Cambodia - The Final Word

A summary of the themes

It’s time to say goodbye to Cambodia.  It’s been a great learning experience and I hope I get to visit Cambodia again sometime in the future. During the past couple of months, I’ve learned about Norodom Sihamoni, Cambodia’s Czech-speaking King and an unusual role-model for the country, as it moves through the 21^st century.  I learnt about Chaul Chnam Thmey, the Cambodian New Year, which took place in April.  I learned about the Cambodian script and its influence on other writing systems in South East Asia.  I learned about the Cham people of Cambodia and Vietnam and I learned how to make Somla Machou, or Sour Fish soup, one of Cambodia’s national dishes.

Tools for research

I read three books as part of my research into Cambodia. 

Research for this blog

Writing and Script: A Very Short Introduction by Andrew Robinson

First they killed my Father by Loung Ung

River of Time by Jon Swain

I used the Insight Guide to Cambodia and Laos for some of my background research

I watched two films about Cambodia:

The Killing Fields

Voices of the Killing Fields (a documentary about the work of the Cambodian reporter Thet Sambath.

To provide some background for my research and studies, I’ve been listening to lots of Cambodian music.  I’ve become a bit obsessed by Dengue Fever, the US group who sing in Cambodian and English.  I’ve also been listening to traditional Cambodian music, which is an acquired taste, but I find it really beautiful and, strangely, some of the songs remind me a bit on Bob Dylan!  I’m sharing a video from YouTube below which shows Dengue Fever's track Seeing Hands.

Other themes

And of course, there were plenty of other themes I would like to have explored, if I’d had more time to do so.  Some of these were:

UNESCO

The French in Asia

Ghosts

Ieng Sary, Brother Number Two

Exodus

Children and war

Mt Meru, the holy mountain of Hinduism

Landmines

Laughter

War photography

Landmines

The Irrawaddy dolphins

Casinos in Cambodia

Cambodian classical ballet

The Reamker – Cambodia’s version of the Ramayana

Artists who disappeared under the Khmer Rouge, eg. Ros Sereysothea and Sinn Sisamouth

Dinner Party trivia

And for those of you who are regular readers – here are some lesser-known facts about Cambodia that you can use to impress people at your next dinner party!

Tourist taking photo of Angkor Wat

Cambodia became independent in 1953.

There has been a long-running dispute between Cambodia and Thailand in relation to a temple complex, Preah Vihear, which sits directly on the border of the two countries.

‘New people’ was the term the Khmer Rouge used to describe Cambodians from the towns and cities, ie. Those who weren’t from a peasant background.  The famous Khmer Rouge slogan about the New People was ‘To keep you is no benefit.  To destroy you is no loss.’

The leaders of the Khmer Rouge were very well-educated, eg. Pol Pot studied in Paris. 

The US, Britain and Thailand continued to fund the Khmer Rouge, even after the Vietnamese had ousted them from power. 

Cambodia’s main ecological threats are from logging and shrimp farming.

The Sap river, which fills central Cambodia to form the lake Tonle Sap, reverses its flow every half-year, a very unusual phenomenon.

Cambodians count in blocks of 5.

The main entrance to Angkor Wat faces west, towards the setting sun, rather than east, which has led to speculation that the temple was somehow associated with death. 

The French use an expression called Le Mal Jaune (the yellow sickness) to describe nostalgia. 

Kaj Bjork, Sweden’s ambassador to the Beijing, was the only foreigner allowed to visit Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.

The Final Word

Of course, the ‘Elephant in the Room’ when it comes to Cambodia, is the period between 1975 and 1979, when Cambodia was controlled by the Khmer Rouge.  The Khmer Rouge regime was brutal in its attempts to turn Cambodia into an Agrarian Socialist state and it’s distressing to read the stories of those who lived through that time.  As a ‘national trauma’, the Khmer Rouge regime has left scars that are barely healed today.  Loung Ung’s story, as told in her book, ‘First they killed my Father’ is the second first-hand account I’ve read about life under the Khmer Rouge.  Loung Ung was a young girl when, in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh.  Shortly after the arrival of the Khmer Rouge, the entire city was evacuated and sent to work in the countryside.  Ung’s father had been an official in the old regime and they were particularly vulnerable, living in fear of discovery.  What really touched me about the book was the sense of anger Ung had as a young girl.  That a child would have to suffer so much and become so angry is saddening, in her own words, ‘My hate empowers and scares me, for with hate in my heart, I have no room for sadness’. 

