(Siem Riepe, Cambodia) The petite, nineteen-year old Cambodian girl in the yellow top waited for me to get closer and then looking directly at me she said,

“You are handsome.”

“Thank you” I said and then smiled and looked away at the tin roof of the three-walled hut.

She waited a moment, then said “Very cheap, I’ll give you a good price.”

“Thank you” I said, “But I’m just looking.”

She waited, then said, “If you pay, I can get my education.”

“Thank you” I said, “But I’m just looking.”

“Where are you from?” she asked, her shoulder length black hair pulled up in a pony tail.

“America,” I said.

“Oh, I have a friend in America,” she said softly with a smile.

“Wait,” I paused amongst the t-shirts and kitschy Cambodian goods (more than likely made in China).

“Does that actually work?” I asked. She looked back innocently.

“I mean, if you tell someone you know someone from where they come from, do they actually buy something?”

She feinted innocent.

“I mean, first you told me I was handsome, then you’d give me a good price, then you told me I should buy something so I can fund your education, and now you’re claiming you know someone from America? I mean, which one of those usually works?”

She stared at me blankly for a second, then smiled shyly and looked down towards the ground.

In that brief moment of silence, I felt the wall between this American tourist and the Cambodian shop woman—walls built between money and poverty and unlimited choice and few opportunities—- crumble. The ice had been broken, and over the next half an hour my new friend Srie Ra, opened up to me about Cambodia, life and running a souvenir shop on the side of the road in one of the world’s most money poor but tourist rich countries.

She talked of her family, her 17-year old niece Hourt who co-ran the shop with her, the large commission she must pay to the man in the city who actually imports the goods she sells, the challenge of getting an education in a country that went through a genocide just 25 years ago and why so many Cambodians speak amazing English.

(She also told me that men usually go for the “your handsome” line and women go for the “help me get an education” line.)

All of what she shared was a much needed window into Cambodian life, in an area that is teeming full of tourists that necessitate Coke stands and t-shirt shops stuffed in every unoccupied spaced between dozens and dozens of thousand year old stone temples—The Temples of Angkor.

In order to travel and see the world, or at least to see the famous things, you have to spent time in tourist areas like Siem Riepe—though I don’t always like it. Often tourist areas seem prepackaged and inauthentic because of the commercialization and the imported Western world amenities (The Holiday Inns, The KFC’s, the Coke stands, the Pringles, etc.). Getting past those things, to see the people for who they are, not the stuff they sell, is sometimes difficult. But thanks to a friendly young girl in a random shop, just down the road from the Angkor Tom Temple, I had an hour where the walls came down and through the little window we created, we shared with each other a glimpse into the other’s world.

What I learned about Cambodia and life as a shop owner was a lot, what I shared with her about America, I hope was helpful too. I learned that on an average day at her shop, one shop with identical things amongst twenty other identical shops lining the same street, a good day would be a day when they had one, or two, sales.

“How much is a good day of sales?” I asked.

“If we make 8 dollars(US), it has been a good day,” she said.

Cambodia is a country that surprised me. Flying in from Singapore, based on the country’s recent tragic history (if you don’t know what I’m talking about go Google “Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge“) and all I’d heard from the media, I expected to be confronted with extreme poverty, beggars, orphaned street children, and no English.

What I found was a beautiful country of extremely friendly people, poor but intrepid, a people who had taught themselves English because they knew tourism may be the only thing their country could export (by importing tourists). Yes, there was poverty, and I’m sure much more in areas outside of the tourist spots (and all I saw was the tourist spots). Yes, the country was poor (with an average per capita income of less than $290 per year) but Siem Riepe (the tourist capital) and Phom Phen (the political capital) had more shopping malls, night clubs, internet cafes, and Holiday Inns than beggars and orphaned street children. Walking around the emerging capital city a few days later, after noticing that there were few men over the age of 30 on the street (as most were killed by the Khmer Rouge), I saw casinos being built, narrow roads being widened into picturesque boulevards and growing modern amenities. Phom Phen is certainly up and coming. Despite their terrible history, the people in Cambodia may be some of the nicest and friendliest I’ve met on the planet.

Back at the shop, after a short lunch of steaming noodles and fish (which cost all of 75 cents), I decided to return Srie Ra’s shop to thank her for opening that window for me by buying something small from her.

After a bit of looking, I picked out a black and gold tablecloth and a blue surrong from the displays on the wall, and I asked her how much she’d like for the two items.

“$16,” she said hesitantly.

“Ok, I said,” not wanting to bargain, as is typical, because I was buying this not because I needed a tablecloth and sarong, but because I wanted to give her some business for sharing her time with me.

She smiled.

Her niece grabbed a plastic bag and they conversed in Cambodian for a moment and then she reached under the table and pulled out three cloth scarves (which sell for about $3 a piece) and she folded them and placed them in my bag with the tablecloth and sarong, saying nicely, “A gift from us for you and your two friends.”

I smiled. Maybe she was thanking me for opening a window for her…

…or maybe she was just being Cambodian.

Srie Ra and Hourt in front of their shop

The crew inside the shop (you’ll note the blue scarf in Janny’s hand)

 

Me modeling the sarong in our guesthouse.

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What you can do now:- Leave a comment about this story below.
- See photos of The Temples of Angkor
- Read another shopping story: my search of women’s designer hand bags in Hong Kong.
- Read how I learned how to (or how not to) barter in the story “Great Men, Great Wall, ‘Great’ Shoppers”