Dear Steve,

Thanks for your inspiring account. Through this website, I hope to build a bridge for young Cambodians from around the world to celebrate their Khmer heritage and reconnect with their roots. I am very encouraged to find bright young overseas Cambodians like you take an interest in the rebuilding of our beloved homeland.

You are absolutely right that Cambodia is not the hell hole as it is sometimes made out to be by the naysayers. You just have to visit the country and decide for yourself. Sometimes, the negativity alone can keep good, decent people from visiting our heavily tourism-dependent country.

As for the Cambodian people’s apparent apathy toward the “old white geezers who run around with young Khmer girls,” I think this is an area where you and I can make a major impact. Remember that Cambodia is still reeling from decades of war and destruction, so the most important thing on most people’s minds is day-to-day survival, not sexual exploitation of our women and children by foreigners. The “old white geezers” recognize the extreme poverty in our country and simply move in to prey on less fortunate people. Some of them may find a twisted sense of psychological victory in sexually dominating a race they view inferior to them.

You must understand that many Cambodians associate Westerners with wealth, power, and even righteousness. Consequently, the mischiefs of some Westerners in Cambodia tend to become, over time, normalized and even accepted by the Cambodian people. In fact, some people in Cambodia even consider a teen-aged Khmer girl to be “somnang” (fortunate) to be hitched to a middle-aged white man.

As Cambodians from overseas, we can help explain to our compatriots back home that these behaviors are neither normal nor acceptable in Western societies. In fact, here in America incarcerated child molesters are so hated that they are routinely beaten– even killed– by fellow inmates. While I don’t condone this type of vigilante justice, it’s indicative of the level of revulsion, even among thieves and murderers, that Americans have for sex predators. This is a major reason that the pedophiles are venturing overseas to take advantage of poor law enforcement in developing countries like Cambodia.

When I visit Cambodia, I don’t get angry when my relatives, friends and acquaintances condone the sexual exploits of the “old white geezers.” I just take the time to calmly explain and educate them about how Western societies view sexual predators, and how our apathy toward them is hurting our honor and national image. If my compatriots do not agree with my stance, or simply pretend to sympathize with me just to get on my good side, then all I could do is to distance myself from them and focus on the things that I could do. For instance, I would personally boycott any restaurants and hotels whose employees smile and bow at foreign customers but not at their own kind. I know my boycott may not run them out of business, but I do it anyway because it’s the right thing to do.

You don’t have to accept what you know to be wrong just because you feel powerless to make a difference. There are many skillful and respectful ways you can influence positive changes without being seen as overbearing or confrontational. Remember that most Cambodians are not privileged to travel back and forth between Cambodia and foreign countries, so they don’t have a personal understanding of outside cultures like we do. Many rely on information they hear from their friends and relatives, the media, and even from the foreign “sexpats” themselves.

Cambodian expatriates wield a lot of economic and social power when we return to our homeland; we just have to play our cards right and use our influences to encourage positive changes in calm, realistic and intelligent ways.