Postcards Cambodia (Part 2)

(All photos courtesy of: Chanda Chhay)

Former Refugee Is Cambodia's New 'Burger King'

(Photo: Paul and Julia Van Der Werf)

July 4, 2012
by Michael Sullivan
All Things Considered
National Public Radio (USA)

Click here to listen to the audio program:

Click here to download the audio program in MP3

There is perhaps nothing more American than flipping burgers on the Fourth of July — even if the burgers are being flipped in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. A Cambodian-American who fled the Killing Fields of his country more than 30 years ago has returned and opened his own Burger House.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

It doesn't get much more American than flipping burgers on the 4th of July. And Cambodian American Chen Diem(ph), who prefers his nickname Mike, has been flipping his at Mike's Burger House. That's in Phnom Phen, Cambodia. Mike fled the killing fields of his country more than 30 years ago at age 19. He's one of a small number of Cambodians who've elected to return and start over again.

As Michael Sullivan reports from Phnom Penh, his business is thriving.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Hello, can I help you?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Three Classics.

Mr. Pol: from Battambang to Thailand, to California and back

A winding section of the Mekong River. © Ryan Hoffman, 2005

Originally published at http://khmr.cn/LHuIaZ

By Gea Wijers
Special to Khmerican

“Before, I would be outraged by injustice, and that made me take action. But now I am not outraged by injustice. I think Cambodia changed me more than I changed Cambodia. I am getting used to things. Desensitized by many of these things.”

Amsterdam, the Netherlands – “Returning to Cambodia was really hard. I had to explain to my family here that I did not come back for the money. That I had come to find some kind of satisfaction. I was looking for fulfillment in doing something I care about. But this is where it had to happen...”

Following the last episode’s brief introduction to my PhD research, in the weeks to come I would like to present some cases to you--cases of real live returned Cambodians as they narrated their stories to me. Surely there may be themes you can relate to, as they may be relevant to you, your family or people you know. If so, your feedback is very welcome as are any stories you would like to share.

This study focuses on experiences of members of the first waves and first generation of Cambodian French and Cambodian American exiles. These refugees, arriving in both France and the United States before 1979, are distinguished, in general, by their relative independence in resettlement. Findings confirm that, due to their prominent positions as community leaders, they have been able to work for the transformation of Cambodia both in exile and upon return (Chan, 2003: 23; Coleman, 1990; Prak, 1992). The return of these refugees in order to ‘do good’ and work on the reconstruction of Cambodia, however, is central to this paper. It questions why the contributions of these returnees are not easily accepted in Cambodian society. In fact, they have to rein in their expectations and find a way to deal with a Cambodia dramatically different from the one they left.

Next time the story of a Cambodian French female returnee will be the published by Khmerican.com. This week it’s Mr. Pol’s* story, in his own words.

Ways of life in the Kingdom of the Khmers - By Gabrielle Vassal

https://www.box.com/s/e70b5d9e2b16eafcd444

Princess Soma Norodom to pen new Post column

Princess Soma Norodom’s new column will cover pressing issues that others are afraid to bring up. Photograph: Chhim Sreyneang/Phnom Penh Post

Wednesday, 30 May 2012
Diana Montaño
The Phnom Penh Post

Barely two years since returning to Cambodia after her family’s 1975 exile to the United States, Princess Soma Norodom has already made a splash in her native Phnom Penh.

On any given night, the outgoing California-raised royal is just as likely to be found mingling with the Kingdom’s elite at a posh wedding, as she is grooving to hip-hop at Riverhouse or speaking passionately against US deportations at an activist gathering.

She’s everywhere.

And now, Phnom Penhites can expect to see a little more of the socialite princess with the launch of her new weekly column, “The Social Agenda”, which debuts this Friday in The Phnom Penh Post’s English and Khmer versions.

Expatriates’ Strange Lives in Cambodia

Writer Frédéric Amat spent seven years exploring the parallel universe expatriates inhabit in Cambodia. Photo by Hong Minea

Friday, 16 March 2012
Roth Meas
The Phnom Penh Post

“They don’t really open the window to Cambodia. They don’t try to speak the language. They are not interested in the culture. When they finish their job, they just go to the foreign bars, have beers with friends. They live in Cambodia, but they don’t really live with Cambodians.”

Though many expats have decided to base themselves in Cambodia, and many have lived here for years or even decades, it remains the case that some of the country’s foreign community have only the faintest understanding of the culture and heritage of the people that surround them. Segregated from the local population, declining to make even the most perfunctory attempts to learn the language, and subsisting on a diet of Western food, in many ways they live a life indistinguishable from their lives back home.

It is this sort of expat experience that has been a constant source of fascination for 44 year-old French journalist Frédéric Amat, who has called Cambodia home since 1995. In his time here, he has seen myriad European and American residents of the country insulate themselves from local people. His new book, Expatriates’ Strange Lives in Cambodia, published last year in French and earlier this month in English, attempts to chronicle the lived experience of expats in the country, and touches on this phenomenon.

