[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"$fUsWW95LtV6nbSmo3lBnjDWTnsvJ-9olc_TDBLv30cEU":3,"blog-en-hello-world":11},{"about_content_zh":4,"about_content_en":5,"avatar_url":6,"avatar_filter":7,"logo_text":8,"logo_url":9,"logo_url_dark":10},"---\n喜欢手搓代码的建筑师｜喜欢手绘建筑的程序员 \nINTJ | 海外闯荡｜独来独往 \n知天命｜不认命","---\nArchitect Who Codes | Programmer Who Sketches\nINTJ | Expat Life | Solitary\nConscious of Destiny | Unbowed by Fate","https://assets.asimogo.com/profile/img_6855-1771579870976-gqrebq.jpg","grayscale(40%) brightness(1.05)","AsimoGo","https://assets.asimogo.com/logo/dark-1771607592299-kaq2tg.png","https://assets.asimogo.com/logo/white-1771607023994-gi5i3z.png",{"id":12,"slug":13,"date":14,"cover":15,"draft":16,"created_at":17,"updated_at":18,"toc":19,"body":50,"tags":51,"title":56,"body_ast":57,"description":291},"d421d9dc-ee36-43e9-bb3e-6e24dc41c173","hello-world","2026-02-16T00:00:00+00:00","https://assets.asimogo.com/images/blog/hello-world-cover.png",false,"2026-02-19T13:16:00.673149+00:00","2026-02-19T14:41:56.835764+00:00",[20,24,27,30,33,47],{"id":21,"text":22,"depth":23},"_844-days-thats-how-long-this-ride-has-been","844 Days — That's How Long This Ride Has Been",2,{"id":25,"text":26,"depth":23},"the-wechat-hello","The WeChat \"Hello\"",{"id":28,"text":29,"depth":23},"if-they-come-to-you-theyre-hunting-you","If They Come to You, They're Hunting You",{"id":31,"text":32,"depth":23},"contracts-are-paper-cash-is-king","Contracts Are Paper, Cash Is King",{"id":34,"text":35,"depth":23,"children":36},"holy-horse-year-of-the-horse-blessings-sincerely-dedicated-to-the-fellow-chinese-who-taught-me-to-grow-a-brain","Holy Horse — Year of the Horse Blessings, Sincerely Dedicated to the Fellow Chinese Who Taught Me to Grow a Brain",[37,41,44],{"id":38,"text":39,"depth":40},"rule-one-contracts-are-paper-cash-is-life","Rule One: Contracts are paper, cash is life.",3,{"id":42,"text":43,"depth":40},"rule-two-there-are-no-coincidences-on-wechat-only-ambushes","Rule Two: There are no coincidences on WeChat — only ambushes.",{"id":45,"text":46,"depth":40},"rule-three-guard-your-mouth-its-your-lifeline","Rule Three: Guard your mouth — it's your lifeline.",{"id":48,"text":49,"depth":23},"to-you-reading-this-may-your-eyes-be-sharp-and-your-fortune-steady-in-the-year-of-the-horse","To you, reading this — may your eyes be sharp and your fortune steady in the Year of the Horse.","## 844 Days — That's How Long This Ride Has Been\n\nSitting on a Phnom Penh street corner, a tuk-tuk roars past my ear, kicking up a gust of hot, gritty dust. I squint and do the math — from that golden sunset evening on October 29, 2023, to today, it's been exactly eight hundred and forty-four days.\n\nWhen I first touched down at Phnom Penh airport, dragging my suitcase across the tarmac, I thought this red soil was an ocean — wide open for sailing, casting nets, and hauling in a big catch. Turns out, the waves weren't the real problem. It was the undertow beneath the surface — and that undertow wasn't Khmer. It was Chinese.\n\nThe so-called \"compatriots\" in Phnom Penh are a long list: friends, brothers, hometown folks, coworkers, even some \"former boss\" who once nodded at you in an office hallway back in China.\n\nOver these 800-plus days, what sent the real chill down my spine wasn't the Khmer language I couldn't understand. It was those fellow Chinese — speaking flawless Mandarin, grinning from ear to ear.\n\nEvery word out of their mouths sounds warm. Chew on it a little, and it's all a hustle.\n\n## The WeChat \"Hello\"\n\nMy phone buzzes in my pocket. In the middle of that roaring street, the WeChat notification cuts through like a needle, landing right in my ear.\n\nAnywhere else, that sound means \"hey\" or \"how've you been.\" In Cambodia's Chinese circles, it's usually the opening act of something ugly.\n\nI used to think there was at least a real human being on the other end of that chat.\n\nA \"friend\" messages: \"Long time no see, wanna catch up?\" I figured that's just reconnecting. So I chatted.\n\nA \"bro\" asks: \"What project are you working on lately?\" I figured that's just caring. So I told him.\n\nA self-proclaimed \"big sister\" who said we were destined to meet sidles up: \"Where are you making money these days? Whose operation are you under?\" I figured that's just flattery. So I spilled the beans.\n\nThere was even a \"hometown buddy\" I'd known for barely a month who pivoted mid-conversation to ask about my design fee payments — and then asked to borrow money.\n\nBack then, I called all this \"resource sharing.\" I called it \"huddling together for warmth\" — the thing you do when you're far from home.\n\nLater I realized it wasn't sharing. It was self-destruction. I was laying my cards face-up on the table, one by one, while the person on the other side of the screen was jotting it all down in a little notebook. They weren't keeping track of favors — they were sizing up which part of me was the juiciest to sink their teeth into.\n\nBy the time that \"friend\" took everything I'd told him and used it to poach my client right from under me, it finally clicked: every word I'd typed wasn't catching up. I was sharpening a knife — for my own throat.