Yeah, it is strange, but I am used to "neo-colonial attitudes," or whatever it can be called. Another thing that has been irritating me is that all the adults in my life never let me finish a sentence. Whether Khmer or foreign, it seems everyone around me talks in monologue form, and any attempts thwarting the one-way conversation are all done in vane.

A wise man once told me to judge the intelligence of a person by the questions they and not the things they say. Surely this expression is much older than the guy that said it to me, but it has stuck with me because it is very profound. I tend to to let someone ramble if they want, and nowadays I have the most intelligent and thoughtful conversations with my 14-year-old daughter.