Caved In

After one year of boycotting the assembly by not taking their seats, the opposition finally struck a deal with the governing party. What a deal it was! After demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister, no less, the reform of the National Election Committee (NEC), new elections, etc., and after holding many demonstrations, trying to empower the youth of the country, they now finally settled for bread crumbs, all things considered. Of course, the reform of the NEC is a significant step, especially after both parties agreed on the ninth neutral member, the founder of Licadho, Mrs. Kek with impeccable credentials.

 Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the CPP once again won the power play by using a grave mistake by some of the opposition members as a pretext to have them arrested for incitement, among other violations. One can understand, though not condone, that the demonstrators were tired of being beaten up by hired thugs and finally fought back, giving them a good licking, some even suffering serious injuries. At last, the government had the leverage to use legal means to force them into giving up their hopeless boycott. Now is that the result the supporters of Sam Rainsy, Kem Sokha, et al, were demonstrating for – after those opposition leaders had tacitly emboldened them to resort to violence in January, which resulted in several deaths? Most certainly not, I venture to say.

Having seven leading CNRP members in jail, though, brought Sam Rainsy to his knees and Mr. Hun Sen could once again gloat in his adversary’s face. There is this one picture of both men shaking hands after they announced that deal. Hun Sen clearly enjoys the moment demonstrating this with a firm handshake, whereas Sam Rainsy’s facial expression, often inscrutable, seemed to show how he detested the moment of his defeat, underlining it with an obvious limp handshake.

 He is trying to save some of his face by now demanding that all the details of the deal be in writing and signed before they will take their seats and be sworn in. Understandably, they want a change of the Assembly rules, which stipulate that the president has veto power over introducing legislation, which certainly is a very unusual rule. Once it passed the committee stage proposed legislation is debated in parliament and then voted up or down.

 Nevertheless, Sam Rainsy is overestimating his bargaining position. Even if that nonsensical rule is abolished, any legislation can still be voted down by the current majority. Frankly, no one sees any chance of opposition legislation being passed in the next 4 years. Whatever he does that does not meet the PM’s approval will be destined for failure. But being in the National Assembly will give their fight more legitimacy than all those fruitless demonstrations, which after all haven’t changed a thing. So get on with it already.

A Very Special Species – The Cambodian Truck/Bus Driver

Driving along country roads or highways is always a white-knuckle experience. Not only do you have to live with Cambodian drivers that pass whether or not they have an unobstructed view ahead, but you also have the truck drivers that take special care to disregard any traffic regulation or law and common sense in moving their behemoths along Cambodia’s unsafe roads.

 I believe most container traffic moves between Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville and vice versa. There are certain times when they either leave Phnom Penh (around 8 am) or Sihanoukville (around 11 am). If you need to go either way you best leave at around 6 am to go to Sihanoukville or Phnom Penh. You won’t have a lot of truck traffic either way at that time. On weekends leaving at 4 pm is also a good option to avoid most of the trucks. But you still have the intercity buses to contend with. They usually travel at faster speeds but their unpredictable maneuvers will be much the same. Don’t go at speeds of more than 100 km/h, especially before a corner in the road. There might be an oncoming car being passed or worse a truck being passed by another truck. If there is no shoulder you are in real trouble. I have seen many accidents where the car tried to swerve and ended up in a ditch, sometimes alongside the truck that also tried to avoid the head-on collision.

One would think straight-aways are the safest stretches until you see a bus/truck veering out from behind a truck on one of those. They just flash their lights claiming your lane for themselves and expecting you to brake down to an almost standstill or get on the shoulder if there is one. I have been traveling back and forth on National Road #4 for many years and have seen countless accidents. Especially accident prone stretches in my experience are the downhill or uphill stretch after Pich Nil coming from or going to Sihanoukville. You can see vehicles going uphill sometimes passing in two three lanes now that the road has been repaved – all going uphill, mind you. Another special stretch is after Sre Ambel. There are a lot of straight-aways but also some slight curves. It is very tempting to go a little faster for once. Don’t! Think ahead – see what I said above.

