State of bewilderment

culture shock - a state of bewilderment and distress experienced by an individual who is suddenly exposed to a new, strange, or foreign social and cultural environment.

In France, I learned about the different stages of culture shock: first you think everything's more or less the same as at home, then you think it's fun that it's different, then you get angry with the differences, then you feel sad, and finally you grow to accept the differences and maybe even adopt some. I don't think I've been going through clear stages here: I've mixed them all up regarding various aspects of life, and I'll probably continue to for a while. But while I don't feel distressed, I have felt bewildered by several phenomena here.

For example, it's rainy season, so on most days, it rains hard in the afternoon or evening. The rain doesn't shock me. But the drain clogs do: even after a moderate storm, Logos' street is often submerged by a few inches. One teaching assistant has a first-floor apartment in a particularly low area (Phnom Penh is mostly flat): her house has been knee-deep in water for weeks now. That means she can't ever put her baby down. Her family has been getting sick as a result, so she stayed behind to teach while her husband, mother, and baby went to stay with relatives in the provinces for a week. They can't afford to move, so they just have to deal with the water several months a year.

Corruption is engrained deeply in Khmer culture, and I think it'll take me years to see how pervasive it is. But one place where it shows is in the school system. This year, as usual, test answers were for sale outside most schools on the day of the national high school exams. Unlike previous years, teachers were supposed to confiscate those booklets and fail students caught cheating. They didn't catch everyone, and probably didn't try to. But the failure rate jumped from almost zero to 80%. Yes, only 20% of students passed the exam this year. One Khmer person pointed out that it's futile to change the high school exit exam when students have never taken a test without cheating during their entire educational career. It continues in college: students routinely bribe teachers so that they can cut classes for weeks at a time and still earn passing grades. As a result, employers value experience over degrees: they have no idea if a prospective employee actually learned anything in college.

House helpers are another source of bewilderment. Most foreign families and wealthier Khmer families have one or more. Rich families have many: a guard or two at the gate, a cook, a chauffeur for their shiny black SUV with the giant "Lexus" logo, a nanny, a Mr. Fix-It guy. House helpers earn about $50-80 a month, but also expect help when they run into difficulties like illness, a moto breakdown, family trouble, etc. In this hierarchical society, they are not just employees but clients under a patron. They're often left in charge of children, but without the real authority to discipline children. So there are children who talk back to their nannies and hit them, and there are many children who do whatever they want when the parents are gone: stay up all night on school nights, watch uncensored TV, whatever.

I'm slowly discovering more about Khmer culture, but hearing about it and even seeing it doesn't mean that I understand it. And that's OK.