Out My Window- Life in Cambodia and Life in Korea

Out My Window- Life in Cambodia and Life in Korea

            The towers in the world, they can look exactly the same;tall buildings made of concrete. The world in the towers, however, can be all different. In those same-looking highrises, each individual has a different life, culture and environment. I had the opportunity to get to know about Tola and his aunt, construction workers in Phnom Penh, from the Highrise website.This website contains 360° documentaries of people living in high-rises all around the world.While exploring this site, I was able to find out that the outside of Tola's window shown in this website was very different from outside my window,and there are 3 main aspects I'd like to compare between the life in Cambodia and the life in Korea :  culture,history, and economy.  

               Tola and his aunt are construction workers in Cambodia, as I mentioned. They live and work at the construction site, where there is running water and electricity. They live there until the building is complete, and then they have to move before the owners come. On completion, the units usually get rented to foreigners from Western countries and Koreans.Yet,they're quite satisfied that they have at least somewhere to sleep. This is very different from my life in Korea. I'm still a student and cannot work, or at least, I have to study rather than work. For Tola, however, it is different. Phnom Penh attracts many workers rural areas, like Tola. Some of those migrants seek for better job opportunities, and some flee to avoid poverty. To earn money, Tola had to give up studying. Many migrant workers who work in Phnom Penh have only had primary education, like Tola. Although he had to stop studying to do construction work, he puts a lot of effort in his life.






I managed to find a similarity between 
Cambodian and Korean cultures, which
is rice. Most Koreans live on rice, and rice has been the main food we eat since centuries ago. This is not just for Korea, but people in the eastern and southern parts of Asia live on rice,too. This includes Cambodia. Actually, rice plays an important role in Cambodia's agrarian society, being the predominant food crop. From what I have found out,there are more than a hundred words for the word,"rice," and it is estimated that 3,000 varieties are cultivated throughout the country. Although that fact that both Korea and Cambodia have rice as their main food source, I noticed that Cambodia had a more reliance on it. 

   Another thing I noticed was history, and economy. In 1990's, there was a communist party in Cambodia called, Khmer Rouge. Their goal was to make Cambodia an agrarian society. They forced everyone out of Phnom Penh in order to reach their goal, and while doing that, more than 1 million deaths occurred. So I think this is why Cambodian economy in mainly agrarian. However, because there are some serious problems like poverty, many farmers are moving in to cities,seeking for jobs. I thought that this situation is kind of similar to what Korea was like few decades ago. Korea was an agrarian society back in the past. But because the country became more technological, many people from the countryside moved into cities. Although what is happening is similar, the reasons are, of course, different. Cambodians were forced to live in agrarian culture, while Korea was one from the beginning. Also, Cambodians are looking for jobs to avoid poverty/ natural disasters, but Koreans moved into cities as the society changed.


   

It was very interesting to observe one's life in other countries, and I really learned a lot from exploring this site.