Culture is defined as the whole of customary beliefs, social forms, attitudes, behavior patterns, values, goals, and practices socially transmitted and shared by a group of people. It encompasses many of the ideas and values that will eventually help to define us, how we act towards others, and what we value. These aspects, in turn, will affect how others perceive us and judge our character. However, culture is also something that is constantly changing. The culture in which we are raised is not necessarily the same culture in which we will raise our own children. We can change our culture and affect the character of others around us.
I grew up in American culture and now live among other expatriates in Cambodia. It could be said that I am a part of many cultures. However, the one I perhaps most closely identify with is as an expatriate. We can be distinguished apart from tourists and visiting volunteers by our comfortable, yet practical, work attire, our ability to navigate through our local towns with purpose and certainty, and our ability to feel comfortable around people from completely different cultures. However, because we come from more developed nations, we are often patronizing or paternalistic towards local people in Cambodia. Our access to resources and choice of lifestyles often makes expatriates feel like we are more important than we really are. This is a part of my culture I would like to change.
Many expatriates are simply uncomfortable doing everyday tasks themselves without the modern conveniences afforded to them in their countries of origin. Without a vacuum cleaner, many people don’t know how to clean their floors. Without a washing machine, some people know nothing about how to wash their own clothes by hand. Others still feel uncomfortable going into open-air markets to buy groceries. They struggle with judging the quality of food and are uncertain of the correct prices. Because it is cheap to do so when compared to their home countries, many expatriates take to paying locals to do these simple jobs. Because they pay someone else to do simple everyday jobs for them, they begin to treat the local people like their servants instead of their peers and equals.
When I first moved to Cambodia, there was only a handful of expatriates living in Battambang, and I was forced to quickly meet local people and ask for help. However, as I did have access to more money than most Cambodian people, I still hired people to clean my apartment, wash my clothes, and cook my meals. It was only after I married a Cambodian girl that she forced me to start helping with laundry, washing dishes, and cleaning our home to save money.
As I began to work independently from larger NGOs, I came more and more to depend on the local experience in developing projects to help serve the Cambodian people. I learned that much of the knowledge I learned in America is not useful in Cambodia and that I need to value local knowledge and figure out how best to work in partnership with the Cambodian people instead of simply expecting them to help me accomplish my goals. My purpose now in Cambodia is to use my education and access to resources to support local people who have a passion to make our home and country a better place.
I believe that other expatriates can learn to do what I did by encouraging older expatriates to invest more time in helping newer expatriates learn to quickly adapt and to create opportunities for other expatriates to spend time with local people, build relationships with them, and learn to do things like local people do. I need to invest myself in others whom I want to see make changes, and this means proactively teaching new expatriates to go to the market, to drive around town, and introducing them to local people. I need to encourage them to learn to suffer a little and learn to do chores themselves, even when they are capable of paying others to do it. I know that I will run into opposition from others because it is convenient to simply pay someone else to do our work. It may be difficult for some people to treat Cambodians as equals simply because the level of academic learning is higher in other countries; however, I need to exhort others to recognize that Cambodians are just as smart, and often more practical. That these qualities should be given equal value to the qualities of those who were given different opportunities.
I know that overcoming a negative perception of local people will be a difficult task, but I believe it is a serious part of expatriate culture that needs to be changed. I will need to draw upon my own experiences as an expatriate and look for ways to encourage others to have the same experiences and learning opportunities I had. And I will need to think of new ways to encourage other expatriates to learn not to be dependent on Cambodian people so that they learn to treat Cambodian people as equals, and so that all together we can make a positive impact on Cambodia.
