OUDAM.COM

Have you ever handed a $1 bill to a beggar at the intersection and spent the next 10 minutes in your car complaining how lazy he was for choosing to beg instead of work to support himself? We all have. Truth be told, we’d never know the full story why he became bum. It’s always easier just to blame people and make assumptions about them than to make a real effort to help the less fortunate.

Last year the U.S. gave just $5.8 million in aid to Cambodia. This may be a huge amount for you and me, but in a country of 14 million people, it comes out to just $0.40 a person, enough to buy everyone a pack of chewing gum. Of course, people will point out to things like corruption and human rights abuses to justify the meager aid amount.

These arguments about corruption, human rights abuses, and whatnot aren’t wrong. But giving a poor country like Cambodia $5.8 million a year is like slapping a band-aid on someone’s bullet wound and giving them a lengthy lecture on gun safety.

As long as people are hungry and uneducated, democracy and human rights mean nothing to them. Resources are extremely scarce here. Even in the absence of corruption, there still is not enough to go around. This is something that many outsiders, including overseas Khmers, don’t understand.

Survival comes first. If you were living in a situation where food is so scare that there are only a couple of spoons of rice for everyone and you were in charge of distributing the food in your village, would you not steal a bowl of rice for your own hungry children if you had the chance, even if your action left everyone else with only a spoon? Of course, you would. In fact, many Khmers learned to steal during the Khmer Rouge. An extreme state of despair can drive good people to do bad deeds. And they don’t necessarily give up the bad deeds after their needs are met.

While stealing a million dollars to build a luxurious villa isn’t quite the same as stealing a bowl of rice to feed one’s hungry children, most corruption in Cambodia occur at small-scale levels where public servants like teachers, policemen, and government officials try to supplement their $20-a-month salary with extra money to feed their families.

Fortunately, Cambodia’s biggest donors like Japan, who provides our country about $250 million in aid each year, have a more accurate understanding of our situation. Besides buying villas and luxury cars for a few government officials, the aid money also enable roads, bridges, sewage, and other public works projects to be built. Many Khmer lives are saved by the improved sanitation, education, and food and health programs provided by our generous donors.

These donors aren’t clueless about the need for less corruption in Cambodia. But they also understand that you can’t feed people’s minds while ignoring their stomachs. Khmer people eat rice; we don’t eat democracy or human rights. As problems like corruption and human rights abuses stem at least in part from the extreme scarcity of resources in Cambodia, solving these social problems go hand-in-hand with addressing basic needs like food, shelter, medicine, and education.

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Here in Cambodia and throughout East Asia, Asian women are highlighting their hair, getting plastic surgery to round their eyes and sharpen their noses, and even undergoing dangerous chemical peels to make their skins lighter.

Personally, I think the black, silky hair of Asian women are the most beautiful of all. And there are beautiful and ugly women of all skin tones.

Highlighting one’s hair to a different color may be nothing more than a harmless matter of preference, just like changing styles of clothing. But an over-obsession with the transformation to look more European might point to much more serious underlying problems, problems of low self-esteem and inferior complex. Frankly, I think some Asian women who have overdone these transformations look like freaks of nature, negating any beauty improvements they might have gained from the procedures.

As I am writing this Michelle Obama, first lady of the most powerful nation on earth, is touring the world as a Black smart and beautiful woman who has everything going her way. In fact, she was successful long before she became first lady. Perhaps, her prominent profile will foster a new paradigm that redefines people’s perception of beauty, status, and self-esteem throughout the world.

Of course, heavens forbid that Ms. Obama’s high profile should inspire light-skinned to darken their skins. That’s missing the point. Do you know what happens when light-skinned Khmer women try to get a tan? They don’t get tan; instead, they turn brown with unsightly dark patches that look like giant freckles.

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I’ve decided to launch a new website to bring together internet marketers and entrepreneurs like myself from around the world to socially network and share tips and tactics to succeed in running an online business.

You can visit and join the online community at www.internetmarketersnet.com.

As you may already know, for the last 13 years since graduating from Purdue Univ. with a Master’s in medicinal chemistry, I have been making a living exclusively off the web. Having an online business has allowed me to set my own hours and take my business everywhere I go. This is really important because I can live anywhere in the world– the U.S., Cambodia, or even Timbuktu (assuming there are internet cafes there)– and still be able to make a living. In fact, I have been living in Cambodia for 7 months now and able carry on my business as usual.

When I told my friends, relatives, and acquaintances in the U.S. about moving to Cambodia, many thought I was crazy. They’d ask what I’d be doing to support myself in Cambodia. Some even nefariously insinuated that I was coming to cash in on the rampant corruption here.

Most people here in Cambodia would give up anything to immigrate to the U.S., not the other way around. But I’m not most people. I’ve always been a rebel and non-conformist in my own way, not hesitant to thumb my nose at convention wisdom, especially when I feel that conventional wisdom is misguided. But here I digress.

