How to Think

One of the strangest things about my job is precisely how I'm valued. I'm here because of how I think. I'm valued for how I think.

Cambodians are intelligent people. Everyone is inherently intelligent. It would be both egocentric and ethnocentric to suggest otherwise.

But in the globalized industrialized world of 2012, where economics rule, power is purchased and a hybrid American/European culture is the standard for modernity, we have to think like Westerners. We have to think in logical sequence, start with a pros/cons list, identify risks, manage risks, always stick to the plan. We criticize anything with inconsistencies. Truth must be sought and provided scientifically, and hold up in separate instances. We look for successful yet innovative patterns to replicate. We respect no one, unless they've demonstrated themselves as worthy. 

I think like this. This was how I was educated. Now somehow I'm in this odd situation where I'm inadvertently instructed to teach others to think like this. It's a very strange demand, quite "modernizationist." The pressure can sometimes be enormous because rewiring how people think is quite impossible. Who's to say how I think I better? I have questions about how I think. I was educated to think like a Westerner while simultaneously educated to criticizes that very quality.

I've not been in Cambodia long enough to make wide sweeping judgements about how everyone thinks. I can say that it's more cyclical. Liner logical thinking is a challenge for many Cambodians. There is an acceptance of the status quo. There is a concentration on short term outputs. There's a tendency to do the same thing over and over again, without modifications. Direct confrontation is avoided, in all situations. Yet also, there is a loyalty to family, the ability to accept life as is, and a deep respect for authority. 

For the purposes of project planning and in order to secure Western funding, Cambodian leaders are demanded to think like Westerners; to fill out logical frameworks and develop a long-term sustainability strategies. For now, this is how it is, and someone has to explain these foreign Western expectations. Sometimes with my partners, that person is me. And if I'm going to be stuck in that situation, the least I can do--or anyone else--is be gracious, patient, and respectful. It's not a one-way street. I want to learn how to think like an Easterner, or a Cambodians. There is value and beauty in taking the best of both. The Cambodians I work with are sharp, intelligent, even creative people. They just don't think like Westerners.

How My Street Developed

My Street: Toul Tom Pong
(Clockwise from top left, street, street, Neighbor Two, Neighbor  One, Neighbor Three)

Phnom Penh is developing.

When I arrived Halloween 2010, Phnom Penh was...a city...I guess... The vast majority of buildings averaged three or four stories. Everything worth getting to is within a five mile radius. There was only one completed "skyscraper" and two half-finished "skyscrapers." It all felt very backwater capital.

One day I woke up and noticed the cityscape from my third floor apartment balcony was different. Numerous aspiring 10 and 15 story building ascended into the muggy sky. The stalled skyscraper restarted construction, along with several other tall buildings. Everyone I know has a construction site on their street.

Including my street. I moved into my apartment February 2011. On my right, an apartment building was under construction, and at the time was three floors tall. As the months of sawing metal and banging concrete passed, the massive building tapered off at a mere six stories (the tallest on my street by far). The neighbor diagonally across the street noticed. Around August 2011, he tore down his shabby estate and decided he needed a villa (at least it looks like a villa, we're only on the third floor at the moment). This put a neighbor two doors down to shame, and in December 2011, this neighbor tore down his two floor home crammed between several similar buildings. For a window of time between January and February, all three neighbors polluted my beloved street with noise so deafening, so obnoxious, so utterly early in the morning...I considered moving.

Thankfully, neighbor-number-one's six story building is done and people moved in over the last week. Neighbor-Number-Two's villa continues, and Neighbor-Number-Three's future residence hasn't taken shape.

Development is a good thing. Hygiene, access to education, and reduced extreme poverty are unquestionably good things. But thanks to development, Phnom Penh's wooden houses, so full of character and history are torn own in favor of concrete blocks. It's the age of concrete, monstrous buildings on tiny lots, and air conditioners.