The $11 shirt that cost me $12

One of the joys of teaching in Asia is custom tailoring. A colleague of mine said I dressed too conservatively so he insisted he buy me a shirt. I was a little embarrassed but I agreed and let him take me to his tailor. When they looked at me, a westerner, they said straight away that the shirt was going to cost him $12!  Why, because they needed more material, since I was five feet eight inches and larger than the average Cambodian. 

I was never so pleased to be charged an extra dollar in my life  since I have always been considered small by North American standards, so I was immensely complimented. While I was there I  also bought some other shirts for myself and a pair of linen pants which cost me the enormous sum of $40 because it was the "finest" material in Phnom Penh.

Even if the clothes fall apart, as a shirt I bought in Vietnam did after about a month when the collar fell off, it is so much fun to be measured up and have clothes tailored just for you. And who could resist such a bargain?

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Another one of the joys of travel and teaching abroad is listening to all of the stories you hear. I was in Kampot last weekend and spent a whole lot of time talking with the tuk tuk driver. He told me how much his tuk tuk cost and how much money he made every day and so on. He told me how much it cost to eat, to pay rent and so on and it struck me how close to the edge some Cambodians are living. I can't imagine how it must feel to add up every dollar you make on a daily basis to see if you could survive for another day.