I’ve been back in Phnom Penh for just five days, hanging out with bloggers Brittany Sims and Caron Margarete, and already I’ve had many unique—sometimes frustrating—experiences.
Saturday night in a local nightclub, I witnessed firsthand how possessive men out here can be with women. While trying to make friendly conversation with a friend-of-a-friend, I guess I must have violated some unspoken rule or sufficiently intimidated this guy into thinking I was competition. After clinking glasses with me and acting all buddy-buddy, out of nowhere, he assured me that the three young ladies he came with belonged to him and I should back off—when I hadn’t even spoken a word to them! Later, on the dance floor, I was merrily acting a fool, dancing by myself, and one of the girls—along with another male friend—joined me. There was no touching, not even any flirting going on—I was very aware how hostile this crowd was and we were having a respectful Sunday school dance here. But I watched as this Cambodian asshole later came over to pull her off the floor and then smack her right in the face because she’d danced with me.
I’ve spent a good amount of time with some new friends I’ve made from Nigeria and Ghana. A couple of them are soccer players on the Cambodian team even, and these are the kind of guys who go in a club and drop lots of money on bottle service and know how to have a good time—fantastic, friendly guys who know everyone. But I’ve passed right through security and then seen them be denied entry because of the color of their skin. Instead, we found a nearby outdoor seating area and had our own party on the sidewalk—just good, clean fun—as military-style security guards suspiciously eyed them, fondling their Kalishnikovs and all the while ignoring all the prostitutes, and the opium and cocaine pushers that fill the streets. Talk about having your priorities backwards.
I’ve sat in the comfortable, three-story, waterfront Foreign Correspondent’s Club while children sit hungry across the street with no shirts on their backs and no beds to go home to. I’ve written about the extreme poverty and the aftereffects of unimaginable genocide here before. Cambodia is one of the poorest and most corrupt places in the world; the sexism, racism, and other socio-economic trends are tough to swallow.
Last week, back in Bangkok, I went twice to visit my friend Ryan in the Immigration Detention Center. Strangely, even though Thailand attracts probably the largest number of political refugees and asylum-seekers from all across Asia, the Middle East, and Northern Africa, the government doesn’t recognize official UN refugee status, and so Ryan and his family had to turn themselves in and spend five nights in prison before they’d be allowed to fly out of the country to be relocated to the United States. Ryan and his father were separated from his mother for 23 hours out of the day—only allowed to see each other and visitors from 11am–noon on the weekdays. They were kept in small cells no bigger than a small studio apartment, sometimes with up to a hundred prisoners; fed rotten chicken and rice soup through the small crack under the bars. You can smell the open-air toilets from 40 feet away as we visit—shouting over all the other prisoners and visitors between two fences, separated by a span of about five feet. He says they’d thrown a senile leper in the cell, who’d ran around like a madman, yelling and vomiting all over until he passed out and died before their eyes. They are treated like animals, not people.
Sometimes parts of Southeast Asia feel like the wild west in the very worst of ways, and I feel powerless to do anything about the injustices I see because I’m an outsider here and the problems are very deep and convoluted. If you’re a conscious traveler at all, it will test you to your limits at times, but it will also open your eyes with strange new experiences and teach you a lot about the world—whether you like what you learn or not.
The world is a clusterf#@%! So what can we do about it?
Sometimes I feel like I’ve lost my direction—spending too much time on Facebook and Twitter, contributing to every project under the sun without feeling like I’m really adding to the legacy I want to leave, worrying about money, tweaking my online businesses in the most insignificant of ways, going out and dancing the night away—while people face all this suffering. A lot of young people want to help make the world a better place, but we don’t know where to start, and we often feel like it’s completely beyond the scope of our abilities.
But don’t fall victim to that line of thinking. Start where you are now. Support the things you care about. Don’t lose the desire to do something you’re truly passionate about and make a difference in your lifetime.
I recently tried a test: I used this blog as a platform to see if I could help a friend in need. I wrote about my good friend Ryan Lei, who’d fled religious persecution in China four years ago, lived as an illegal immigrant in Bangkok for four years (even with official refugee status from the UNHCR), and has now finally been relocated to Los Angeles. You guys responded with a great show of support, and I was able to connect him with at least seven or eight friendly new contacts in the LA area. (Thank you!) Through Facebook, he raised enough money through friends to pay the immigration fine and get a start on teaching his parents to speak English. These are small steps—but in little pieces we can help change people’s lives for the better.
