Foreigners Are The Reason For The Season

I live in a Buddhist country, right? I guess Buddhists know how to celebrate Christmas.

As I was walking home this weekend, many random people stopped me to wish me a Merry Christmas. One crippled guy even cornered me--I thought he was gonna start demanding charity, and I was gearing up for a fight. Instead, he stuck out his hand. Having no idea what was going on, I stared at it. Finally, he grabbed and vigorously shook my hand, saying, "MERRY CHRISTMAS". (See? No one's out to get me!)

Folks also like to put up trees and tinsel. I walked around one afternoon and snapped a picture of the following Christmas displays. Thought you might like to look at a sampling of what I saw.

This was in front of the supermarket.

This was in front of the restaurant in front of the supermarket.

This is was in front of Black Canyon Coffee.

This was in front of the ice cream shop.

At Monument Books!

Along Norodom Boulevard!

Little white trees lined all streets!

I don't know what this is, but they hung them along the road with the white Christmas trees.

Many stores have tinsel trees in the front window, just like this one at UCare.

The Christmas archway! They sold red and green pillows inside.

You may notice the ridiculous amounts of Christmas trees. They're everywhere, and most of them have been there since late October/early November. It's a good thing I don't take issue with Christmas the way I do Valentine's Day!

The Cambodia Daily had the following to say about this phenomenon:

"'Foreigners working in Cambodia cannot miss out on celebrating Christmas and New Year's, so they need to come to souvenir shops in order to buy gifts for their friends here or outside the country'" [Sok Sarith, general manager of the International Book Center on Monivong] said, adding that he has seen more Cambodian students who studied abroad doing the same.

"'Restaurants and hotels are also showing Christmas displays because they want to draw foreigner customers.'"

I get it. People are just trying to exploit us, again, and this time, they're using our own cultural artifacts to do it. (Forget what I said before.)

Dammit. Good thing I didn't celebrate Christmas this year!