I like to view myself as a "paying guest"
with a non immigrant visa and no rights to stay beyond each year's extension

phuketrichard wrote:I like to view myself as a "paying guest"
with a non immigrant visa and no rights to stay beyond each year's extension

That's how I see it, and at the back of my mind my concern will always be that when there are enough paying guests the host could choose to be a bit more discerning about who they let stay and on what terms.

Isn't "paying guest" just a hospitality industry euphemism for 'customer'?

vladimir wrote:I get so sick of people who object to even the slightest criticism of anything here -or in any country- by responding with 'You're a guest here, you should keep quiet'.

After decades of moving in and out of Cambodia, I have the impression that the Cambodians are quite a tolerant people. They certainly do not "hate" foreigners. It is universally understood that locals and foreigners do not have different rights, besides the exceptions that are reserved for locals, mostly the right to participate in the country's politics, the irrevocable right to reside in the country, and in Cambodia the right buy property on the ground floor. It is indeed possible to expel a foreigner out of Cambodia but not a Cambodian, simply because your own country is by international treaty obliged to take you back if requested to do so. But then again, by default, foreigners and locals have exactly the same rights, except for those specifically listed exceptions. Since you are not trying to run the country by criticising particular things in Cambodia, you are perfectly well entitled to do so.

Cowshed Cowboy wrote:That's how I see it, and at the back of my mind my concern will always be that when there are enough paying guests the host could choose to be a bit more discerning about who they let stay and on what terms.

True, but who needs 440 anyway?

my khmer friends treat me like a guest and not a customer
to khmer stangeres you can oftenly feel like a customer
then theres times i feel no different than if i was living in my motherland

A baby that's born anywhere tomorrow will need to consume food and will need clothing and shelter and will grow up to buy things. I guess you could call any baby born anywhere a "customer of the world." It's just a strange way to look at life.

Cam Nivag wrote:A baby that's born anywhere tomorrow will need to consume food and will need clothing and shelter and will grow up to buy things. I guess you could call any baby born anywhere a "customer of the world." It's just a strange way to look at life.

Or a guest of the world. Both kind of strange

Analogies can be kind of confusing if you take them too literally.

In fact we foreigners are neither customers nor guests in this country, but tourists, expats, migrants and such.

But if we are to deal in analogies, tourists and expats in a foreign country are more like customers than guests.

in the western world if you treat someone as your guest, they would normally get special treatment, including free things ie. free food/drinks/hospitality, a customer is a customer, they may get the same treatment but it will normally come at a price

^^Which is interesting if you think about it because foreigners in other countries often have to pay more than citizens. Yes sure, tax is the main reason for most countries, but in Cambodia when you get little to no benefit from being a citizen and then even less as a foreigner but yet you have to pay more...I'm confused.