Like many other Cambodians, Ung managed to escape Cambodia, first to Vietnam, then Thailand and the United States.  I was unaware of the suffering that many refugees experienced at the hands of (mostly Thai) pirates, as they crossed the Gulf of Thailand in small boats from Vietnam. 

Sunlight catches dancing Apsara at Angkor Wat

Jon Swain’s book, The River of Time, was also really interesting – although from a completely different perspective, ie. Through the eyes of a Western journalist living in Cambodia and Vietnam.  By all accounts, Swain was the last foreigner to be granted a visa under the Lol Non regime (ie before the Khmer Rouge gained power).  He was also one of the first Westerners to return to Cambodia, after the Vietnamese invaded in 1979.  He took great personal risks to report what was going on, both in Cambodia and Vietnam and his passion for ‘French Indochina’ is infectious.

I watched The Killing Fields again, which is a great movie and I also came across a fascinating documentary called, Voices of the Killing Fields – by the Cambodian journalist, Thet Sambaht.  Sambath lost most of his family under the Khmer Rouge regime and spent ten years as an adult, making contact with surviving Khmer Rouge members, most notably with Nuon Chea (Brother number 2), but also with minor Khmer Rouge officials who he records, quite shockingly, talking about the people they killed ‘under orders’ from above.  There has been a real desire from the survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime, to get some kind of justice for those who were murdered by the regime.  Sambaht’s documentary is an attempt to establish the power structures involved and prove that the order to kill came from the top of the Khmer Rouge leadership. 

The Khmer Rouge officials he interviewed seemed distressed and regretful of their role in the killings.  It also seems as though there was a lot of ‘peer pressure’ to kill and that, somehow, once a person had broken the taboo of taking another human being’s life, the only way they could feel better about it was by forcing others to do the same. 

I just can’t imagine what it would be like to be in a situation like that.  Cambodia is slowly recovering from the intense revolution of those four years, but it could take another generation before the violence of that period is finally put to rest.  Here’s hoping the future for this small nation is much happier than it’s more recent past. 

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Cambodia - How I became a Lotus Eater

I always really look forward to cooking a typical dish of the different places I blog about and Cambodia was no exception.  I know a lot about Thai food, having lived there, but Khmer cuisine is pretty unknown to me, although a lot of the ingredients and cooking techniques are the same.

There were quite a few dishes to choose from, but I liked the sound of Somla Machou which is a sour-tasting fish soup.  Actually, the recipe I used from Celtnet.org.uk included some sugar, so the overall taste was sweet, as well as sour.  The part that gives the sour taste to Somla Machou is the Lotus root.  I'd never eaten Lotus root before, never mind cooked it, so that was a new experience for me!

In search of Lotus root

Wing Yip's Chinese superstore, Cricklewood

Rich in dietary fibre and Vitamin C, but also low in saturated fat, the root of the Lotus flower is quite a healthy thing to eat.  It's common enough in East Asian cuisine, but not very well known in the West, which is a shame, as it's actually quite tasty and easy to cook.  I wasn't quite sure where I would find Lotus root in London, but a quick search of the Internet brought me to Wing Yip's Chinese superstore in Cricklewood.  I not only found Lotus root there, but also fresh galangal, which I've not seen in Europe before.  Although Wing Yip's has a comprehensive stock of Chinese ingredients, ironically I had to get some of the other ingredients (eg. lemongrass and pineapple) in Tesco's! 

The ingredients:

The Ingredients

About 700ml of Chicken stock
Two fillets of white fish - I used Panga from Vietnam which I bought frozen in Wing Yip's
Two tomatoes
One Lotus root tuber (about 150g)
Birdseye chillies
Galangal (fresh, if you can get it!)
A whole bulb of garlic
1 egg
Lemongrass (preferably fresh, but I used dried lemongrass)
80g Tamarind pulp
Groundnut oil (for frying the garlic)
Thai Holy Basil (although I couldn't get my hands on this, so used dried basil)
Fresh mint
2 tablespoons of Brown sugar
Half a pineapple
Thai fish sauce (Nam pla - Cambodians have their own version of this, called tuk trey, if you can find it!)
Rice (as a side)

Preparations

I always prepare everything first, so it's ready to be cooked and I'm not chopping things up in a hurry, whilst my dinner is burning!  Preparing the lotus root was easy - it's just like a potato really - you peel the outer skin off and slice it in rounds.  I also read somewhere that it's best to put the lotus root into a container with water until you're ready to cook it, so it doesn't get discoloured. 

