Dinner, a show, and viruses

Last night we decided to try a new restaurant. Several have popped up in the last couple years and are gaining excellent reputations. This one was decent, but a limited menu. However, the highlight of the evening was learning a bit about how the authorities operate.

In the evening, the police block off some of the more popular tourist streets so motorbikes and cars can’t enter into the areas where visitors aren’t paying attention while walking in the middle of the street. It actually works quite well and they have expanded the number of blocks they reserve in subsequent years since I’ve visited.

Our driver caught sight of one of these checkpoints the police setup, and recognized one of the officers.

“Oh, that’s Mister Wayne!” As I soon found out the Khmer word for “tall” or “long” sounds like Wayne. This guy had to be about 6ft, a giant among regular Cambodians.

“Mister Wayne, he’s a really good finer. He’ll stop a lot of people tonight to take the money.”

We asked, “Oh, like traffic tickets?”

“Oh yes, but he keeps the money and the police split it up at the end of the night. That is how it works. Watch.”

Sure enough, there were some folks driving in the area that was blocked off. They likely had parked there before the street was blocked off, but the law is that you have to walk the motorbike out before you start driving. He had them stopped in no time. One group spoke to him for a little while then had to leave their bike. Another gave him something and headed on.

“You see,” he said, “If you talk to him only a little bit, then he doesn’t have time to find other things wrong and raise the price. Maybe you only pay 5000 riel ($1.25) if you go fast. Those people probably didn’t have money so they have to go get some and then pay more, maybe 15000 riel ($4.25). Mister Wayne is a really good finer, everyone in Siem Reap knows him. He’s even been beaten up a couple times.”

So there we sat, eating a lovely dinner and watching officers take bribes. Remember, these guys earn about $50 a month. This is essentially supplemental income, and they aren’t enforcing laws that don’t exist. It was good to see them stopping people who frequently go the wrong way down one of the one-way streets on our intersection. That is after all dangerous. You should see the gigantic tourist buses trying to turn there. It’s frightening. However, it would be nice if that money could go to the general fund instead of arbitrarily gained by certain police. But hey, at least you know where the money is going. Can you say the same for what you pay in taxes in America?

This morning I held one class and tried to coordinate getting new PCs and PC repair. They’re in rough shape this year. I guess we’re running out their lifespan. It’s incredible how well they have held up anyway given the conditions.

I wanted to try to focus on using the PC in new ways this year, not just teaching Office. So, I was preparing my lesson this afternoon in my hotel. They have 3 PCs setup for internet, but it’s generally not reliable. Oh well, my task was simple. I wanted to print out a periodic table of the elements to start teaching some basic chemistry and physics. Why not!

I couldn’t get the PC with the printer to work on the internet since it was riddled with viruses. Instead, I figured I might as well plug in my laptop and the printer and just get it done.

Immediately, my anti-virus software lit up like a fire alarm. Apparently this little network of 3 machines is in bad shape. The guy working on the one mentioned “Oh yeah, all of Siem Reap. I think last week the entire town got hit bad with viruses”.

Lovely. I disconnected from that ugliness and went back to my room. It started raining pretty hard so I probably wouldn’t have any students show up to class anyway. Maybe this afternoon I’ll go to an internet café and use their PCs to print.

If I see Mister Wayne, I’ll tell my driver to go another way.