Lost In Translation

Yesterday was somewhat bittersweet.  All good things come to an end and I had to say goodbye to a couple of fellow travelers and volunteers who were leaving town.  On the plus side, there are new volunteers coming through in the next week, and Kuro is still here.  Kuro is a Japanese university student from Tokyo and is studying to become a teacher.  Yesterday, he and I shared a tuk-tuk out to the school and had a really fun conversation.  You wouldn't think it likely because Kuro's English is quite limited.  He said to me later that he encounters a particular language problem with Westerners that I found really interesting because I've noticed it as well.  You can see it happening everywhere here in Cambodia - us Westerners, or barang in Khmer, talking to the Cambodians way too quickly and using big words.  And then repeating ourselves if we're not understood by saying the same thing, but louder.  As if the problem was volume.  The Cambodians often just bow, smile, and say "Yes, yes, okay".   And we Westerners often have no idea that we might as well have been talking to the wall.

But there is a way to increase your odds of being understood if they at least know a few words - Broken English.  Having grown up in Saudi Arabia and having non-native speaking parents, I've become fairly fluent in it.  The idea is to minimize the number of words in a sentence, keep the vocab simple, and violate grammar rules with wild abandon (i.e. drop adverbs, no verb conjugation or verb tenses).  In short, talk like them.  It's not taken as an insult unless they're fluent in English.  It's actually a relief because then they have a shot at understanding you.  Throw in a little miming and it's sometimes quite amazing how far you can get.  Especially when communicating with someone as bright as Kuro.  So anyhow, our ride passed rather quickly as I tried to chat all things Japanese with him.  We talked about the popularity of the iPhone in Japan, the Bullet Train, Kyoto's Shinto temples, Mt. Fuji monkeys, the most popular cars in Japan (in order from top to bottom: Toyota, Nissan, Honda/Suzuki), and of course my favorite Japanese topic - sushi.  Kuro continues to apologize for his English, but as I keep telling him, it's far better than my Japanese, which at the time of this writing, consists only of the ability to list a lot of Japanese electronic/automotive goods and sushi dishes.  And only because I'm a big consumer of both.

Nearby the school, there are three temples that are not as famous as Angkor Wat, but still pretty spectacular to see: Bakong, Preah Ko, and Lolei.  The temples comprise the Roluos (a nearby modern town) group of temples that are the remains of the first capital of the Angkor period - Hariharalaya.  Thus they are the oldest temples of the Khmer empire and date back to the early ninth century.  At lunchtime, Kuro, Michelle (volunteer from Holland), and I borrowed a couple of bikes from the orphanage center and rode a few kilometers up the road to go check out the temples.  We got there and found two guards there who wouldn't let us through without a temple pass which none of us had and had to be bought at the main temple ticket office, which was 16 km away near Angkor Wat.  Not going to happen.  Undeterred, Kuro tried to change their minds with a barrage of Broken English.  It was quite the scene to watch the back and forth between them.  "Ret us go.  Shree minots. We not tell anyone." Let us go in for three minutes. We won't tell anyone.  "No.  Me no wor. Boss watch me."  No, I can't.  I'll lose my job.  My boss is watching me. "No, you not loose job. We not teh yo boss.  We bewwy quiet.  Nobody know."  You get the point.  After a few more exchanges the guard still held his ground and Kuro sighed in defeat.  But then a lightbulb apparently went off in his head.  He took one step at a time towards the temple, gesturing at the ground while asking the guard, "Where is line?  Is here?" One more step forward. "Or here?" Another step.  "Or here?"  The guard laughed and shook a finger at him.  "You no good."  Kuro shrugged his shoulders, snapped a quick photo, and walked back to where Michelle and I were watching in amusement.  As we sat on the stone brick ruins in front of the guard table and under the shade to cool off, the guards turned to us and invited us to have lunch with them.  Michelle and I politely declined while Kuro instantly whipped out a spoon, took off his backpack and crossing his legs, sat down *on* their table to join them.  And that is the way of Cambodians.  As far as they are concerned, all are welcome to join in their meals even if it means less food for them.  And the way of Kuro?  What can I say, the kid has moxie.

One of the guards at Praeh Ko.  And his ferocious guard dog.  

Cambodian watermelon.  The entire thing. 

Fresh fruit for lunch.  For less than a buck.  A lot less.  

The best toilets in a 15 km radius.  No really.  Before we saw the sign, we thought it was a modern temple.