Then there is the oil palm tree plantation – very dangerous with the tractors hauling those huge coconuts at 5 km/h. These are only a few of many more on National Road #4 and, of course, others. I drive almost daily along a rather small country road from Sihanoukville to Stung Hao – the road that passes the ferry terminal to Koh Rong and going along so-called Hun Sen Beach. There is a village about 2 to 3 km after the main port. They hold their daily market from about 8 am to 10 am. It also happens that there is another pier for vessels unloading cement from Thailand and China located in that village. The entrance to that pier is right at the beginning of that market. Sometimes this narrow road is made even narrower by a vegetable refuse pile, not to mention the many motodups who park their bikes with the front wheel sticking into the road. Don’t think they have it in their mind to move an inch to make passage for the truck or any following cars easier. And don’t think that a policeman would be there to direct traffic. The station is about 50 m from that spot. That would make life too easy for everybody, now wouldn’t it?.Here is the spot:

 Now those fully laden trucks can’t go fast. But wait until you meet an empty one. They barrel along at least at 50 to 60 km/h through the second village after that one. Never mind there are little kids playing on the side of the road. And never mind that there is a school between these two villages that sort of blend into each other anyway. Cambodians in vehicles or on motorbikes always seem to be in a hurry. Passing is a national pastime. They do it with abandon. But the state of mind of Cambodian truck drivers is most apparent at the entrance to the port. At certain times of the week, I haven’t quite figured out the schedule, they line up before the entrance waiting for the gate to open; at least that’s what I think. Now this is what it looks like.

Need I say more? They block the main road, the access road, and the exit from the port. There are countless trucks, at least a hundred. They just park willy-nilly, get out of their cab with a bunch of papers for pre-clearance or whatever and just leave their truck for however long it takes with their paperwork. It obviously is each driver’s foremost aim to occupy each available space where his truck would fit. Leaving room for cars to pass through has never occurred to any of them. Why should they, with all lanes blocked in both directions anyway? Again, a policeman is nowhere to be seen. Sometimes a port guard tries to direct the trucks; mostly to no avail. Just yesterday on my way home I saw a truck jack-knifed – the cab in the roadside ditch pointing uphill, the trailer sitting sideways on the road blocking it except for the shoulder where we could pass through. That road to Stund Hao has a few sharp corners located at the bottom of a couple of hills. The trucks, both laden and empty, race down these hills at speeds of up to 90 km/h. Then they fly into that corner not thinking that their trailer might push off the road by the centrifugal force. This is exactly what happened to that truck we saw yesterday. Tela gasoline trucks look they are in pretty good condition – they travel this road all the time from the their depot. And they always go at pretty fast speeds. I am amazed that I haven’t seen one involved in an accident. The other tractor trailer trucks, however, are the greatest risk both to themselves and to the other vehicles on the road. Sometimes the trailer does faulty or no brakes. So if the driver goes into that corner too fast and starts to brake, the trailer will invariably veer off. Now if this happens with the road turning right that trailer will push into the oncoming lane – one can only hope that there is no other vehicle in that lane. Here some of those spots.

Khmer Chinese Funeral

The other day I attended a Khmer-Chinese funeral. My neighbor’s father-in-law had died at the ripe age of 96. Courtesy required that we pay our respects and extend our condolences. There is not much to be said about the funeral itself. A pig is roasted; food and fruit are prepared so the deceased has enough to take him/her over to the afterlife. The priest utters chants and incantations in Chinese.The family who kneel before the casket on command by the priest raise their hands with incense sticks wishing the deceased a good journey. This is done in turns beginning with the more removed family until finally it is the children’s turn. They also proffer the food by raising it several times, again in turns. Remarkably, for those who don’t know, the color of mourning in Buddhism is white. So the family are dressed completely in white, the guests wear a white blouse or shirt, preferably with a black skirt/pants.

Altogether, what struck me was the absence of solemnity. It all had more of a practical character. Each step in the procedure was carried out swiftly and rather unceremoniously – at least at this funeral.  This ceremony lasted about an hour. The casket is then lifted onto a hearse which is taken to the designated pagoda in a long procession of guests’ cars. My neighbor is a rather prominent person in Sihanoukville so the procession was impressively long. I would estimate at least a hundred cars and SUVs. A tent had been erected at the pagoda where the guests take a seat. The pig is carved up and offered on bread to them.

The deceased in Chinese funerals is interred whereas Khmer cremate them. There are no headstones but rather large vault-like tombs. The size depends on the wealth of the family.

In the last couple of frames you can see that in typical Khmer fashion they don’t pay particular attention to keeping a holy site clean. Trash is everywhere here too.

It Couldn’t Be Any Clearer

The cat is out of the bag, so to speak. Some people may say this has been known a long time, but I think it has never been stated more unequivocally than recently. I am talking about the Prime Minister’s remark ostensibly directed at Sam Rainsy. This was reported in the press: “ I’m the only person who can order all the types of armed forces, and if I really die, you must pack your bags and run away … because no one can control the armed forces. It is an idiot who prays for Hun Sen’s death.”

This statement is not only unambiguous about today’s situation implying that Hun Sen is actually indispensable, irreplaceable really. It is also very intriguing for its insinuation what would happen if Hun Sen is no longer around, be it because of death or because he was defeated in an election. The implication is that the military would stage a coup returning either the CPP to power or maintain a status very similar to Thailand’s at the present time.  His warning implicitly says that Sam Rainsy and his party stalwarts are better off with him and better come to an agreement with him. The current state of affairs could become permanent as obviously there is no need for an opposition that has not taken their seats in the assembly. Certain circles might even be tempted to think that no further elections are necessary as the opposition will boycott the results anyway.

