a surprisingly large number of people, especially the Khmer, speak english & chinese in addition to Khmer, 99% of my interactions were in english, the rest were mimed, the Cambodians are on par with the Viets for thievery, whereas the Thais would return misplaced things to me, the Lao are too laid to actively steal
English is the international language of commerce. I have been to business meetings conducted in English, where I was the only native speaker of English. In decades of international travel, once or twice I was left without a common language. However, in China it is more difficult to get by with only English, than it is in the rest of Asia. Most Khmer I met could speak Chinese and English.
Yeah, I think that's true if you're getting into business they probably have english in the curriculum even. But there's regions of Europe too where few know English. And if the stat I looked at is true less than 20% of Mexicans know english.
Do you know how to speak Khmer? Or did you know just enough to get by?
Also, it seems like you're losing something or getting something stolen fairly consistently in your travels.
a surprisingly large number of people, especially the Khmer, speak english & chinese in addition to Khmer, 99% of my interactions were in english, the rest were mimed, the Cambodians are on par with the Viets for thievery, whereas the Thais would return misplaced things to me, the Lao are too laid to actively steal
That's surprising so many speak english there. Is it due to tourism maybe? Otherwise I'm not sure where they'd make use of it.
English is the international language of commerce. I have been to business meetings conducted in English, where I was the only native speaker of English. In decades of international travel, once or twice I was left without a common language. However, in China it is more difficult to get by with only English, than it is in the rest of Asia. Most Khmer I met could speak Chinese and English.
Yeah, I think that's true if you're getting into business they probably have english in the curriculum even. But there's regions of Europe too where few know English. And if the stat I looked at is true less than 20% of Mexicans know english.
Hence my surprise about Cambodia.