The
oral history of O-Trav village is known for two reasons. First, in English, ‘O’
means ‘stream’ and ‘trav’ means ‘taro.’ Combined, O-Trav is the stream where
taro plants grow. This village is known for fertile land where people can grow
crops profitably. The village name has passed down from one generation to
another. Evidence shows that this village has a rich history and is rather old.
The village was established in the 19th century. The first settlers were the
Chvea (Jvea – Javanese) ethnic group, who migrated from Kampot province in
order to spread Islam and Qur’anic teachings to the area. Later, the Cham
people populated the village through marriage and trade. Currently, the
majority group (Chvea or Jvea) is called “Khmer Islam.” Their main occupation
is fishing and farming. People from the village are known for migrating to find
work and education, especially to Malaysia. Village children study at the
O-Chrov Islamic school, located about eight kilometers from the village. A few
who are able to pass a test go on to study in Malaysia.
The
village has a special history. In 1963, villagers took the initiative to build
a mosque. It is now one of the oldest mosques in Cambodia, having survived the
Khmer Rouge (KR) campaign of destruction and modernity. During fighting between
Lon Nol forces and KR soldiers in 1973, the mosque suffered partial damage.
After the evacuation of the villagers in 1975, it was profaned, just like most mosques
in Cambodia. The mosque was used for storage and later became a KR hospital. As
collectivization was the main element of KR policy, a communal dining hall was
built next to the mosque. Evacuees from Kampong Chhnang province (not the
native villagers) dined in the facility during the KR era.
If you want to travel the world, it pays to be German. This comes courtesy of a new survey that ranks countries around the world on the amount of “travel freedom” accorded to their citizens. Travel freedom is defined as the number of countries where citizens can travel without needing a visa, or where they will receive a visa upon arrival.
Germans have the most powerful passports in the world, offering visa-free access to 177 countries and territories out of a total of 218, according to the 2016 Visa Restrictions Index compiled by the London-based citizenship and immigration firm Henley & Partners. Germans have held this distinction since 2014. Swedes were close behind, with visa-free access to 176 countries.
France, Finland, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom all tied for third place, with access to 175 countries. United States citizens can drop in visa-free on 174 countries, along with citizens of Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands.
A country’s ability to obtain visa waivers reflects its diplomatic relations with other countries. Visa requirements are also shaped by “reciprocal visa arrangements, security risks, and the risks of visa and immigration rules violations,” according to Henley & Partners’ press release.
The report, published Feb. 24 and accompanied by an interactive graphic, notes a couple other big developments. Four countries made major strides in the rankings: Tonga, Palau, Colombia and the Southeast Asian nation of Timor-Leste. And Portugal, which began a“golden visa” initiative in 2012 that allows investors from outside the European Union to buy their way into residency, now has the world’s sixth-most powerful passports. Its citizens can travel to 172 countries without visas.
The first photographer to ever visit Angkor arrived in Siem Reap province in February 1866—150 years ago this month—with a simple purpose: John Thomson had seen French explorer Henri Mouhot’s description and sketches of the monuments published three years earlier and was eager to photograph them.
But his visit took place during a complicated time for Cambodia. While France was seeking to expand what would become its Indochina empire, Great Britain was courting King Mongkut in Siam, as Thailand was then known, to strengthen its influence in the region, already counting Burma and Singapore among its colonies.
A section of Angkor Wat, with the hill of Phnom Bakheng in the distance, in 1866. (Emile Gsell)
So when French navy officer Doudart de Lagree—assigned to oversee France’s interests in Cambodia—heard of the Scottish photographer’s arrival, he was certain he was a British spy. Not to be outdone, de Lagree would bring French photographer Emile Gsell to Angkor three months later.
Thomson and Gsell would produce the first photographs ever taken in Cambodia.
The stories of these photographers—and the global power struggle happening around them—is vividly described in “Cambodia Captured,” by Jim Mizerski, a large-format book illustrated with full-page photographs that is being launched on March 3.
When the photographers arrived, Siem Reap and Battambang provinces were under the control of Siam. After his first visit to Angkor in March 1866, de Lagree begged French officials to negotiate its return to Cambodia, but it would be another 40 years before that happened.
