In response to my "column"
http://www.myp1t.com/blog/view/id_230
Ah Mom wrote
My point is regardless of what race or country we are in, money plays an important role in people's lives and work. And we all know why...since we no longer forage for food. You write as
if all the Khmers who have more money than they used to are going down hill in terms of their morale....and there is no hope for them. How about include some positive aspects how these new monies have positively impacted their lives, their children's lives, etc? Don't "one bad
apple spoils the whole bunch" our people.
Is it possible that I am too judgmental and overgeneralizing? Maybe but I don't think so.
Am I advocating a new Cambodia Year Zero in order to wipe the slate clean once again? No, absolutely not.
When I was growing up in pre-1975 Cambodia, the perception (and the common reality) was that Sino-Khmers and the Chinese in Cambodia did business while the pure Khmers (i.e. mostly in the countryside) grew rice.
Things changed somewhat post-1979 in that people from the countryside who came to live in cities also started to do business. Nowadays, we seem to revert back to the stereotype of the 1970s. Like Bangkok, Phnom Penh is inhabited by mostly Sino-Khmers and one only needs to be in Phnom Penh during the Chinese New Year to realize it.
This means therefore that what Lee Kuan Yew wrote about Cambodia in the 1960s still applies to today's pure Khmers.
I think you must have something in you to be a "have" nation. You must want. That is the crucial thing. Before you have, you must want to have. And to want to have means to be able first, to perceive what it is you want; secondly, to discipline and organise yourself in order to possess the things you want-the industrial sinews of our modern economic base; and thirdly, the grit and stamina, which means cultural mutations in the way of life in large parts of the tropical areas of the world where the human being has never found it necessary to work in the summer before the autumn, and save it up for the winter.
http://khmer.cc/community/t.c?b=1&t=2092&o=1
If that is valid, then isn't it a good thing that Khmers in the countryside who have sold and are selling their rice fields are joining the ranks of their Sino-Khmer compatriots in "wanting". I mean, look at Singapore. Singaporeans are known to be among the most materialistic, money-minded people in the world and look at how it went from Third World to First World country in basically two decades.
Therefore, who am I to judge the few "rotten apples", as Ah Mom put it?
Personally, I feel uncomfortable living in a materialistic, money-minded society like Singapore but I would not impose my values on anyone if Cambodia could prosper by "wanting".
There is nothing wrong per se in selling land, provided one uses most of the proceeds to start a business and not indulge in conspicuous consumption.
The problem in Cambodia at the moment is that most rice farmers do not start a business. They spend most of the money on material things and, sooner and later, the money runs out and they fall on hard times.
Will Cambodia implode any time soon? I don't think so.
In spite of the explosive population growth, the increasingly disgruntled wave of high school and college grads who cannot get jobs, Cambodians are not likely to rebel any time soon.
Inflation is running at a much higher rate than the official single-digit rates. People complain and grumble but they will tighten their belts and do whatever is necessary is survive.
You would be amazed as to how little money is needed to feed a family in the countryside. Ultimately, they will try and make do with rice and salt.
Until that happens, many families will pull their daughters out of school and send them to work in garment factories. An increasing number sleep with their supervisors or others to supplement their meagre incomes or to acquire the trappings of materialism, after being blinded by the "bright lights" of the city and the TV commercials.
Some others , if not many of the reasonable-looking ones, will end up as full-time or part-time prostitutes.
What.s wrong with all that, you may ask? There is nothing wrong with a consumption-driven society, from an economic point of view.
My only question is: why still call ourselves a Buddhist society when many of us only mouth the chantings during Bonn but do not uphold Buddhist values?
Just kidding. LOL