Archives & Barang's Chronicle: About noise in Cambodia...

Offered by the late Thierry Descamps, a few chronicles of the little ups and downs of life as an expatriate landing in the kingdom. It's well-written, candid, unpretentious and probably useful for those who want to know a bit more about expatriation in Cambodia. Today:

About noise…

The Khmer is festive and industrious, and likes people to know it. So they take the opportunity to be (very) noisy. You wouldn't expect it from such a gentle and seemingly discreet people. For the past two weeks, including Sundays, I've been living to the sound of jackhammers, metal cutters and sledgehammers on the walls of two terraced houses undergoing renovation. You have to accept that there's no escaping it. Phnom Penh is a huge (re)construction site.

Wedding

The situation becomes more complicated if a wedding is taking place at the same time. For the ceremony, a marquee is erected to welcome the guests and provide them with food during the festivities. As my street is narrow ... it's closed to traffic (in theory). There are always some clever people or eminences who get past the roadblock and find themselves face to face with those who have done the same thing before and would like to leave. So we honk our horns. It's pointless, but I suppose it gets the wind out of our sails.

"This morning at 6 o'clock I was woken by what I first thought were the agonising roars of a deer being tortured. As I haven't seen a deer in town yet, before calling Brigitte Bardot, I went to ask around from my terrace’.

The wedding was just beginning. Now we're into a skit performed for a good hour by two actors who, I suppose, illustrate married life, with lots of (noisy) arguments and reconciliations interspersed with long laments and laughter from the audience. Accompanied by a Bagad Lann Bihoué-style band with percussion and cymbals. This is how it's going to go on for 2 days, nights included...

The wedding did not stop the construction work from continuing. In between dumping rubble into skips, the workers sing along to the hit songs being played nearby. All this noise must be getting on the nerves of the ceremony's organisers, who turn up the speakers to show that (at least for those who still have eardrums) they intend to have the upper hand whatever the cost. In everyday life, however, Khmers are very pleasant to deal with. They don't shout (or rarely do). It's very impolite. When they're annoyed, they smile. The Khmer smile is quite difficult for a newcomer to decipher. It can mean that you're making the other person uncomfortable, that they don't understand anything you're saying or that you've seriously irritated them, in which case they'll be preparing to slit your throat in the next few seconds. A confident and relaxed Cambodian laughs but with reserve. This is in contrast to some Americans you meet in a restaurant who consider that the whole audience is interested in Aunt Abigail's buttocks from Wisconsin. Or the Chinese who yell at each other like a bunch of misfits. The barangs who live here are used to it (or will never get used to it) but for the neophyte, the Khmers' appetite for noise is rather unsettling.

Nightclub

Last year I recklessly ventured with some friends into a midday nightclub in Siem Reap. In reality, I never got through the door. After crossing the restaurant room on the terrace, you go to the entrance and as soon as the doorman opens the door you are hit by a blast of sound that literally pushes you out. As my wife claims I'm already deaf as a post, I didn't want to aggravate the condition and abandoned my little friends.

"There's one thing that really annoys me. When I went to the provinces I liked to take the bus because it was ‘local colour’. The problem is that the driver and the passengers love karaoke.

It's totally unbearable for Western ears. At first you're amused by the chirping, but after the third hour it turns into mental torture and you'll do anything to sabotage the TV over the driver's seat. Now I get it. I'll take the minivans. I'll leave you to it. Here we go again! I'll try and caulk it with towels...