Mr. Mizerski tells the story of diplomatic scheming mainly through de Lagree, who watched over Cambodia while the French were busy strengthening their position in Cochinchina, that is, southern Vietnam.
“Cambodia is currently the focal point of murky politics,” de Lagree wrote to his sister-in-law in October 1863. “We are seeking to get the Protectorate to the great detriment of Siam, who was in charge. The English…have become blue with anger and I am here alone. The weight of all this mess is heavier than one might think.”
King Norodom, whom de Lagree affectionately called “my little king” in his private letters (the king was less than 1.5-meters tall) signed the Protectorate Treaty with France in August 1863, hoping to curb Siamese influence over the country.
But unbeknownst to the French, King Norodom would also sign a treaty with Siam’s King Mongkut in December 1863, stating that “Cambodia is a tributary state of Siam” and that its “ruler” had to be approved by Bangkok. This went against the terms of the protectorate treaty, which made Cambodia an independent nation under the protection of France, at least on paper.
“One cannot blame Norodom,” Mr. Mizerski said in an interview. France was taking months to ratify the Protectorate Treaty—this would only be completed in April 1864—and the French were preoccupied with difficulties in Vietnam.
“Nobody was sure if the Protectorate Treaty was actually going to come into effect,” said Mr. Mizerski, who read everything he could find on the period before putting together his book.
“Norodom was sort of stuck in the middle. He didn’t know if the French were really going to stick around Southeast Asia forever or if they’d be gone next year. He knew that King Mongkut was going to be here,” he said.
King Norodom was also eager to have a proper coronation ceremony, fearing that his more popular brothers would steal his crown, and the royal paraphilia was kept in Bangkok, he noted.
The French were furious when they learned of the treaty’s existence. When the French-Siamese treaty was concluded in 1867 after more than two years of negotiations, Article 3 stated that Siam no longer had any control over Cambodia.
In his secret treaty with Siam, King Norodom had agreed to leave Angkor with Cambodia’s powerful neighbor. Having spent most of his life in Bangkok, the king had never seen Angkor. But after de Lagree had made several trips to Angkor and most likely described it to him, King Norodom visited the temples, and changed his position on which country they belonged in, pressing France to have the area returned to Cambodia.
The fact that even the king of Cambocould not picture the magnitude of Angkor until he saw the temples himself illustrates the differences that photography was about to make.
Mouhot’s description and sketches of Angkor, published in 1863 and 1864, fascinated Europe.
A section of Angkor Wat, with the hill of Phnom Bakheng in the distance, in 1866. (Emile Gsell)
“But words alone, or even engravings or sketches, did not carry the force, clarity or authenticity of photographs, and in the case of Angkor Wat it is certainly true that a picture is worth a thousand words,” Mr. Mizerski writes in the book’s introduction.
In June 1866, after meeting Thomson at Angkor, de Lagree brought a French photographer from Saigon with him when he returned with his Mekong Exploration Commission team. His name was Emile Gsell, a man who probably came to the region with the French army during his mandatory military service.
As Mr. Mizerski found out, little is known about Gsell. How he became a photographer and where he got the cumbersome equipment—Thomson had needed five porters to carry his material to Angkor—remains a mystery.
Gsell made several trips to Cambodia before he died in Saigon in 1879.
In addition to an iconic photo of the members of the Mekong Exploration Commission taken at Angkor Wat in 1866, and a famous photo of King Norodom, Gsell’s photos have provided some of the rare images of Phnom Penh at that time.
Following his visit to Angkor in June 1866, de Lagree and his exploration team left Phnom Penh on July 7, 1866, charged to chart the Mekong river to its source. Their scientific research had a commercial aim: finding out whether one could navigate the Mekong from its delta in Cochinchina to China. De Lagree would not return.
“After leading the Expedition almost 10,000 kilometers, 4,000 of which were on foot, he died of an abscessed liver and severe amoebic dysentery on March 12, 1868, in Tong-Tchouen, China, days before the expedition completed its assignment,” Mr. Mizerski writes.
The French navy would name three ships after him.
Gsell’s photographs of Angkor in 1866 were in the photo album given to France’s Empress Eugenie in 1867 that is now at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
Photographs that Thomson took that same year at Angkor were published in his 1867 book “The Antiquities of Cambodia;” the original glass plates are now at the Wellcome Library in London.