I also recently had the pleasure to help plan Thailand’s first TEDx event two weekends ago in Bangkok. For anyone unfamiliar with the 25-year-old conference, it’s a pillar in the technology, entertainment, and design community and brings together innovative thinkers, researchers, and changemakers from all pursuits to share ideas on how to build a better world. TEDx BKK turned out to be an incredible day-long conference, with over 200 eager attendees from around the world.
We featured incredible speakers including former Bangkok governor Apirak Kosayodhin, dive journalist Chris Mitchell, performing artist Ronley Teper, actor James With, and many more. But my favorite topics were those given by Brooke Estin, who spoke about her experience at Kiva and ChangeFusion working on microlending and social innovation; Daniela Ruby Papi, who works with PEPY in Siem Reap, Cambodia, and talked about responsible giving and sustainable community development as opposed to charity; Prae “Fluke” Sunantaraks, who suffers from Retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a progressive vision loss disease, and works with visually impaired children in Bangkok; and Bruce Poon Tip, founder of Gap Adventures, who discussed responsible adventure travel and giving back to local communities. (You can expect a valiant return in 2011!)
To return to my Personal Mission Statement, I strive to constantly seek personal growth through continued learning and new experiences (travel, entrepreneurship, and other assorted weird adventures); to increase my sphere of influence by building quality, lasting relationships, and leveraging creative synergy with like-minded folks; and in the end, I hope to use the business I build and the influence I have to leave a positive impact on the world.
I will continue to promote worthy causes when I come across them; I will continue to use my online presence as a test platform to help friends and those in need; I will continue to involve myself in conferences and fundraising mixers that bring together creative, thinking people; I will continue to collaborate on inspiring campaigns with influential folks; and I will do my best to build and expand a business that helps remarkable people build awesome online projects that change the world. I’m not anywhere near where I want to be yet; but if I can make a difference in the quality of the lives of those around me and instigate innovative thinking about the world’s problems, then I will have succeeded.
You don’t have to wait until you have the money, influence, prestige, or any of that to make a difference. Don’t wait until retirement. Don’t wait until you’re wealthy. Start now.
If you’re reading this, chances are that you were fortunate to be born in the “developed” world. We have our own problems, but most of us are in the top 5%, we’ve received an incredible education, and have been given a lot of advantages in this life. How will you put those things to use? Don’t settle for passive consumerism. Don’t veg out on the couch and ignore the world outside.
What direction are you going? How will you make the most of the life you’ve been given?
P.S.: To be clear, Cambodia can also be a very stunning place, with many friendly, wonderful people. I owe special thanks for the inspiration of this article to Brittany Sims, who reminded me where I’m supposed to be going.
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Feature photo by Allie Caulfield
I had the opportunity to go to Cambodia about 18months ago with a team from my local church. What we saw was a combination of extreme poverty and and joy that I barely have the pleasure of experiencing.
Especially when you visit the smaller towns, you see families on 9 or more people living in a one room house, but I would struggle to find a happier group of people. Sometimes I think that with all the pressures that society puts on people and our focus on money is robbing us of joy!
You’re absolutely right about that. I think I’d mentioned in my prior post about the last time I visited Cambodia that despite the poverty and the horrendous things this country has witnessed, most people still seem to have an incredible will to thrive and frequently share big smiles with visitors.
I thought the same thing about Nigerians, didn’t get the hostility towards them. That was until I realized that most of them are there pushing drugs and/or laundering money. I wish it were a generalization but it really isn’t.
Cambodia is really a place where you can see both the best and worst of people. Looking forward to getting involved there.
Well, in my experience at least I haven’t found that to be the case at all. It’s the Cambodian tuk tuk drivers that will first offer you a ride, then marijuana if you refuse, then opium or cocaine. Haven’t taken them up on it, but I’ve been offered dozens of times in my two visits here.
Cody, this is a great post.
Much of what the experiences in Cambodia have taught me have been about facing the contradictions of life face on. This place is both beautiful and horrific and it takes a unique mind to live here without being conscious-stricken by it all.
What I do value is that at least it’s out in the open. All the corruption, greed, injustices, racism and poverty are a part of the daily life of people. No one tries to hide anything that really happens and for that I can only respect this country for being forthright. Most western countries for all their wealth are also spectacular at lying to its people.
