Gecko Tales

Room with That?

Having recently been sleepless in Seattle, I am now sitting in Starbucks comparing the social structures and the way people relate to each other with the noodles shops of Phnom Penh. I miss the flies mating on the tip of my straw and the scraggily cats crawling through my legs underneath the table looking for scraps. Most of the cultural values reflected through social or non-social interactions here in Starbucks are individual freedom and the economics. Very to individual leanings and very low group as opposed to the noodle shops in Phnom Penh where anyone can pull up to a table and join in the conversation as I have done many times.

Starbuck's ever mindful of America's consuming and producing masses has created its very own cultural with its own culture values, freedom, individualism, privacy, and good quality high priced products. It even has a language of its own. "Do want room with that"? The first time I heard that I said; "No I won't be staying that long to need to rent a room." Starbucks arranges their atmosphere as a mix between of sterility and non-community, appealing to post-moderns but still acceptable enough to moderns and boomers. You will rarely find anyone from my parent's generation hanging around here.

I just happened to stop in here to use the wi-fi but it seems to be out all over the city. So I am actually missing the Cambodian noodle shops which have no wi-fi and where I can eat and have coffee for the less than the price of a latte. Plus once Cambodians find out I can speak their language, they engage in quite long conversations, unlike Starbucks where the value of person privacy is highly respected. My children hate it when I strike up conversations with perfect strangers. A friend, Dwight, noticed that whoever I talked to anywhere, I always seem to know someone they knew. That's fun of it. And that happens even in Seattle.

In Cambodian noodles shops I get to hold babies, too-the ones that aren't afraid my beard that is. Of course in Cambodian noodle shops you get the benefit of loud motorcycles and trucks going by as well as the famous Cambodian dust. The waitresses are often from provinces and see me as a novelty and we are able to banter back and forth with each other. They are sort of indentured slaves but not in a bad way. They have not yet caught onto the idea of sanitation but my bodily system is somewhat used to Cambodian germs by now.

This Starbucks is right near the U-Dub so it is filled with many Pomos who have big plans to make the world a positive place through technology, medicine, science health, etc, even in developing world situations. In Cambodian noodle shops, most Cambodians are between 30 and 60 and are wondering where and how they will find work and what the next large scale government abuse on the people will be. They shake their heads in mournful ways, lamenting the way the government has turned over fifty percent of the country to foreign investors and has wantonly used up all the nations natural resources, not to mention grabbing land from poor farmers and squatters. The leader's Swiss Bank accounts are bursting at the seams.

Seattle is a very diverse community where world events are not swept under the rug in exchange for sports scores and local human interest stories. I applaud the people of Seattle for this. I guess if I ever resettled anywhere it would be here but I still yearn for Cambodia, where life is not so sterile, and where people in spite of being traumatized by war and an authoritarian government, are still quite animated and alive. The Cambodian noodle shop is symbol of life, a life that is not squeaky clean, a life where smells, tastes, heat, and insects remind you that rubbing shoulders with others means true engagement with a culture that has no values that protect ones privacy or individual freedom. Right now I am surrounded by beautiful well meaning people but engaged by none of them. Such is life in Plato's Cave.

# posted by Brian Maher @ 7:06 PM