Proximity

As frustrating as it was sometimes to live in the orphanage in Cambodia, one thing that I didn't realize about it until just now was how effective it was at helping me to learn Khmer. The only other foreigner there with any regularity at all was Mike, and sometimes even he would just randomly disappear. So if I wanted to have any interaction, there was a very good chance that it had to be in Khmer. I mean, I lived with 70 kids or so, of which probably about 15 could speak reasonable English. So for 55 of the people I lived with, I had to learn Khmer to really communicate with them in any effective way.

Here, though, I live exclusively with foreigners. On my floor, there's one American guy who's married to a Chinese woman, but she speaks really good English and I don't think he speaks really any Chinese at all. And elsewhere in the building, it's the same - either only English speakers, or just people who speak really good English in general.

So there's no reason to speak Chinese here. In Cambodia, I needed it if I wanted to say or explain or listen anything at all with what was going on around me. Additionally, there was a lot more commotion because there were 70 kids running around. Here, I just live with a bunch of English speaking adults. We all sit in our apartments and stare at screens.

So I've done a poor job with the Chinese so far, and I'm pretty disappointed about that.

Peace out.