poking khmer wounds.
the incredible dull.

Reading from those stupid histories, overlooking from the real life today and tomorrow, and studying on those outsiders' point of views, i've come to realize or rather confirm more and more on my perception that it really is so.

The French have an impression: "the Vietnamese plant rice; the Cambodians watch it grow and the Laotians listen to it grow." Of course some would say "Oh these people had come for a short span of time and gone, and how could they possibly rule out a sensible opinion about how we are?" But could it be true?

The elders like to tell stories of which i've never felt bored listening.. the pride they have that we're better and stronger, but i don't feel so. The Cambodians have been weak, and very weak, all along. I doubted that and it was never that hard to convince me so. But at least once i heard the name of this old rusty and fragile land disappeared from the world map few centuries ago.

Even small little thing i'd never bother to think.. In my village never occupied a vietnamese several years back. The last time I went back home a couple of years ago, there appeared plenty of them. That didn't surprise me at the first place; they came to do businesses with a few new factories opening up. BUT those few little coffee shops @ which i used to go watching movies when i was a little kid had just closed down. I was told the new vietnamese ones were better. Really so?

I've been always wondering... how could the other neighboring countries do better, and always better, than cambodia? I was told we had just recently recovered - or rather not so, but realeased, from that stupid war. I wondered as the vietnameses also went through even a longer, harder war. Is it really so, or...?

I argued it was the leader's ability.. then I was teased that i was too young or immature to have thought so. Emm maybe. But i probably need to learn, or shout, more.

Anyway thinking further about it; i shdn't blame only on him though i think he's the most responsible person for that. If the country stands lots of thinkers and real doers, I again think, no one person has that great power or impact on how the land grows.

I wish the cambodians were smarter and stronger. What am i to say so? and why i have that stupid reaction when i hear so. I don't know. I just don't understand.