SlowJoe wrote: ↑Sun Sep 04, 2022 10:31 pm it's like ya'll are trying to find solace in the fire, security in the shit, and comfort in the chaos.

I did find all those in Indonesia, when i was 30, it was the best replacement ever to any studies i should have completed otherwise, if i grew up correctly.
A true experience to put back stuff in the right place, and open my chakras, so to say.

However, it worked wonders because i had a classic, normalized, logic, on time education in a good school. My logical perception was already good, and i had a good general culture to help me compare things, when i had to be in charge of productions and factories. Only here i could get a good grasp of what is a corrupted, flawed system one has to fix and optimize. That and the human part, which makes one understand more about the many struggles of locals in a different state.

Now for my kid, i prefer to expose him to more opportunities via counselling (as parents do while they're still there), but in the same order.
Logic & culture first in my place, then expanding to more knowledge elsewhere and adapt.

I don't want to start his life in the lesser good educational system while i'm at work, then having to fix his broken logic and lack of access to various cultures afterward. Not to mention quick free healthcare.

There's no ideal solution except being rich and dispose of all that in an optimal arrangement, and kids are flexible, learn-wise, but i prefer to stick to my logic & gut feeling.

David Gordon wrote: ↑Mon Sep 05, 2022 6:22 pm @Bubble T your story is fascinating how you arrived to Cambodia age 17 and spent most of your adult life here and then was able to land back in Britain and earn well above the average. If you care to share - how did you do it? You must have accumulated a lot of skill and developed quite the CV while in Cambodia.

Sorry this is going to be off topic but to answer the question:

I grew up in a very dodgy part of a big city in England and always wanted to get out as quickly as I could so spent a summer delivering pizza for domino's and making coffee in a coffee shop to save up some money to get away after my GCSE's. I was very fortunate to have an Assisted Place (kind of like a scholarship for kids whose parents are below a certain income threshold - they don't do them anymore) at a posh private school so I had received a relatively good secondary education far beyond what others who grew up in my area of town received.

I started out in Phnom Penh teaching English for a few months and then got a job managing Riverhouse Lounge. I used that to build some contacts to start making basic websites and database stuff for local businesses. Eventually that turned in to a full on software development business which I grew for several years. It had a lot of ups and downs and ended up crashing in a fairly spectacular manner. After that I went to work for a telecoms company, then helped a Lithuanian dude set up a company importing used cars from America to sell to local dealers, then worked for a Vietnamese company that imported cleaning chemicals and construction materials to Cambodia for hotels and building projects.

During all that time I had some big financial ups and downs. There were times when I was driving around in a pimped out Mercedes, and other times when I was basically destitute. When my partner became pregnant I realized I needed to be earning more, to have more stability, and to get a job that would allow me the possibility of leaving Cambodia later down the line if that's what we needed/wanted to do. I applied for a managerial job at a multi billion dollar international company using my IT background but they were pretty unimpressed as all my experience was in Cambodia. I was persistent with them and said I'd take anything they had for me, so I ended up taking a low paying entry level remote position as an admin assistant. I did it because I knew that high paying jobs existed there and getting one would just be a case of putting in the time and effort to prove to them that I could do it.

I worked my way up and then got lucky when there was a massive project I was working on which required us to put out a fairly complicated product on a very tight time scale. Most of the team I was working with was in the UK and I was still in Cambodia so I spent 9-5 in Cambodia working my ass off, then took breaks for 2 hours, and then worked online with the rest of the team from around 7pm until 2am the next morning. I kept that up for about 4 months and it was noticed. Within a few months of that project I was up in to senior management which is where I still am now.

The key lessons to be learned from that are:
- You have to work your ass off and do more than the people you're working with to be noticed and work your way up.
- Working for a large company that makes billions of dollars means that your hard work has the potential to be rewarded. I also worked my ass off at Riverhouse Lounge when I was 17-18 but only ever made about $800 per month because there's a finite limit on how many drinks a bar can sell so there's a finite limit on how much they are going to pay you. If you can help build a product that makes hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and demonstrate that it wouldn't have happened without you, it's a no brainer for them to pay you a six figure salary and still feel like they are getting a good deal. This is one of the big limitations of working for a local company in Cambodia, there aren't many that have the potential to pay you that much even if you work your ass off.

Bubble T wrote: ↑Mon Sep 05, 2022 10:47 pm Sorry this is going to be off topic but to answer the question:

Thanks for sharing!

I was always curious about the particulars of your background. Don't you also speak fluent Khmer?

Do you feel you have a book in you?

It's a pretty unique life story you have. During the KiR days the expat rumor mill was at full steam and I heard many a wild tale, more than a few which included you.

Anyway, my reasons for leaving Cambodia after 12 years echo Bubs' reasons. Not that it's good, bad or indifferent, Cambodia, for me, is no longer the place I fell in love with.

And I could not, in good conscience, continue to raise my children in Cambodia when I have the financial security to get them set up properly in the West.

My god, though. Sometimes I wistfully think back to those first 6 years or so. What a fucking time I had. The people I met and experiences I had are second to none.

Good on Bubs for making it through at such a young age. He was obviously focused, driven and quite the hustler.

As others have said, if I had washed up on Cambodia's shores at 17 years of age, I wouldn't have lived to see my twenties. Hell, I barely made it out alive whilst in my 30's.

Thanks again for sharing, you are a unique window into a special time in Cambodia expat lore.

Bubble T you are an inspiration! Thanks for sharing your story.

managed riverside lounge at 17? all i could do at 17 was smoke dope & get drunk
Not to knock ya as u have done wonders with your life but i question why they couldn't kind anyone with experience to run that place

As they say, a western education is priceless and although the degree is meaningless, it shows to prospective employers you stuck to it and finished

Brody wrote: ↑Tue Sep 06, 2022 12:23 am Do you feel you have a book in you?

It's a pretty unique life story you have. During the KiR days the expat rumor mill was at full steam and I heard many a wild tale, more than a few which included you.

There were some wild times indeed. The thought of writing a book has certainly crossed my mind but I don't know if I'd be any good at it and I generally don't share many of the wilder stories from my time there as I feel like people are unlikely to believe most of it anyway.

phuketrichard wrote: ↑Tue Sep 06, 2022 7:31 am i question why they couldn't kind anyone with experience to run that place

The owner was in a dispute with a former business partner who used his connections to get the place shut down on and off and was causing some problems. I was dating someone whose father was able to make those problems stop. Also the main clientele at the time was a particular subset of local rich kids and that girlfriend was one of them so having me working there ensured they kept coming back.

Some of us would believe them.

Is the notion that people might not believe the reality perhaps a protective measure - so you don’t take the leap and write? You have the option of using a ghost writer also.
You know people with good writing ability too - although I don’t know what terms you are on.

Any one that has been around Asia and se asia since the 70/80's has a book in them, read more than a few with a kindle unlimited membership that one can get for free, sledom finished them

bubble, the classic, "right time...right place"
what year did u arrive in Cambodia?

Thanks everyone for a great thread and read, I've noticed and I'd say the same with myself the turning point in life and getting it on the right track is marriage but mostly the responsibility of having kids.