Ever wondered what it would be like to be, say, Gwyneth Paltrow for a day? Ever wondered what it would be like to have your every movement, your least action gawked at in astonished wonder? To be the subject of countless silent stares, to be the star of an impromptu one-person theater production every time you purchase some water, eat some soup, wipe your brow? Then head on over to rural Cambodia.
Ever spent sleepless nights, rolling around on knotted sheets, wondering what it would be like, just for a few moments, to be Gwyneth Paltrow? Best to keep it to yourself, really.
The attention is wonderful; the scrutiny is draining. Sometimes, as you eat your soup, twenty faces pressed in closely around you, you wonder if you’re living up to expectations. You’re tempted to pour the soup into your pants or clutch the spoon between your toes or anything, really, to warrant the attention. Later, you admit to yourself that perhaps you’re just looking for a reason to pour hot noodles into your pants, which you suspect would be quite pleasurable.
But none of that is necessary. By virtue of your farmer’s tan and odd hair, and the fact that your bicycle looks like an attack vehicle with it’s brightly colored shocks and aggressively angled handlebars, you’re strange enough even when you don’t do anything at all.
“Hello! Hello!” the mob of children shrieks as you cycle past.
“Hello,” you shout back, waving awkwardly.
“Hello! Hello!” the mob answers. This game is very popular in Cambodia, and no one ever wins.
Of course, you give as good as you get. You whip out a camera every time you pass a marketwoman or a fisherman. Fishing, to you, is about as exciting as reading the phone book. You would much rather spend an afternoon, say, maintaining a personal web site than trying to outwit a scrod. But watching somebody else fish, that’s entertainment indeed, especially if that person can make a handmade net balloon outward into a perfect circle with a flick of the wrist.
You love the attention, really you do. But sometimes you just want to eat your soup.
