This is not a new or an old topic. In fact, it’s an ongoing topic in Cambodia. Believe me, I understand because I experienced standing both sides of the fence. I used to be one of the Vietnamese haters few years ago, but I’m glad that hatred of mine was cured with rationale I’ve come to learned as I grew up.
Just to make things clear from the beginning, in case some people start to doubt my originality. I was born in a pure Cambodian family, raised in Cambodia, grew up in Cambodia. My parents and the rest of my relatives are all Cambodians. As that being said, I do not have Vietnamese family line. If that so, why don’t I hate Vietnamese? Does that make me any less Cambodian/Khmer than others who do hate people whom they address as “Yuon”?
I really want to ask each and everyone who claims to hate Vietnamese living in Cambodia. Simple question: Why? Please explain. The only general answer I’ve heard so far is “They come to our country to steal our land and to destroy our natural resources.” There is no right or wrong to the answer, but let’s do a little of common sense thinking together. Assume that your bicycle’s basket has had a big hole in it for a very long time. You don’t care to fix it. One day, you forget that the basket has a hole and put, let say a bag of rice, in it. Before you could realize, the rice bag was gone through the hole. So, who to blame? Of course, it was you. First, before the rice bag was gone, you had always known that the basket had a hole and you didn’t fix it. Second, despite being neglect about not fixing the basket, you were careless and put the bag of rice without remembering the hole in the basket.
From my point of view, Cambodia is like bicycle’s holed basket with a careless caretaker. Here, the caretaker of Cambodia is the government. Before some Cambodians started to hate Vietnamese for the abovementioned reason, did they think about what could have been done by the government to prevent problems being viewed as Vietnamese’s fault? It is obvious that the immigration issue in Cambodia can have been better handled than the current situation if Cambodia had the imaginary government for the people. The same thing applies to the issues of border conflicts and natural resource depletion. I can’t believe that all those issues can’t be controlled just because they were caused by a group of illegal Vietnamese migrants. In fact, from what I’ve observed, the issues were let loose by the government. Why? Buddha knows why.
Don’t get me wrong. I truly understand the sentiment because Cambodia had a painful history concerning relationship with neighboring countries, specifically Thailand and Vietnam. Actually, a point can be made here. Whether you want to accept it or not, I know that some Cambodians do not hate Thais as much as they do to Vietnamese. On one hand, I acknowledge the fact that the numbers of Thai immigrants to Cambodia is less than those of Vietnamese (both legal and illegal). I said this base on my naked-eye observation. These days in Cambodia, you can easily find Vietnamese community both in some parts of the country’s countryside and in the heart of the country, Phnom Penh. I can’t help but to accept that I was also quite concerned about this matter two years ago considering Cambodia’s long history with Vietnam. On the other hand, I started to question myself. I remembered one time couple years back. I was expressing this concern over Vietnamese migration to Cambodia to one of my American friend. I left wondering expression on his face. Instead, he asked me: “Why are you so worried about that? Where I’m from, we have people from every part of the world living. I don’t seem to see that as a concern.” My friend’s sentences got me thinking.
I have to say, personally, I think my friend was right. The most obvious example is Chinese people. You can find Chinatown in almost every part of the world you are going to. No one seems to have problem with that. In Cambodia, there are many Chinese-Cambodian families. Cambodians do not treat that as a problem. So, why do some people only specifically express concern over Vietnamese? I don’t get it. I know that the issue of illegal immigration in Cambodia has to be tackled by the government (hopefully, one day). As long as, immigration is legal, doesn’t matter who migrate here to my country, I am okay with that as long as they do not come here to cause troubles. And again, some troubles are the duties of the government to control.
The other day, I saw the news about a Vietnamese beaten to death because of NOTHING rather than the fact that he was Vietnamese. That made me pissed. Seriously! It clearly reflects how hatred can burn down a whole nation. I don’t get it how some people generate their thinking. Actually, I doubt they even think before they act at all. Because of wars in the past, many Cambodians migrated to other countries. Until today, those people have families and children who were born abroad. Some of those do not even speak Khmer or live in Cambodia. Yet, they can call themselves Cambodians because their parents or grandparents are. However, the one Vietnamese who was born and lived here for the most part of his life, had a Cambodian wife and probably spoke the language too was killed just because he couldn’t go back in time to change his originality. Something doesn’t quite add up here, does it?
