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| I didn't see a single cow in Bali |
I had taken my breakfast onto the balcony when the phone rang. It was Thornin and he was standing across the road. He was going to eat outside so I put everything back into the fridge and joined him. My neighbours downstairs cook breakfast and lunch for local people. We sat at tables, set up on the pavement, and had bbq'd pork and rice. It comes with a small bowl of soup and a little dish of pickles, plus a glass of tea. In all local eating places in Cambodia tea is free. As a tea drinker it's a great treat. In Canada I order tea and I'm brought a tea pot and mug. I don't drink with my meal because my Grandfather said that was the way they fattened their pigs. At the end of the meal I pour the tea but it's just water; hidden behind the pot is the teabag. One of these days Canadian restaurants will know how to make tea. I have a friend who says, "If you don't warm the pot, if you don't put the tea bag in the pot, and if you don't take the pot to the kettle, then don't bring me the tea." It's lovely sitting outside watching the world go by. Across the street a family squeezes juice from oranges for sale; every day they have thousands of the green oranges that have delicious juice. I should take a photo some time.
Thornin was still here at lunch time so off we went to a friend's vegetarian restaurant. It always tickles me how the vegetarian places in Asia always want things to look like meat or fish. Why can't it just look like what it is - i.e. mostly soya products? I enjoy the vegetarian food here as it's loaded with mushrooms.
For dinner I decided to take three friends for an Indian meal at the Taj Mahal restaurant. We had pakoras, which were slices of eggplant dipped in batter and deep fried, potato samosas with lovely flaky pastry, a vegetable and a beef curry with huge pieces of butter naan and finally a dessert. The dessert was too sweet for my friends so I enjoyed eating most of it. Three of us have been to India so one of my friends wanted to try out his Hindi. The man didn't respond - it turned out it's owned by Pakistanis. When I'm in England, and I have an "Indian" meal, the restaurant is very often owned by Bangladeshi people. I suppose it's safer for them to say they provide Indian food.
Talking about beef; it reminded me of the fact that I never saw a single cow in Bali. With it being a Hindu island the cow is sacred. It's the same in India but there the cows roam freely all over the place. I've no idea where they were in Bali; they were never on the menu.
Insurance has become a big thing in Cambodia. One of the companies is Canadian and I really don't like the way they operate there - everything is set up in a pyramid system. They hire young people who live on any commission they earn. In turn they try to get a team together because they take some of the commission from those below - it's awful. Now, a stock market has set up. I can work for it by getting people to buy shares; if they do I get $15. Knowing Cambodia and the corruption here, I wouldn't go anywhere near this job.
On the BBC this morning there was "The Global Philosophers' Club". They brought together, via video, representatives from almost forty countries to talk about different topics. The moderator was based in the USA and I have a feeling the topics were chosen because of President Trump's recent activities. One subject was the burning of a national flag. It was interesting that 70 per cent said it was wrong and 30 per cent thought it was right to burn the flag if you disagreed with what your country was doing. While they were discussing, it struck me that I've only seen people burn the flags of other countries and never their own. Another subject was hate speech and it was surprising that 30% said it was OK. They all had very rational reasons for saying it was right or wrong.
One man said that anyone should be allowed to speak on a university campus because students are meant to study outside their comfort zone. He said it was wonderful to argue back and forth, to disagree or agree and even to listen to hateful statements. He must be going to a very special university. I can only remember one class during my entire university career where I was expected to speak. That was a class about comparative education. We studied the education system in Canada, the UK and other places. I was the only one in the class over the age of 23 and it really irritated me to hear 20 year olds go on about the British education system. I don't think any of them had a clue what they were talking about. I decided I couldn't stand it so I shut up. When we had the exam I got my paper back and the professor had written on it, "I wish you had said something." That was a big lesson for me.
I've just given Samnang the doggy bag of leftover curries. He'll enjoy them but I bet he has a criticism or two.
