Plagiarism in all its forms

One of the most frustrating aspects of my daily travails at the newspaper involves plagiarism. And I’m not just talking about press releases copied out word-for-word on the page with a reporter’s name slapped across the top. I mean those instances in which I'm toiling away through a lengthy story on, say, the importance of vaccinations for measles, reworking every sentence and adding an ‘s’ on every plural and an article before every noun, when all of a sudden, I reach a paragraph that fairly glitters with perfection, so good I wish I had written it myself.

Me: Where does this come from?
Reporter: (feigning puzzled look)
Me (droning): Remember to always attribute a quote or a piece of information.
Reporter: I wrote it!
Me: No, you didn’t.
Reporter: Yes.
Me: No. There are no mistakes in it, so I know you didn’t write it.
Reporter (defeated): My friend helped me.
Me: Which friend?
Reporter: My friend.

At this point, there’s no point in going on.
The worst is when I get a whole story that has clearly been copied, or written by someone else, and it’s almost always the daftest reporters who try to pull this trick on me.
The problem is that the Lao language isn’t subtle enough to allow for many differences in style. There doesn’t seem to be a separate writing style for, say, government reports as opposed to entertainment stories, and it’s only the most dedicated reporters who have been able to pick this up when writing in English.
It means they can’t understand why ‘moreover’, ‘furthermore’, ‘thus’ and ‘hence’ are unsuitable for newspapers. Also, they are always shocked when I can instantly see when they have lifted material from somewhere else.
“The style is different!” I will say, begging them to just fucking get it.
They don’t, and possibly never will.

Travel snobs
I’ve been having conversations with old friends back in Aus lately, and thinking vaguely about what it will be like when I finally go home.
It sounds shallow, but I know the biggest adjustment issue I will face will be daily expenses.
I lived a comparatively extravagant life in Melbourne, given that I worked part-time and was a full-time student, but I still always had to think about whatever I spent. I rarely bought things on impulse, and never went on big-time shopping sprees. I occasionally had to add up items in my head at the supermarket to decide whether to purchase, and frequently stocked up on cosmetics when I saw they were on sale. And I mostly lived from paycheck to paycheck, with an empty bank account at the end of the fortnight.
Here, despite my (relatively) small living allowance from Ausaid, I almost never have to worry about such petty things. I can afford to eat out every night (which I do), and hardly ever say no to a trip away. Drawbacks include excessive drinking and getting fat, but that’s by the by.
Not to mention the fact that I am supporting a whole other person, an adult that is, and not a child.
I’d like to think that, given my chosen career, I’ll always be good at getting by on not much with only the occasional freakout, but the fact remains that this little jaunt I’m having in South East Asia will have damaged my attitude to money, possibly for years to come.
And this brings me to my main point. To all my friends at home who I know would never even dream of visiting me in a place like this, I have just one thing to say: you’re missing out.
It’s nice and warm and pretty here, and if gourmet food and posh hotels are your thing, you can do it here at a fraction of the price! You can eat and drink extensively without dinting your budget, and in some places (Bangkok, Hanoi) the shopping is fabulous. All I’m saying is you should just give it a go.
And I’m also pretty much saying that I don’t know how I’ll cope when I’m back in Australia and back on a strict eating and drinking budget and no longer able to buy anything I damn well want…

Joseph and Mary
Since we were recently on the subject of food, I just want to give a quick nod to that Vientiane institution that is Joma.
Joma is a café - a chain, almost, with one here and one in Luang Prabang - modelled on slick, urban chains like Starbucks, that serves up coffees in different sizes, cakes and bland, failsafe food, like bagels, salads and sandwiches. It’s always spick and span, the staff are so highly trained that they rarely make mistakes, and get your order to you so fast you wonder whether they knew you were coming.
It’s like a well-oiled machine, with uniformed baristas rarely standing still but never looking stressed. It’s always packed and never seems to run out of anything. The place has a distinctive smell, the food always tastes the same, and if you go there often enough, the staff will remember your usual order. And somewhere, unseen, someone is pulling the strings and keeping it moving smoothly.
I struggle to get my head around it. My feelings are sometimes ambiguous: I like the reliability of it, but resent the American-ness of it. There’s a rumour going round that it’s run by a Christian couple (and a more extreme version that they force the staff to convert, although I doubt that’s true), and all the coffee served is fair trade and organic. I get irritated by the prices – 15,000 kip is too much to pay for a fruitshake, which is 5,000 kip anywhere else, and they make you pay for WiFi – but there are (occasional) times when all I crave is muesli with yoghurt, really.
But above all, I think I tend towards loving it to death, if only because it’s one of those places that’s designed to linger in, with smooth, clean tables and benches big enough to park your laptop and spread out all your stuff, read the newspaper, or have a work meeting over coffee paid for on someone else’s expense account.
I’ve been going there a lot lately, comfortable with the subdued clatter, the drone of people discussing budget strategies, and the tapping of other people’s laptops. I like it. I’m out of the house, and not cooped up in my room, but I feel like I’m at home.
I never thought I’d admit it, given all the great local-style places around. But there you have it. I’m a laptop in a café kinda gal, I guess. Maybe I always have been…

Kanom saep
Oh, are we still on food? I’ll finish this post with a dedication to Mr Pom, our business reporter who writes exactly one meticulously written and mind-numbingly boring story each day. He also, on occasion, deposits a delicious Lao kanom, or dessert, on my desk in the morning - the kind that’s wrapped in a banana leaf and offered up in temples. Indeed, his wife cooks up a batch every couple of days to give to the monks on their morning alms rounds, and sometimes she makes too many. Mr Pom is always amused and faintly surprised by my excitement and pleasure at finding this little gift on my keyboard, but how can I fail to get excited about sweet sticky rice all mixed up with custardy banana and sometimes jam?
It’s like heaven, all wrapped up in a banana leaf. Those are some lucky monks.