It is like Apples vs. Mangos
For those of you who don’t know, my sister is amazing and coordinated a ton of letters and notes from friends and family before I left so that I could get a message of love and encouragement about every other day this year. It has been a major blessing for me this year. A while ago, I opened a note from Mo with a blog post request. She asks two things:
“What do you think Americans have the most in common with Cambodians?
What language are you speaking the most these days? a. English, b. Khmer, c. German”
I can answer the second with ease: Khmenglish, usually with a stronger emphasis on the English
The first question, however, has been working in my mind and every observation for about two weeks. It is so hard to explain; it is like comparing apples and oranges, except in Cambodia, oranges are, in fact, green. So maybe a better comparison would be American apples and Cambodian mangos. So that is how I have decided to begin to approach this answer.
If I ask you to think of an apple, it is probably very easy for you. You can imagine a fist-sized red, green, or golden fruit with a crisp crunch and that sweet or sour tang that floods your senses after that first bite. It is likely that, you probably know where one is within the building you are in, and you for sure know where to buy them in your local grocery. Now, if I ask you to think of a mango, you probably have a pretty good idea of what it is or at least what it tastes like, but you likely found it more of a challenge than the apple to think up on command. If you are like me, before I came to Cambodia, you know it as that bright orange fruit flesh that is in a lot of smoothies and dessert type things and that you can buy at most grocery stores in dried strips.
A similar, but opposite thing will happen in Cambodia. See, apples in Cambodia are the more “exotic’ of this pairing. The apples here (unless you frequent an expensive, city-based, western grocery store in Phnom Penh) are about half the size of the apples you can find in the states, are not crisp (though not mushy) and while they have a sweetness to them, it is a shadow of the taste of apples in the USA. However, the idea of a mango in Cambodia is as beautifully more delicious than the American idea of a mango in a way that puts the superiority of the American apple ideal to shame. In Cambodia, there are so many mangos and so many ways to eat them, and none of them are quite like American mangos. When you eat a mango here, it is firm, sweet, tangy, and quenching or sour, crisp, and surprising. It is something that I will never be able to do justice describing because no matter how hard you try, when I talk to you about Cambodian mangos, you will go to the mangos you know and try to imagine them better, in the same way that Cambodians will understand American apples as the apples they know only better, and really, they are just different.
Obviously, there are some things in common between apples and mangos just as there are between Americans and Cambodians. Apples and mangos are both fruits and therefore share certain characteristics just by being. For example, they can both be sweet or sour and are both tangy, they come in a variety of sizes and colors, and they both can be stand alone snacks, in a meal , or part of dessert. Whereas Americans and Cambodians share commonalities that I consider parts of human nature - smiling at/protecting/loving kids, friendships and family playing important roles in people’s lives, love, trust, faith and religion, community, overuse of smart phones and tablets, etc. - but even these shared traits can take very different forms. It becomes difficult to recognize the similarities when you dive to deep into the beauty of these manifestations.
However, after a lot of thought and speculation, I have decided to delve into the fruity flesh of the similarities for what I have decided to call “Sunday Life.” I chose this term because two things that the internet and television tell me (as well as my life experiences growing up in the USA) are most commonly associated with Sundays are church and football (or is it better just to go with sports? this is the place where my personal experiences leave me short). While Sunday in Cambodia (or really anything in Cambodia) is not at all generally affiliated with church or football, the phrase stands.
In the USA, there are many devout christians and many more who go to church for Christmas and Easter. This is not a judgement on either of those groups of people, just a fact. Similarly in Cambodia, there are many devout buddhists, but (based on conversations and my experiences here) I would venture to guess that there are also many more who only go on holidays. Probably the biggest difference here (other than the religion itself) is that there are only two major Christian holidays, while there are 23 Cambodian national holidays (where even the “secular” ones tend to send people to the pagoda).
As for the football element, it is pretty simple. In the USA, there are people who will watch every football game, on TV or from the stands, who know the players, and who know all about everything to do with football. We also have the people who couldn't care less about football and middle ground people, like me, who don’t really watch anything but the Superbowl (and maybe Thanksgiving) and have loyalties to our home teams because that is where we happen to be. Regardless of where each individual fits in the spectrum, it would be difficult to find somebody who didn’t have a basic idea of football or hasn’t seen at least part of at least on football game (even if it was just a thanksgiving episode on Friends). Here, in Cambodia, the football equivalent is Kun Khmer (Cambodian boxing - same as Muay Thai). Most peole at least see it occasionally while others watch it regularly. Restaurants will usually have it on TV if they have a TV and Cambodian Idol isn't on. Cambodians have a ranging interest in Kun Khmer that I believe is very similar to that of American football fans interest in American football.
Obviously, there are a lot of things I could delve more into and make comparisons about between Khmer and American culture, but also, it is important to recognize the mango as a mango and the apple as an apple. By appreciating the unique features of both, while recognizing their similarities, we come out with something even better.
Peace,
Sav