Off the Rails in Phnom Penh?

As this article which will probably be the last one on the "Joseph in Cambodia" blog, I would like to write a quick review of Amit Gilboa's 1998 book: Off the Rails in Phnom Penh: Into the Dark Heart of Guns, Girls, and Ganja.

Before I do that, I would like to thank again all my readers and invite those who are interested in the sequel of my adventures in Cambodia to tune to my new blog: What's Next?, in which I plan to write some wanderings in the Land of Israel...

Amit Gilboa was in Cambodia in 1997, almost ten years ago now. He writes about the country he saw but he was more specifically interested in the decadent foreigners who would come to Phnom Penh for (underage) girls, drugs and, more generally, any way to escape from their miserable lives in their "home" countries. The author acknowledges that he wasn't interested in any of the "professionals" who were in the country at the time, working for NGO's or private companies, only in "lifers" and "adventurers".

Gilboa starts with a useful, and, to the extent of my knowledge, accurate summary of Khmer history.

For the rest, ten years ago, Paris or New York probably looked very much like today, but the country he describes is definitely not the one I saw in 2006. And I was fortunate enough to have the company of NGO workers, professionals and students rather than "lifers" and "adventurers". So I cannot corroborate most of the things he describes. I didn't read the book as a total stranger either, because I could picture today's situation ten years earlier and deem what he writes (his accounts of corruption, political assassinations and the 1997 coup, prostitution, etc.) likely as the roots of today's situation - only worse.

I was nevertheless taken aback by the chapter entitled "Khmers". There are interesting remarks in that chapter on the character of Cambodians but the tricky part is the idea that no foreigner could ever understand nor get to know intimately the Cambodians. Just because it has never been done (among Gilboa's acquaintances) doesn't prove that it cannot be done!
More seriously, the way it was put, was shocked. It's true that for foreigners, in-depth intellectual contact is not easily made with Cambodians. Western and Khmer cultures have indeed very little in common. But even if very few people do so (I have probably met no more than four or five Westerners who spoke a perfect Khmer), it is possible to learn the language thoroughly and immerse oneself in the Cambodian culture.
The question is a sensitive one as even Cambodians who have lived abroad have sometimes a hard time being accepted as "real" Cambodians by their countrymen upon returning, so my opinion is not definitive either.

Overall, the book is full of fascinating anecdotes and useful bits of information and I was glad to compare an account of Cambodia in 1997 with my own. Thank you, Fabien, for recommending it to me and offering it to me as a farewell present!