Cambodia has a reputation as a place that is very dangerous, this is very far from the truth. As is true with a lot of things, the general public’s perception of Cambodia is slanted by press reports that serve the interests of the publishers, rather than the reading public. Cambodia is certainly not alone in this regards, Nicaragua and Myanmar are other good examples of the media filling the information channels with negative information, why would the media do this you might ask yourself? A couple of reasons come to the top quickly.

The number one reason, money! Negative images sell more than positive, we like our blood and gore and the viler the better. I would challenge the news networks to show pan shots of all disasters, but who wants to see kids playing in the streets or houses that are not on fire? Time and again what looks to be terrible beyond comprehension, when viewed in person on the scene are small scale. Don’t get me wrong, for the people involved, they are terrible life changing events, but when viewed in a global perspective they are not as important as they are portrayed. We can use more stories on global warming , dengue and or better yet something useful like how to train your cat, would be more in order than some of the sensational news that we are being given.

As a example, at the end of the ASEAN Travel Forum their was an outbreak of civil disturbances in Cambodia that lasted for a couple of hours, and the major international news networks showed repeatedly for days on end the same car burning at the Thailand embassy, well there was only one car burning, only one embassy affected, and a couple of hotels, the rest of city was business as usual. The day after the event you would have been hard pressed to know that it had even happened. What they didn’t show was hundreds of travel professions having a great time taking in the sights of Phnom Penh, Angkor Wat, and Sihanoukville. Not one person was killed in this event yet the damage to the Cambodia economy caused by all of the negative media, was way out of proportion and caused more monetary damage than the actual event!

The 2nd best reason is that it is a lot easier to flow with the public’s perception, than to seek a paradigm change. People remember the images of the bones of the Killing Fields, from the genocide that occurred BEFORE more than half of today’s population of Cambodia was born. People want their beliefs to be true, change is hard, even for things that don’t affect you. Remember when you first petted a snake or the first time you went swimming? After you made the turn, it was a lot easier to believe in the other direction wasn’t it? The media doesn’t get paid to change minds; they only get paid when you view their product. Peter Benchley feels terrible today for the havoc that he set loose on sharks, with his movie Jaws, yet a lot more people get killed by tiger mosquitoes each and every year than have been killed by sharks since records have been reported. Yet Malaria and the growing dengue threat which are grossly under reported when compared to the suffering that they cause.

There certainly are things that are bad in Cambodia, but the overwhelming majority of life is improving, and as far as safety is concern, I will take my chances here in Cambodia, or in the ocean swimming with sharks, rather than walking around at night in cites in the US, like Washington DC, Miami or LA, where you can get killed for wearing the wrong color shirt. Anyone that lives in Cambodia can tell you about the looks that you get when you say that you are going to visit here, much less if you are going to live here. We get concerned mothers, fathers and grandmothers that come here all the time to make sure that their Little Johnny is OK and they leave feeling much better about having little Suzie chilling on the beach in Cambodia, and how can you not feel that way when you turn of the TV and go to Cambodia and all you see are enthusiastic smiling faces waving at you all day and yelling, Hello!

Fred Tittle
http://www.ecosea.com
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Picture: Cambodia