Cambodia: The Wedding Party

We are led to our table

Why Not smiles across the table.

On my last day in Siem Reap the owner of Angkor Wonder Hostel, where I was staying, invited me to come to a wedding party which would be on later that night.  That evening I came down to the lobby to find nine other travelers that he had asked to come as well.  He (his name is pronounced and self-spelled "Why Not"--also his favorite English catch phrase) already had tuk-tuk drivers waiting and they sped us off into the night for a fifteen or twenty minute ride to a tented area on the outskirts of the city.

We didn't know at the time who was getting married exactly, nor do I think the other guests expected to see us show up.  However, when we did, we were immediately welcomed warmly and ushered to a table.  Why Not and a server brought us bottles of Angkor beer, and before we could even begin to say thank you, told us to drink lots and whenever we wanted more, just to ask.  "Please enjoy yourselves," he said.  "I want you to feel this is your home."  The first round of food soon came out, an assorted meat platter, salad, fish.  The bride and groom came over to meet us, looking lovely and flush.  I looked around at the people--men in their suits, women with their hair done up, make up and their best dresses, and it occurred to me how special it must be for them to have an opportunity to do themselves up like that.  Most people are just doing what they can to get by each day and don't have the time or necessarily a reason to do anything beyond the necessities.

After awhile a musician took the small stage at the other end of the tent and Why Not encouraged us all to go dance.  "We should go dance?" we asked.  "Yes! Why not?" said our host.  Some of us mumbled something about needing a few more beers first, but people were heading to the dancing area already with drinks in hand so we really didn't have an excuse.  Thereafter ensued an hour or two of a hot, sweaty and incredibly memorable circle dance 'round and 'round a table while multiple singers took the stage.  Cambodian song filled the air and us travelers slowly found the rhythm of the dance.  The Cambodians, far from being apprehensive or resentful to these foreigners having appeared at their wedding party, seemed delighted and we all danced together until we were exhausted.  I was trying to emulate the hand movements the Cambodians were doing and soon some of the guys there about my age came up beside me and showed me how to go about it, as well as the foot work.  A wonderful experience--I'll never forget it.

The happy couple

Blurry shot of the festivities

But why did it cross my mind at first that they might be resentful to foreigners coming to the wedding party like that?  I suppose this meditation is as good a way as any to finish my writings about the country, so here's the reason:  when someone travels to Cambodia, they usually come as a very rich individual.  I sat beside a man on a bus who told me "we think foreigners are like kings," because we always come bearing so much money to spend.  When you travel there you are constantly being accosted on the street by tuk-tuk drivers hoping you'll need a ride some place, by (self-employed) tour guides, by restaurant employees calling you to come eat at their restaurant, by shop staff, beggars, anybody hoping to exchange something (or in some cases not) for some of the money in your wallet.  Additionally, even in a shop it's regular to haggle down the price of any given item, no matter how cheap the cost is in terms of the amount of money you could afford to spend.  That's what we do to not feel like we're constantly being "screwed" out of our money there, however little money that may actually amount to back in our home countries.  But even besides this, the fact of the matter is that so many people living in the areas tourists frequent grow up and then live day to day in a state of virtual servitude to foreigners for what may be enough money to just get by for them, but for which many of them know often amounts to chump change for us.  For people all over Cambodia, such is what their lives have amounted to--no more upward mobility.  So many of us grow up living, and live, lives of prosperity and opportunity that they can barely dream of.  We travel through their country easily, yet never will most of them be able to save up enough to get on an airplane and do the same in ours.  Not in their entire lives.  And then, that night, the ten of us are offered free rides to a wedding party, given free beer and fed free food, the same, and as much, as everyone else is recieving, but all on their dime.

And to me that goes beyond hospitality.  Sometimes travel shows you the best in people.