Strange times

ONE of the interesting bits of news making the rounds of social media these days is about the reaction of Cambodians to our president, speaking to their king. Apparently, their own netizens did not take too kindly our president’s posture and demeanor while he was conversing with their sovereign, and of course they made their feelings known, as most people tend to do these days.

I remember when I first set out on an international management career that our organization, before posting us in a new country, always made sure we not only had foreign language training (to learn the language in that new place), but more importantly cultural sensitivity training, so that we would know how to act, and how to conduct ourselves in our new “home.”

It was, therefore, somewhat of a surprise to me when news about our president’s faux pas with the Cambodian king hit the news.

The picture, which probably looked innocuous to most of our countrymen, illustrated clearly to someone with exposure in Buddhist culture why there was such an uproar over the president’s conduct.

First of all, he was dressed in his customary take on the Filipino barong tagalog, with the obligatory rolledup sleeves. Well, even to most Filipinos who prefer the traditional way of dressing, this manner of wearing our national dress is off-putting. After all, the national dress shows us in our best form, and is meant to represent how we as a nation want to look. Add to this the fact that the president is our most important representative to the world, and we compound the problem further. Here is our very own leader, who represents us and everything we stand for, looking scruffy in our national dress. Even to us Filipinos, that is already something we are not proud of. Now picture what this does to the Cambodians.

The king represents a very highly revered figure in Buddhist culture. We can see in the example of the recent death of the King of Thailand, how this culture respects their leader. The Khmer people are of the same mindset. Their king is someone they look up to very highly, and they expect other people to also accord their king due respect. And what does our own leader do? He shows up in his own version of our national dress, which is not really the way we wear our national dress, and ends up looking like a country bumpkin in front of a king. This, however, was not the worst offense that he did.

In Buddhist culture, showing the soles of your feet to anyone is a sign of utter disrespect. This is what the Buddhists think of this matter.

“The head is considered to be spiritually above everything else...Conversely, the feet are considered dirty, profane. You absolutely must not use your feet to point at, or nudge people. If you accidentally touch someone with your feet, don’t panic, just apologize with sincerity. While accidentally using or placing your feet inappropriately will in most cases be forgiven, the potential to cause great offense, and long term misunderstanding, is very real.”

So here we are. Our very own leader showing the leader of an ASEAN neighbor the sign of utmost disrespect.

And how do his supporters react? With the usual ad-hominem defendattack routine, of course. Something to the effect that it is not our culture to be offended by such things, so the Cambodians should understand.

But this is exactly not the point. When I was a young manager being asked to go to other places, even we were trained very carefully, so as not to cause offense in the land of our hosts. Now here we are, and our own president does not even bother to take a course in cultural sensitivity and decorum. Strange times indeed!

And what does our own leader do? He shows up in his own version of our national dress, which is not really the way we wear our national dress, and ends up looking like a country bumpkin in front of a king.