Well, I have seriously no idea which food worked as poison to my body, I got a fever for the first time in ten years. Furthermore, it hit the big 40℃, aww! The doubts, which are crossing in very edge of my head, are food I had in Huahin and Bangkok; gigantic raw oysters and raw shrimps. It is probably a bud guy was hiding in those oysters or shrimps. I was fine on the day I came back from Thailand, but right before going to the bed that night, I started to feel a big fatigue. Then, next morning, the situation had gotten worse, I couldn’t even move at all because of high fever and numbness.

Since even I thought it was really bad, I asked Ms. Sayaka to take me to a local doctor. Apparently, this doctor has a good reputation from Japanese people living in this area. Well, a little “fun” story in Cambodia you are waiting for starts from here.

Speaking of seeing a doctor because of sickness, taking blood samples is a first step, isn’t it? As soon as I lay myself on a bed, I realized that a huge fan was located right above myself (look the picture below).

Then, because this fan was spinning so fast and made so much wind, it was so cold for me, you know, I had a fever.

Me: “Excuse me, I’m cold.”
Nurse: “I’m not.”
Me: “??? Well, that (pointing to the fan) makes me cold because of so much air are coming over me.”
Nurse: “I am NOT cold.”
Me: “Well, ok, I AM cold.”
Nurse: “It is because you have a fever.”
Me (talking to myself): “I know that even though you don’t tell me….
Me: “Could you please turn it off? I am seriously cold.”
Nurse: “NO.”
Me (talking to myself): “Seriously!? I am so cold… Brrr….”

(When I looked into the room after I had seen a doctor, the fun was already off. Thank you very much.)

Then, another nurse came and asked me,
Nurse: “Can you speak Korean?”
Me: “No. I don’t understand Korean language because I am a Japanese.”
Nurse: “Oh, you are a Japanese. 門不知、門不知我錯了… (not Japanese language, She said “Sorry I didn’t know” by Chinese language).

Then, the nurse left with a big smile on her face.

While I was waiting at the waiting room after I had seen a doctor, another nurse brought some medicine for me.

Nurse: “Here you are. Take this one.”
Me (talking to myself): “Um…? I got this antipyretic earlier and just took it ‘after I had asked thoroughly two nurses about the details of the medication’. Is it the same one?
Me: “So, what this medication for?”
Nurse: “Antipyretic♪”
Me (talking to myself): “Antipyretic, antipyretic, antipyretic… (it is continuing as an endless loop).
Me: “Well, you guys gave the same thing earlier, so I have taken it already…”
Nurse: “Oops, sorry!”
Doctor: “Ha! Ha! Ha!”

Well, you should be responsible for everything in your life. Everyone, when you are in a developing country, please don’t let your guard down just because you are at a hospital… lol.

Below is what the doctor said. I was sent to the doctor’s room after the blood test had done.
Doctor: “Regarding the result of the blood test… well, the number of your white blood cells are quite large.”
Me: “I see… so?”
Doctor: “White blood cells, do you know what they are?”
Me: “Of course. So, what is wrong with that?”
Doctor: “I am saying that the number of your white blood cells are large. Look at this number. It is higher than the normal number, isn’t it?”
Me: “I DO understand that. So what does it mean exactly if the number is higher than normal?
Doctor: “Well, you probably have inflammation somewhere inside your body. What color your urine was?”
Me: “I don’t know.”
Doctor: “Hah? You know urine, right? Don’t you know what it is?”
Me: “I know what urine is. I am saying I don’t know what the color was.”
Doctor: “You don’t know what the color was…. Why? You didn’t go to pee yet?”
Me: “I did. I just don’t know the color because I didn’t see it.”
Doctor: “Hmmm… you didn’t see the color… Well, it can’t be helped. Open your mouth a little.”
Me: “Ah…(opened my mouth).”
Doctor: “Oh! Your tonsils are so red! This is it! This must be it! Don’t you feel so pain on your throat, do you?”
Me: “Actually, not at all…”
Doctor: “There is no way! It must be so painful because I can see a big inflammation here. Well, it could be the inflammation gets worse later. It is tonsillitis! That is you have right now!”
Me (talking to my self) “Well, I don’t have any sign of a sore throat, but I guess tonsillitis is the one because that is the doctor is saying…”

Anyway, I went back home with some anti-inflammation, antibiotics, and antipyretic. As the doctor said, the pain got harder later.