Many of you have probably heard about guys who’ve made millions on the web and are wondering about how to get rich online yourselves. Well, if anyone has figured out a way to become a millionaire overnight from the internet, be sure to let me in on the secret, because for the last 13 years I’ve been working like a dog just to pay the bills.

Truth be told, it’s not easy to make money from an online business that doesn’t involve porn, gambling, and scamming old people of their life savings. For instance, as much time as I devote to Khmercity.net, I make just enough from the site to buy a couple cups of coffee a day (and I’m talking about regular coffee, not the Venti frappuccino you get from Starbucks). Anyway, I shouldn’t be complaining too much because not too many jobs allow you to work and enjoy a cold beer at the same time (like I am right now). Besides, I don’t envy others who have to deal with office politics– overbearing bosses, insubordinate employees, and jealous gossiping co-workers– on a daily basis.

We’ve all heard about internet success stories the like Jeff Bezos (Amazon.com), Jerry Yang (Yahoo.com), and a handful of others who’ve made billions from their start-ups, but we rarely hear about countless other would-be internet millionaires who became road kills on the information superhighway. So, all things considered, I have to count myself among the fortunate.

Anyhow, if you are interested in making money online, resources like the Internet Marketers Network can prove very helpful. Whatever you do, just don’t quit your day job just yet!

http://www.internetmarketersnet.com

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When I moved to Cambodia over six months ago, we left behind our beautiful house in Houston. But we didn’t leave behind our 20-year-old cat. In cat years he’s 100 years old. Most cats don’t live past 10 or 12 (human) years. He made the 8,700-mile trip with us.

He used to be an outdoor cat, but he doesn’t get to go out anymore since relocating here (otherwise, he might get run over or end up on someone’s dinner table).

To transport a pet to Cambodia you need to get the proper vaccinations and a health certificate for your pet within ten days of travel. The rules may change from time to time, so call your vet before making your travel plans. Also, call the airline to see if they accept pets before buying a ticket. I had to cancel a couple of plane tickets because I found out the airline could not accommodate animals on one of their flights. It was a costly lesson. You also need to get a proper kennel to transport your pet, i.e. one with enough room for the animal to stand up and turn around in (again, check with the airlines regarding the specific requirements). You need to make separate arrangements with both the domestic and international airlines.

The costs of transporting a pet to Cambodia, including veterinarian services and airline fees, add up to be about the same as that for a human being. It might seem odd why anyone would go through all the troubles to take along a cat all the way to Cambodia…not that it’s common for anyone to want to move to Cambodia from the USA.

But I think animals have some special qualities– like unconditional love– that we humans only struggle with. Pets don’t calculate, and they don’t bite the hands that feed them…actually, my cat bites me all the time, but you get the idea. These qualities about our pets can help us keep our own humanity, especially in a place like this.

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Calling Cambodia “the land of opportunity” may seem counter-intuitive, especially to people living abroad who read all the negative news about corruption and human rights abuses here. But after having lived here more than half a year, I can say that I feel more empowered here than I was in America. Here I feel like I can accomplish anything, and if I don’t, it’s all because of my own laziness.

I want to advise people not to come here to do politics. Why? It doesn’t matter how much more knowledgeable and enlightened you think you are as someone from overseas; you’re not going to succeed in overturning what people have been accustomed to all their lives. You can’t change people for the better by telling them how lousy they are. You must lead by example– by being the change you want to see in them. In the long run your efforts would prove more fruitful by avoiding confrontation and educating and motivating those around you toward righteous and constructive ways.

Besides, if you’re looking for people in Cambodia who could do politics, you’ll find, oh…maybe 14 million people who could fill the position. As a matter of fact, many positions of power have been filled by individuals with few qualifications.

If you’re looking for someone here with a high level of expertise in IT, finance, management, or engineering, on the other hand, it’s like finding a needle in a haystack. So there is a lot of opportunities for young, highly skilled Khmers from overseas. While the average salary is less than $100, many companies aren’t afraid to pay $1,000-$2,000 a month for qualified people from overseas (you can live a comfortable life here– complete with a couple of maids if you prefer– on that salary). If the non-Khmer foreigners can come and work here, I don’t see why Khmer Americans can’t do the same, especially since many of us are bilingual and have some familiarity with the culture.

Things work a little differently here. Khmer people can be very easy or very hard to work with. It just takes some getting used to. Personally, I am drawn to the gentle, understanding nature of our people. This is one of the precious qualities of our culture that is truly worth preserving.

Generally, people will leave you alone if you leave them alone. To be honest I haven’t felt much “oppression” here at all…not yet, at least. In fact, I feel like I have more freedom and opportunities here. I think people are generally happier here than they are in America, where you live under the constant oppression of bills, taxes, job insecurity, etc. I think the unhappiest people here are not so much the poor people, but people who don’t have enough. People who don’t have enough are not necessarily poor and desperate– many of them are just greedy and envious of others. So, they never have enough, and they’re never happy with what they have.

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