//Approaching People and Welcoming People

Approaching People and Welcoming People

I feel that, although slowly, Japanese people living in Cambodia are increasing in number. In the past, when I went to a Japanese restaurant or somewhere similar, I would often run into acquaintances. It is not until recently that most faces now are unfamiliar to me.
When I go to some local companies in Cambodia for business, I notice that most companies do not show much interest in advertisements aiming at the Japanese market, but slowly more and more Japanese people will increase their activities and Japanese market will expand accordingly, which is a delightful thing to happen.
However, here is what I happened to hear from a conversation of some Japanese people a few days ago.
“Everything in Cambodia is about money. If you have money, everything is possible.”
I was not eavesdropping at all, but just happened to hear that, and I had no idea about what happened before or after the conversation, the details, or its background. But, even if there is some fact in that, it is not necessarily that you can make everything possible with money. If it is what they just felt in mind, for them to say it out like that was surprising to me.
In the past, many people thought that everything could be done cheaply, but it might be its rebound that recently there are more and more people trying to solve everything by using money.
It is a fact that by starting something new in Cambodia, often you will encounter some unexpected expenses, so the best thing to do is to have ample funds. However, even with that, you are not assured that everything will go well. But then if you try to settle everything with money now, next times when those Cambodians happen to work with other Japanese people, it is likely that they would tend to find faults in order to ask for money again. Therefore, as long as it is not a rightful payment, people shouldn’t give in and try to settle everything by using money.
Besides, I feel that it is a great pity when there are Japanese people who have already entered Cambodia but then they start to leave Cambodia one after another. At the same time, I am also very curious about how the factors of what kind of people you are attended by and what kind of things that you experience during the observation period before entering Cambodia will affect you to have this kind of thinking.
It also happened to me because when I first came to Cambodia, I felt that I had known everything about Cambodia by judging from the information shared within a narrow circle of acquaintances. I am sure that I was not lied to or caught in false information at that time, but it is quite misleading when you are told in a way like Cambodia is so and so…. And when you start a business with this kind of misunderstanding in mind, you will hit a wall early from the starting point and realize the gap between this conception and the reality. If we reflect on this, we can say that the attending people should bear a serious responsibility for this too, regardless of whether they have bad intentions or not.
I’ve never attended to people, but if I have a chance to do it, I will be careful enough in my speech and behavior.
However, if I write about what I have observed and noticed in town in this way, it is likely that sometime soon wherever I go, people around will become completely silent. Therefore, I would like to take this opportunity to tell everyone in advance that it is not like that I will write about all sorts of things with no exception, or always prick up my ears to listen to rumors just to have something to write about. So I hope that people can always feel relaxed with my presence when they happen to see me somewhere.