It's easy to mock tuk tuk drivers or moto top drivers, with their incessant shouts of "tuk tuk?!?" or "moto?!?" As soon as you appear around the corner, they will spring up with the hope of a puppy at dinner time, eager to take anything that you may offer. Our answer of having a bike already or just being out for a walk can cause a slump worse than any stock market has witnessed.
In Europe or America, to earn a living you look for an employer to give you a job. In developing countries, there are very few employers and if you want money to eat, you have to think what you can do to earn money yourself. The question is: "What can I do that will persuade people to give me money?"
I've had 13 years at school followed by 5 years at university and I have no idea what I could do or produce that would persuade people to give me money. I made a wooden chair once when I was 12 but wouldn't remember how to do it now. Judging by my hairstyles, I don't think offering to cut people's hair for them would be an option. My restaurant would only be able to serve cheese toasties and I get a sore back when ironing for too long (the board is always too low). Imagine how hard this could be when you are illiterate and find it difficult to count and then add in the consideration that you are trying to sell to people whose monthly income is $100.
In my opinion, I can make the best paper aeroplanes ever, but they don't tend to last very long so I couldn't charge very much. I was pretty good at polishing my school shoes though so I guess that is what I could do. I could be a shoe shine boy. Put me into a situation in Cambodia where I would have to be self-employed and my best idea is to earn some money by shining shoes, with a paper aeroplane business on the side.
One lunch time a few months ago, when the heat scares people indoors, I watched my moto dop friend paced around his moto. He would wipe his seat, inspect his face in the wing mirror, look down one street, then another and then another. He would look down all four streets that can be seen from the intersection but there was nobody there. Without any customers, he didn't know what to do other than what he had been doing for two decades.
We have phrases in English that have become so common that we have lost an understanding of what the words mean. To counter this, when we do actually mean what we are saying, we insert the word "literally". In Cambodia, there are literally some people who do not know what to do with themselves. They don't have skills or ideas and they only know what they've done before. If that stops working then what else can they do?
Sometimes, I become slightly tired of tuk tuks offering you a ride or market sellers asking if you want to buy something and when I do I feel a bit ashamed. Despite the vast majority of people saying no, they keep on asking, they keep on offering, they keep on putting themselves out there for a disappointment. If I was a shoe-shiner or a paper-aeroplane seller, I don't think I would be able to keep going like they do.
Gordon