Peel and slice the Lotus root

Put the sliced Lotus root ina bowl of water

I prepared all of the other ingredients, including the Tamarind pulp, which I mixed with boiling hot water, let it settle for about ten minutes and then poured the mixture into a sieve, retaining the tamarind juice, but discarding the tough, chewy husks. 

Vegetables and spices, chopped and prepared

Also chop the fish into bite-sized chunks

How I made Somla Machou

I followed the recipe from Celtnet quite closely.  First I put the lemongrass, fish sauce, sugar and galangal into a large pot and boiled them with the chicken stock.  Then I added the tomato, pineapple and lotus root, bringing everything to a boil again, before reducing the heat and simmering the vegetables for about ten minutes.

Stock, lemongrass, galangal, fish sauce and sugar

Add the pineapple, tomato and lotus root

After the vegetables had cooked, I added the tamarind juice and pieces of Panga (fish).  Whilst the fish pieces were cooking, I used a separate, smaller, pan to fry the chopped up garlic until it turned golden brown.

Cook the fish pieces

Brown the garlic

Once the fish pieces had cooked, I added dried basil, mint and the fried garlic.  I understand completely why the garlic needs to be fried separately, as just adding the garlic pieces to the soup at this point wouldn't have the same taste.  The final thing was to add the egg and stir it into the soup as it cooked.  I've seen this done before, but not actually done it myself and it's a technique that is often used in Chinese cooking. 

Add the herbs and garlic

Stir in an egg

Finally, I served the soup with basmati rice and sprinkled with birdseye chillies  The end result was very tasty indeed!

Somla Machou served with rice

Image credits:

All photos were taken by me.  Please feel free to re-use them under the Creative Commons license:

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Cambodia - The Lost Kingdom of the Chams

Flag of the Cham Liberation Front

I've always been fascinated by 'lost kingdoms' or 'countries that might have been'.  The map of the world today is a product of History and it's interesting to think how it could all look so different.  I touched on this when I was blogging about the Veneto - Venice was a republic and a nation for so long, it seems a bit unfortunate that the Venetian nation no longer exists, although it's for the greater good of the Italian state.  Similarly, it would be interesting to see Champa on the map of South East Asia in the 21st century, as it was for many centuries in the past.  I guess the Cham people have been unlucky in the end and now their culture and 'nationhood' remains somewhat obscure and unheard of by most people. 

So where was Champa?

Cham ruins in Vietnam by GlobalCitizen01

I first heard about the Chams when I was travelling through Vietnam.  Although most Chams now live in Cambodia, the Kingdom of Champa was in southern Vietnam and this is where the architectural legacy of the Cham people still remains.  I remember travelling on one of those horrid tourist buses from the old French hill station at Da Lat to the seaside resort of Nha Trang and we stopped along the way to look, rather bleary-eyed, at the ruins of a Cham palace. 

Ancient Champa had its capital at Indrapura, which is near modern-day Da Nang in Vietnam.  Champa flourished until the late 17th century when the northern Viets started to push the Chams out of the Vietnam, a situation that continued until well into the 19th century. 

The Chams in Cambodia

The Chams were eventually defeated by the Viets and many of them moved to Cambodia, settling around the area now called Kampong Cham (Port of the Chams), as well as along the shores of the Tonle Sap lake.  They retain their own culture, language, stories etc and they've become well-known in Cambodia for their weaving and dying skills.  There are more than 300,000 Chams in Cambodia, but they are very much a minority group within Cambodian society.

Conversion to Islam

Cham performer by GlobalCitizen01

One thing that makes the Chams stand out from other Cambodian citizens is the fact that most Cambodian Chams are (Sunni) Muslims.  Islam had made some headway in South East Asia before the Chams moved to Cambodia but, perhaps in an effort to maintain a separate cultural identity, most Cambodian Chams have adopted Islam.  It has also served a practical purpose, allowing Chams to fish and kill animals, in a country where most people are Buddhist and don't wish to take the life of another creature.  There are small Cham communities in Thailand and Laos as well.  Interestingly, the majority of the 130,000 or so Chams who remain in Vietnam have retained their Hindu faith, as much as faith continues to exist in a Communist country like Vietnam!