Mr. Mizerski is a former U.S. naval officer and engineer who worked in the petro-chemical industry in the Middle East prior to retirement, and has done photography for several books since settling in Cambodia in 2003. Most recently, he co-authored a book on Thomson with Joel Montague, an American collector of early postcards of Cambodia and Indochina.
The launch of “Cambodia Captured” is at Romdeng restaurant in Phnom Penh on (March 3, 2016) Thursday at 6 p.m.
By Michelle Vachon, the Cambodia Daily, February 29, 2016
Once upon a time, a ship sailed from the East to
Cambodia. This ship was full of gold and other treasures. After encountering
bad weather, it sank in a deep area of a lake near Ponhea Leu district, Kandal
province. Since then, villagers nearby witnessed many strange but pleasant events.
Some people saw treasures float to the surface of the water. They called the
lake Boeng Sampeou Meas (Golden Ship Lake). The two lakes nearby are Raung Touk
and Chvea. The villagers recalled that there were two kinds of spirits in the
lakes called Ta Bang Bat1 and Mrenh Korngveal2 .
The legend has it that Ta Bang Bat feels pity for a
couple who come for fishing in the lake everyday. One day, the couple rowed
their boat in the lake to fish. When the wife pulled the boat’s line from the
water, it became stuck as if something was pulling it back. Suddenly, there appeared
young Mrenh Korngveal spirits and Ta Bang Bat. They asked the wife to make
fresh noodle for him and the young spirits to eat. Mrenh Korngveal also asked
her to give them her oar. She had no idea how they had appeared, but agreed.
Satisfied with consent, the young spirits and Ta Bang Bat disappeared. The wife
continued pulling the line. This time it became loose; at the end of it she saw
gold. Other villagers experienced similar events when they fished in lake.
These stories were passed down from one person to another, so more and more people
heard about the lake.
Many generations passed, and the lake became a sacred
place where people of different ethnic backgrounds (Cham, Chvea, Chinese and Khmer)
worshiped during their festivals. Some people went there to borrow utensils
from the lake for their weddings or religious events. More and more people did
the same. To receive these things, they had to say, “Please allow me to borrow
your utensils, I will return them to you.” But some people did not return them
to the lake. Some returned only part of what they had borrowed. And some wanted
more and more gold from the lake. So due to greed and insincerity, all the
sacredness faded.
Villagers recall that a few people who visited the lake
later became soul-enticing doctors, taught by Mrenh Korngveals. Mr. Neak Manan,
a villager, said that one of his older friends named Dhin visited the lake and
became lost for a few days and his parents and friends could not find him. He
heard those who called to him but he could not answer or see them. Afterward,
he returned home on his own, but he was never the same and his speech had
become confused. However, he had acquired a special skill: he could entice
souls.
A number of people drowned in the lake. Some believed
that these deaths were caused by the Mrenh Korngveals and other sacred beings
in the lake. Even if this story is a folktale many people in Ponhea Leu know it
and pass it from person to person. Some people believe it is a true story.
District Imam Ahmad says that the story reflects the truth because in the old
days many people traded by ship between countries and Mrenh Korngveals
flourished. When asked from which country the golden ship came, Ahmad said he
does not know but he speculates that the ship might have come from China as
during that time a large part of the land was covered by water.
Stories relating to this golden ship tale were passed
down from one generation to another among the villagers near the lake and also
spread to places far away. People told this tale to their neighbors and
children even though the sacredness was long lost. The moral of the tale is that
greed and dishonesty will bring failure. But what is most regretful is that the
place is now no longer a lake. It is being filled in and in the near future
will be turned into a cultural entertainment center.
Credit/Source: Cambodia: The Cham Identities by Documentation Center of Cambodia
BATTAMBANG, Cambodia — Between bites of spicy Cambodian curry and fried fish with rice, Angelina Jolie Pitt explains how this tiny country with a tumultuous past changed the course of her life.
