Culture

I have not spent much time describing my adjustment to life in another culture. To be honest, I don’t think about it that often. But today it is weighing on my mind, for many reasons.

I’m learning a thing or two about myself, and about Cambodia, too. For one, I’ve discovered that I like feedback. I like to know how people feel about me, their opinion of what I’m saying. Sometimes, I even like a fight, or at least a good debate. Whether that’s a function of my culture or my personality is irrelevant, because the Khmer will not fight with me. I spent two days this week leading a facilitation training for some of our staff. Even if they thought I was teaching complete rubbish (and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t), they would still say thank you and leave smiling. This unstinting hospitality and desire to please is both wonderful and frustrating. Coming from a culture in which a reaction—disgust, laughter, even a glare—can tell so much, the strangeness of inspiring only smiles and impassive faces can be maddening at times.

Last Friday night, I met some friends-of-friends, including a woman who has lived here for much longer than I have. I quite reluctantly found myself in the midst of a conversation about all the negative aspects of Cambodian culture—a patron/client mentality that impacts every interaction; the capacity for violence that seems to exist just beneath a veneer of content. The woman I spoke to is correct; these things exist here and come up all the time. Lately, when I am deflecting the perception of my coworkers that I am wealthy (my laptop is a continual item of fascination), or lamenting the atrocities here (last week the wife of one staff member threw acid on his face, and yesterday a church member was attacked and beaten), I have found myself longing to understand more, to be able to walk in and out of cultures simultaneously.

I am always, first and foremost, an American. Yet, I am trying to remember that this national culture, or even regional mindset, was not how I was created. God didn’t make American culture anymore than he made Cambodian culture—and one is not better than the other. We are products of our upbringing, of the places we are raised. It isn’t only nurture, though; my brown hair and blue eyes turn the heads of little children when I walk the dusty streets of Phnom Penh. As I try to understand and try to be understood, I am growing. Even when it is frustrating, when I’m confused and uncomfortable, I am still learning. At this point, that’s enough.