But, it was a stomachache, not a sore throat… (lol)

Anyway, since I just had continuously diarrhea and vomiting, I went to see a doctor at Royal Angkor Hospital, which is a big and foreign-owned hospital next day. “Entamoeba histolytica” was found by a doctor of the hospital and I was finally and peacefully hospitalized there. Everyone, please be careful not to get food poisoning.

It is a japan-wide consciousness that Japanese people are not good at speaking English. I think one of the major reasons for this symptom is that most of Japanese people think speaking English is embarrassing. For example, the pronunciation for a word of “apple” is “appuru” for Japanese people, so if I pronounced it correctly as “æpl”, I probably would be a target of bullying a little bit.

Since the Japanese-Katakana-English is imprinted into all Japanese people’s subconscious, if you try to pronounce any English words with correct ways, you would be judged as a stuck up person. That is why we, Japanese people, speak English with the pronunciation of the Japanese-Katakana-English. Although all of us know the pronunciation of the Japanese-Katakana-English is incorrect, the tiny warped feeling, such as “it is embarrassing I can’t speak English, but it is more embarrassing if we speak English very well”, is imprinted into our mind unconsciously. It can be said that that is one of the reasons why Japanese people are not able to speak English well even though how hard we learn the grammar or we remember so many vocabularies in our heads.

It can said that this is a kind of honored but evil effect of the Japanese shame in a way.

Well, in Japan, we have a proverb saying “asking is a moment shame, not asking is lifetime shame”. In Cambodia, the locals are very afraid to ask someone about anything, it is like asking is a shame for them. They look like they hate asking like a psycho in our eyes. In order to bear their heads high, they completely focus on one particular thought, which is “I don’t want anyone to think I am stupid. I don’t want anyone to think I am poor”. Because of this thought, they hate asking so much, they don’t even ask quote of a product, for example. Let’s say that you asked a quote for something and you didn’t buy it. Cambodians automatically judge you as “you didn’t buy it because you don’t have money”. In fact, if you ask a price without buying, people would say, “that guy is so poor” behind your back. It is a helpless reality in Cambodia.

Moreover, if you are telling a story Cambodians don’t understand well, however they say, “I understand that, actually I know that already”. I have so many experiences such as a tuktuk driver get lost because they say, “Ok, get on”, instead of asking me the directions. “Not knowing” and “not understanding” are biggest shames for them, that is why they never say, “I don’t know”.

I know this fact sounds so ridiculous in general. However, this shame of sense is imprinted into their DNA like Japanese people’s shame which I noted at the beginning of this blog. It is very hard to get rid of this imprinting. They face a dilemma of “they don’t understand it unless they ask. But they don’t want to ask it, so they just stay ignorant. They know they are ignorant but still they don’t ask because they don’t want anyone to think he/she is ignorant”. Furthermore, since they act like they know what they actually don’t know, any cases tend to become so complicated like you get lost in a labyrinth.

Yes, it is like a tuktuk keeps running toward somewhere impossible even though I confirmed the direction with a driver.

Anyway, I think Japanese people are able to be good at English if we keep speaking it by being beyond all sense of shame. So I am pretty sure that if Cambodian ask questions to others without the feeling of shame, no one thinks Cambodians are ignorant anymore. Well, we have a proverb, “the leopard cannot change his spots”, so it is probably hard to change their nature, I guess. I am just wondering that any other countries have these kind of shame or not.

As a truck crashed into a utility pole on the way to Siem Reap from our neighboring country, Thailand last evening, and whole of the city has a blackout for all day. It is very hard for people who live in developed countries to believe this kind of incident happens in reality. Just two years ago, the similar incident happed as well, and the electricity of the whole city (it actually expanded four states in Cambodia) was out over four days. Since we couldn’t take a shower, not to speak of a toilet because there was no power to draw the groundwater up, we were forced to move one resort hotel to another in Siem Reap for a while. Well, let me introduce some unexpected events in Cambodia I have ever had here.

