12.28.2004

Cambodia Day 14

I did not come here with any intention to learn Khmer at all. I came just to travel because I was bored and apathetic at home. I've picked up several words and phrases. It's amazing how forcefully one learns a language during total immersion.

Internet cafes here suck, they have tremendous lag.

Every school seems to be teaching English, but no one speaks well. Vendors know virtually nothing other than how to state prices. Many of them can't even do that, when you ask them how much, they pull out a calculator and type the price in and show it to you. I asked the prices (by pointing of course) of over 20 watches this way. Just about everything is negotiable. I attribute this to the poor economy. There just isn't enough money floating around, so vendors are desperate to make sales.

I don't feel like I've changed. I feel like the same asshole. Obsessed with trivial details that I worry about and allow myself to become preoccupied with. For example, even though I'm above average height here, I still wish I was taller because most Westerners you see are taller. And therefore Cambodians have come to expect (I assume, again my mind loves making assumptions and sticking to them) Westerners to be bigger. And maybe even they harbor some latent inferiority complex. I wish I could fulfill that expectation secretly. That I could be "that tall American" that everyone expects to see.

I'm invisible in the United States. Just a regular guy. Mr. slightly-below-average. In Cambodia people stare at me (it seems as though they do it all the time, but I'm tempted not to believe my own perceptions because I know the tendency of my crazy mind, which is to believe that all eyes are always on me), young women say hi to me. I can't even get a date in America, and in those rare events when I do, nothing comes of them. I.E. I'm not able to create enough interest (or I try too hard to generate interest which backfires) for another date. But here I feel important, almost like a celebrity at times. All the hopes and dreams and fantasies they have of America, of the English language that just about everyone seems to be learning are projected onto me. A few dollars make me wealthy, I'm tall at 5'8 and handsome with white skin and a pointy nose. Back home, I'm small, scrawny with a bad job and no prospects.

So I feel like the same asshole, but I'm not. I'm Clark Kent in the United States, but Superman in Cambodia. The truth is that Superman is always just Clark Kent. As I'm always just innocuous Andrew, a kid too neurotic to fit in or stand out. The caped guy flying around saving people isn't sustainable, his real nature, the one to which he must return is always just Clark Kent. So I must return to the States, to once again assume my role as Mr. slightly-below-average.

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