Var’s New Home & Other Stories
If you’re lucky enough to travel, meeting people from entirely different cultures, with entirely different lives, is one of the many privileges. It broadens the mind, is stimulating, educational and humbling, and puts our own lives into a different perspective. Here we continue our short series of posts telling the stories of some of the people we met on our recent tour of South East Asia.
Life is never quite as straightforward as it seems: there is another side to every story. Sitting outside the floating house in Prek Toal and talking with a relaxed and disarmed Var, our guide and companion, was absolutely enlightening. His story is no doubt just one of many, but it’s a reminder of just how life out here really is, when you peer beneath the surface.
Var isn’t the only person we’ve listened to and learned from. Apart from the specifics of Var’s story, we will avoid attributing other quotes to any one individual, because, as we’ve learnt in these conversations, you never know who’s listening in countries such as these and it pays to be careful.
We mentioned in a previous post how the dead years of the pandemic were put to good use at Angkor Wat, where tourist buildings have been bulldozed to make way for replanting of forests and then rebuilt a distance away from the temples. All this seemed laudable until we heard Var’s story, the other side of the coin. It goes like this.
“My oldest daughter is unhappy”, he says, “because she has to make new friends in our new village. She did not want to move to new house and lose her friends”.
“Ah yes”, we agree, “it’s tough on your children when you choose to move”.
“We did not choose”, he says quietly.
Var, his wife and their five children, lived until recently in a village less than one kilometre from Angkor Wat temple. As part of the Government’s plans for redevelopment of the tourism area, his village has been forcibly evacuated and their homes destroyed, with just a few weeks’ notice. Every family in the village has suffered the same fate, there is now not a single building left just a few weeks after the community’s fate was sealed and the notice served.
Var’s compensation was…..nothing. He has been given a tiny plot of land and some free issue corrugated metal sheets from which to build a family home: no money, no further assistance of any kind. What’s more, the “new village” to which they and others have been relocated, has been cleared in readiness by the Government. What this means in reality is that they’ve chopped down all the trees and flattened the land. Var’s new home and new “village” is a barren plot with no natural shelter from the blazing sun, no shade, no protection. It’s over twenty kilometres from Siem Reap.
Suddenly all he has in the world is a few corrugated metal sheets. With a wife and five children to feed, and a pandemic which deprived him of a living for over two years, life has changed immeasurably through no fault of his own. During the pandemic, Var worked, ironically, on building the new toilet blocks at the Angkor Wat development. And loaded coconuts on to trucks. Of his five children, four are still school age, and Var has to pay for books, pens, pencils and food as none of this is paid for by Government.
“Why have they destroyed your village?”, asks Michaela, “what will they do with the land?”
“Nobody will say” he replies, “but somebody told me that a big hotel will be built there. Big resort. Something to make money”.
He shows us a picture of his oldest daughter and looks sad. “I can do nothing, but we have to survive. It will be OK one day I hope”.
Back in Siem Reap we had talked with others. The trouble with my country, one said, is that we aren’t really independent, we are being run by China. Our Government takes money from China, lets China build, lets China run what is built and then take all the profit to China. Our Government are called the People’s Party but they don’t care about the people, just about their pockets.
These are parallels with what we heard in Vietnam, where one man ridiculed the “free education and medical care” which is a theoretical principle of the Communist Government. His opinion was that, if you live in a major city, those two things are indeed provided free, but for the huge numbers living in a rural setting, there is no access to either, and no funding to reach medical care when it is needed. In reality neither education nor medicine is provided free to the vast majority of the population: it may be provided free, but it’s not available free, not for them.
Another told us that their country – we won’t say which of the two – is built on corruption. No matter what the law states, or what the principles are, the rich can get what they want if they know how much to bribe and who to pay the bribe to. And in both countries, we have heard the opinion that what China wants, China gets. Money talks, Chinese money shouts loudest.
“Our President has an official salary of 4,000 dollars per month. He has just bought a villa for 2 million dollars. You can see the problem.”
Yet another spoke openly of his concern about the level control of South East Asia which is effectively in the hands of Beijing. In his opinion the western world is too complacent, too timid. Remember, he says, that China has supported Communist uprisings in Indochina no matter how extreme – even, disturbingly, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge. Now, those Governments which have accepted Chinese help with rebuilding economies are too deeply indebted, financially, to China to be genuinely free of control, and dare not betray or even upset their all too powerful neighbour.
“The world should be more afraid of China”, one said, “they are in control”.
Var is freelance now, the tour company say they can’t keep him on a salary until tourism returns to pre-pandemic levels – he had been on a salary for ten years with the same company before 2020. His salary has gone and now his home has been taken from him. He has his family to feed. We don’t know how much of our Prek Toal tour fee ended up in Var’s pocket, but we suspect it wasn’t much.
