this but I’m not sure I had any lasting effect on her.
Compassion in Cambodian culture
To understand the Cambodian economy and politics you have to understand what happened with Pol Pot in the late 70s. Essentially this man came to power and eradicated bankers, intellectuals, educated class and closed all schools. In order to do this he built prisons by recycling the buildings once used as high schools. Around the big cities he created killing fields where dissidents would dig their own graves before being killed as cheaply as possible.
In the killing fields bullets were expensive so killing often meant crushing, stabbing or puncturing the skull with a sharp object. Another method was to saw open the neck with a local plant that grows with sharp serrated edges. Babies were thrown against tree trunks or crushed with a boot. Cambodians were killing Cambodians; forced to do so by fear of being on the receiving end of this inhumane treatment.
Two places are worth visiting to get a sense of this fratricide: S-21 prison and The Killing Fields.
What struck me as amazing is how this was presented to us. In both places we visited there was an emphasis to understand both sides. The killers were often forced to do their vile acts and were seen as victims as much as the ones dying in these atrocious ways.
Any culture that encourages compassion on both sides has my utmost respect.
Working from Home
Driving is very organic, even more so than in Bangkok where there were lots of traffic lights. There are very few mid-size cars. Families usually have a single 110cc motorbike they take together (we saw up to six people on one) or a SUV. Although there are gas stations like the ones we know there is usually an attendant in front of each pump to provide service and change. In the rural areas people resort to bottled gas as seen in the above picture. In the poorer areas the coke bottles are replaced with whiskey bottles. This man is just the stall in front of his house but there are no clear defining boundaries between what’s the house and what’s the shop. You’ll often see people eat in a shop, often sitting or crouching on the floor right next to clients walking in.
How Children Are Little Grown Ups
This photo in Angkor Wat shows a little girl using a very heavy and sharp chopping knife to make a whistle of sorts from a straw. The yellow basket on the side is full of little items she sells for 1$ each, 3 for a dollar if she likes you. In North America this scene would be shocking for numerous reasons. One it’s a child with wielding a big knife and secondly it’s a child working. I think my own culture is unreasonable and excessive in this judgment. We give children too little credit. They’re quite capable (and willing) to do these dangerous things reserved for adults. Sometimes children will want to goof off but if we let them they want to do the same things we do and they get the same sense of pride and accomplishment we do when they successfully attain a goal they set for themselves.
How Buddhist Pagodas Are Begging Schools
In the East we have this impression that Buddhist monks are somehow detached from this world and live happy life getting closer to enlightenment every day. As the image of the smoking monk I mentioned in my previous post was still sinking in I was taken aback by another troubling bit of what it meant to be buddhist.
I sparked a conversation with another monk in Angkor Wat hoping he would give me some kind of insight or revelation. Angkor Wat is a grandiose temple complex built for the King of Cambodia almost over 900 years ago and was later recycled as Buddhist temple. He explained to me that lots of monks are just monks because they couldn’t afford life without it. He told me that he was from a poor family and joined as a disciple because education, food, housing and getting around is really cheap. It was all thanks to the generosity of the people he said. And then he asked me how much I paid for my hotel and (not being sure exactly) I said 10$ or so for two nights. He told me that it was what it cost him to learn English for a full month and then asked me if I could help him get his education. I approached this man genuinely interested and left flustered and annoyed.
Other days we’d eat in markets and there we’d assist to a parade of monks that would arrive in front of a stall or shop and stand there with a large bowl or bags held in ways meaning it was time to give. The way this was done in public meant it was impossible for anyone to refuse. Shop and stall owners all hurriedly grabbed some food, money or both, took their shoes off, approached the monk, dropped the goods in the bowl, bowed down and walked backwards back to their shoes. The monk would grace them with a prayer (I was told later on that it was for the ancestors of the person giving the goods) and would leave to go do the same with another stall or shop. The large sized bowl was sometimes filled out so quickly that the monk would take out bags that he hid under his robe to be able to carry even more goods with him back to the pagoda.
When leaving Cambodia for Vietnam I snapped this latest picture but I don’t feel it represents what we had seen in the heart of markets. Imagine the bad publicity someone would get if they refused to give to the monks. This kind of social pressure only leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Although I had a great appreciation for Cambodians in general I can’t help but feel they’re getting the raw end of the deal with Buddhist monks. So far as I could see these monks don’t offer anything in return aside from what I believe to be empty promises.
My next post will be on Vietnam.
Impressions of South East Asia: Bangkok
I’ve been asked numerous times to draw up a conclusion of my recent trip to south east Asia (SEA). I went there with my wife to meet three good friends, two of which are doing a round the world trip.
So many people have asked me what single thing stands out from my trip and to that I can only answer nothing. People walk, talk and eat differently there. Everything stood out to my occidental eyes. I was on another planet for close to three weeks and I want nothing more than to share the feelings and impressions that I had.
The Trip
My trip started in Bangkok Thailand after 28 hours of flying and airports. I moved on to Pnom Pehn Cambodia and Siem Reap before taking a boat down the Mekong River all the way to Can Tho (Vietnam). After a bus ride to Ho Chi Minh Ville we worked our way up to Hoi An, Hue and finished with Hanoi.
Impressions of Bangkok
Bangkok was the first look we had of Asia. Of the three countries we visited it was perhaps the least different. Though we only visited the capital it had a very good public transportation system composed of the Skytrain (like the Metro in montreal except it’s above ground) and the water taxis (boats that provide shuttle service across the city).
I was surprised by the cats in the small alleys that looked so different than our cats (mostly neglected) and how street corners had makeshift shelters under which people would prepare and serve food.
Monks get special spots in public transport because as part of their vows they are not supposed to approach or touch women. One kind monk spoke with us to practice his English at one of the pagodas we visited and explained that this was because they shouldn’t sway from their intended pursuit and a woman was the one thing that was in the way of enlightenment for the first Buddha.
Coming from the west I was given the idea that monks were detached from technology and earthly things in a way that we couldn’t comprehend. I had ideas of monks living a very simple life where they spent most of their time meditating. I was shocked to see the way some monks lived and later by how they get so much stuff for free. I snapped a picture of a monk smoking, one giving a call on a cell phone and even one hanging up the phone because he was in the middle of a ceremony when his phone rang. This really broke the view I had of buddhist monks but I was willing to let that slide. After all, I didn’t come all the way across the world to judge people. I can’t comprehend everything through my limited, western eyes.
The people had just reelected a new government and there were still some political groups meeting in public areas. Near these areas stalls would be set up to sell food and memorabilia. This is where in the dark of the night we saw under only a 60 watt light bulb, an old lady sell fried insects. I later learned that Thailand actually influenced Cambodia only recently in these delicacies. We didn’t have the heart to try them. Had the school girls we met earlier at a pagoda been there we could have asked them if they ate some and perhaps it would have given us the guts to try.
On our way back to the airport we saw the biggest roadside ads I had ever seen. One seemed the size of a football field. Packed in the taxi with 4 knapsacks and backpacks it was too difficult to take the camera out and snap a picture.
Next: Cambodia