The difficulties that the country people (& its African visitors) live with on a daily basis are not excusable, but I cannot blame the people for what they inflict on each other. Of course we know this is a government problem and when one of the Khmer Rouge regime is now the leader of the country what can we expect? Nothing significant will change until the leadership changes and that’s not going to happen any time soon.
To make some change here volunteers, tourists and the working expat community must take small steps by educating the youth and making their minds more powerful, only with knowledge can they learn how to help themselves.
Thanks for your company this week Cody! It’s been great hanging out!!!
Cody, I can totally relate to your feelings. Here in Oaxaca the poverty is also overwhelming at times. We took a 15 minute bus ride one day. A blind man got on and started to sing. Afterwards he went down the aisle asking for money. I thought, “wow, he’s blind and he sings well, he deserves some money” so I gave some. He got off at the next stop. Immediately, another blind man got on and did the same thing. Before it was time to get off 5 different blind people had gotten on the bus, sang and asked for money. The stream of people in need is endless and it is easy to feel helpless in the face of it. What you are doing is great. If every one of us would make an effort to help when and where we can – even if it is small help – that effort will add up and the world will be a better place.
I think it’s interesting that you brought up so many of the points you did. In many ways,I think in the developed world we’ve been conditioned to idealize Lifestyle Design and splitting the country when we get our online businesses going to go and hang out in paradise. You’ve pointed out some of the harsher truths of the world we live in. Developing countries, while paradise in many ways, are complete hell for some of the people that live in them.
I think it’s awesome that you got involved with planning the Ted conference. The TED talks never cease to blow me away and I learn so much from them. Keep up the great work you are doing.
Dear Cody – Your story about being in the club and the other with the soccer players was a tough read for me, just wish I was there to back you up in those situations… but it sounds like you made the best of it, thank you for sharing. And a B!G, Congratulations for QB’ing TEDx – what a huge accomplishment, WOW! You’ve made such tremendous personal growth through these life touching experiences, I love it! -paul.
Thanks for the read Cody, makes me think about what my cause should be as I go forward into the future after years of merely existing for my own benefit … lots of holes to be filled out in this big world of ours.
Cody, thank you for posting this. I think we all need a reminder on occasion to stop and consider what direction we’re heading and what direction we actually want to be going. When I was in school, I got my degree in public health with the hopes of doing international relief work. The ‘real world’ set in, and that’ not what I ended up doing. I recently left the workplace to pursue my other passions, but one thing I want to do one day is to start a nonprofit that focuses on women’s issues and health — and I certainly don’t want to forget that goal as I move forward with my other interests and goals. Thanks for the post!
Cody, your writing is moving and validating. We can relate to how you feel in so many ways. So true that we can all do so much in our own small ways without waiting until we have enough $$, influence or prestige.
I’m glad we connected with you and Dwight in BKK (in person finally). We admire the work you do and no matter how small or large, contributing in ways you can to make our world a better place. If only.. we all did that and thought that way.. like Carmen says..
And exactly like Prae said in her talk at TEDxBKK- start! start acting! start now!
Keep up the great work!
What an interesting couple of weeks it has been for us, huh!?
I am glad our seperate ‘directions’ led us to cross paths. It’s been great to have you along for the ride – and even better to watch you use these experiences to rededicate yourself to your passion for helping others. Bravo, my friend
You are very inspiring Cody! It is great to keep hearing about how much you care and are contributing to make the world a better place.
So many of us complain because we are bored working in a cubicle while others are unfairly in jail or live in extreme poverty.
I am extremely grateful just to be healthy and live in a world with such fantastic opportunities. I hope I can join you in your charitable endeavors very soon.
Maybe we will have a chance to meet up in North America sometime in the next couple of months?
Loved this part in bold “But don’t fall victim to that line of thinking. Start where you are now. Support the things you care about. Don’t lose the desire to do something you’re truly passionate about and make a difference in your lifetime.”
Had a chat earlier with a couple of my friends about how we should not lose sight (vision) while doing the things we are truly passionate about. There’s 3 of us, and we’re applying this “start where we are” and not losing the desire (vision) in 3 different areas; one’s on scoring top grades in his uni, the 2nd is for his vision of making an impact in his new tuition work in Germany, and mine’s on becoming a better writer.
