Splendid Isolation

Sometimes the mundane tells you a lot. There I sit in splendid isolation sipping my Lao Beer. Just a few weeks ago this was was the most popular convenience store in Takhmau. I'd have been lucky to get a seat most hours of the day or night. Even if I found a seat I'd have been surrounded by noodle-slurping, smartphone-wielding, game-playing youngsters. 

Now they're all gone.

Since the border dispute with Thailand there is an orchestrated boycott of all things deemed to be Thai. Some of us are old enough to remember the 2003 anti-Thai riots in Phnom Penh, the ransacked hotel, the Thai Ambassador escaping from his Embassy through the back door and by boat. Yet those shameful episodes did not last long, fortunately. Relations soon returned to normal. This time it's different, it's taking much longer, no real tangible end in sight.

Why are such once favourite venues being sacrificed? If the boycott lasts much longer, they will close. What happened to the phrase often heard, much repeated “Thai goods are best” usually stated when condemning those from Vietnam. Cambodians will miss their Thai products when they are no more. So please do be careful with what you wish for.

We must also remember it is all Cambodians with jobs in these shops, mainly young women. Most of them have few other chances of decent work to help their families. A fair few probably have family members who have had to return from working in Thailand.

Remember “Never Again”? It was heard in the aftermath of the evil Khmer Rouge rule. That call was made most loudly after the end of World World War II, so much so that the new international rules-based order was created. The United Nations and other institutions were established all with one simple hope in mind. It was to find a better way for nations and peoples to resolve their differences than by lethal armed conflict.

Leaders, both political and military, wield the means to wage wars, but they should be subject to restraint by their country-folk, whose blood and treasure they are sacrificing. Evil regimes such as those of Germany and Japan in the 1930s, or the Khmer Rouge of the 1970s, relied on goading people to go along with them. It was easy to command widespread support in those days by indoctrination with poorly educated masses. The 1950s and beyond witnessed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and concerted formal and informal education for citizens everywhere to know that they had choices. 

No longer do citizens have to obey leaders unquestioningly. The same thing happened in Cambodia in the 1990s and beyond, in fact on a remarkable scale in a whole host of ways. (E.g Voter Education (page 40); Human Rights; Youth etc)

Yet here we are again in regional conflict with populations showing due obedience, rallying to nationalistic rhetoric and blithely heeding the call to boycott Thai establishments and goods. The exact same kind of thing is being played out in Thailand against Cambodians.

We keep reading perverse claims about whose culture ancient dress or dance belongs to, when in fact many of these traditions predate the borders that they now fight over. Today's post-colonial nation states and borders just did not exist. The various peoples and groups in South East Asia have much more in common than divides them. Plus of course they have far more to gain from living productively with each other.

Well for now, despite all that new education, an abundance of new technology and forms of media, few people are going against leaders. Indeed brave souls who do risk it are called disloyal, encounter hostility from friends, and worse  risk official punishment.

There is no groundswell, no sustained momentum for peace.

Eventually sense will prevail, it always does eventually in the end. Until then or our local shop closes, I will continue to drink my Beer Lao alone in splendid isolation.

.........ooo0ooo.........

This Op Ed was declined on 8 December 2025 for publication as the Cambodia/Thailand border dispute erupted again in armed conflict.

The editor explained: "....we cannot proceed with the publication, given the current sensitivities between Cambodia and Thailand. Being reminded of painful past events certainly doesn't augur well in the current circumstances."

My reply: " I do beg to disagree of course as would most international observers.  When similar circumstances from the past resonate in present ones, it shows that lessons have not been learned and the means to prevent similar ones from recurring are not working.

Equally today's "sensitivities" include upsetting current authorities, i.e. self-censorship is at work.

However you do have to walk a delicate line."

Although the 1991 Paris Peace Accords were a long time ago, they are still International Law, and a binding agreement about how signatory parties should conduct themselves.

Both Thailand and basically the same leadership in Cambodia, one of four factions, signed them committing to peace.

They should be reminded of this, loudly and by countries and international agencies calling for restraint.  (See also the 30 year re-visit by Michelle Vachon.)

Update 25 February 2026

I still must make the most of the tragic loss of our 7-Eleven, meaning more time in the Korea version or in Aeon Max-Valu.

You learn some cute things about Cambodian youngsters and not-so cute.

We knoww that they're all adept at making their pot noodle. Normally they slurp them down while balancing with their chop-sticks whatever length they can grab, held high, and fed in to a waiting mouth. None do the Spagehetti-style twirling a fork with strands in a spoon. However for the first time I saw two of them able both hold their chopsticks in one hand with a dollop of noodles, and do that same twirling action of the two chopsticks to wrap noodles round and round for a bitesize gobble. 

Most impressive dexterity, girls!

As for the boys, No noodles, not much bought at all but hog all the seats. All playing games, with each other, to raucous rants. So much for the signs saying buy something and keep- the noise down.

Update 8 February 2026

Resignation. No more 7-Eleven (or Beer Lao in Takhmau) but all is not quite lost. 100 metres away we have the new Korean E-Mart, but please don't share this with those claiming to be protective of Cambodian culture. No Khmer signage, but it doesn't bother the youngsters. They're just as adept at making their noodle as they were in 7-Eleven. The prices might be higher but more choice. 16 yesterday were slurping their way through their noodles while all engrossed in their Smart-phones. Me? A Tiger Beer, no phone. We're all more resilient, when needs must, than powers-that-be give us credit for.

Update 22 January 2026

Thailand folks must be quivering in their boots while thinking perhaps someone has shot himself in his foot.

Whatever at least one person is happy, at last a measurable victory, like the good old days. The ones that people are often reminded of in case they forget.

Update  8 January 2026

Hun Sen's pyric victory is in sight. Shelves are being cleared. Jobs lost.  A once favourite Cambodian Takhmau place to hang out will soon be no more.  And "voters/supporters" will be grateful to him. By the way the new Korean version opened nearby is nowhere as good, but does that matter?

Even the Tesla electric car re-charging point has gone.

Update 4 January 2026

A chance conversation with old friends, long-time Cambodia-dwellers and workers, coincided with an email from an old ex-colonial chum though he is still resident in one far-flung outpost of the British Empire.

Well of course my cautious friends warned again "Be careful what you say and write!". 

My old chum has written an autobiography that he hopes to have published.  He does have some good yarns to tell and few home truths that some don't want to know.  Anyway he has done his own critical analysis of it with AI tools, Grok, Chat GPT, Claude etc.  Like mine that I did in jest they do tend to speak highly of us, more so than mere human reviewers.

Claude was new to me so I posed the question, as indeed could any interested "observer" of what I had to say about the Cambodia Thailand border dispute  So here it is, thank you Claude - if Claude can or should be thanked.

Update 21 December2025

A thoughtful article by Jay Sophalkalyan and my comment.  Good too that it has been published as similar thoughts were deemed inappropriate just a few days ago.

And an equally thoughtful dose of sanity by another young Cambodian Julian Ang Ray, today 23rd December.