FRIDAY evening at La Residence, an opulent French restaurant on 214th Street where a dinner for two costs a month’s wages for most people, Phnom Penh’s elite are gathering for a party. Everyone is smiling and happy, perfectly at ease amid the marble and chandeliers as they sit down for a meal of foie gras, wagu beef and lobster with fine wine and brandy. Their children, dressed in princess ball-gowns and little suits with bow-ties, run up and down the corridors and spiral staircase without a care in the world.
On the other side of town, down by the Old Market, children exactly the same age are playing in the garbage: They use a blue plastic water barrel, cut in half, as a rocking chair and chase each other with plastic bottles. They are dressed in rags, some of the younger ones are naked, and none have any shoes. Their parents are nowhere to be seen. Their dinner tonight, if they have any, will be rice and vegetables and maybe a scrap of fish from a roadside food vendor. Continue reading