Something I didn’t much expect from moving here was to have a curious sense of having left a struggling country for a prosperous one. Cambodia is by no means wildly successful, it is very much a “developing” nation, but it also epitomizes the word and I suspect nowhere is this more evident than in PP.
The middle class is booming here; there’s nearly the same kind of suburban sprawl and endless McMansion building that you’d find, say, two years ago in Atlanta. Miniaturized, sure, but instantly recognizable.
This is a country, after all, where the annual economic growth rate over the last decade has hovered around 10 percent. And during this upcoming crisis year of 2009, when the last vestiges - those who haven’t been touched by the collapses in the West - are expected to give out, Cambodia is expected to swing a 5 percent growth rate.
So what this means, besides the fact that conspicuous consumption towers (even in label-conscious Quito, I don’t remember seeing luxury SUVs with “Lexus” emblazoned in two-foot type across the entire body), that new banks are opening all the time, and foreign cash is (somewhat) pouring in is that the lifestyle contrasts appear in starker relief. A sturdy middle-class and a flaunting wealthy class doesn’t equal an end to children being sold into prostitution, toddlers used to beg money, rampant health problems, high illiteracy, lingering refugees and maimed survivors. Whether money forces changes at an institutional level has yet to be seen.
On a slightly more trivial note: this might be the only place on Earth right now where a daily newspaper with no Web site can actually afford to grow its staff.
Below: fancy cars outside the local snooker and footrub joint. I’ll post more photos soon so you can understand just how insanely out of place this building is.