Another conclusion might be that even if the CNRP were to win the next election they could be unseated very quickly by the same means used in Thailand. The CNRP always points to foreign governments how they would condemn any more illegal maneuvers on the CPP’s part. But they should look at Thailand. Nobody even lifts a finger in support of any particular party there.

The powers that be are so entrenched in Cambodia that anything that would run counter to their interests would eventually lead to a clash with a CNRP government and their reforms. This clash can only end in a coup d’etat.

The road to reform is long, hard, and arduous; it must be navigated with circumspection and a willingness to tread lightly. Sam Rainsy just might not be the right person for that.

What To Do with A Cambodian Education

My step-son is about to graduate high-school in June. He is attending one of those private schools that sprang up like mushrooms in Cambodia, although this one has been around a few years. When we enrolled him there 2 years ago (after we had researched the background and interviewed the principal) we thought he is on the way to a better education than what he would get in a public school and would pave the way for a decent college education and a good job here after that.

In fact, he has been getting a better education insofar as they offer an English language curriculum; the Khmer classes are a sort of an add-on. The main emphasis there is on that international program. He had not been doing so great at the previous school (Zaman); he simply didn’t like it there.  Well, the change didn’t help much either. He did like his school in the U. S., but mostly for its athletic program. Academics is not his thing. Let’s just say he is not the best student.

Initially we also thought that he would graduate from a school that would have an internationally recognized diploma. Fact is that though the school had applied for international accreditation it obviously did not pass muster as now they simply bestow an in-house diploma on their students. Also, the sort of funny thing about this is that their 12^th grade students shrank from initially 8 down to 3, 2 Koreans and he. Most of the more affluent parents had sent their children to Australia or the U. S. for their high school diploma. After paying dearly for this quasi-education we will be left with a diploma that is recognized only by a handful of Cambodian institutions. If he were to go abroad he would have to take an additional high school year and possibly graduation there to qualify for college admission;  this apart from being able to show qualifying SAT or ACT scores, which have become the yardstick internationally to prove one’s aptitude. I am sure many parents are faced with the same dilemma. Your offspring is an average student at best and now we need to search for something that both fits their abilities and, not the least, meets with their enthusiasm. For most young people it is hard enough to choose the right studies or profession. Most people change careers at least once, some twice or even three times, and that includes me.

Aggravating this whole situation is the fact that Cambodia’s job market does not really offer many opportunities for college graduates, not to mention just high school graduates. A simple high school diploma is not worth much in the West, so one can imagine what you can with a Cambodian diploma here.  After college, only the brightest will find a decent paying job.  They may even get a scholarship abroad.

Here again we can see one of the most striking failures of the government in the past decade. It has not invested in its education system. The population growth is quite remarkable as most families still regard the number of their children as a guarantee for their support when they have retired. A huge 52 % are younger than 24; that includes 31% under 14. This is the number of children that will be  and are in  need of an education and the jobs afterwards.  An unqualified  workforce does not attract qualified investors, that is, investors that would bring more than garment processing into the country. What we have seen is an emphasis on agriculture, which in itself is an important sector for Cambodia. But huge tracts of land have been granted to foreign, mostly Vietnamese, companies for rubber plantations. This industry does not provide qualified jobs (I know about that; I own one, albeit small). Is does not create added value to the economy either. Profits are repatriated and the workforce is below minimum wage labor.

Tourism is the next largest foreign exchange earner and provides about 20% of the jobs in the country. Again, this is minimum wage labor for the most part and the workforce is mostly unskilled and needs to be trained on the job. It is very hard to find halfway skilled employees in the hotel and hospitality business. Lower and middle management is usually recruited from expatriates, e. g. Filipino. The BA in tourism is not much to speak of. Graduates hardly know anything about accounting or marketing their product abroad. But they do know Angkor history.

All this leads me to believe that my initial estimate of a generation (about 20 to 25 years) it would take Cambodia to catch up with its Western neighbor needs to be recalculated.  After all, Thailand took about 30 years to raise itself from developing country to a threshold economy. Judging from the progress this past decade Cambodia, despite having made great strides in its overall development, will take more than those 30 years to emulate their neighbors. Too much precious time is lost in this most important field – education - for the future generations.

Coming back to my step-son;  considering this situation we are hard-put to point out the right direction to him. I must admit that I personally misjudged the prospects in Cambodia for younger people. We just may have to find a way to send him abroad for studies that will give him the tools to make a decent living when he comes back, if he then comes back at all.