Cambodia - Land Of The Forgotten One

Nowadays, my lifestyle revolves around my life in the office. Most of story circulates around what happened to me there. Currently, I'm helping my colleague doing some engineering drawings interfacing. It sort of remind me of my work in Citibank during my university break. Those day, I worked in document interfacing. "MIS officer" if you want to give it a smooth-to-ear name or office boy in reality. Staff from other floors who need their client's housing loan documents to be processed by the high ranked officer must go through one "VIP" on that floor. And that VIP is me. Basically, I'm the middle man distributing the work load to the other officers. During that short period I met this one guy the whole building called him God of Files. You have God of Gambler and God of Fortune but God of Files? You must be thinking what kind of God that can be made out from files?

A long long time ago, in a galaxy far away before the invention of hard disk, bank rely on hard copy documentation. Every loan application created, a file will be generated. 1,000,000 applicants means 1,000,000 files. When these 1,000,000 files travelling between each levels and departments and people's desks it ends up one thing. Lost in the middle of no where.

This particular guy goes around hunting for lost files. Desks, cupboards, underneath the tables, pantry, xerox machine, anywhere. The last person to take that file with his/her initial on his file acceptance form will be in deep kanasai. His proud record of searching file is so good that the file people thought of no chances to retrieve, he can dig it out from some staff's cupboard who left the company 10 years ago! This God of Files is so good in one thing. He remembers all the file names and the last person who took it. It's like the master list is stored inside his brain. You can just give him the last 5 digits of the applicant number and he might know the full name of the applicants. That's how good he is with memorisation. As I have said earlier on, my current role is quite comparable to his. But what separates me and God of Files is memorisation.

My colleague told me I have good memorisation by still remembering the total design drawings that is still active. It is just a coincidence. I'm not good in memorisation. That's my weakness. I even have the difficulty to remember one new phone number! He brought up the case of Albert Einstein. You see, some claimed normal red-blooded Homosapiens like me uses 10% of the of brain capability. Einstein, my colleague claimed used more than that. I don't agree much. This is a myth and there are many Internet write-ups that counter this myth out there. I'm not sure whether Einstein used more of his brain if compared to us. But a deep thought makes me ponder that people in this generation, that includes me use more of their brain. What I meant is not in percentage but frequency. We in a way overtake Einstein in terms of using our brain more. Don't believe me? Give a thought. Just compare our daily lifestyle with Einstein on what he didn't get to remember those days and what we need to remember today.

We need to learn how to drive. By doing that we must remember how to make signal, put in the gear, press the accelerator, clutch, brake, how to park, how to fill up petrol, all the road signage, how to use Touch and Go, and all the route and short-cuts to be taken.

We have to know how to operate a computer. This gonna be long. We have to remember which button to switch on. The password for Windows log in, Yahoo Mail, Google Mail, MSN, YM, Skype, M2U, credit card and the list continues. Besides, we have to remember how to operate Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, Access), all VB6 application, and all Java based applications. We must remember how to surf for information. We remember website addresses: Yahoo, The Star, Soccernet, www.madisonvelocity.blogspot, kennysia.com, and so on and so forth. We remember how to connect camera, handycam, external hardisk, card reader, fan, light into USB port. We must remember all the keys in keyboards. What is "print screen", "alt", "ctrl", "ctrl+alt+del", "alt+tab", "ctrl+shift+'='" means. We have to remember some basic excel coding; "vlookup()", "upper()", "if()", "pi()", "today()", "isblank()", conditional formatting and the list goes on and on.

Since me and Einstein are more into the world of Physics, let's do a comparison of our field. He came up with the famous E=mc². Because of that I have to remember it to use that equation into calculation, apply it into real life, use software to analyse it, model it 3D, check all the angles, worst case scenario, put it into drawings that a layman will understand. Our work don't stop there. We have to meet client, convince client, made presentation, and try to get business. Then, you have to know basic of project management, cost handling and some human management as well.

All these comparison point to one thing. We are using more and more of our brain. To say that Einstein used his brain more than us now is not completely right. The correct version should be Einstein used his brain more than the people of his .

The upcoming post will test my brain ability to remember my holiday in Cambodia last year. Let's see how much I can recall and prove that I still have the space in my brain to memorise thing. It was a 4D3N trip. 5 girls and 1 guy. We bought the air tickets first. Ground arrangement was all sorted out later by Han Ching's friend who managed to find this local guide called Mr Chen. Nice and friendly certified official Cambodia guide who is well-verse in Cantonese, Mandarin, and English. A busy man with his business.

Getting to Cambodia, it's better to travel with a small group of 4-6 people as you can fit nicely in one van and share the transportation cost. Since we bought a 3 days pass (that will only commence on our second day) to visit the Angkor Archeology Park, we decided to let our guide arrange our first day tour. He brought us to this War Museum. Here we were shown all the weapons and also the machinery left out during the day when their country was involved in war. You just have to salute them for being so capable in defending their own country. Even a kid knows how to handle an M-16 and setting up trap. However, pictures of innocent victims of abandoned land mine definitely bring out the pathos in you. Getting the chance to try out some of the guns available at the museum is a real fun too.

The second place he brought us is Tonle Sap. The biggest lake in South East Asia. The Tonle Sap is unusual for two reasons:

1) Its flow changes direction twice a year.

2) The volume of water in the lake expands and shrinks dramatically within a year.

There are dwelling along the lake. People eat, drink, work and em em here. It was 4.30 pm when we reached the middle of the sea lake using the local boat. It's still a long way to go before sunset. With the boat keeps floating, we were given a lecture on the history on Cambodia in the middle of no where. Nope. You can't sneak to the toilet like those day History class. If you in serious need to ease yourself at this location, you just have to contribute fertiliser to the soil here. Because when water level goes down during the dry season, the exposed soil is so fertile for plantation. When the water level goes up during the rainy season, the nation economy will be boosted by two things at this lake.

1. The abundant of fresh-water fish.

2. The abundant of fresh "water-fish".

You just have to envy how this one lake does wonder to the economy here. And it all comes at zero cost. My guide told me that if Cambodia decide to sever tie with all the countries out there, they can still survive on their own with abundant of food. I do find it interesting and worth every penny to visit Tonle Sap. Come on. I think it's even better than to visit a lake which they claimed you can see prehistoric monster, right?

A least this boy is with me.

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