A really essential part of the lunar new year is the chrysanthemums. Here a neighborhood group of ladies went together to buys some flowers and set up shop in an empty lot near the deaf office.
Lunar New Year #3
Author: Charles Dittmeier
Another Minor Accident
Today when I was on my bicycle going to the Deaf Development Programme office, I got squeezed between two vehicles at an intersection and got a good abrasion on my left arm. When I got to the office several staff pitched in to clean up and bandage the wound with our first aid kit.
Why?
I will never be able to understand Cambodian drivers’ fixation with driving with one wheel over the dividing line on streets. Here my tuk-tuk driver has his left wheel hooked over the line. Notice two vehicles ahead, the car driver has his right wheel over the same line.
Lunar New Year #2
Lunar New Year #1
The Lunar New Year is January 29th, still a week and half away, but the preparations are in full swing even though it is not a holiday here. Many, many Cambodians claim some bit of Chinese ancestry, deservedly or not, and the Year of the Rat will be widely celebrated here.
Wires galore!
Look at this mass of overhead wires on a Phnom Penh street. This is rather unreal even by Cambodian standards!
Say what??
In a land where there are no building codes–or if there are codes, they are ignored, it can’t be too surprising to find an umbrella seemingly affixed to the front of a building ten or twelve feet above ground. Did it blow up there and get stuck? Did someone secure it in that position? Is so, why? Who knows!
Moto Loads #286
As long as no part of your load is touching the ground, you’re good to go! But not everything that gets loaded on to a moto stays there. This man had his packages secured with packing tape but something gave way and he ended up in the intersection reloading his motorcycle.
Non-formal economy
Only 3.5% of Cambodian businesses are registered with the government. 88% of all workers are part of the non-formal economy. This picture shows what the non-formal economy looks like on a typical Phnom Penh street. The government tries to change that because non-formal workers are not protected by labor laws and do not contribute to social security systems.
On the ground….
The Cambodian government likes to talk about moving the kingdom from the least-developed country category to the moderately developed. They can point to all the high-rise buildings and expensive foreign cars and terrible traffic. But at street level, some things stay the same.
Here are three icons of the large majority of Cambodians who don’t live in high-rise condos:
• the young boy selling lotus pods to earn money for the family
• the roast geese for a special family celebration, and
• a moto food-delivery man.