Although Cambodia's recent history is extremely painful, the nation in the here and now is buzzing with activity and anticipation. The capital city Phnom Penh is expanding like crazy, with high-rise apartments and malls being built left and right. This is not only due to Cambodia's growth as a nation, but also with the help of foreign direct investment, courtesy of the developed world. China, Japan, Korea and America are all major players in the city's rapid development.
A view of Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capitol city, from 22 stories up.
This begs the question: how much culture is Cambodia sacrificing by building a more modern, westernized city? Fortunately, Cambodians are proud of their heritage and wish not to forget from where they came. Although the Royal Palace is beginning to look like a beautifully lain egg nestled in a web of high rises, much of Cambodia's youth are thriving off of these newfound changes.
The evidence is in the hearts and souls of the brilliant students we met at the Royal University of Phnom Penh as well as the Harpswell Foundation — an organization that provides housing for the most gifted female college students in Phnom Penh. All of the students had one thing in common: they all knew exactly what they wanted to do when they graduate. Most of them were majoring in engineering, planning to study abroad and return to Cambodia to help develop their country, but even more impressively, most of the students had already set up rigorous post graduation goals. For instance, a sophomore was dedicated to design a more suitable sanitary system for the city.
You would think we would have inspired them. We were Americans with the resources to travel to the other side of the world and are granted the flexibility to not have a career path fully mapped out, but they instead absolutely inspired us. Their pure dedication to their studies as well as their ability to pick a major as well as a career path and run with it from the beginning was jaw dropping to my entire Cohort.
Watch out America, Cambodia is cranking out some incredible intellectuals. They are not afraid to forge new paths and they crave the ability to study abroad, but more importantly, they are not afraid to return home and give back to the land they love.