When I put my four-wheel drive JEEP with a stick shift out for repair, it came back to me as a two-wheel drive automatic car. Moreover, they were supposed to repair it in a week, but it actually took more than three months for repair.

I purchased a bulldozer with a driver. The driver said to me, “I haven’t got full-payment yet from the previous owner, so please pay that money to me”. Moreover, He took the important parts of the bulldozer out and run away with them, and demand a ransom later.

Since the neighboring farmers did the burn off the dead grass, the mountain fires happened and my farm land was burned over tens of thousands square meters (it actually happened two years in a row). When I reported in to the police, they said, “Take the criminals here, then we will arrest them”.

When I visited my farm unexpectedly, a whole people of the neighboring village came to the farm by a dump truck to steal the potatoes. The manager, who was a living-in worker of our farm at that time, probably planned and let the people, I guess.

The portable safety box, which was located inside the locked drawer, was stolen in a daytime. Of course, one of our employee stole it and she said to me, “Let me borrow your money because I don’t have any money to give the money I’ve taken with the safe back to you”.

The police arrested the other employee and we brought the guy to a court for a criminal trial. While the defendant statement was going on, the cell phone of the judge went off for three times and the judge answered it and said, “Hello, I am kind of busy right now”. Of course, the court workers told all of us were to turn our cell phone off during the trial.

When one of my friends was doing some processes to obtain a visa at Phnom Penh International Airport, the worker gave my friend’s passport away to a guy who didn’t have any relation to the visa process. The guy used my friend’s passport to enter Cambodia without any problem. The immigrant let my friend enter to Cambodia without his passport because they said, “ok, you can enter because it can’t be helped”. My friend somehow was able to contact the guy who took his passport and the passport came back to him. Well, my friend is the age of late thirties and the guy who took his passport is the age of sixties. We have no idea how the immigrant was able to miss this age difference.

When I was going to put my car for repair in order to fix the brake, the only break part they had found was a second-hand. Meanwhile I was telling them that I didn’t want any Cambodia’s second-hands, there was a call from the repair service, which said, “We have found one brand new part”. So, I asked them to change the parts immediately, but they couldn’t because the model of my car was year 2009, but the parts was year 2010. They disassembled and alternated it, and tried to put it onto the break part somehow, but it failed. Even though they didn’t fix my car, they sent a bill to charge me the fee of the parts.

Fortune-telling is very important for Cambodians, especially for the marriage. When I was going to marry my wife, the wife’s parents said to me, “The Chinese year of our daughter is the rooster and the fortune-telling is saying if she didn’t marry this year, she won’t be able to marry next four years”. Of course I wanted to show my respect to the Cambodian culture as much as possible and I didn’t have any disagreement, but the only problem was that her Chinese year was the dog, not the rooster.

Well, I am enjoying my Cambodian life with the events with a little giggle and the serious events, which are not even funny. Be honest with you, only a few times in a year, I ask myself, “Hey, what the hell I am doing here with such troubles?” But…, I don’t think I am able to quit this inspiring life once I have experienced…

Well, what can I say but in Cambodia, I very often encounter the sceneries that takes my breath away.

Of course very much often it takes my breath away with another reason as well. Such as the site like this “low-rider-van-with-heavy-load-of-eggs-driving-bumpy road”. As they load more eggs, it lower the van and there will be more broken eggs. You see this great logic?

Well but anyway. Life in Siem Reap of course is different as a life in Japan or U.S. where you can have anything you want. But living in the place where world heritage monuments are scattered around my house is actually quite valuable.

I can visit Angkor wat ruins with inexpensive but great tasted red wine and foie gras that I buy from a french restaurant close to my house and on the way to there, I see gorgeous site of rice terrace with sun shining down. Then I say to myself “how beautiful Cambodia today as well” then I go back to my house seeing magnificent sunset view. I don’t know what you say but I can say this life is “very rich” in a different level as we live in Tokyo or New york or Paris.

Sometime people ask me if I’m ever going back to Japan or live in Cambodia rest of my life. But in fact, I have no idea. I don’t think I will live in Cambodia for good. However I don’t think I’m going back to Japan either. Ideally I will be living in the new place where I can feel new level of “rich”ness that are different as I felt in Japan or Cambodia.

Um… but for now I just want that wine and cheese picnic basket I saw on Amazon.