Suffering under the Khmer Rouge

By all accounts, the Chams suffered horribly under the Khmer Rouge, being treated in much the same way as the ethnic Viets living in Cambodia.  It's hard to measure the extent to which the Cham population suffered, but some estimates suggest that as many as half a million Chams could have been murdered by the Khmer Rouge in an attempt to 'ethnically cleanse' Cambodia.  I have written about ethnic cleansing before in my blog about Barbados.

Connections with Aceh and Malaysia

It surprised me to learn that the Acehnese people have their origins in the Cham Kingdom of Vietnam, having fled to Aceh after a defeat by the Vietnamese in the 15th century.  The Cham language is closely related to Acehnese, so that they are 'in the same part' of the language family tree.  Both Cham and Acehnese are part of the Malayo-Polenesian branch of the Austronesian language family.  There were long-standing cultural and trade connections between Champa and the Malay peninsula and, by all accounts, the Malaysian constitution recognises the right of Cham people to claim Malaysian citizenship.

Other Chams, Khmers and Viets

Cham ruins by GlobalCitizen01

I guess our 19th-century obsession with creating nations has left a simplified map of the world today.  We tend to think of Viets in Vietnam, Cambodians in Cambodia etc., but the nature of human and cultural migration has left more complicated patterns.  As well as the main Cham population of South East Asia, there are also people like the Jarai of central Vietnam (called montagnards by the French colonisers), numerous hill tribes of northern Vietnam, the Chamic Tsat people of Hainan in southern China etc. 

There are more than a million ethnic Cambodians who have always lived in the Isan region of (what is now) Thailand, known as the Northern Khmer, as well as another million or so Khmer Krom living in Vietnam in the Mekong Delta.  Likewise, there are more than half a million ethnic Vietnamese living in Cambodia, so the ethnic make-up of South East Asia is much more complicated than a map of the region would have you believe! 

Image credits:

For this blog post, I've chosen to highlight the work of flickr member GlobalCitizen01 who has taken lots of photos of East Asia and Australia.  All of the images above were taken in My Son in Vietnam.  You can see more of GlobalCitizen01's photos on his photo stream and he also has a really interesting blog, which is worth checking out!

His most recent blog post is about Kuril islands in the Russian Far East (north of Japan) - the photos are very well mounted and explained. 

Cambodia - អក្សរខ្មែរ âksâr khmêr

One of the things that most fascinated me on my trips to Cambodia was the Khmer alphabet. Having spent a year in Thailand, I'm quite proud of the fact that I can read Thai script - okay, not fast enough to recognise the destinations of passing buses but, you know, given time to pore over the squiggles and rounded syllables, I can manage okay! Going to Cambodia (and Laos), the script was very familiar looking, but a lot more complicated and squiggly.

A shared heritage - Thai and Khmer

I guess Khmer script is more complicated than Thai because it's the script that Thai, Lao and some other South East Asian scripts derived from. I'd imagine it's retained a lot of it's original complexity which, perhaps, was simplified when the script was used to write Thai, a language that is tonal and couldn't be more different, phonologically, than the Khmer language. I think this paragraph is probably very controversial for Thai readers. Understandably, most people prefer to think of their culture as being unique and not under the influence of neighbouring cultures. As an outsider though, I have to say - that's how it looks!

Khmer writing on book cover

Writing as a tool for technology

Since its invention, writing has been a powerful tool for the advancement of technology. Think of all the things that writing has enabled us to do. The very essence of civilisation, history, science and communication, has been dependent on the technology of writing to help us share our ideas, learn from our mistakes and count the spoils of war or trade. It's hardly a surprise that some of the first examples of 'writing' were connected to accountancy and I have to wonder, yet again, at the power of trade to push forward technological developments.

The sacred nature of writing

In Ancient times writing was something that was sacred. Until the Middle Ages in Europe, only spiritual men (and usually only men), scribes and monks, were taught how to read and write (the two surely go hand-in-hand?). Written text enabled Pharaohs and Kings to create a legacy that would potentially be eternal and could speak for the writers long after they had deceased. In some Ancient societies, written creations had to be approved and stamped by the King, before they could be left behind as records of that society.

