Cambodia scoping interview 03
Interview 3: 56 years old (5 sisters)
Observations
This was a middle aged couple, who were very friendly and spoke to us at length. Time to time the man did contribute to the discussion, but let his wife respond to us mostly. He showed us pictures of their daughter, the Face Book site of their daughter’s salon, a picture of his son-in-law at an important looking meeting, in full suits, and a picture of his grand-son on his phone. It was obvious that he was very proud of them. They had dried beef, pork sausages and dried snake in their stall.
They have two grand children and both of them go to Institut du Francais Cambodge, for their studies and Leabphea says that this is a really prestigious school, not only expensive but that only the elite of Cambodia can attend this school.
Leabphea- man showed the picture of the grand son to us and the woman said they had just returned from an overseas trip, to Finland. L had asked whether it was a school trip and she said no, they went on a holiday, father, mother and kids.
Notes
“my mom was originally from mainland China and my dad is a half-blood Chinese (Kon kat chen កូនកាត់ចិន). Before the Khmer Rouge, my mom sells fresh fish. But when the KR ended, she changed to sell dried fish instead. We were all depending on this trade. Me and my oldest sister spent time at the stall and help my parents to sell. Then only two of us started selling on our own. (her older sister also has a stall in the market and we suspect this is the lady that we spoke to a bit on the 1st day and had to stop the interview because her husband turned up and insisted that we left). I did not go to school at that time.”
“My husband and I only run this business. So, all of our daily expense will be covered by the income that we earned. We are just a middle-income family. I have my husband to take over the task if I am sick. There are 5 members in my family. however, two of my children are already married (oldest daughter and second son). I do all the house chores and cook while my husband will usually get dressed and leave to open the stall before me. I will come to the stall after him once I have done the cooking and pack it for our lunch. My daughter, she opened a salon and her husband is a government officer at Office of the Council of Ministers, and before he joined the government, he used to work for the UNDP and UNESCO. My daughter’s marriage was an arranged marriage (father saying), one of my friends introduced my son-in-law to me and that is how the marriage happened. To me, she is the role model in our family because she cares so much about her family and listen to her father. This marriage was arranged by us.”
“about the dried fish trade, of course, there is trust between us and our buyer. We do face some difficulties while we do trade with people. Those who used to cheat on us, we stop trading with them. But that is just a small percentage. Most of our Mooi will usually take the product first then pay back one or two days after and sometime it goes up to one week. The estimated money is around 1 or 2 million riels. I supply to every province and phnom penh. Before I transport the product and get the money through taxi. For now, I only use taxi for delivering the product to Mooi and use money transaction services such as True money or Wing. Sometime, my mooi recommend my stall to others and once they come, they mostly become my new mooi. Some of my mooi also come to find a trusted seller like me by themselves. I have one mooi whose their mother used to be my Mooi. They sell dried-fish at Battambong province. And my sister and I have different mooi. Their business was passed from the mother to the daughter. Some rare type of fish was made along Tonle Sap lake but most of the fish are either taken from the local fish farm or imported from Vietnam. Out of 10 people, there are 6 people who play Tong Tin, her husband said. But I don’t take part in that because I know there is a high which I will be cheated on. Those who play they are kind of addicted to it (the one who keeps the money and go to collect money monthly from their members). I will some day in the future if I could find a trusted collector.”
“ I join every social event that I was invited to. To maintain a good relationship and to show reciprocity among my peers (traders in orussey), I will go to their important day and ceremony. They will also come to my events as well. With my moois, I would go to provinces to join them but only if they are very close to me and I considered as sibling. Otherwise, I would have only sent money.”
