An interesting thing just happened… am in this coffee place near our hotel… the service is quite slow even for Cambodia… these two Americans just came in with a Cambodian guy… they ordered some food and sat down, after a little while the food appeared but I think at least one of the orders was wrong and they felt they’d waited too long. So one of their party kept going up to the bar and raising his voice in English and waving his arms around. He kept saying something about needing to get back to work.. until eventually he gave them a final earful, and the whole group left.. refusing to pay. The Cambodian in the group went up to try and pay but was told not to by the American.
It may be that they are indeed here on work but I reckon they’re pretty new here cos it really wasn’t that much of a wait by Cambodian standards. Plus when they came in they were trying to ask if this place is a ‘franchise’… which seemed a little naïve, I don’t know about you but I don’t know the word ‘franchise’ in many other languages! Plus this place definitely feels like quite a one off.. it’s actually the poshest place in town pretty much, it does Lavazza coffee, ‘New Zealand Natural’ ice cream, as well as fried chicken served with rice (which is quite a western-style dish I think from a Cambodian viewpoint).
Another oddity is if they are here on work, Cambodian lunch-breaks are generally two hours, so I’d guess they’d squandered their time… the two hours by they way is I think traditionally so you can have a siesta or at least a break from work out of the heat of the hottest sun of the day, many people eat with their families, but in practice it often means people have a little more time to do things like go and work on a second job!
The other thing is that there aren’t many place open today as currently everything is closed for Cambodian new year, so unless their Cambodian counterpart is particularly familiar with the town they’ll be going hungry, plus of course wherever they go they’ll have to wait.
The Cambodian guy with them didn’t say much, but I think he probably sees the Americans as higher ranked than him, either they are his employers or else just more senior in the pecking order.. so it would not have been polite for him to overtly speak out.. in Cambodian terms he most probably gave them all the cues that they were making asses of themselves but I expect they didn’t notice. It was interesting that he still tried to pay, and I have a feeling he gave a mild apology in Khmer as he left, or rather what he said sounded like an explanation in a relatively patient (rather than scolding) tone of voice.
I think this is the quintessential impression many westerners give of themselves in Cambodia, inscrutable and brash.
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