New life in the old town

Simon, 31, an ex soldier from Leicestershire, has now finished teaching in Asia. Specifically, had now finished teaching in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The temperature is normally around 30 degrees. The former Marine knew he'd miss the warmth, would miss the job opportunities afforded to him in this distant country, formally known as the Khmer Empire, where Thailand's legal and administrative terms come from, not dissimilar to the way England took on French words after the Norman conquest. The last wage packet, bursting with $100 bills was collected with a reluctant relish-the English graduate knew it was the last wage from the prestigious business school, and had to make the money last for when he returned to the U.K. Alas, it was eaten into pretty damn quick-there were problems with the bus; late, arriving at the wrong place, so the veteran paid for a flight to Bangkok. This was over $100.     The Paradox was that Simon had plenty of employment opportunities in T

          Seeing the recent work experience on my CV, I can imagine potential employers think I'm some backpacker chancer looking for a part-time gig. Not true. I need to put my most recent work experience on my CV, complete with foreign name references whose addresses have strange, alien postcodes, located in faraway places. When it comes to writing a CV, I won't lie. Despite the teaching stuff, I've got a decent back-log of catering experience (over 5 years) but the employers just see the most recent stuff, the foreign language teaching. It wasn't some 'Mickey Mouse' gig. It was early starts, planning lessons, working in a foreign land, having to adapt to everything. The Cambodia part of the experience was not at all easy-5:30 am starts, working 7 days a week.                                                                      *   But anyway. Unemployment can really get under one's skin-that, combined with the delayed, reverse culture shock since being

                                                 I CAN'T AFFORD BREAKFAST     NUMPOW. (sic)That's how to pronounce it-just one of a variety of Cambodian Street pastries. NUMPOW are hollow and shallow fried. If I was having a good day and good afford it, I'd have 4, bought from a street stall in my neighborhood near street 172 in Phnom Penh. Before eating them, I'd cycle 4.5 miles to my private student's residence, to build up an appetite, even though I was already hungry. On some occasions I'd had no food the night before, and had to subside on tap water because bottled water was out of my price bracket. Sometimes to provide energy, I would pour sugar into the water. When a person is short of food, and doesn't eat often, you can feel the difference sugar makes. You 'Come up'-the thoughts are more clear. But I digress.                                                                             *   You're probably thinking how I'd end

 Menial kitchen jobs, & a taste of the city so dark and foreboding that I probably still need counselling to come to terms with it. The thing was, I didn't expect a catharthis of the soul by moving there, but this is exactly what I got. I feel this was down to moving back home, so I wasn't hiding behind being a student in a foreign town. This was my city, familiar ground. But at the same time, it wasn't. I'd never had a pint in Leicester until I was 28; I went on a date with a muslim girl when I was 20, and I had a hot chocolate in the Last Plantagenet at 12am. But it wasn't called the Last Plantagenet then, because the discovery of the remains of Richard III was 5 years away. She urged me to drink, but I explained it was too early. So what I experienced during my time in the city was an accidental cleansing of the soul, and I never thought this could be. Toward the back end of it, certain factors came into play which changed me for good as a person, although

         Decision made on the back of a close friend moving back to the Midlands after he got tired of his job. Problem was, I wasn't from the city-I'm from a town 13 miles away. I'd been living up north for 7 years. Still trying to be a student, pretending everything was all right. Moving to Leicester was like a false homecoming after nearly a decade; didn't have friends there, or family, but wait, I did, but we'll get to that later.    The house I moved into was chosen on the basis of being near to a job I thought I'd secured-a miserable, low position in a chain eatery in a separate part of the city, not even sharing the same post code. In fact, my house was a 45 minute walk from the city center. The eatery used me for a trial shift, and didn't pay me.  Before moving down there, I resided in Wigan, a satellite town to Manchester, an ancient milltown, pleasant, charming. I lived with a Chinese woman whom I met whilst working in a Chinese restaruant, and

A piece of brick whizzing past your head as you return from the shops at night. A car pulling up with the occupants making threats about knicking your bike, the strangers entirely full of anger as they hear a southern accent. Being spat at when you refuse to give a stranger money. Would you want to live here? This is a post-script since leaving Skem, after having been in Wigan for four weeks. Leaving behind the grim concrete buildings, a populance full of hate to any one perceived as an outsider, or heaven forbid, someone who works. I suppose you might ask me what the plan was, moving there? Simple-I wanted somewhere with cheap rent, not wanting to waste my inheritance, so thought I was being ever so wise. Deep down I think it may have been my equivalent of the wool shirt monks used to wear as a self imposed sufferance. I had that sufferance for a year and don't intend to return. An airless, noiseless vacuum is what it feels like. It's neither a town, village, city, but a s