The power of the written word



Writing is just as powerful today. I'm sure J.K. Rowling would agree, having seen her Harry Potter series of books take the world by storm, being translated into innumerable languages and read by an audience of millions around the world - millions of people who speak different languages and come from very different cultures than the writer herself. And then there's the Media - newspaper headlines or a scathing review can make or break public figures. There is more power in a well-written text sometimes, than in any spoken words.



Lao script is much rounder and softer than Khmer

The 17th century French mathematician Blaise Pascal once said 'To know how to write well is to know how to think well' and I tend to agree. Perhaps good writing is only rivalled by good music, as a source of inspiration and change for the human mind.

The alphabet revolution

As part of my research for this blog post, I read A Very Short Introduction to Writing and Script by Andrew Robinson (published by Oxford University Press). It gave me a great overview of a topic I find endlessly fascinating. There was so much to learn from this book, but one of the main things I came to understand was how the alphabet revolutionised writing systems. I guess most of us will presume that alphabets have been around forever, but they're a much more recent invention and were pre-dated by other forms of writing, such as hieroglyphs, cuneiform writing and pictographs.

Thai script and other scripts like Khmer, Lao and Tamil are kind of like an alphabet (unlike Chinese or Japanese, where you need to learn thousands of characters before you can read). Having said that, they're not like any alphabet I'd met before and are actually somewhere between a true alphabet, where each individual sound (or phoneme) is represented by a single letter, and a syllabary, where each letter represents a syllable. Khmer, Thai and the others are like a hybrid between a syllabic system and more phonetic alphabet. I guess this type of 'alphabet' is probably better described as an Abugida..

Of course, it's all well and good to try to define everything and put things into boxes, but the reality is always a lot more complicated and even the English alphabet is a bewildering combination of letters and sounds.

Where do you put the vowels?



Chinese script

What I found really different about Thai and Khmer is that the vowels can appear in front of, behind, on top of or even under the consonant. There are rules of course and certain vowels tend to stand alone, whilst others are dependent on their partner consonant. Vowels have always been an issue and the first alphabets didn't contain any - some modern alphabets, like Arabic, Hebrew and Hindi generally leave them out. The existence of vowels in European scripts is mostly down to the Greeks and linguists speculate as to the influence Greek poetry had on the addition of vowels to a script.

Apart from that, learning to read a script like Thai or Khmer isn't all that difficult. The letters don't morph or change, as they might in Arabic or Hindi and, once you get over the initial culture shock of a completely different writing system, it all falls into place somehow and you will be able to make out words in other Brahmic scripts (which all have their origins in India).

The world's biggest and smallest alphabets

If Khmer is considered to be an alphabet, then it's probably the largest alphabet in the world, with 74 different signs (again, some of these are quite obscure and have disappeared in neighbouring scripts like Thai).

By all accounts, the world's smallest alphabet is the one used for the Rotokas language in Papua New Guinea - it only uses 12 letters (all from the Roman alphabet) - a e g i k o p r s t u v - there's definitely something to be said for keeping things simple!

Image credits:

All images were taken by me.  Please feel free to re-use them under the Creative Commons License:

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Cambodia - Happy New Year!

As I'm blogging about various different places around the world, I often become aware of festivals and celebrations that I would never have otherwise heard about.  Right now it's New Year in Cambodia or, in Khmer language បុណ្យចូលឆ្នាំថ្មី - Chaul Chnam Thmey.  Khmer New Year is celebrated over three days, from the 13th to the 15th of April and marks the end of the harvesting season.  This year's Chaul Chnam Thmey marks the beginning of 2556 BE - ie. according to the Buddhist calendar (Buddhist Era). 

April 14th 2012 - Virak Wanabat

Monks giving alms by Pigalle

I'm sure there will be lots of ceremonies and temple visits in Cambodia today, which is the second day of this celebration, called Virak Wanabat - it focuses on charity and giving to the poor, I guess today is the equivalent of our 'Boxing Day'.  And not just in Cambodia either.  Cambodians all over the world will be celebrating New Year this weekend.

