Pictures the Cambodian way
With all the kids in town in June 2008 we had a family day. After much
debate about the occasion - we settled on celebrating 166 years of life -
and the form - we settled on stuffing ourselves with limitless quantities of
very good food from a great number of cuisines in a luxurious environment -
we had some pictures taken the Cambodian way.
Actually both activities are very Cambodian. To celebrate that is what
you do here: eat. How we did it is an interesting reflection of our status
in this society. The Regency Cafe of the
intercon, is the kind of environment that the Cambodian elite, the
so-called rich and powerful, those who are said to behave with 'impunity',
would chose. And it is where you meet that other section of local society,
the expats, less rich, but with pay packages that offer
purchasing
power way above anything we could afford at home. When the
school our kids go to organizes
something it tends to be in places like this. Unthinkable at home....
It makes for frequent family debates about how to deal with this. The
father of the family has most trouble enjoying himself in such environments.
But we all know he is an uptight character. And it must be said: The value
for money offered by this Sunday Brunch arrangement beats the usual expat
hang-out offer by a mile. It is odd to realize that the unease with
conspicuous consumption seems to have a lower threshold. it is triggered by
the intercons of this world but less by the fancy, trendy 'our kinda people'
haunts. But that difference is not explainable by what one spends.
Anyway, our next activity, taking some family pictures, turned into a
three hour dress party affair. For the woman this included a make up, hairdo
session of impressive proportions. Cambodian beauty can only be revealed by
covering up, but all who have daughters addicted to
America's next
top model know that the natural look version of this is as much a fake
than the heavy-handed '1950ies' local approach. In line with my taste for
happy-ending B-grade movies I prefer the honesty of the Cambodian approach.
The digital age has added some interesting tools to the box of the
change-over artist: the oldies in the pictures are wrinkle free, and the
backgrounds are all photo-shop works of art.
Because of the time this took, the third activity planned for the day,
karaoke, never materialized.
The Cambodian dream of the Henke family
