Fraud in Cambodia: Cambodia from a Sojourn Perspective

In August 2018, I was in Cambodia for almost a month.

I can't say I love Cambodia in particular. However, due to the recent fraud incident, I began to collect information from various sources and pieced together what I understood. At the same time, I also slowly digested the past sojourn life when I stayed in Cambodia. Try to integrate a little insight into Cambodia and scams from the wonderful experience in travel and this appalling incident.

When I first understood the whole picture of the fraud incident, the thought flashed in my mind: "It turns out that Cambodia is so dangerous!" Such thoughts. But after I read the article "Reasons for Traveling Away" on the fanzine, I immediately realized that even if the whole incident is heinous and unforgivable, it is still too biased and unreasonable to judge a country from a single perspective. narrow.

And if you can share your own real experience, let people who are still unfamiliar with Cambodia look at the relationship between the fraud incident and Cambodia from a different perspective, maybe you can have a different level of understanding of the country.

Phnom Penh - Tuk-Tuk, Buddhism and Khmer rule

During my one week in Phnom Penh, the capital, and three weeks in Siem Reap, I never felt the slightest danger. And the leisurely slowness of living in Cambodia is still fresh in my memory.

Even if the tuk-tuks in the streets of Phnom Penh find me and a backpacker hanging out on the road, they always want to do my business and talk to me and ask me where I want to go. But I never felt any malice in the drivers' necessary actions to make a living.

When I first arrived in Phnom Penh to apply for a SIM card, the security guard in front of the mall did not let me in because the telecom store was close to closing time, but seeing my embarrassed face, he kindly let me go and let the clerk inside serve me kindly. When I finished the formalities and said "oh gun (thank you)" in the Khmer language I just learned, the scene of several shop assistants smiling in surprise was unforgettable.

In the Russian market in Phnom Penh, there is a small famous shop "Phnom Penh Coffee". When I actually came to the stall to drink a cup, and stared at the boss brewing coffee, and the photos of the boss when he was young, it was not difficult to feel the atmosphere of the worker. A life attitude of simply doing one thing well.

Phnom Penh has many woodcarvings and galleries that amaze me. Buddhism is the national religion of Cambodia, and more than 95% of the people in the country believe in it. There are Buddha statues in any buildings with historical traces in the city, and many landscape paintings or image paintings related to Buddha statues in the galleries are so beautiful that it makes people dizzy. Give. You seem to be able to feel their devotion and respect for art and Buddhism from the outline of each stroke in the painting.

I have never visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. However, because of his travels in Cambodia at the time, he also knew a little about the Khmer Rouge massacre that took place here from 1975 to early 1979. History is not my strong point, but it is not difficult for me to imagine how this can be called the Asian version of the Khmer Khmer rule. , and became the reason why the officials always said that Cambodia was in a state of collapse.

Siem Reap - Leisurely Cambodian Life and Legendary Angkor Wat

Although Siem Reap is the second largest city in Cambodia, it is much more leisurely than Phnom Penh. At that time, I just received a translation case commissioned by a friend, and at the Siem Reap Art Center Night Market, I found a good place to sell and set up a singing stall, and finally I stayed in Siem Reap for three full weeks.

During the execution of the translation project, I often went to the market to eat a bowl of noodle soup in the morning, and then went to wander around the town. In the afternoon, I often go to a coffee shop in downtown Siem Reap, where I can order a cup of coffee for only $1.50, and I can work on my laptop for an entire afternoon in a comfortable environment with air-conditioning and sockets. In the evening, I went to set up a stall on the bridge of the Art Night Market. After the end, I returned to the backpacking inn with temperature and service, and became friends with the Cambodian owner who claimed to be James Bond in English. For about $12 a day for room and board, I can live a decent Cambodian life.

Compared with Siem Reap, Angkor Wat, which is also a world heritage site and one of the seven wonders of the world, has a much bigger name than Siem Reap. The one-day ticket price for Angkor Wat has nearly doubled since the beginning of 2017 from $20 to $37.

This exaggerated price adjustment, even if it is impossible to know the root cause, seems to be able to understand from the rigorous ticket inspectors in Angkor Wat and various parks, this income is undoubtedly the largest tourism income for Cambodia. source.

Borders - insights from the confrontation with customs

Official corruption in Cambodia is indeed notorious. When I entered and exited Laos from Vietnam, I was asked by the customs for additional fees, but I insisted on not paying it, which led to a standoff with the customs before I entered Laos, and was eventually lost by the bus Interlude of the package.

I learned from this that the official Cambodian government abuses public power for granted, and basically only pays attention to the attitude of doing things with money. The continuous decline of education levels after the Red Cambodian period, and China's gradual control of Cambodia through the Belt and Road Initiative, made this country, where the people are obviously pure and kind, turned into the most suitable breeding ground for crimes.

If we can only watch a group of Taiwanese youths who are not deeply involved in the world at the other side of the border, maybe we no longer have too many expectations for the employment environment in Taiwan, or maybe we have a vision of taking risks and difficulties in overseas work, so we decided to do it for ourselves. Give it a try. How can we just say that people are ignorant with a high self-esteem?

What's more, there are even a group of people who were first deceived and fell into the quagmire. They can only save themselves by framing their friends.

Maybe we just happened to have the luxury or luck to escape this quagmire. If it is just a few sentences that those people are too greedy and stupid, they can easily come to this conclusion, and even follow the trend and release it, and pretend to go out to make a joke in a limited-time dynamic, whether it seems too irrelevant, and they become unknowingly, this is What about the help of the unfinished fraud industry chain?

As I watched articles and videos about events, I had no other ability than trying to write them down.