The Kindness of Strangers

I know I've missed a few weeks in there, but something happened to me today that spurred me to take up the pen again, as it were.

I'm in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.  It was my first full day today.  I started by walking around looking for a temple.  I chose a smallish sidestreet with some market stalls along it as a shortcut.  While walking down the street, an Asian man approached me and said, "Hey cool shirt, where did you get it?" I figured he was just a tuktuk or motobike driver trying to get a fare.  I told him I got it in Thailand and was a tad cold to him until he mentioned that he was from Malaysia just here visiting family for his brother's wedding.  I told him I had been to Kuala Lumpur a few weeks prior and we talked for a bit about what I had been doing traveling and about his cousin who was going to go work in the US for a few years.  We talked about Kuala Lumpur and he said he worked in the Petronas Towers and if I was going back I could visit their house and he would take me up the towers.  After awhile he invited me to come meet his family.  Why not?  I was a bit suspicious but everything he said seemed to make sense and their questions for me weren't that strange.  What was I doing in Korea, how long was I traveling, what did I study, etc.  All normal questions to ask travelers.  His name was Mel and his uncle ("Call me Papa," he said) was shopping at the stalls and after he was done we hopped on a motorbike and headed to the uncle's house.  He said he was a retired electrical engineer and had been in Cambodia for almost 20 years.  The house was quite nice.  Spacious with intricately-carved wooden furniture.  I met a few women who said how handsome I was and everyone was kind and spoke English well.  We sat down to eat some lunch and chat.  It was all quite gracious and I was having a nice time.  One of Mel's older brothers came while we were eating and he ate with me and Mel went to do something else.  We just chatted introductory stuff.  I asked him about himself and his family and his work, which he told me was in a casino as a table manager for blackjack.  Then we talked about some other random things and went into the living room to hang out and wait for the cousin who was going to work in the US as a physical therapist and they were hoping I could give her some advice about it all.  The TV was on playing some Kevin Costner movie I had never heard of which I was half-watching during short lulls in the conversation.  At some point a small, yet huge, child came into the room.  He was less than two years old but quite big and funny.  He walked around on stubby legs before leaving and coming back on a small motorbike making vrooom sounds and I messed around with him a bit, putting my sunglasses on him which he found amazing.  Somehow we got back on the topic of the casino that the older brother worked at and I was curious about it.  He mentioned he knew how to count cards because of the training they received and I was curious about that as well.  He then asked if I wanted to see it in action and I said sure.  So he went to another room and set up a table and got some cards.  So we went in there and pretended it was a blackjack table with six seats and said, "Ok, pick a seat and I'll give you exactly the cards I want."  So I picked one and he dealt out the hand face down to all the absent players and the house.  "Ok, you have a blackjack."  I looked and, sure enough, there was an ace and a king.  Wow, pretty cool.  We did it again and I kept the same seat.  Again, he told me the exact cards I had and the cards that the dealer all, all while they were face down.  I switched to another seat and he did it again, and again, without fail.  Watching him before the deal, you would never know he was counting cards.  It truly was an astonishing trick.  I'd never seen card counting in real life before.  At this point the uncle was in the room too and acting just as amazed as I was.  Then he started talking about how he could give signals and such to me if I were playing to help me win.  Out of nowhere, it hits me like a ton of bricks:  This was all a setup to this moment.  They found a traveler wandering around alone who presumably looked like he could use some money.  Talked and chatted and made nice.  Made up some thing about a cousin going to the US after I had told him I was from there.  Rode to the house, made me feel so welcome, gave me lunch, we chatted.  I had been having a great time and I was honestly amazed by his ability but, all of a sudden, I realized he was actually offering to give me a few hundred dollars and help me cheat his own casino into winning a few thousand and then splitting it with him.  Woah.

Before I had felt so comfortable, but quickly I felt used and quite uncomfortable and everything that had happened flashed before me again and I noticed other details that didn't quite add up.  After we had gotten on the motorbike, Mel had made a phone call.  Not that strange but I'm sure he was just calling his brother to tell him to head home because they "found one."  Also, looking back, some of the lengths of time they mentioned didn't add up.  Also, relations seemed to switch around from uncle or brother or brother-in-law, or sister to cousin.  Most of the people being talked about weren't there so I couldn't keep track anyway.  At this point, I just said I don't think I could do something like that.  They asked why and I said well it seems dangerous and it's cheating.  He replied it was fine because he had just proven how good he was at it (true) and that he was a manager at the casino and he wouldn't even be the one dealing.  It all sounded good in principal, but when you're in the most corrupt country in the world (truly, a ranking system placed Cambodia on the top of the list), it sounded more than a bit risky.  And I'm not exactly hurting for cash.  I replied again that I just couldn't do it and I was sorry.  He told me not to be sorry and it was fine.  "You have good morals, because you are a teacher!" they said with a kind laugh.  They didn't pressure me any more, which I was grateful for, but almost immediately they pulled out a brochure for some orphanage that the uncle "supported" and said something about giving whatever my heart could manage.  I'm not sure what actually happened to the money, but I put $5 in an envelope for them.  A little bit out of fear, a little bit because I didn't want to offend them, and I also figured they had given me lunch (which had been worth $5).  So with not much further talk, the uncle offered to drive me to my next destination, the genocide museum, if I paid $2 for gas.  I gladly accepted and we headed off.  I thanked the rest of them for their hospitality and we exchanged email addresses.  Who knows, if I come back to Cambodia some day, I'll bring a suit and think about trying to cheat a casino out of thousands of dollars.

I'd like to say that the rest of the day was uneventful, but the genocide museum detailing some of the acts by the Khmer Rouge was anything but.

Reflecting on this experience, I'm not entirely disappointed.  On the one hand, I had decided to trust a stranger in the hopes that their generosity and inquisitions were genuine.  After all, isn't that the best way to meet and get to know the locals (never mind they were actually from Malaysia)?  One the other hand, although I had a somewhat sketchy experience, it still turned out to be an interesting (and safe) experience.

Ohhhh traveling!