Only in Cambodia

It has been a long time since I last posted here, but today I had such an interesting, humorous experience that I thought I needed to share it on this blog.

Neth, Melissa, and I went to a coffee shop/restaurant to do some work this morning. After a couple of hours I decided that I wanted to order lunch and so I walked over the counter and was greeted by two Khmer staff: a young man and woman. I said that I wanted to order lunch and the woman handed me a menu. The man smiled at me and said, "but we don't have pork" (at least that is what I thought he said) and so I smiled back at him and said that I would not order anything with pork in it. I took a minute to scan the menu and I was having difficulty deciding on something and so I asked "what is your most popular dish". They both appeared to not understand my question and so I asked it a different way (a practice I am very much used to - having lived here for 1 1/2 years). So, I asked "what to you sell the most?" This time the man repeated my question as if he understood it, but did not answer. I decided to order Spaghetti. They looked at me and smiled and the man said "yes, spaghetti, but we do not have a cook" (turns out that he never said "pork" - he said "cook").

Only in Cambodia would servers be so kind and accommodating that even though they have no cook and can, therefore, not serve any food - would they: 1) Offer me a menu, 2) Tolerate my questions, and 3) Stand patiently by as I peruse the menu of foods that are not available.

Turns out that this place will be closing the day after tomorrow and so some staff (including the cook) have already been moved to other locations.

New ESC Member

MelLo

ESC is blessed to be growing. Melissa Lopez (AKA MelLo) has moved to Cambodia and is working with ESC. Melissa is an Arizona native and proud Mexican. We worked together for a couple of years in Arizona with Maricopa County's Head Start Program. Melissa is a very talented, energetic and outgoing person. In her first two weeks in Phnom Penh Melissa has already made a big splash - making friends wherever she goes, helping ESC with recruitments, training, and new client development. With one day's notice Melissa put together a wonderful training on customer service and led the training presentation.

 News re DPI: Today is my nephew's birthday and on his birthday he gave me the best present ever and called me. I am really enjoying teaching law at American University of Phnom Penh. The students are great. This is spirit week at AUPP and so I have added two accomplishments to my CV. I have now taught a university class wearing crazy hair and taught a class wearing my pajamas.



What a Weekend Should be Like

There are 26 national holidays in Cambodia. This coming week Pcumben holiday will close many businesses from Monday - Wednesday and many (if not most) of Cambodians living and working in Phnom Penh will return to their province for the holiday. I really like to stay in Phnom Penh during these holidays because it is a time when there are no traffic jams and when I can ride my bike much faster and further without having to worry about all the traffic.

I am an early-riser, usually up before 5:00, but on Saturday morning after having my usual morning devotional time I decided to go back to sleep and ended up sleeping until 9:00! I then went to a venture capital conference that Neth had been asked to emcee. (He did a great job!) It was at the Raffles Hotel, probably the nicest hotel in Phnom Penh. Investors from different countries heard nearly 20 presentations from Cambodian start-up businesses that had an environmental aspect to their business model. I personally loved one of the businesses that is starting organic gardening and I got some of their lettuce. Another business harvests Moringa, which has high nutritional and medicinal value (especially for someone like me with arthritis). I also got some Moringa and have started using it in my protein shakes. But I am really proud to say that one of the businesses that hired ESC for their recruitments won both the "best presentation" and "highest ROI" awards. The conference "eco-preneur" has a double meaning: economics and ecology.

 Following the conference (and a HUGE delicious lunch at Raffles) I took advantage of the sparse traffic and hopped on my bike for an afternoon ride. One of my Khmer friends recommended taking the ferry from Koh Pich (Diamond Island) across the river to the island where she said that there is nice bike riding. Having experienced Washington State Ferries to the San Juan Islands I asked my friend how often the ferries ran and she looked at me like I just asked the dumbest question ever. They run all the time. Sure enough, I got down to the ferry and there was one loading up. The fare was 2,000 riel roundtrip (50 cents). It was a beautiful day and a lovely ride on the ferry except for the time that a moto driver was trying to turn around on the packed ferry and ran into my leg. I don't think that my friend took into consideration the kind of bike that I ride because the roads on the island were very bumpy and sometimes loose stone or sand. Still, it was a nice adventure.

 

 

 

The Most Important Khmer Word That I have Learned

At the Asian Christian Conference this evening I learned that the written Khmer word for Jesus is something like an "M" with a large "C" wrapped around it. "Merry Christmas", I thought.

 

Some Funny Signs

Driving around Phnom Penh I get some good laughs reading signs that have been printed prior to proper proofing. I am going to share pictures of some of my favorite signs with you, but want to also share that if I were to try to design a sign in any language other than in English I am sure that my mistakes would be much bigger than any of these.

A long time ago, this business started selling all kinds of stainless.
They are still selling all kinds of stainless. This is what Siri does to "steel"
when said by someone speaking English with an Asian accent. 

I am afraid to go into this business

1) Seems like a fun place to work
2) Voted 2013 Least Productive Business
 

Feeling sad? Maybe this judo chop will help!

Bonus Picture: This bike is so cool! It is made of bamboo!

 

Blessings Received, Blessings Shared

This is the flood season in Cambodia and most every day there are hard rains that come for several hours - flooding streets and causing rivers and lakes to overflow. Just last week this took a substantial toll on many families in the Kampongcham Province. In our men's fellowship group one of the members asked us if we would be willing to take up donations to send support to families in the province. Our donations, he said, would go to purchase rice, which would be delivered by the Ministry of Religion to the families in the province.

My business partner, Neth, and I decided that we would make a donation from the business (20% of our business income is donated). Others from the fellowship group also stepped in to make donations. We were able to purchase three tons of rice to send to Kampongcham Province!

When we receive a blessing and share it, the blessing grows.

  

Aeon Mall

The vision of the business that I started with my friend and Khmer co-founder, Neth Kong, is "A healthy economy and healthy workforce in Cambodia". We believe that there is great potential for the economic recovery in Cambodia and there is evidence of this in many places throughout the country, but perhaps one of the most visible signs of the re-emerging economic strength of Cambodia is a new mall that opened just a month ago. It is called Aeon Mall and it is unlike anything else you will find in Cambodia. It is a top quality, large shopping mall just like you would find in a major US city.

I have been to this mall no less than a dozen times in the month that it has been open and it is really fun for me to see the excitement of Cambodians about this new mall. They are very proud of this new mall and it has stayed busy this entire month. Yesterday, I went to get lunch there and shop for gifts to take back to the US and as I was walking out I passed a foreigner and overheard him say to the person he was with, "Oh great, a mall [sarcastically]! Ruins my trip to Cambodia." I kept thinking about this throughout the day and had a few thoughts about this.

     1) As foreigners, we need to constantly remember that we are guests here and we need to show the proper respect to the Cambodians and their culture.

     2) As guests in this country should care more about the experience that Cambodians are having in their own country than we do about what we ourselves are experiencing or expect to experience as guests. This is their home! If Cambodians like this mall then we should be happy for them that they have it. I have spoken to many Khmer friends and virtually all of them love the mall.

It is our choice to be here. We do not have to go to a mall if we don't want to experience mall shopping. We don't have to eat Khmer food if we choose not to. If we are not Buddhist that does not give us license to disrespect the thousands of monks who serve Cambodia.

This is my Aeon Loyalty card. It only cost $2 and after I
spend $1,000 they will send me a gift certificate for $5.
This is probably the worst deal in loyalty card history.