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By Western standards Cambodia was poor and primitive. Most of our people were peasants living off the land. We waited passively for the rains to fill up our rice paddies. We caught tiny fish and foraged for wild foods. Even our wealthiest class, made up of merchants and corrupt government officials in Phnom Penh, wasn't really rich. For all its charm, with all its flower beds and wide boulevards, Phnom Penh was a quiet place where not much happened beyond the morning bustle in the markets and the long lunchtime siestas. And yet how lucky we were, compared to our neighbours! Cambodia was at peace. Nobody had to live in "strategic hamlets" surrounded by barbed wire. We could live where we wanted and do what we wanted. Few were oppressed, beyond the level of oppression and corruption normal for Asian societies. Life ran on in its age-old patterns. In the midmorning, the monks made their silent rounds collecting alms. In the middle of the day, the farmers came in from their fields to rest in the shade under their houses, and old women chewed betel nut and wove their own cloth on looms. At night the villages resounded with the music of homemade instruments and drums. (p. 37) (it) |
