To stay or not to stay...
Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2018 2:36 pm
Hi everyone,
I hate to rant, but long form forums are places I find (sometimes) are more reasonable and understanding people. Something that social media just doesn't have, at least from what I've experienced in the past, hence me deleting my Facebook/Twitter/Instagram etc.
Anyway, I'm fairly new to the forums and only joined to look for information about work permits, but wanted to ask the community here some opinions on staying in Cambodia (or at least trying to stay), vs. going back to where I'm from I'm ashamed to say 'Murica.
I'm fairly young, came to Cambodia when I was 21, I've lived here for the past 8 years working at an import export company, and the reason I came here was because I was tired of living in 'Murica F**k Yeah! I'm 5th generation born in a military family, my cousin is a 4 star general, uncle served in Nam, but I never felt home in the U.S. I was always hanging around boring old timer's houses listening to stories and learning things I found useful around home and had no real friends my age.
After graduating high school early (I was 16) and going to college and being told everything would be great, I dropped out my 2nd year in an Electrical Engineering program because for lack of better wording, I felt like I was getting "stupider" and "stupider-er" over time. I was the only one of my friends who could drive a manual transmission, change a tire, fix the plumbing in the house, go camping and not starve, and we were all supposedly the great rising generation of the future.
This didn't seem like a good thing to me however, because as I continued to look around me, America seemed to completely suck at everything if I'm honest. China and the East seemed to be making leaps and bounds in development where the town I was in just grew more and more potholes as everything got more expensive. Of course the rise of American socialists would rant and rave about the 1% hording all the wealth and stifling growth, but I couldn't help but think this was projecting our generation's own failures outward.
I decided to then take a study abroad program of a year and a half and half fell in love with and half hated the hell out of Asia. I thought Asians were crude, noisy, annoying but at the same time, genuine, straight forward, and most of all, adept at things that seemed to matter. I found that suddenly girls could lift things and ride motorcycles to places without having to be treated like little princesses, and that men could (for lack of better wording) just be men. I didn't feel the constant pressure to be more feminine (although I wont say it doesn't have it's merits) and to feel as if I was somehow a threat to all women around me, simply for existing. I felt like I could tell a good looking girl that she was pretty, and she could take that as a compliment, not as a threat of rape.
Moreover, I felt like I could joke with my newly found friends and not fear they would turn around and post pictures of how racist I was on their social media feeds because I jokingly called someone a name that might be seen as offensive somehow in someway. I felt like I could be an adult in a room with other adults, not a playpen full of fragile babies.
It was at this point when I decided that I would rather live in the developing world than the "developed" world, although it seems inaccurate somehow to me to call the U.S. developed. If anything it feels anything but that and seems to be more of a child run shit show waiting to implode on itself. Dare I say it, but I'm not a proud American, because what America has become is but a shadow of what it once was, a place of liberty, a place where you had the freedom to do what you should.
So now, I apologize for this lengthy post, I didn't mean for it to become this, but I'm caught here debating if I should go home after my visa expires. I lost my job and need to decide soon if I want to make the effort to stay here, whether as an entrepreneur (of which I have no experience), or as something else. That's why I wanted to post here and not ask my friends that are my age, because while I love them, I get the distinct impression that they haven't got a clue on how the world really works and I know they'd simply tell me to come home because there's more dollars there. Life is more than dollars however, it doesn't take a genius to know this.
I may just be complaining here (something I do a lot), and if so I'm sorry, but asking those who have lived here longer than me and have more life's wisdom than a young guy like me, what would you do? Do you see the same things I see about home? Am I blowing things out of proportion or is there truly a rot that has hollowed out what once was a great place to live?
And most importantly, what would you do? Would you go home, or stay here?
I'll stop this here.
I hate to rant, but long form forums are places I find (sometimes) are more reasonable and understanding people. Something that social media just doesn't have, at least from what I've experienced in the past, hence me deleting my Facebook/Twitter/Instagram etc.
Anyway, I'm fairly new to the forums and only joined to look for information about work permits, but wanted to ask the community here some opinions on staying in Cambodia (or at least trying to stay), vs. going back to where I'm from I'm ashamed to say 'Murica.
I'm fairly young, came to Cambodia when I was 21, I've lived here for the past 8 years working at an import export company, and the reason I came here was because I was tired of living in 'Murica F**k Yeah! I'm 5th generation born in a military family, my cousin is a 4 star general, uncle served in Nam, but I never felt home in the U.S. I was always hanging around boring old timer's houses listening to stories and learning things I found useful around home and had no real friends my age.
After graduating high school early (I was 16) and going to college and being told everything would be great, I dropped out my 2nd year in an Electrical Engineering program because for lack of better wording, I felt like I was getting "stupider" and "stupider-er" over time. I was the only one of my friends who could drive a manual transmission, change a tire, fix the plumbing in the house, go camping and not starve, and we were all supposedly the great rising generation of the future.
This didn't seem like a good thing to me however, because as I continued to look around me, America seemed to completely suck at everything if I'm honest. China and the East seemed to be making leaps and bounds in development where the town I was in just grew more and more potholes as everything got more expensive. Of course the rise of American socialists would rant and rave about the 1% hording all the wealth and stifling growth, but I couldn't help but think this was projecting our generation's own failures outward.
I decided to then take a study abroad program of a year and a half and half fell in love with and half hated the hell out of Asia. I thought Asians were crude, noisy, annoying but at the same time, genuine, straight forward, and most of all, adept at things that seemed to matter. I found that suddenly girls could lift things and ride motorcycles to places without having to be treated like little princesses, and that men could (for lack of better wording) just be men. I didn't feel the constant pressure to be more feminine (although I wont say it doesn't have it's merits) and to feel as if I was somehow a threat to all women around me, simply for existing. I felt like I could tell a good looking girl that she was pretty, and she could take that as a compliment, not as a threat of rape.
Moreover, I felt like I could joke with my newly found friends and not fear they would turn around and post pictures of how racist I was on their social media feeds because I jokingly called someone a name that might be seen as offensive somehow in someway. I felt like I could be an adult in a room with other adults, not a playpen full of fragile babies.
It was at this point when I decided that I would rather live in the developing world than the "developed" world, although it seems inaccurate somehow to me to call the U.S. developed. If anything it feels anything but that and seems to be more of a child run shit show waiting to implode on itself. Dare I say it, but I'm not a proud American, because what America has become is but a shadow of what it once was, a place of liberty, a place where you had the freedom to do what you should.
So now, I apologize for this lengthy post, I didn't mean for it to become this, but I'm caught here debating if I should go home after my visa expires. I lost my job and need to decide soon if I want to make the effort to stay here, whether as an entrepreneur (of which I have no experience), or as something else. That's why I wanted to post here and not ask my friends that are my age, because while I love them, I get the distinct impression that they haven't got a clue on how the world really works and I know they'd simply tell me to come home because there's more dollars there. Life is more than dollars however, it doesn't take a genius to know this.
I may just be complaining here (something I do a lot), and if so I'm sorry, but asking those who have lived here longer than me and have more life's wisdom than a young guy like me, what would you do? Do you see the same things I see about home? Am I blowing things out of proportion or is there truly a rot that has hollowed out what once was a great place to live?
And most importantly, what would you do? Would you go home, or stay here?
I'll stop this here.