“I came to Cambodia to cover the fighting, especially in 1997,” Amat says. “I became interested in Cambodian culture. But at the same time, I became interested in foreign communities living in Cambodia. This was a poor country at that time. It started with nothing. There were a lot of expats and many expressed a lot of arrogance towards Cambodian people. I felt so much shock by the way these expat families treated the locals. This was the idea for me to write a book.”

Scenes along National Road No. 6 on 05 March 2012

Accident along National Road No. 6 (All photos by Theary Seng on 05 March 2012)

Car accident along National Road No. 6 past Kralanh (before Siem Reap)

Same car accident above

Same car accident above

Crossing into Preah Netr Preah district

Serei Sophoan (Sisophon)

Preah Netr Preah

Trapaing Veng village in Preah Netr Preah district

Postcard from Cambodia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laT35fXM4Jo

"Vietdom Nagaworld Hun Sen" instead of "Nation Religion King"? - Op-Ed by Khmer Guardian

http://www.box.com/s/5sp6czqf1uhe77t2dxtm

"Our Endless Suffering..." - Op-Ed by Khmer Guardian

http://www.box.com/s/b00ah757q2r2xik4rck4

An app to match your appetite in Cambodia

A cafe in Cambodia recently introduced electronic menus, side stepping language barriers between tourists and restaurant staff.

February 18, 2012

By Julie Masis, Correspondent

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

One of Asia’s poorest nations has one of the latest high-tech spins: A cafe here recently introduced electronic menus.

The e-menus at Coffee Room, a small shop that opened in January in Phnom Penh, allows customers to place their orders, call a server to their table, and ask for the bill by simply touching the tablet computers that are available at every table. Diners can also type in how they want their drinks prepared (such as “no ice” or “no sugar”), read ingredients, and use the “menus” to access Facebook, Skype, or Twitter.

Irina Afonina, a businesswoman from Kazakhstan who has lived in Cambodia for five years, says she developed the electronic menu to simplify the restaurant-going experience for expatriates who don’t speak the local language.

Phnom Penh's New Look

(Image courtesy Flickr user epidemiks under a Creative Commons license)

(Image courtesy Flickr user chacrebleu under a Creative Commons license)

Jan 28, 2012
Thomas Beller
The Atlantic Cities (USA)

When I first arrived in Phnom Penh, in 1994, I looked out the window of my descending plane and saw a landscape of rice paddies dotted with palm trees. It might have been, in a parallel universe, or perhaps just in a neighboring country like Thailand, a pastoral image, but for me it was synonymous with land mines, Agent Orange, genocide, death. My feelings were shaped in part by popular culture—movies such as The Killing Fields and Apocalypse Now and books like Elizabeth Becker’s When the War Was Over and Nayan Chanda’s Brother Enemy. To say they told of a darkly mysterious place where terrible things had happened was only part of it; in 1994 the Khmer Rouge was still in control of large chunks of the country, even after the United Nations had sponsored a historic democratic election the previous year. I had come to Phnom Penh to write for a fledgling English-language newspaper, the Cambodia Daily, a decision whose logic had completely escaped me by the time the wheels hit tarmac. I swore that I would proceed through Phnom Penh with the utmost caution.

But by my second night I was at a party eating a piece of cake that I had just been told had an entire pound of pot baked into it, when someone rushed in yelling, “Coup! Coup! There’s a tank in the middle of downtown!” Because the party was filled with that strange breed of catastrophe addicts who have found their calling as journalists, everyone piled into the backs of pickup trucks and rushed off to look for the tank. I went, too, fretfully, like some eighth grader herded into a group activity he knows is wrong but is too spineless to resist.

Postcards from Cambodia - By Bora-the-Hunk

Sunrise at Chaktokmouk on 29 December 2011

Sunset in Kampon Speu on 02 January 2012

Sunset in Kampong Speu

Sunset in Kampong Speu

Soeun Sam, a proud handicap bookseller in Phnom Penh, talks about his life under K-5 (Pat 03)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwdBRR7aNzY

Elderly Chinese Cambodian remains joyous despite his life's many ups and downs

Hak Srun, 75 with Almond Hotel owner Luu Meng yesterday morning. (Stuart Alan Becker/Phnom Penh Post)

Friday, 20 January 2012
Post Staff
The Phnom Penh Post

When young Hak Srun arrived in Cambodia in 1947, he was a little boy of 10 years old, from Guangdong province in China.

His father had come to Cambodia first in 1936, looking for a safe place where his family could live as the forces of Imperial Japan rampaged across China.

Today, Hak Srun is 75 years old and has six children, one of whom lives in the United States. He has 14 grandchildren and one great grandson.

Hak Srun took time yesterday morning at Luu Meng’s Yi Sang restaurant at the Almond Hotel to recount the main events of his life and the happiness his family brings on the eve of Chinese New Year.

Postcards from Cambodia

A Cambodian musician playing Plom Sleuk, leaf blowing.

A palm juice vendor. Palm juice is one of my favorite drinks in Cambodia.

Making a toast to my childhood career as a palm sap collector.

