"A writhing, seething transportation mass
Rushes daily through Phnom Penh's streets,
And face oncoming traffic if you must,
But nimbly thread through traffic in the curb
Then weave across to join the other side.
Who cares how many ride the motor bike,
And drives the bike with one hand on the bars,
A cell phone stuck to ear insatiable?
What need the SUV, the four-wheel drive,
A status symbol pompously displayed?
Such irony where poverty is rife.
What if the bikes are lined up at a light?
Then use the pavement a convenient route.
Sometimes the red and green obedience bring.
Impatient traffic waits the countdown red.
Then comes the green, the ragged charge begins,
Moves deftly past those laggards who choose
With crass disdain to simply run the red.
No road rage, anger, shaking fist, or threat,
But mere acceptance of the status quo.
Here bored police with uninterested eyes
See but the stuttering mass of traffic,
And watch with bland disdain the madding scene."
Rushes daily through Phnom Penh's streets,
And face oncoming traffic if you must,
But nimbly thread through traffic in the curb
Then weave across to join the other side.
Who cares how many ride the motor bike,
And drives the bike with one hand on the bars,
A cell phone stuck to ear insatiable?
What need the SUV, the four-wheel drive,
A status symbol pompously displayed?
Such irony where poverty is rife.
What if the bikes are lined up at a light?
Then use the pavement a convenient route.
Sometimes the red and green obedience bring.
Impatient traffic waits the countdown red.
Then comes the green, the ragged charge begins,
Moves deftly past those laggards who choose
With crass disdain to simply run the red.
No road rage, anger, shaking fist, or threat,
But mere acceptance of the status quo.
Here bored police with uninterested eyes
See but the stuttering mass of traffic,
And watch with bland disdain the madding scene."
- Bernard Barton
3 comments:
traffic is still chaotic in cambodia. when are they going to fix it so less accident can occur!
actually this kind of traffic jam slows everybody down a lot, so they are less accident. and tourists, believe it or not, like this kind of scene when they visit cambodia because they don't have it in their own country, so they come to cambodia to be different.
why get aggro when you just go-go? only in Cambodia
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