\n\nAnd that knife landed right in my chest.\n\n## If They Come to You, They're Hunting You\n\nAt my age, on this patch of land, I've figured out one thing: in Cambodia, every unsolicited WeChat message comes with a trap attached. No exceptions.\n\nThey reach out either to peek into your bowl and see how much meat you've got left — that's scouting. Or their own hole got too deep to fill, and they need your body to plug it — that's looking for a stepping stone. At the very least, they want some free labor out of you.\n\nHere's the real kicker: if there's ever any actual good news going around, rest assured — it was never, ever going to reach you.\n\nTo survive here, your guard needs to be airtight. Slip up a little and at best, you've done someone's work for free — that's getting played. Slip up a lot and you lose the little savings you've scraped together. And if you're really careless? Leaving your life on this red soil — well, that's not exactly rare around here.\n\nThe \"Chinese circle\" in Cambodia is like an overripe mango. The skin is golden, and it gives off that sweet tropical fragrance. But the moment you actually peel it open, the stench from inside will knock you flat on your back.\n\n## Contracts Are Paper, Cash Is King\n\nA lot of people in Cambodia love talking about contracts. So-and-so signed it, such-and-such company stamped it — red letterhead, green text, seal as blue as the sky. Looks more legit than real money.\n\nBut here, the thickness of a contract is usually inversely proportional to the sincerity behind it. When the other side talks vision, talks future, talks grand plans for the next big project — that's not a win-win. That's a sedative. A pipe dream on a plate.\n\nReal commitment is never written in the fine print. It only shows up in your bank notification.\n\nNo advance payment? That contract is toilet paper — and bad toilet paper at that. Besides, bathrooms in Cambodia use water sprayers, so the paper is truly, utterly useless.\n\nOnly when those numbers actually land in your account has the other party started treating you like a human being — not some disposable hole-filler. Here, money isn't just money. Money is the bare minimum of respect between two people, and the only armor you've got in this wild land.\n\n## Holy Horse — Year of the Horse Blessings, Sincerely Dedicated to the Fellow Chinese Who Taught Me to Grow a Brain\n\nBy the Year of the Horse, I'd say I've run far enough on this red soil to pick up a few lessons. Eight hundred and forty-four days, and all I got were these hard-won words. But hey, at least the time wasn't wasted.\n\nAt the start of the Year of the Horse, I set a few rules for myself:\n\n### Rule One: Contracts are paper, cash is life.\n\nNo matter how sweet their pitch sounds, no matter how solid the middleman seems — don't buy it wholesale. In Cambodia, the speed at which the advance payment hits your account is the only measure of sincerity. No money, no deal.\n\n### Rule Two: There are no coincidences on WeChat — only ambushes.\n\nThose \"good brothers\" and \"old pals\" who haven't reached out in years and suddenly pop up? Ninety-nine percent of the time, they're looking for you to fill their hole or do their work for free. The remaining one percent? They probably sent the message to the wrong person.\n\n### Rule Three: Guard your mouth — it's your lifeline.\n\nInformation here is cash money.\n\nEvery single piece of it — chew it up and swallow it. Let it rot in your gut.\n\nAfter 844 days in the Khmer Kingdom, I've finally learned to play deaf and blind.\n\nYear of the Horse is here. May my eyes be as ruthless as the tropical sun, burning through the rot beneath every mango skin.\n\nLet all the drama, the deadbeats, and the nonsense get kicked up in the tuk-tuk dust — and left behind the horse's hooves.\n\nLooking back on these 844 days, all I can say to myself is:\n**\"Too simple, too naive.\"**\n\n---\n\n## To you, reading this — may your eyes be sharp and your fortune steady in the Year of the Horse.",[52,53,54,55],"year-of-the-horse","relationships","expat-life","chinese-diaspora","Year of the Horse: Time to Say Goodbye to All the Trash",{"type":58,"children":59},"root",[60,67,73,78,83,88,93,97,102,107,112,117,122,127,132,137,142,147,152,156,161,166,171,176,181,185,190,195,200,205,210,214,219,224,229,234,238,243,247,252,257,262,267,272,283,287],{"tag":61,"type":62,"props":63,"children":64},"h2","element",{"id":21},[65],{"type":66,"value":22},"text",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":69,"children":70},"p",{},[71],{"type":66,"value":72},"Sitting on a Phnom Penh street corner, a tuk-tuk roars past my ear, kicking up a gust of hot, gritty dust. I squint and do the math — from that golden sunset evening on October 29, 2023, to today, it's been exactly eight hundred and forty-four days.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":74,"children":75},{},[76],{"type":66,"value":77},"When I first touched down at Phnom Penh airport, dragging my suitcase across the tarmac, I thought this red soil was an ocean — wide open for sailing, casting nets, and hauling in a big catch. Turns out, the waves weren't the real problem. It was the undertow beneath the surface — and that undertow wasn't Khmer. It was Chinese.