Sometimes the cultural differences here can still catch me off guard, even after more than 2 years. Recently I was helping my Cambodian work colleague with his English homework. He had to write a piece on the sense of smell & it's connection to memory, he wanted me to give him an example first before he wrote his piece for homework.
I spent 2 years of my childhood in South Africa so proceeded to recall how the smell of wood smoke always transports me back to a place on the very periphery of my conscious memory - I can feel the sun's heat, see the red earth & taste the fresh orange segment, so that even on a cold winters day in the UK the smell of wood smoke will always evoke a long, almost forgotten memory from my childhood in Africa.
R recorded me on his mobile & listened to my recounting. Then the following day he asked if he could tell me his own memory connected with smell which he would write about. We were sat eating Bor Bor as he told me but he omitted to begin with exactly what smell he would be talking about.
His story went something like this - when he first qualified as a nurse he had a job in Bantay Meanchay province in a small rural hospital. One day he was asked to go with the ambulance driver to attend the scene of a mine explosion. When they got there they found four people who had been fishing when a mine had detonated injuring them. They had various limbs missing & were exsanguinating from their wounds. The area was covered in their blood & body parts. R's punch line was that the smell of blood always made him think back to that scene of carnage & devastation & how the limbs were like meat being sold at the market.
Like I said before, sometimes the cultural differences still catch me unawares.
I spent 2 years of my childhood in South Africa so proceeded to recall how the smell of wood smoke always transports me back to a place on the very periphery of my conscious memory - I can feel the sun's heat, see the red earth & taste the fresh orange segment, so that even on a cold winters day in the UK the smell of wood smoke will always evoke a long, almost forgotten memory from my childhood in Africa.
R recorded me on his mobile & listened to my recounting. Then the following day he asked if he could tell me his own memory connected with smell which he would write about. We were sat eating Bor Bor as he told me but he omitted to begin with exactly what smell he would be talking about.
His story went something like this - when he first qualified as a nurse he had a job in Bantay Meanchay province in a small rural hospital. One day he was asked to go with the ambulance driver to attend the scene of a mine explosion. When they got there they found four people who had been fishing when a mine had detonated injuring them. They had various limbs missing & were exsanguinating from their wounds. The area was covered in their blood & body parts. R's punch line was that the smell of blood always made him think back to that scene of carnage & devastation & how the limbs were like meat being sold at the market.
Like I said before, sometimes the cultural differences still catch me unawares.
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