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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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One thing that strikes me about Theravada Buddhism is it places significantly lower emphasis on spiritual enlightenment for laypeople, as opposed to the monks. The roles of lay followers are reduced to looking after the needs of the monks and participating in religious rituals and ceremonies. This is a major departure from Mahayana traditions that encourage realization Buddha-nature for monks and laypeople alike.

To this day Khmer kings and leaders tend to associate themselves closely with religion, but as followers the Theravada tradition, their roles are limited to protecting religious (Theravada) orthodoxy, as opposed to attaining personal spiritual enlightenment and using it to guide their leadership, aspirations, decisions, plannings, strategies, purposes, and so on and so forth. As the mindsets of our leaders have been dictated by religion, the shifting religious beliefs and practices throughout the centuries undoubtedly altered the course of our history.

By raising this discussion, I’m not suggesting that we should return to Hinduism; I would like to see our people try to incorporate the teachings of Lord Buddha more fully and intimately into our everyday lives. I would like to see us more engaged in the practice and understanding of Dharma rather simply go through the motions of religious ceremonies and rituals. Orthodoxy is a dangerous concept as it invites rigidity, intolerance, ignorance, elitism and reliance on dogmas and authority. More than 2,500 years ago the Buddha had set out to free sentient beings from suffering. I think it’s important that the greatest number of people accurately grasp his teachings so that they could more fully and properly receive the fruits of his discovery.

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