Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Been in Cambodia Too Long ???

Been in Cambodia Too Long ???


Barangs
How do you know when you are becoming Khmer

  • You wake up in the night with cravings for prohok.
  • You start smiling and looking happy at work.
  • You can sleep on top of a moto.
  • You find yourself sitting on your balcony wearing a yellow string vest, chewing a toothpick and wearing a sarong.
  • There are always foot prints on the toilet seat at your house.
  • You would date Herman Munsters twin sister providing she had white skin and a pointy nose.
  • You buy a set of curtains and then fit them in your cars windows.
  • You have a mobile phone which is worth more than your house.
  • You feel the need to walk around with your t-shirt pulled up to just under your nipples.
  • You would rather eat offal soup and some durian than a Big Mac and fries.
  • You go to work wearing a three piece suit and a pair of flip flops.
  • You have just spent your life savings on a fluffy white pedigree lap dog.
  • You show off your expensive tastes by mixing super saver cola pop with fifteen year old malt whiskey.
  • You start buying your cigarettes three at a time.
  • You’ve sold your Cartier to buy an oversized BA Barackeresque emerald ring and a watch that looks like you won it at a fair ground.
  • If you won $100,000,000 on the lottery you buy a Toyota Prado with cream leather trim and have your wife gold plated.
  • You’d rather sit outside your apartment playing cards with a stack of hundred riel notes than sit inside watching CNN.


Khmers
How do you know you are becoming a Barrang?
  • You pay $1 for a moto-dop from Happy Herb Pizza to the F.C.C.
  • You stop getting drunk after downing two glasses of beer
  • You put your money in a bank rather than in a wall cavity
  • You stop wearing a thick woolly sweater whenever the temperature drops below 35 degrees
  • Thin dark skinned girls from Tekeo start looking attractive.
  • You start adding “Arcoont jeeran” to the end of every sentence.
  • Short fat men with fluffy stick on eye-brows and caveman wigs hitting each other with plastic water bottles cease to be funny.
  • You are asked at least four times a day if you would like to go to the killing fields, shooting range or a lady museum.
  • The price of everything seems to have mysteriously gone up by 300%.
  • That plate of boiled pigs foot and rice porridge stops tasting so good.
  • You stop speaking to your mother and just send her a Christmas card every other year when you’re skint.
  • It becomes clear it’s all a conspiracy and no one is above suspicion.
  • You get asked if you want to hire a motodop when you’re sitting on your own Daelim.
  • Durian starts smelling like shit.
  • At parties and weddings raising your glass and saying cheers every fifteen seconds starts to feel excessive.
  • You decide to cut off the impeccably maintained one inch fingernail from your pinky.