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":79,"children":80},{},[81],{"type":66,"value":82},"The so-called \"compatriots\" in Phnom Penh are a long list: friends, brothers, hometown folks, coworkers, even some \"former boss\" who once nodded at you in an office hallway back in China.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":84,"children":85},{},[86],{"type":66,"value":87},"Over these 800-plus days, what sent the real chill down my spine wasn't the Khmer language I couldn't understand. It was those fellow Chinese — speaking flawless Mandarin, grinning from ear to ear.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":89,"children":90},{},[91],{"type":66,"value":92},"Every word out of their mouths sounds warm. Chew on it a little, and it's all a hustle.",{"tag":61,"type":62,"props":94,"children":95},{"id":25},[96],{"type":66,"value":26},{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":98,"children":99},{},[100],{"type":66,"value":101},"My phone buzzes in my pocket. In the middle of that roaring street, the WeChat notification cuts through like a needle, landing right in my ear.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":103,"children":104},{},[105],{"type":66,"value":106},"Anywhere else, that sound means \"hey\" or \"how've you been.\" In Cambodia's Chinese circles, it's usually the opening act of something ugly.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":108,"children":109},{},[110],{"type":66,"value":111},"I used to think there was at least a real human being on the other end of that chat.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":113,"children":114},{},[115],{"type":66,"value":116},"A \"friend\" messages: \"Long time no see, wanna catch up?\" I figured that's just reconnecting. So I chatted.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":118,"children":119},{},[120],{"type":66,"value":121},"A \"bro\" asks: \"What project are you working on lately?\" I figured that's just caring. So I told him.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":123,"children":124},{},[125],{"type":66,"value":126},"A self-proclaimed \"big sister\" who said we were destined to meet sidles up: \"Where are you making money these days? Whose operation are you under?\" I figured that's just flattery. So I spilled the beans.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":128,"children":129},{},[130],{"type":66,"value":131},"There was even a \"hometown buddy\" I'd known for barely a month who pivoted mid-conversation to ask about my design fee payments — and then asked to borrow money.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":133,"children":134},{},[135],{"type":66,"value":136},"Back then, I called all this \"resource sharing.\" I called it \"huddling together for warmth\" — the thing you do when you're far from home.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":138,"children":139},{},[140],{"type":66,"value":141},"Later I realized it wasn't sharing. It was self-destruction. I was laying my cards face-up on the table, one by one, while the person on the other side of the screen was jotting it all down in a little notebook. They weren't keeping track of favors — they were sizing up which part of me was the juiciest to sink their teeth into.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":143,"children":144},{},[145],{"type":66,"value":146},"By the time that \"friend\" took everything I'd told him and used it to poach my client right from under me, it finally clicked: every word I'd typed wasn't catching up. I was sharpening a knife — for my own throat.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":148,"children":149},{},[150],{"type":66,"value":151},"And that knife landed right in my chest.",{"tag":61,"type":62,"props":153,"children":154},{"id":28},[155],{"type":66,"value":29},{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":157,"children":158},{},[159],{"type":66,"value":160},"At my age, on this patch of land, I've figured out one thing: in Cambodia, every unsolicited WeChat message comes with a trap attached. No exceptions.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":162,"children":163},{},[164],{"type":66,"value":165},"They reach out either to peek into your bowl and see how much meat you've got left — that's scouting. Or their own hole got too deep to fill, and they need your body to plug it — that's looking for a stepping stone. At the very least, they want some free labor out of you.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":167,"children":168},{},[169],{"type":66,"value":170},"Here's the real kicker: if there's ever any actual good news going around, rest assured — it was never, ever going to reach you.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":172,"children":173},{},[174],{"type":66,"value":175},"To survive here, your guard needs to be airtight. Slip up a little and at best, you've done someone's work for free — that's getting played. Slip up a lot and you lose the little savings you've scraped together. And if you're really careless? Leaving your life on this red soil — well, that's not exactly rare around here.