Songkran and Pathandu

Chaul Chnam Thmey coincides with other Buddhist New Year's, like Songkran in Thailand and Laos, a time to get splashed with flour and water, if I remember my Songkran in Thailand correctly!  It's also New Year in Sri Lanka and in the Tamil communities of southern India, Malaysia and elsewhere, where it's known as Puthandu. 

So when is New Year again?

Postcard seller by Pigalle

Until I lived in places like Uzbekistan and Thailand, I didn't realise that there were other dates for New Year (apart from Chinese New Year).  In Central Asia and Iran, New Year is celebrated as Navrus (or Nowrus), normally around the end of March.  The date is based on the lunar calendar, which changes from year to year, although most countries have settled on one date (22 March) as the date for New Year.

My Kalmyk partner celebrates New Year (Zul) on the 20th of December!  The Celtic New Year traditionally began during Samhain (seed-fall, or the end of the harvest).  This festival survives in our modern-day Hallowe'en, which falls on the last day in October, according to the Gregorian (Western) calendar.  It seems strange to have a New Year beginning at the start of winter, but I guess every New Year marks the end of an old one and, as with Chaul Chnam Thmey, Celtic New Year really marks the end of the productive agricultural season (before the rains come, or in Europe - winter). 

New Years around the world

Living in climatically different parts of the world, it would make sense that New Year starts at different times in different places, as it usually heralds the end or beginning of a productive agricultural season. 

It surprised me to learn that New Year has only been celebrated on the 1st of January in England since 1751!  Previous to that, New Year in England began on Lady's Day, which is the 25th of March.  I guess the UK retains a remnant of this older tradition, as the UK 'Financial year' begins on the 1st of April.

Our modern New Year most likely has its origins in the Yuletide of Nordic and Germanic traditions, which is still celebrated as Christmas, but probably got moved to the 1st of January as a more convenient 'starting' date and to differentiate Christmas, which they were keen to portray as a 'Christian' holiday tied to the birth of Christ?

Psah Thom Thmei by Pigalle

Orthodox countries like Russia, still have a different New Year's date (called Old New Year!) on January 14th - so they get to celebrate New Year twice! 

In the Judaic tradition, New Year is celebrated during Rosh Hashanah which will be in September this year. 

I guess the Hindu 'festival of lights' Diwali is a kind of New Year celebration - it also falls in the autumn or early (European) winter - this year Diwali will be in November. 

Enkutatash - the Coptic (Ethiopian) New Year falls on the 11th of September.

The Islamic New Year starts on the first day of Muharram which will be the 15th of November this year. 

Seollal - the Korean New Year, started on the 23rd of January this year, a date that is very close to the Chinese New Year.  The Vietnamese New Year Tết also coincides with Chinese New Year. 

The Balinese celebrated their New Year Nyepi on the 23rd of March this year.  Nyepi is an interesting one, as it means the 'day of silence' - when everyone in Bali stays indoors in the hope that visiting demons will think the island is uninhabited and leave them alone for another year!  Nyepi also applies to visiting tourists and I can't imagine what it's like to stay indoors and remain silent during that day - it sounds wonderful!

I guess at any time of the year, somewhere in the world, people will be celebrating the end of harvest or cheering themselves up in the middle of a dull winter or rainy season!  So wherever you're reading this and whatever time of the year it is - Happy New Year!

Image credits:

For this blog post I wanted to highlight the photography of Flickr member Pigalle - who has amazing collections of images from Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and elsewhere.  You can see more on Pigalle's photostream - all images for this blog post have been taken from the set - A Brief Introduction to Cambodia - thanks to Pigalle for sharing these images with us using the Creative Commons License. 

Cambodia - Monarchy in the 21st Century

I'm not sure many people could have guessed that Cambodia would enter the 21st century as the Kingdom of Cambodia. Mind you, there aren't many countries in the world, where a reigning monarch has been in favour of Communism (as Norodom Sihanouk, father of the current King of Cambodia, seemed to be during the 1960's). Nor have many of the world's monarchs been so warmly welcomed in Communist Beijing, as Sihanouk was, or gone into self-imposed exile in North Korea, where Sihanouk went after his abdication in 2004. Needless to say, the monarchy in Cambodia is different than most other monarchies around the world!