 A monkey of Phnom Santuk, showing off his macho monkey prowess. (Ooops!)

Khmer Rouge Re-Visit

Om Po and I: sharing laughter while recalling my childhood's trial and tribulation.

The house where I used to live in.

The site where my father was cremated in the compound of Wat Ponlear Chey.

Pu Phy, The man whose oxen I looked after during the Khmer Rouge's era.

The temple of Wat Ponlear Chey.

One of the Best Moments in My Life

Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Story by Chanda Chhay
Originally posted at http://cambodianchildren.blogspot.com/

After 33 years, I have finally had an opportunity to revisit Phum Ponlear Chey again, a place where my family was exiled during the Khmer Rouge’s era. I spent about 3 years living in Ponlear Chey during my early teen. For those of you who have read my book: War and Genocide, Ponlear Chey was one of the places which held many secrets in my life. Anyway, I just wanted to share with you what it was like to return to visit a place where the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror made a lasting impact in my memory.

My visit to Ponlear Chey was unplanned. While on my way to Siem Reap, I made an impromptu decision to visit Phum Ponlear Chey, which is located about 5 kilometers north of National Highway 6 in Staung District, K. Thom Province. My initial intention was to just drive through the village and return to Highway 6 to continue on my journey to Siem Reap. However, after reaching Wat Ponlear Chey, a place where my father was cremated in 1977, I decided to go visit his cremating site to pay respect to his spirit. It was a somber place. The site where my father was cremated remains almost exactly the same as it was 33 years ago. While I was wandering around the pagoda’s compound, an elderly man came up to me and called out my older brother’s name. Because I look similar to my older brother, the old man mistook me as him. So I introduced myself and inquired about his identity. The old man’s name was Phy, and it turned out that I used to look after his oxen, Ah Popeal and Ah Kaek, during my stay in Ponlear Chey. I spent about half an hour talking with Pu Phy, making some inquiries about my childhood friends. To my absolute surprise, I learned that Om Po, the host whose house we lived in during our sojourn in Ponlear Chey, was still alive. So I asked Pu Phy to take me to visit with Om Po.

Soeun Sam - a proud handicap bookseller in Phnom Penh: Interview by Theary Seng

Soeun Sam lost both of his hands from landmine when he was a former soldier fighting with the KR along Dangrek Mountain. Although he is handicapped, he refused to beg for a living, instead he sells books along Quai Sisowath in Phnom Penh. "Whether people want to by books from me or not, I don't mind, I have nothing to be disappointed with. I refuse to beg, I want to lead a dignified life!", Sam said. With his positive outlook on life, Soeun Sam only cares about the education of his children who still live in his village in Mesang district, Prey Veng province. As a veteran soldier, he owns no land and his family still live with other people while he earns a meager living in Phnom Penh. One cannot help but admire the courage and cheerfulness of this proud handicap man. If you meet him along Quai Sisowath or elsewhere in Phnom Penh, you can help him by buying books from him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Guv-Wt7Dsjc

Where is Mesang district, Prey Veng province:

Back Home in Cambodia With Food as Comfort

January 12, 2012
By SETH MYDANS
The New York Times

Mike, who left at the age of 19 and is now 51, said he planned to stay. Among others who have returned and stayed are Ou Virak and Theary Seng, prominent advocates of a U.S. brand of human rights and civil society, which at this point fits a little awkwardly with Cambodia’s strong-arm form of government.

PHNOM PENH — The really challenging thing is trying to teach his countrymen how to eat a hamburger — a culture clash that is more than culinary as he tries to fit himself, like a lost piece in a puzzle, back into the land of his birth.

His Cambodian name is Chenda Im, but after more than 30 years as a refugee in the United States, he goes by Mike, and he is the founder, owner, manager, cook and pitchman of Mike’s Burger House, which he opened on the lot of a gas station here after his return four years ago.

“I’m American, and I already know how to handle burgers,” he said, as a salsa tune played in his restaurant. “The Cambodians, they eat the bun and then a little bit here and a little bit there. I say, ‘No, you just press down on the bun and eat it.’ And sometimes they say, ‘Don’t tell me how to eat. I’ll eat it my way.”’

Mike’s experience pitching hamburgers in Phnom Penh offers a look at the particular kind of culture shock experienced by people returning to their own culture.

Village Woman Speaks Up against Police Abuse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqhiWa1gFUU

18 December 2011
By Mu Sochua

A village woman speaks of abuse inflicted on her husband by commune police a week ago. The village chief who took her husband to police rejected to file a report; his excuse: the husband was not beaten unconscious.

"What is the role of the armed forces and the police?" , she asks. " To abuse the people?"

The village chief who was sitting next to me smelled of cheap wine and left after the villagers rejected his response.

This is life in Cambodia, in remote areas in particular. Village chiefs are former Khmer Rouges and selected by the party in power.

The woman filed a complaint with a local human rights organization a week ago. The day following my visit, the district police chief called the victim to settle the case at his home.

Not acceptable. The commune police must be sanctioned, as well as the village chief.