What Cambodian Kids Don't Mind Saying: Reprised

Maybe, I've lost touch, but I'm sure most western kids would think that they are way-too-cool to write some of the things young Cambodians do. Here's some samples of blog-writing from 11-15 year-old English students.

A 13 year-old Cambodian giving her classmates some life-advice:

'...I want to tell everyone of you that you should try your best at everything even if you can't do it well but at least it is the best you've got!!'

Rather than be sneered at, as she surely would be back home, this suggestion is well received by her fellow students.

Here's a student talking about a blanket she was given at birth:

'What I like the most about is the warmth that it gives to me is as warm as my mum hands, that reminds me of how warm I was when mum held me in her arms….

I sometimes argue with my mum when she gets it washed without telling me. The reason is……because I don’t want to lose the smell of that. Strange and funny, isn’t it? That’s true I love the smell although that’s not a nice smell but that smell remind me of myself as a small kid.

Thanks Mum for making me this lovely blanket, Love it !'

Cue more sneering, teasing and bullying if this was revealed in a school back home.

Or, try this heartfelt story from a young learner:

'Why I want to have a good family because my mother and my father separated while I was a baby....

I want to have a big family with warm care. I know that I really hate my father, but it's so difficult for me without father.... .

I tried to ask my mother that where was father, but, she tried to lie me too. She always told me that my father was busy about his job in Phnom Penh, it was so easy to lie because i was young...

But when I was 10 years old and it time for me to know about my parents ... My mother was told me about the truth thing that she was separate with my father. I remember that i was cry maybe a few days. Also I was angry because shouldn't lied me for long time about it. They should told me when they separated.'

Or this, from one teenage blogging about her stuffed toy:

'Well, don't laugh, but I hug it when I sleep and pretend to talk to it sometimes as if it was alive. I sometimes talk to it like a friend and share my emotions with it. I think of it not only just a stuffed animal, but a friend.'

And while her classmates might indeed laugh, it would be with, not at her.