His Majesty King Norodom Sihamoni

The current King of Cambodia, Norodom Sihamoni is a fascinating character. He's well-educated and travelled, was trained as a Classical Dance Instructor and is the only reigning monarch who is fluent in Czech! I'm no big fan of monarchy but - dare I say it - he sounds like a really nice guy! I guess modern-day constitutional monarchs have a symbolic role of to play in the countries where they are Heads of State. Like our President in Ireland, the King of Cambodia seems to be more  cultural ambassador than tyrannical leader.




Monarchy around the World

Royal Palace, Phnom Penh by Wilson Loo

It always surprises me that monarchies continue to flourish in the 21st century, in different parts of the world. I personally don't agree with the hereditary aspect of monarchy, or the idea that there should be a princeps civitatis (or principle citizen) who is somehow 'better' than other citizens. Monarchy underpins a basic 'inequality' in society that makes me feel uncomfortable. Monarchists might claim that the system is 'harmless', but you have to wonder at the underlying message that is given out by a political system with a hereditary figure at the top.

Japan has the longest-running monarchy in the world, the current Emperor Akihito is the latest ruler in a line stretching back to the 4th century CE (Common Era). I've already blogged about the House of Saud and the last Maharani of Jaipur.

Other countries with monarchies, include most of the Scandinavian countries, African countries like Lesotho and Swaziland, the Sultanates of the Middle East and Malaysia, as well as some small island nations in the Pacific. The world's newest monarch, Tupou VI, became King of Tonga a couple of weeks ago!

King Bhumibhol and lese-majesty

Door detail by Wilson Loo

The world's longest-reigning monarch is King Bhumibhol Adulyadej of Thailand, just across the border from Cambodia. I spent a year in Thailand and became incredibly aware of the importance of the Thai king in the country's political system and culture. Thailand is a country that still frequently prosecutes people for the crime of lese-majesty. From the French for 'injury to the monarch', lese-majesty means any crime that is deemed to be injurious to the monarch or ruling Head of State. It includes crimes like the counterfeiting of currency, as coins and notes usually contain the monarch's profile. It's more common these days to seelese-majesty being exercised in cases such as libel.

Although I don't agree with the concept of monarchy, I also think that it's wrong to go to a country like Thailand, as a foreigner, and make flippant comments about an issue that is incredibly sensitive and little understood by 'westerners'. There have been some famous cases of foreigners being prosecuted in Thailand, like the Swiss man who sprayed graffiti on portraits of the King in Chiang Mai and received a ten-year jail sentence. However, most lese-majesty prosecutions involve Thai citizens and recent civil unrest in Thailand has seen an increase in incidents of lese-majesty. Internet sites like YouTube and Twitter are becoming the battle-grounds where a debate on the Thai monarchy, suppressed elsewhere, are coming to the fore.

The Queen's Jubilee

I don't think lese-majesty is such a massive issue in the UK and criticism of the Royal family, by those who don't believe in monarchy, is fairly common. Nevertheless, I'm sure there will be a lot of flag-waving for the Queen's Jubilee in June - 60 years on the throne, Elizabeth II is currently the world's second-longest reigning monarch.

The position of the monarchy in the UK seems to be stronger than ever and the argument about the value of the royal family, in terms of bringing in tourist revenues, continues as ever. I don't really believe that the royal family per se is the reason why tourists come to the UK. I'm sure people would still come to see the palaces and other historical buildings, whether or not the royal family was around. Whilst it's obvious that the British royal family is very popular with some overseas visitors, I'm sure that the majority of people that live, work and visit the UK, are fairly indifferent to the monarchy, most of the time.

Royal Palace, Phnom Penh by Wilson Loo

An elected Monarch?

Going back to Cambodia, I find it interesting that the role of Cambodian monarch is both a hereditary one and an elected one. Most hereditary systems mean that the eldest son (or sometimes daughter) will become monarch, when the reigning monarch passes away or abdicates. King Sihamoni isn't Sihanouk's oldest son, but was elected from a list of possible heirs by a council under the supervision of the Cambodian Prime Minister.

It seems like a fairly sensible system to me, as every royal family has its 'bad eggs' and this kind of selection could be used to by-pass heirs that were not fit to rule.

It would be interesting to apply this system to the British Royal family and I guess it would be the equivalent of having a choice between Prince Charles and his brothers, sisters and sons. It would be interesting to see who would win the selection, especially if it was put to a popular vote!

