The Cambodian children who wait outside the tourist sites are quite phenomenal.  Beautiful smiles and bright eyes stand in stark contrast to their ragtag clothes and pleading calls.  Their carefully crafted appearance and an astonishing ability to negotiate in English are only surpassed by their undying persistence.  If you don’t fall for their “pitiful” act they are quick to follow with then next tactic, usually a litany of facts about your home country.  Peering up from waist level are packs of five and six year old kids spouting out geography, heads of state, and a variety of other trivia most of which I’d be hard pressed to recall myself.  If this trivia tactic fails they will launch into selling campaign aimed at guilt, suggesting you should buy gifts for loved ones back home. All of this is done speaking with an unexpected command of English, French, German or whatever your native tongue may be.

This onslaught is quite impressive and as a tourist it is difficult not to give in and part with a few dollars, if not for charity’s sake then for sheer admiration of their efforts.  One’s heart quickly wants to concede, but one’s head knows that to do so is to encourage destructive behavior for these kids and possibly Cambodian society in general.   At best these kids take their handfuls of dollars as evidence that staying on the streets is more rewarding than school. At worst your dollars are passing right through the hands of these street children and into the pockets of the Cambodian mafia. 

Short of yelling at these children it’s not likely you can persuade them to leave you alone until they have been given a bit of coin.  Occasionally one does hear a tourist loose it and cast some rather loud and threatening words at these adorable urchins, but in the end that is a depressing experience for anyone within earshot.  So what is one to do?  What can a person do to satisfy the battle between heart and mind? 

Well I don’t pretend to have a great answer to this, but I stumbled upon a little trick which can help reduce the friction of these encounters.  Essentially the idea is to change the goal of the game from getting money to getting something else.  These are kids after all and the battle of patience and wits is a game to them. I don’t believe that receiving money means as much to them as winning this game. 

At first it seems these kids have an answer to every excuse you might throw at them, but after awhile one realizes that it is all a well rehearsed script.  If you can get the kids off the “script” they have to start thinking and that can give you just enough time to shift the goal of this game.  The new goal of the game can be any number of things; a pen, a piggyback ride, friendship, some gum…it’s up to you.  This is just one way to change an annoyance to a little amusement with the added benefit that the kids aren’t just getting handouts. 

To read an account of the negotiation that led me to this little bit of self enlightenment check out 1 bamboo bracelet = 100 kisses.