She first visited Cambodia 16 years ago to star in “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” as the gun-toting, bungee-jumping, supremely toned action hero that made her a star. Soon after, she adopted her first child from a Cambodian orphanage and returned again and again on humanitarian missions. Now, she’s back for another movie but this time as a director, and the subject matter is a far cry from Lara Croft.
“First They Killed My Father,” is based on a Khmer Rouge memoir written by survivor Loung Ung that recounts the 1970s Cambodian genocide from a child’s perspective. The film, which she is directing and co-wrote with Ung for Netflix, is in Khmer, with an all-Cambodian cast and according to Jolie Pitt “the most important” movie of her career. During a break from filming, she talked to The Associated Press about how, more than ever, she feels a satisfying symbiosis between her life and work.
In person, Jolie Pitt is engaging and down-to-earth, dressed in a T-shirt and long black skirt, her hair pulled into a casual bun. She goes out of her way to play down her celebrity, hopping into the back of an SUV and squeezing into the middle seat beside a reporter for a short drive from the set to the crew’s outdoor lunch tents. She is relaxed and articulate as the conversation veers from acting and directing, to history, humanitarian work, motherhood and her special relationship to Cambodia.
“When I first came to Cambodia, it changed me. It changed my perspective. I realized there was so much about history that I had not been taught in school, and so much about life that I needed to understand, and I was very humbled by it,” said the 40-year-old Jolie Pitt, who grew up in Los Angeles where she felt “a real emptiness.”
She was struck by the graciousness and warmth of Cambodian people, despite the tragedy that left an estimated 2 million people dead. While shooting “Tomb Raider” in 2000, some scenes required sidestepping land mines, she said, which made her aware of the dangers refugees face in countries ravaged by war. “That trip triggered my realization of how little I knew and the beginning of my search for that knowledge.”
It prompted her to contact the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees to learn about the agency’s work before joining as a goodwill ambassador in 2001. She was then given an expanded role as Special Envoy in 2012.
It was during an early trip back to Cambodia with the U.N. that Jolie had another epiphany — this time about motherhood.
“It’s strange, I never wanted to have a baby. I never wanted to be pregnant. I never babysat. I never thought of myself as a mother,” Jolie, now famously a mother of six, says with a laugh. But while playing with children at a Cambodian school, “it was suddenly very clear to me that my son was in the country, somewhere.”
She adopted Maddox in 2002, and a year later opened a foundation in his name in northwestern Battambang province, which helps fund health care, education and conservation projects in rural Cambodia.
Maddox is now 14 and sporting what his mom calls “a blonde stripe” — a shaggy mohawk with the top dyed blonde. He joined her in Cambodia to help behind the scenes for the project that she sees as a unique merger of her film work and family with humanitarian interests.
“For me, this is the moment, where finally my life is kind of in line,” Jolie Pitt said.
Her fondness for Cambodia is mutual, says the country’s most celebrated filmmaker Rithy Panh, who says “First They Killed My Father” will be the first Hollywood epic filmed in Cambodia about the country’s genocide — a sign that the government trusts her to respectfully revisit the horrors of the past.
“I don’t think they authorized Hollywood to come here. They authorized Angelina Jolie. It’s not the same,” said Panh, her co-producer.
“I wonder if she’s not a reincarnated Cambodian,” he laughed, then thought about it. “Maybe. Maybe in a previous life she was Cambodian.”
She expects to return to hold the film’s premiere at the end of the year, before its Netflix release.
LAWRENCE Osborne, a
writer on the rise, is worthy of our attention. Schooled at Cambridge and
Harvard, he has since followed the path of his illustrious literary forbears,
notably Joseph Conrad, E.M. Forster, and Graham Greene, in seeking inspiration
abroad, often in obscure climes among non-Western peoples.
Like his predecessors,
the abiding theme of Osborne’s works is a collision of cultures brought on by Britishers
venturing abroad and straying from their comfort zones. Through their
unsuspecting eyes a very different way of life is revealed, with a belated awareness
coming at a very high price.
The locale in “Hunters in
the Dark” is present-day Cambodia. Robert, an English teacher on an extended holiday,
is drawn to a less pressured life in a tropical climate with ready access to
booze and drugs. Why go back to stodgy, damp old England? Soon he is hired by a
doctor’s family to tutor their daughter, Sophal, in English. Both in their 20s,
the two soon become a number. Forget the English lessons; they’re having too much
fun traveling around and bedding down.
