In our exchange program files I came across a document on cultural differences between Cambodia and North America. It was written by a former Cambodian staff – in the Connecting Peoples Coordinator role – for a specific situation and I’ve rewritten it to remove the specifics. I wanted to share it here as a Cambodian’s perspective on some of the cultural differences between Cambodia and North America.

1. People from North America encourage everyone to share their ideas to anybody at anytime. In Cambodia, it’s very rude to say your comments freely – especially to older people. In Cambodian culture, we are taught that older people are always right because they have been through this world and have more experience than younger people. This is why we are sometimes silent during a conversation. It does not mean we don’t like the topic of conversation, but we just don’t feel comfortable commenting as freely as people from North America.
2. People from North America usually talk and express their feeling openly while Cambodians will rarely make any comments. For example, if a North American and Cambodia were on a road trip the NA person might say many words about the weather, the road, the sky…while the Cambodian would sit quietly. This does not mean that we don’t see all of these things but it is because we were raised not to say too much. There is also a saying that “talk more cause more problems”. This saying teaches us not to talk to much.
3. It seems that in North American culture, everybody is treated as a friend no matter who they are; grandparents, parents, your friend’s parents, your sibling, your boss… In Cambodia, everybody is different and should be treated differently. Your grandparents are grandparents, your parents are parents, your friend’s parents are like your parents, brother is brother, sister is sister, boss is boss. We were taught to respect and call people by their title. This is one way we show respect to people who are older than us. This respect sometime causes us to fear being close to that person. In Cambodia, this is why children rarely discus their problems with their parents. They are suppose to respect them and they are afraid to tell the problem or share their feeling. Cambodians were also taught to never look up at the older person’s face when talking to them because that would be disrespectful and rude. But people in North America think that it’s suspicious when someone won’t look them in the eye.
4. For the work matter: People in North American are more focus on the work and Cambodians are more focused on relationship. In North American culture, when you do work you focus on it and you want it to be done right and quick. In Cambodia, work is still important but relationship is even more important. We work and chat at the same time. We take it easy. We do also want the work to be done but we tend to give more value to the relationship. For example: In North America, you have a formal break time when you can chose to have a break and the rest of the time is for work. In Cambodia we don’t really have a formal break time, instead whenever we are tired or have a lull we have a little break to eat something and recover. Then we go back to work. In Cambodia, we have usually have a two hour lunch break. Many people go home, enjoy their lunch with their family, take a nap and shower. In North America, you only 30 minutes to an hour and you don’t go anywhere but rather sit in front of the computer and just continue working while you eat.
5. People from North American people like to speak straight while Cambodians would rather hide problems to avoid causing trouble (this can cause big problems, too). We always hesitate to ask people to do something because we think it’s a bother. I don’t know word in English but in Khmer we say “Klach Chet – afraid heart”. Sometime, we are having a problem but we would rather just tell people that it’s ok. Because we are afraid that people will think we are a bother.