Image credits:

All images were taken at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh by flickr member Wilson Loo who is from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.  You can see more of Wilson's work on his Flickr photostream and on his Facebook page.  Thanks Wilson for sharing these images with us using the Creative Commons license.

Cambodia - Sok sobai tay?

It's more than 10,000 miles (or just less than 17,000 km) from Bridgetown, Barbados to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia - the next place I've chosen to blog about.

My own experience of Cambodia
My choice of Cambodia is an unusual one, in the sense that it's a place I've actually been to a couple of times. With the exception of the Netherlands and Veneto, most of the places I've blogged about thus far, are places I have never visited and, in many cases, places I may never get the opportunity to visit. A couple of them, eg. Hong Kong and Iceland, are places that I've visited subsequent to my blogging about them, as I felt so inspired by everything I'd read and seen.

I found Cambodia to be incredibly beautiful and welcoming and it's a country I feel strongly about.  I would love to see Cambodia prosper and move on from the troubles of its recent past.

The legacy of the Killing Fields

Khmer Gris at Angkor

It's impossible to do any research into Cambodia without coming across texts, movies and references to the terrible period of suffering under the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979. In previous blogs, I've talked a little bit about 'national traumas', like the famine in Ireland, the loss of religious identity in Mongolia or the AIDS epidemic in Lesotho. Attempts by the Khmer Rouge to turn Cambodia (or Kampuchea) into an agrarian socialist society is very much part of Cambodia's national trauma.

After travelling to Cambodia, I became a bit obsessed about this period in the country's history and I've already read quite a few books and eye-witness accounts of life under the Khmer Regime. One of my favourite's was Pin Yathay's Stay Alive, My Son - a very moving account of displacement and survival. I've also watched Roland Joffe's 1984 movie The Killing Fields, but I would like to watch it again, as I've actually visited Cambodia since I saw the movie.

I bought a copy of Loung Eng's First they Killed my Father when I was last in Phnom Penh in 2007. I wasn't ready to read it then, so it's sat on my bookshelf for 5 years and I'm ready to read it now. I've also bought a copy of River of Time by Jon Swain, the journalist portrayed in The Killing Fields.. I've tried, in vain, to find modern Cambodian literature available in an English-language translation. So if anyone knows of anything, I'd be interested in hearing about this.

The Splendor of Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat, taken in 2004

I guess the flip side to Cambodia's 'dark history' under the Khmer Rouge is the resurgence of interest in the remains of the Cambodian (Khmer) temples at Angkor, just outside the modern-day town of Siem Reap. My first trip to Cambodia was in 2004, crossing the border from Thailand, I spent three days being driven around Angkor, exploring the various temples that are scattered around the Cambodian jungle.

It really is a wonderful place and I returned in 2007 with my Kalmyk/Russian partner. It's being overrun by tourists though, so I don't think I'll return, as I've had my chance to visit Angkor and the temples now have more visitors than they can handle.

Again, it's going to be challenge to get beyond the legacies of the Angkor and the Khmer Rouge, so I can find out even more about Cambodia. As usual, I want to read, watch movies, cook a Khmer dish and listen to Khmer music.

Spotify and Khmer play lists

Heaven and Earth

Although I registered on Spotify several years ago, I've never been able to make it work properly until now. I've got a 30-day trial of their Premium account, which allows me to listen to music on my iPhone and I want to see how this works for my blog research, amongst other things. So far, so good - as I've been writing this blog, I've been listening to an album called Khmer Passages: Songs for Cycles of Cambodian Life as well as Dengue Fever's album Venus on Earth. Interestingly there are Cambodian music playlists on Spotify as well, so I intend to absorb as much Khmer music as I can over the next month or so!

A fleeting obsession with Photoshop

Also, because I've been in Cambodia, I have my own photos, which I'm using to illustrate this current blog post. I'm a big fan of the Flickr community and I like to highlight some of the wonderful images that Flickr members have shared with the world. But I'm also quite a keen (amateur) photographer. I have relatively few photos from Cambodia, as I was there in my pre-digital camera days. My Cambodian photos, as you may have already guessed, reflect a period when I was obsessed with Photoshop!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy these images and my future blog posts about Cambodia.

Image credits:

All images in the current blog post were taken by me. Please feel free to reuse them with the Creative Commons license:

- Attribution (especially to this blog)

- Share Alike

- Non-commercial