Circumstances, however,
soon force them to deal with the local citizenry. Sophal knows better, but
Robert is trusting. Pursuing a freer lifestyle, Robert soon finds himself the
pursued. The events are well-plotted, but the greater pleasure for this reader
comes from entering a place that previously had been but a name on a map.
By Dan Dervin, the
Fredericksburg, February 28, 2016
Several venues including Papa Pippo, pictured, have built permanent structures that extend too close to the tide line. Scott Rotzoll
It’s late afternoon on Otres beach, and the tourists have turned their seats seaward to worship the sinking orange sun. They are here in droves every day, many relaxing with the cheap beer and liberally available marijuana joints that the beach can furnish. Shacks and bungalows stretch almost to the tide line.
It’s a peaceful scene, but only on the surface. Since a fateful eviction note arrived on February 13, life on Otres has been “same same”, but very different.
“Especially today, I came in and I could read it on everyone’s face. We have to do everything we do every day but with this on our back,” said Micky Drudi, who had poured himself a large glass of wine at the end of his shift at Papa Pippo – the popular Italian restaurant and bungalows he co-owns.
“People come and are like, ‘So what’s the news?’” he says, buzzing with anxious energy. “I’ve heard it already 100 times today.”
The news is that the bulldozers are moving in. The two strips of land in Sihanoukville province known as Otres 1 and Otres 2, which lie 1.5 kilometres apart, and a section of Ochheuteal beach (not yet clearly defined) slightly further west, have been given exactly one month to erase all construction within 50-metres of the sea.
The impact is significant. The 50-metre boundary will erase all buildings on the beach side of the red dirt road that runs through Otres – all in, roughly a kilometre’s worth of restaurants, bungalows and shops which provide – local officials estimate – about 1,000 jobs for the local economy.
“There will be 20 of us here with no jobs,” said Lev Dany on Monday, whose eponymous restaurant on Otres 1 employs all seven of her siblings in some capacity, and several other relatives. The family doesn’t know what will happen if they have to move, but they think it will involve seeking work abroad. Dany’s sister, Kim, is clear that she doesn’t want that to happen.
Lev Dany, third from left, and Lev Kim, second from right, with some of the siblings and children who are fighting to protect the family restaurant. Scott Rotzoll
“I have been a housemaid in Malaysia before, and it is a very hard life there,” she said. “We don’t want to have to leave our country.”
The mere fact that we have to ask that question is
unsettling, scary and frustrating, because it is something we never anticipated
we’d have to answer when we finished school.
Most of us prepared hard for the future we
expected, and yet when it comes to our work life today things aren’t working
out as we had planned. That’s true if you have been laid off; are a recent
college graduate who is under-employed; a manager who feels that he is stuck in
his current position, or a member of the C-Suite who has the very real (and
probably justified feeling) that her company (and perhaps her entire field) may
implode around her.
This is not how we were
told it was going to be.
Growing up we were led to believe that the future
was predictable enough and if we studied hard we could obtain the work we
wanted in an environment we understood, and we would live happy and successful
lives.
It hasn’t exactly worked out that way (even for
those of us who are happy.)
Our careers today rarely move in a straight line
and on top of that we are worrying that the line is going to be erased all
together.
Why the disconnect between what we thought would
happen, and what is actually going on? We think the answer to that is pretty
simple. The way we were taught to think and act works well when the
future is predictable, but not so much in the world as it is now.
You know the steps for dealing with a predictable
universe:
1. You (or your parents, teachers, or bosses)
forecast how the future will be and how you can have a successful life in it.
2. You construct a number of plans for achieving
that life, picking the optimal one, i.e. the one that will get you there in the
shortest time, or with the least amount of effort or will produce the most
pleasant journey.
3. You assemble the resources (education, money,
etc.) necessary to achieve your plan.
Image from the Hoffington Post: 11 Travel
Sketches From Southeast Asia and Japan
Siem Reap hospitality businesses have called for action to address noise
issues around Pub Street they say are affecting the city’s appeal to more
lucrative tourists.
