"Is Angkor Wat temple big enough to go inside?" a man asked

it's exactly 12 o'clock at night now. what am i doing here? it should be time for bed. but y am i still awake?

............... nothing bad. don't worry. i'm not thinking too much like the rainy day. today's weather was really nice. i loved it, though it was a bit hot. however, the wind made it better. n i've just come back from NishiTachigawa where i so much enjoyed Hanabi Taikai (Grand firework event). there were lots of people---too many people that i was shocked at first n panic when i thought of how to return home by the train. but it was ok. the firework show was wonderful. it lasted for one hour. n i could see firework of different kinds n colors. it was really great n unforgettable. thanks to TOFSIA students (it's a club at TUFS whose members help facilitate foreign students' life at TUFS) who made the arrangements for us, foreigners, n took us there. they r really nice people.

today was a great long day for me. in the morning i was in the Open Campus event at TUFS. n i was allowed to help with some work in the Cambodian Language Department(カンボジア語科). it was nice that a lot of people came to ask something about Cambodia n Khmer language. i'm really thankful for their interest in this small country of mine. here i have one interesting thing to tell u, but at the same time it's also a bit sad for us Cambodians.

there was one middle aged man coming to ask my Japanese friends n me while we were holding posters for Cambodian Language Department. it seemed that he also knew sth about Cambodia, but everything he knew was so bad. many thanks to him that he had some interest in our country, but he made me a bit sad, though i laughed at what he said.
he asked if Cambodia is now safe, whether land mines are still dangerous to everyday life of everyone, n so on. n the MOST INTERESTING n SADDEST thing of all was this question 「アンコールワットは人が入れるぐらいの大きさですか？」 i'm not sure of the exact words he asked but it should be sth like this. if we r to say it in English, it may mean "Is Angkor Wat temple big enough for men to go inside?".

This question amused me at first n shocked me a bit later n disappoints me now. i've always thought that lots of people in the world do not have any idea of where n how Cambodia is like, n that if they do know, they may know about Angkor Wat temple more than Cambodia, because it's become one of the world's heritages. but what he said really did open my eyes. what i have been thinking was not at all right. this man didn't even know that Angkor Wat is big. To him, Angkor Wat may appear like a mere small, insignificant, nothing splendid, made-of-stone temple. n this made me really sad. we've got a diamond, a very precious diamond, which is worth people's admiration. but we cannot make our diamond appear like a precious gem stone. instead, our diamond still appears like a normal stone which people do not want to have a look at. what should we do? should we let it go at that? i do want the world to change their image of our country, but i alone cannot do anything. this makes me even sadder.

i sometimes doubt people's thinking. lots of developed countries nowadays have done far worse things than Cambodia did in terms of killing lives. but y don't people have any bad image or impression for those countries? is it because they r now rich n powerful that's y people just admire their bad deeds? look back at world war one n two. lots of lives were killed. wasn't that cruel? do people now have bad images for those BIG countries going to the wars? people may say NO. but what about Cambodian case? y do people still have such image for us? y pol pot has been so infamous? is killing ones' own people worse that killing other countries' people? until when will people carry on this image for Cambodia? Cambodia is now safe n peaceful to live in, but the outsiders still think it's not a proper place to go for holidays. too sad.