There we were sitting at a table outside a small restaurant in Phnom Penh, trying to have a conversation and waving away every street hawker who tried to peddle their wares. Even after all the times I’ve travelled in Asia, I still find it difficult to ignore, or say “no” to the constant stream of hawkers. I’m sure most of them need to sell something to be able to feed themselves, or their families, but you really can’t buy from every single one of them. It just seems so rude to wave them away, without a glance, as if you’re swatting flies. But this evening one small girl made a sale.
She could only have been about nine years old, and with the usual holding of goods in the air in front of us and the plaintive “You buy, you buy, please, you buy”, which we were managing to ignore, she then added “Where you from?” Okay, I’m a sucker and it never works, but in the hope of just a short conversation which might make us seem like nice people; you hope they might perhaps then go away. I turned to her and said “Australia”, to which she cracked a smile, stood up straight and announced the following in a perfect Australian accent: “G’day mate”, “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oy oy oy”, followed by “The dingo ate my baby”. Our eyes lifted and we absolutely cracked up laughing; it was hilarious, and she was brilliant.
I told her she had earned a sale and “how many bracelets for a dollar”. “Three”. “Let’s make it four?” “No, only three”, she said with a very concerned furrowed brow. There wasn’t going to be any bartering now, having told her she had earned a sale. So she let me pick three colours I liked, and then wandered off down the dark streets, in the hope of finding more……. Australian customers to perform to. I hope she gets on okay in life.