As we say goodbye, I press a decent tip into his hand, more than we would ever normally give, and leave him to find how much it is after we’ve gone. Later, he WhatsApp’s a photo of himself with his youngest son and a big pile of food he’s been able to buy with the money we’ve given him. The young lad is giving a thumbs up.
That was one selfie we didn’t mind receiving.
27 Comments
Monkey's Tale
It’s horrible. Simialrbthingsbare happening in Nepal. They used to have a great relationship with India who often lent the government money. But then China started offering large loans with no interest, but of course there are very big strings attached to that money. And I think also in Laos.
grandmisadventures
how heartbreaking to be moved out of your home with no help or assistance beyond some sheets of metal to build a life on a barren plot. So many stories of so much sadness but what a moving tribute to them that you share their stories with us.
Helen Devries
Check what happens in Sri Lanka….build a port on Chinese loans, cannot pay, port now available as a Chinese naval base.
Here in Costa Rica, so long one of the U.S.A.’s satrapys, the Arias government sold out to China and in the decade following Chinese business has moved in without check.
You know when the Chinese have taken hold in a country…you get a new sports stadium as a gift.
Phil & Michaela
And the world sits back and pretends it’s not happening
Helen Devries
Look at Africa! Another Chinese naval base coming up on the Horn of Africa……huge infrastructure deals in Latin America….don’t fancy the world under Chinese rule.
Phil & Michaela
It’s the way we’re headed as long as the world sits on his hands
Andrew Petcher
China seems rather sinister to me.
Phil & Michaela
To say the least
Toonsarah
That’s awful for those uprooted locals, especially as Angkor Wat looked perfectly fine to me, with no local homes too close at all. And yes, the Chinese are buying influence and favours everywhere. In Laos, near Luang Prabang, they are paying for the construction of a railway that is cutting through farmland and wild habitats.
Phil & Michaela
There are so many examples. It’s a huge threat and the world is just sitting back and pretending it’s not true
Lookoom
We’d like to come up with solutions, but all we have is compassion. These poorly governed countries are a disgrace to humanity.
Mike and Kellye Hefner
More examples of the unfairness of life but the determination of the people is heartwarming.
Alison
Shocking and so sad. So good you are writing these posts and asking questions. People need to be more aware of this. It’s as if you’re between a rock and a hard place, to go and spend your money helping the economy or don’t go in protest. I know I would go and help out in small ways as you both do. Keep writing and informing 🙂
Phil & Michaela
Thanks Ali, there are big lessons to learn everywhere, it seems
Suzanne@PictureRetirement
Great piece. The enemy doesn’t always walk through the front door.
Phil & Michaela
Indeed so
WanderingCanadians
It’s sad to hear how Var and the rest of his village were relocated with not much warning and that they weren’t given much to rebuild their homes or community. I can’t even begin to imagine how to process and deal with that.
Phil & Michaela
Autocratic Government…..
Joe
Var’s story seems all to common in this post-pandemic world, where government corruption and autocracy in these poor countries cannot be put down. Our conversations with locals in such countries suggest that tourism has started to return, but still lags behind pre-pandemic levels. What have you observed?
Phil & Michaela
Oh there’s definitely an upswing but things aren’t yet back to pre-pandemic levels. In Asia there were plenty of Aussies and Americans (and Koreans come to that) and a smattering of mainland Europeans, mainly Dutch and German, but we didn’t come across a single Brit until we reached Singapore. Plus of course, the Chinese still don’t have free movement so the lack of Chinese tourists leaves a huge hole as far as South East Asia is concerned.
Joe
Interesting about the Brits, and the lack of Chinese must be a huge factor. Thanks!
lexklein
Ugh, yes, and in other countries in the region, China is building large infrastructure projects … and then making the local population pay for them (for years on end and with accrued interest, of course, as there is not much money to pay them with). Infuriating.
Phil & Michaela
It’s a huge threat to us all in our opinion
wetanddustyroads
Oh, it’s sad to read Var’s story (and that of his village). We often do not know “the other side” (and probably the true side) of the story other than what is presented in the media. Corruption is a reality worldwide – I need look no further than my own country. At the end of the day, the poor are poorer and the rich richer … how does that work? Thank you for what you’ve done for Var – however small it may seem, you have definitely made a difference. And thank you for telling the story.
Latitude Adjustment: A Tale of Two Wanderers
This is sad and the fact that the world is not paying attention to what China is doing is mind boggling. China is on a fast track to being the next super power and it won’t be good.
Phil & Michaela
The world is sitting on its hands f*cking around with things that really don’t matter while China is taking over huge parts of the world, crushing the weak to increase their power. Sadly most Western leaders are a joke.
Annie Berger
Can’t do more than echo the outrage we all feel about what China is doing to less developed and/or poorer countries. It’s travesty what they’ve done and also no less a travesty at how Western leaders are turning a blind eye to it.