The good and bad of human nature:

Cambodia News, Phnom Penh: A young man who was sick with a physical illness in his hometown in Prey Veng was not getting any better, so his parents called a taxi to go to hospital in Phnom Penh for treatment.
Unfortunately the 29-year-old man died in the taxi at 11:12 pm on August 25, 2020 along Street 317 in Sangkat Boeung Kak II, Khan Toul Kork, Phnom Penh, before arriving at the hospital. Seeing that he was dead, and a hospital was no use, the family asked the taxi driver to turn around and take them back home.
However, despite the tears of the mother, the taxi driver refused to transport the body any further, and he stopped the car and had the deceased taken out and removed to the side of the road. The driver then drove off, leaving the bereaved family far from home with a corpse and no means of transport.

Local authorities, neighbors, and journalists came to the scene, and all thought that this was a shameful situation, so they collected some money to pay for an ambulance to transport the dead man back to his hometown for the funeral rites.

I wouldn't say there was a severe lack of compassion generally in Cambodia, but Cambodia does seem to have more than its fair share of individuals who seem to be missing the compassion gene.

Yeah .... he could have been a bit more diplomatic about it .. and maybe he was... but going from a taxi driver to driving a hearse may have been to much for him. Bad spirits and all that malarkey.

The journalist Jon Swain, in his book River of Time, writes about his experiences in Cambodia and Vietnam in the 70's.
"Even today, after years of suffering, the Cambodians do not have a strong sense of caring for their fellow man. Perhaps this is due to their fatalistic perception of human life. For many, morality is a luxury to be disowned; survival and money are the ultimate objectives".
Sounds like nothing much has changed.