While in Cambodia we saw lots of folks taking pictures of kids, especially kids living in poverty. It's easy to find such photo opportunities in a country like Cambodia, which is one of the poorest countries in the world (~$480 UDS/year average per capita income). We saw a lot of poverty even in Siem Reap and the surrounding areas (which I'm sure is much more wealthy of a place than most Cambodian towns and villages). But this is the only picture we have that even hints at what we saw. Why? It didn't seem right. If you look at websites about Cambodia, or books of pictures in Cambodia, you see lots of pictures of kids who have nothing, who were born into and are living with families who have nothing. We even had kids offer to let us take their picture, for $1 USD. But aside from whether we gave them money or not, or whether we bought things from them or not - just taking their picture, even if it involved paying them, just didn't seem right. It's the wrong relationship people should have to such children. What is the right relationship? I don't really know. But what I saw folks doing - that's not it. It came off like folks taking pictures of animals at the zoo, or famous sites, not of people. Like the only value that child had at that point was their value as a photographic subject. The whole scene was lacking in humanity, in compassion. It felt wrong. So the only picture we ended up with like that was one we took by accident - we weren't meaning to take a picture of the child there, but looking at the picture afterwards it becomes the main subject. [kids are generally hanging out throughout all the sites we saw - we tried quite hard to keep them out of photos we took]
At some point in my life I may realize what the best way to help those kids, and folks who live in places like Cambodia, is, but even though I racked my brain the whole time there, I really don't know. The economic theories I learned in school seemed to come up short, somehow. I hope that our visit helped, if even indirectly. I would encourage everyone to visit poorer places like Cambodia, because I believe it will help improve the living conditions of people there. Poverty keeps many tourists away from Siem Reap, but I believe it should attract them, because with enough people going there, I think the people there will have more opportunities than they have now.
Posts
