Time to get your fun-pants laundered, as the latest international comedy extravaganza from the smash-hit producers of the Pacific Solution gets set to touch down in wee Cambodia. Fresh from a sold-out tour of guano-groovy Nauru, the Australian Asylum Seeker Policy theatre company this season (or at some vague time soon) is proud to present: ?!
This splendid development might ordinarily provide me with the perfect opportunity to once again repackage the tired and ubiquitous ‘Peculiarities of Phnom Penh’ article from a fizzy fresh angle: a Westerner’s perspective of a Middle Eastern refugee’s perception of the city. What about all those crazy tuk tuk, huh? Allaahul Musta’aan!
But the oppo-pollies here have been leaking like a schooner en route to Oz, and the early word from the world’s richest woman was that the refugees will rather be resettled on some serious WTF island off the coast of Snooky. So without further ado, please allow me to cue the fish-out-of-water reinforcement of cultural stereotypes for comedy kicks rehash instead. Survivor Koh Rong, anyone? With Jeff Probst probing, those voted out of paradise will be forced to go back and live in Adelaide.
Although, ordinary reality television challenges like eating octopus intestines or negotiating a wacky obstacle course won’t really cut it with folk that have in actual reality-reality already voluntarily gobbled goat’s eyeballs and scaled landmine-strewn mountains to score their fifteen minutes. No, the clichéd plate of stomach-clutching worms will be of the hook variety, via those deep-fried Cambodian mystery meat balls served up at the local markets.
And the temporary immunity idol in the form of a single packet of penicillin will have to be earned by downing two-for-one all-day happy-hour Long Island Iced Teas made from backyard bootleg liquor and blindly determining through the veil of burkas who is the last to go legally blind. In the meantime, we’ll all keep schtum on the local Shisha ban.
It seems the Cambodian and Austrayn governments may be a tad confused regarding the variety of barang-asylum required for the Sihanoukville region, political for mental in this case, although it’s an admittedly easy mistake to make. Though on a brief political note, of the asylum-seekers that arrive in Australia by boat, the number found to be genuine refugees is routinely pushing above 90%. The other four people simply got lost on the way to their Agoda-booked chalet retreats in Austria.
And if anyone radicalised did happen to slip through the crab-nets, we can all be well rest-assured that Phnom Penh has absolutely no reasonable high-rise targets for suicide bombing that aren’t already empty shells dotted along Monivong. That is, other than the Japanese Bridge, of which two have been strategically provided just to confuse those crazy martyrs sent on assignment. Otherwise, we have a cheap solution on hand for the slated demolition of Sorya.
Indeed, it’s been alleged that some idealistic rascals have already previously attempted to stir up some local support, but that the Cham really couldn’t be arsed skipping nap-time for a relatively small amount of virgins to cover an entire eternity. And a good thing: could you imagine the amount of explosive ordinance one could pack in a taxi-van with the aid of the
average Khmer?
At this point a brief disclaimer may be due to avoid any conflict of interests, although I’m a nihilistic grump and therefore technically not interested in anything. I’ve just taken on a role as the letter-writing programme coordinator for an asylum-seeker support network. That is all. No punchline. It sometime sucks being stereotyped as a satirist.
But if you want to write a letter to a detainee potentially coming to Cambodia, pre-book
a taxi perhaps, be sure to get in touch. I’ll send it on to Christmas Island, where I hear they serve egg-nog for breakfast every day
of the year.