She works at an outdoor piazza style bar-restaurant, like hundreds that line the streets of Phnom Penh. Twenty odd tables, each with a large umbrella hovering above. When you enter, you're accosted by attractive "beer girls" dressed in colorful velvet-polyester-looking skirts adorned with different brands. The girl you pick becomes your beer, implicit in the choice is the promise of repeated interaction, providing awkward chances to flirt. For customers the situation is novel, the girls playful and pretty and the beer intoxicating.

The Anchor beer girl, tightly wrapped in a bright-red skirt with the Anchor logo across the waist, says she will drink with us after the first half-hour of boozing and banter. She's young, and dainty-looking with a sleepy face but a bright, toothy smile which reveals straight kempt teeth, like so many Khmers. She takes well to my compliment of her smile, predictably flashing it again. We drink, and like an attentive hostess she empties the pitcher into our glasses, keeping them full. As customers we're enjoying drinks with a young, made-up, exotic beauty. As I peer into her eyes and face, her expressions tell me that the situation is completely different for her.

She's 20 years old, illiterate, never making it past second grade. She makes 2 dollars for a day which begins with a meeting at 3:30 and ends at midnight. If she takes a day off from work, she is docked 5 dollars. If she were to work 6 days a week she would make 12 dollars minus 5 dollars. Or 7 dollars for 6 days work. For working every day in a month, which is basically a necessity considering the rate at which she loses money for not working, she will earn sixty dollars. This is forty dollars more than the girl who patrols the bar ensuring glasses are full of ice. But the ice girl doesn't have to drink with customers.

Evident in her muted expressions, her sleepy demeanor and occasional smiles is the sallow glint of an alcoholic. Her job requires her to sit and drink with customers. To propose the erstwhile toast, which I witnessed her do perfunctorily as if it were her millionth meaningless toast this week, where you must finish the contents of your glass, with the end result being that glasses are refilled, pitchers emptied and wallets opened.

How many other Khmai speaking customers uncover the details of her job and life. Behind the flirtatious smile is a workmenlike charm to get beer into bellies. Behind the verity of the story of her harsh life may be the same desire to get a handout. Just think what 5 measly dollars would mean to her. But when I see her eyes brighten, her face light-up exposing flawless teeth, the notion that she could be disingenous, feeding another tourist the same old sob story, disappears.