The whole point that I’ve been trying to make here is I just don’t get racism or all form of hatred over differences of individual. Put the differences aside, we are all human race. If we simplified the way the world is and viewed it the same way as fashion, food or music in which we seem to enjoy their diversities, I think there would be less hatred. I don’t think hating Vietnamese will get Cambodia to places. Some Cambodians should stop pointing finger at others while overlooking their own lackings.
Can't Stand 
Everyone needs a bogeyman. When we are not able to solve our problems, we look to blame someone else. One day in the future, when Phnom Penh is more affluent, the people will blame the migrants from the provinces for the problems in the city. Having said that, I will also urge the migrants to learn local ways and mingle more. I think Cambodians are not alone, You see such resentment a lot across Asia – Locals resenting Korean enclaves in the Philippines for example or recent story of a mob manhandling African students in India. Mostly it is just passive resentment but in same cases, the politicians are eager to take advantage of this. You know what makes me happy, my Vietnamese and Cambodian friends getting together to organize events like up coming FOSSAsia in Phnom Penh.
I agree with you. I can never understand how people can live with hatred. I have a few Vietnamese friends, some of whom is living here, and the rest are those I met in international events abroad. It’s amazing to spread peace with everybody, and it makes me really angry when politicians use such a dangerous sentiment for their own interests. Anyway, I heard about FOSSAsia. My friend also helps organizing it. Sounds like it’s gonna be a great event.
We all want it legal, while the govt doesnt and wanna take advantage of it, that’s why it hasnt ever attempted to properly tackle it. Unless it is legal, the hatre sentiments still exist, but it of course the hatre of illegal immigration, not actually the race, apparently putting threat to our territory. Only making it legal will work.
Making it legal is one thing, but i still think it is only one part of hatred of Vietnamese. If the hatred is solely toward illegal immigration, then Vietnamese are not the only nationale immigrating to Cambodia. Anyway, i agree with you in term of strengthening immigration law. By doing that, it will help solving part of the racist problem.
It has nothing to do with whether it is legal or illegal immigration. Racism is not related to whether government handles it or not. Racist politics exists wherever there is room for exploiting racist sentiments among the people. That will happen even if the immigrants have their papers in order. Education plays an important role to mitigate it and I would also claim a positive self-image of the nation-state that includes positive inclusive values. Politically expressed nationalism/racism gets stronger when people feel unsafe about their identity and being.
Being a stateless or immigrant without papers (I refuse to use the term “illegal” as there are no such thing, all humans are legally speaking somewhere) is not an advantage. They normally have no access to public services and they have virtually no access to justice. In many countries as for example Cambodia, they can’t own land and they do not have access to credits.
They make their money on informal businesses or services to sustain themselves. They pay “informal” and high formal fees to various authorities to get business permissions, access to services and protection. This money is then used for consumption in the society creating jobs and incomes for people with their papers in order.
In fact, immigration has by some large scale research by UN been shown to be profitable for the host country of those migrants. Providing papers to stateless and paperless immigrants would bring them in to the formal economy and increase tax revenues and also decrease for example crime related to poverty.
The fact that racist arguments can not run along for example this discourse of argumentation shows they are very non-rational, emotionally charged and authoritarian. Looking also at the hatred facing for example Mr Ou Virak, I am struck by the similarity in the racist argumentation in Europe and Cambodia. It is exactly the same arguments and vicious hatred down to the choice of words (many times sexist or homophobic which goes hand in hand with racist sentiments).
In conclusion, even if history and experience differ, there is nothing unique with the racism in Cambodia and in the rest of the world that defends or motivates this kind of talk.
Thank you for addressing this matter.
Vietnamese seem quite oblivious to the hatred from Cambodians. Throughout our history lessons, we are taught that Cambodia, Laos, Cuba, Soviet was friends with us and are still trusty friends even now. I don’t even know that a Vietnamese guy got beaten to death in Cam, Vnese government don’t want to leak such information for the sake of friendship between the two countries.
The invasion of Cambodia of Vietnam, from a Viet point of view, is that we fought a guy who was harassing our citizen and his own citizen AT THE COST OF BEING ATTACKED BY CHINA, ISOLATED BY THE WORLD AND SHUNNED BY ASEAN. So much for helping our neighbor stopping a genocide on his people. We didn’t invade Laos for a reason, you know.
Right now border tension between the two countries is rising and VNese are realizing that Cambodian hate them for their good deeds in the past, relationship between the two will surely get ugly