The Cambodia Hotel Association collected letters from the businesses and
forwarded them to Siem Reap provincial governor Khim Bun Song this week asking
him to enforce existing noise pollution laws.
The letters were gathered on the advice of the Ministry of Tourism as part
of a consultation exercise in conjunction with the Cambodia Tourism Federation
and Government-Private Sector Forum Tourism.
Carrol Sahaidak-Beaver, executive director of the CHA, said: “We were asked
by the Ministry of Tourism to identify specific details on where there were
issues so they could take action.” Sahaidak-Beaver did not say how many
letters were submitted, but said that they identified specific areas, venues
and time frames.
Cambodian anti-noise pollution laws specify noise levels in mixed
commercial and service areas should not exceed 65 decibels between 6pm and
10pm, and 50 decibels from 10pm until the following morning. Daytime
noise in such areas is permitted up to 70 decibels. Fifty decibels is equivalent
to the sound of a dishwasher in an adjacent room.
On most nights along Pub Street after 10pm, dance music thumps from
Angkor What? Bar and Temple Club, while live bands clang and caterwaul upstairs
at Beer Battle and Triangle. Further along, karaoke singers bawl out of Corner
Bar, startling diners in nearby restaurants who strain to catch each other’s
conversations over cooling plates of fish amok.
Local business owners complain that with the noise, the lights and streets
overrun with drinks carts, the overall impression is less than dignified, and
their businesses are suffering as a result. They also feel that in a city
dependent on cultural tourism driven by the temples of Angkor, the atmosphere
is incongruous.
In common with many that Post Weekend spoke to, the owner of one
well-established business in the area, who wished to remain anonymous, feels
that Pub Street has lost its charm.
“The impression now is that of a cheap Kao San Road [the notoriously tawdry
Bangkok backpacker district]. It’s disorganised, overcrowded, dirty, and a
deafening loud, chaotic mess,” he said.
Caught between the competing dins, he is losing business as a result as
diners choose to take their business where they can actually hear one another
speak.
Sahaidak-Beaver agrees. “Pub Street is a condensed area that frankly is
losing its value just for that reason,” she said. “The excitement of a lot
going on struggles against the increasing middle to upper-middle class tourist
that does not want to be accosted by noise and conflicting entertainment.
I avoid Pub Street in that there is nowhere to sit where you aren’t hearing
two or three or more other facilities. This is not fun.”
Martin Dishman, the owner of Linga Bar and Hotel Be, has watched guests
check out after only one night in his three-room boutique hotel on The
Passage.
“We have had many guests stay one night and flee the next day because they
couldn’t handle the noise,” he said. “Once that got into reviews, people began
to understand the location was noisy, but not everyone can deal with it.
As a result, our business has suffered. Where I once had five hotel staff,
I now have just two.”
The issue seems to have worsened over the years, in particular as
competition between the two clubs at the top end of Pub Street has
intensified.
Alex Sutherland, the owner of Angkor What? Bar, acknowledged that there was
a problem, and said that he would like to see a resolution that allowed
everyone to continue to enjoy themselves while respecting other
businesses.
“I’d like to see the clubs closed off, so that the sound is contained
inside where you can play as loud as you like without disturbing anyone on the
street,” he said.
Post Weekend contacted Temple Club for a comment but were told that the
owners were not available.
Sahaidak-Beaver said the CHA and its members wanted the existing law to be
enforced, not just for the benefit of their members but also for the general
public.
“This is just not about our businesses,” she said. “It is about children
sleeping, it is about the effect on families, it is about the decibels that are
destroying hearing. We need to be concerned about this.
“I think it is time for these facilities to recognise the right of
individual facilities to ensure the right of enjoyment in each one.”
Another business owner whose trade has also been affected, and who wished
to remain anonymous, echoed the view of many in hoping that action may soon be
taken.
“I think that the local authorities understand the need for this area to
attract a wide range of tourists and that Siem Reap’s economy is very dependent
on cultural tourism.
“I think everyone is working to make Siem Reap a more
distinguished destination. We have recently had the new code of conduct
for the temples, the beautification of the riverside and a number of
international accolades, and I hope that noise pollution will be addressed
shortly.”
By Nicky Sullivan, the Phnom Penh Post, Sat, 20 February 2016