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":177,"children":178},{},[179],{"type":66,"value":180},"The \"Chinese circle\" in Cambodia is like an overripe mango. The skin is golden, and it gives off that sweet tropical fragrance. But the moment you actually peel it open, the stench from inside will knock you flat on your back.",{"tag":61,"type":62,"props":182,"children":183},{"id":31},[184],{"type":66,"value":32},{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":186,"children":187},{},[188],{"type":66,"value":189},"A lot of people in Cambodia love talking about contracts. So-and-so signed it, such-and-such company stamped it — red letterhead, green text, seal as blue as the sky. Looks more legit than real money.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":191,"children":192},{},[193],{"type":66,"value":194},"But here, the thickness of a contract is usually inversely proportional to the sincerity behind it. When the other side talks vision, talks future, talks grand plans for the next big project — that's not a win-win. That's a sedative. A pipe dream on a plate.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":196,"children":197},{},[198],{"type":66,"value":199},"Real commitment is never written in the fine print. It only shows up in your bank notification.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":201,"children":202},{},[203],{"type":66,"value":204},"No advance payment? That contract is toilet paper — and bad toilet paper at that. Besides, bathrooms in Cambodia use water sprayers, so the paper is truly, utterly useless.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":206,"children":207},{},[208],{"type":66,"value":209},"Only when those numbers actually land in your account has the other party started treating you like a human being — not some disposable hole-filler. Here, money isn't just money. Money is the bare minimum of respect between two people, and the only armor you've got in this wild land.",{"tag":61,"type":62,"props":211,"children":212},{"id":34},[213],{"type":66,"value":35},{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":215,"children":216},{},[217],{"type":66,"value":218},"By the Year of the Horse, I'd say I've run far enough on this red soil to pick up a few lessons. Eight hundred and forty-four days, and all I got were these hard-won words. But hey, at least the time wasn't wasted.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":220,"children":221},{},[222],{"type":66,"value":223},"At the start of the Year of the Horse, I set a few rules for myself:",{"tag":225,"type":62,"props":226,"children":227},"h3",{"id":38},[228],{"type":66,"value":39},{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":230,"children":231},{},[232],{"type":66,"value":233},"No matter how sweet their pitch sounds, no matter how solid the middleman seems — don't buy it wholesale. In Cambodia, the speed at which the advance payment hits your account is the only measure of sincerity. No money, no deal.",{"tag":225,"type":62,"props":235,"children":236},{"id":42},[237],{"type":66,"value":43},{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":239,"children":240},{},[241],{"type":66,"value":242},"Those \"good brothers\" and \"old pals\" who haven't reached out in years and suddenly pop up? Ninety-nine percent of the time, they're looking for you to fill their hole or do their work for free. The remaining one percent? They probably sent the message to the wrong person.",{"tag":225,"type":62,"props":244,"children":245},{"id":45},[246],{"type":66,"value":46},{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":248,"children":249},{},[250],{"type":66,"value":251},"Information here is cash money.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":253,"children":254},{},[255],{"type":66,"value":256},"Every single piece of it — chew it up and swallow it. Let it rot in your gut.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":258,"children":259},{},[260],{"type":66,"value":261},"After 844 days in the Khmer Kingdom, I've finally learned to play deaf and blind.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":263,"children":264},{},[265],{"type":66,"value":266},"Year of the Horse is here. May my eyes be as ruthless as the tropical sun, burning through the rot beneath every mango skin.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":268,"children":269},{},[270],{"type":66,"value":271},"Let all the drama, the deadbeats, and the nonsense get kicked up in the tuk-tuk dust — and left behind the horse's hooves.",{"tag":68,"type":62,"props":273,"children":274},{},[275,277],{"type":66,"value":276},"Looking back on these 844 days, all I can say to myself is:\n",{"tag":278,"type":62,"props":279,"children":280},"strong",{},[281],{"type":66,"value":282},"\"Too simple, too naive.\"",{"tag":284,"type":62,"props":285,"children":286},"hr",{},[],{"tag":61,"type":62,"props":288,"children":289},{"id":48},[290],{"type":66,"value":49},"Year of the Horse — may the money flow steady 💰, luck keep knocking 🚪, and smiles stay put 😃"]