Besides that, I’m amazed at how you’ve got the awesome opportunity to plan and make TEDxBKK happen. That’s a HUGE thing to achieve.
“You don’t have to wait until you have the money, influence, prestige, or any of that to make a difference. Don’t wait until retirement. Don’t wait until you’re wealthy. Start now.”- This to me is the winning call to action. we cabn always start now, no matter what. For instance, I may not have tiome to do some volunteer work now, what I opted to do is to participate in kiva. My donation may not be much, but every little bit helps
This site is great and I love reading about your adventures
Cheers!
I hated Cambodia when I entered the country. I could see right throw their scams and counted 17 times in the space of 3 hours trying to scare and get the most money out of me, it was dark and I was tired and just wanted to go to my guesthouse.
After a day of resentment I went out for a stroll though and met a few locals. Indeed the constrast was amazing and I met some of the nicest people there. It’s now a country I’m passionate about since then and I’d love to spend more time there.
Your post hit a spot though. I’m finding working on the internet annoying, leave my site for a month and unable to promote due to lack of internet (that’s what I get for living in a campervan) and the traffic just drops, rather than do good things I want to do (I have a big idea which involves Cambodia actually), I have to go back to promoting my site and other things which just seem like a time waster but are necessary to keep future potential up for the better causes and to raise money to keep myself going.
Its your curse Cody, animal magnetism. Could be worse, you could have cooties.
Hey Cody,
I am a soon-to-be-college grad getting involved with non-profits. I understand the idea of passive income, but all the “problems” I seek to solve aren’t something that can be profit based, for example: decreasing gang violence, keeping kids in school, etc.
With the work that your heart is geared towards, I thought this would be a good question for you. Do you have an blog posts or thoughts on this?
-Emily
Emily, I see the question your comment begs, but you don’t really clarify a specific question, so I’m not sure exactly where best to point you.
First of all, I’ll preface everything I have to say with the fact that I’m no expert in social programs, volunteering, or aid.
I do think that some “communal” problems require institutional solutions (especially within the US), but I also think you’re looking at the symptoms, not the direct problems (with something like gang violence, the real problems are things like lack of jobs, racial/socio-economic disparity, etc.). But then the developing world is a whole different ballgame too.
Someone I would definitely recommend is Daniela Papi, who works with NGOs in Cambodia, and her work is concentrated on solving social problems but also really emphasizes the importance of the market and ensuring that the people you help understand the value of the solutions you provide them. Check her out at Lessons I Learned.
Cody,
Thanks for the reply. Sorry for not being more specific:
The “location independent”/untemplater life usually involves having a passive income from a business, which is generally selling a product that solves a “problem”.
I have done a lot of work with non-profits in the past and anticipate that will increase in the future, and I’m not sure how to use my non-profit business-mindedness to set up a “for profit” business because all of the problems I see that need solutions aren’t something that you could sell in a package.
Connecting this back to you, with the work that you do internationally, how do you support yourself in your traveling? How does a person who wants to work and thrive and live untemplated in the non-profit field manage to do so and support themselves?
Hope this made more sense. Thank you fo Daniela Papi’s link. She sounds extremely interesting.
Hi Emily,
Have you considered social entrepreneurship? A study was recently published about the future of non-profits.
I wrote about this here:
http://blog.briceroyer.com/duke-university-the-future-of-non-profits-is-social-enterprise/
Hope that helps
P.S: Great post Cody!
This was a good kick-in-the-pants post. It’s very true – you want to do something – but because you don’t know where to start – you don’t start. It’s more important to just do SOMETHING… anything. Thanks for a great post.
Thanks for your work with TEDxBKK and for passing on the link to my blog, Cody. I surely don’t have a lot of answers in this department, but I hope that some of the experiences we are sharing through our work at PEPY might be helpful to others. Sharing both the lessons from our successes as well as (and probably more importantly) our failures can hopefully speed up the process of learning about the complexity of the development issues we have come across.
If you are all still in Cambodia, let me know if you cross back through Siem Reap.
Just wondering, how central is the clubbing scene for foreigners? It seems that everywhere I read about foreigners working abroad there is always a clubbing related post. Is this a function of the age group ie 35 and under? Or is this the main way foreigners hook up when abroad?
Thnx