If you find yourself in Cambodia and wanting for English conversation with the locals, just head to the nearest temple and find yourself a novice monk. If of course they don’t find you first, which most likely they will.

When backpacking in Cambodia several years ago, I found the novice monks – often in their late teens or early twenties – the most outgoing and curious people. And most of them speak English amazingly well.

Wherever I traveled in Cambodia, there were monks. And I began to think of them as the unofficial symbols of the country – more relevant, more alive than the image of Angkor Wat emblazoned on the national flag. All I would have to do was wander into a temple complex to admire the Khmer architecture, and sure enough a novice monk in his bright orange or dark maroon robe would appear and address me in English.

Walking back from the Russian Market in Phnom Penh one evening, I caught a glimpse of an elaborately tiled temple, Wat Tuol Tom Pong, hidden behind a tall gate. As I maneuvered my camera between the bars to snap a photo, a monk approached me from the street. Buddhist etiquette varies from country to country, and in Cambodia, although monks aren’t allowed to touch women – even to shake hands – they are permitted to speak with females. In surprisingly fluent English, the monk introduced himself as Bunsinat and offered to show me around the temple grounds.

After the tour, he led me to a classroom in an austere building near the pagoda, where he introduced me to his English teacher, who invited me to stay as a guest instructor. For the next hour, I fielded students’ questions, most of which involved life in America and what I
thought of Cambodia. Most students seemed to be studying English so they could get jobs in tourism, which is second only to the garment industry in Cambodia.

Bunsinat, one of two monks in the class, was no exception. “Many monks, like me, they come from the countryside to the temple in the city to learn English. For the monk the English class is free,” he said. Other students pay about $5 per month.

“For many years I will study the life of the Buddha, but later I want to find a job in a hotel or a bank,” he continued, “I want to make a lot of money.”

One student asked me, “Do people plow the fields for work in your country too?” He meant with water buffalo, not machinery. Although I was the teacher – the so-called wise Westerner – I am quite sure that I am the one who learned the most that day.

- by Terry Ward