Sunday, January 29, 2012

Hand-cycling through Cambodia in June

A man who lost the use of his legs 24 years ago will handcycle through
Cambodia to raise awareness of disabled sports.

Gary Connor, who became a paraplegic after a workplace accident in
1988, will lead a group of 16 cyclists of all abilities on an
eight-day tour in June for health-promoting organisation Disability
Sport and Recreation.

Mr Connor, who led his first tour in Vietnam last year, said he became
an ambassador for the organisation to demonstrate that people with
disabilities were capable of anything.

"I have a very full life and this sort of thing is actually very easy
to become part of," Mr Connor said.

The tour is also fundraising to contribute to wheelchair basketball
programs for disabled children in Cambodia as well as initiatives in
Australia.

He said it was important to connect international communities.

"The whole organisation is about including everybody," he said.

"So we're donating wheelchairs and starting up an ongoing sports
program which will just give these kids so much."

Website : http://www.everydayhero.com.au/

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Cambodia’s art scene began to change in 2005

Fifteen years ago, Cambodian art was virtually non-existent, with only
a handful of painters practicing their trade.

These days, though, the country's tempo is shifting.

Cambodia has moved from a country ravaged by war to one of the
region's top tourist destinations with a fledgling manufacturing base,
and its evolving art scene is growing up.

Artists are becoming more in tune with a rapidly normalizing society,
and local artists are fusing Cambodian traditions with the modern, and
borrowing ideas from abroad.

This has allowed them to move away from rigid, two-dimensional
depictions of temples and farmers working their rice fields, which
were standard fare before the country's 30-year war.

English sculptor Sasha Constable has lived in Cambodia for a decade,
where she has been prominent on the local arts scene.

"The main difference over the past 10 years is that artists are
becoming more experimental with their use of different materials and
concepts," she says. "There are also a number of artists that have
lived abroad working as artist in residence (France, New York, China
to name a few places) so outside influences are creeping in too."

Her sentiments were echoed by Nico Mesterharm, director of the Meta
House Art Gallery in Phnom Penh.

Mesterharm says that Cambodian art was once defined by artists who did
little more than depict traditional motifs to be sold to the odd
tourist for a few dollars.

However, the likes of You Khin and Van Nath, survivor of the infamous
S21 extermination camp who found fame through his paintings of torture
and death, have changed much of that.

Mesterharm notes that Cambodia's art scene began to change in 2005,
when about 25 local artists started a project called Visual Arts Open,
sparking the move towards contemporary arts and away from landscapes,
portraits and the Khmer Rouge.

"This was somehow the beginning of a young Cambodian contemporary arts
scene," he says.

Traditionally, Cambodian artists are trained at the Fine Arts School
in Phnom Penh or in Battambang, 300 kilometers west of the capital.
Among them was Chhim Sothy, whose paintings fetch up to $3,000 each
and have been exhibited across Asia, Europe and the United States. He
says the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge dominated his early work.
Buddhism was also a major influence, but recently he has turned to
other sources of inspiration.

"I like more contemporary art or abstract art like Picasso, William
Kooning, Gauguin or van Gough, I like this style," he said during an
exhibition at the Lost Room in Phnom Penh.

He also likens himself to a monk in search of wisdom.

"Now, I've changed a lot. My work is more about the family, about the
people around me, sometimes abstract, sometimes it's thinking about
real life."

He mixes mythical characters from Hindu poems with man as an explorer
of life, painting oil on canvas with many shades of green, blues and
lots of red, especially in his nudes which aren't necessarily erotic
but relate more to urban family life. Mother and child are constant
themes.

"I'm very happy because I have developed a lot," he says.

According to Constable, the resurgence and fusion of local classical
art with outside contemporary influences is changing the cultural
landscape. Film, dance and music have also seen a re-awakening. More
galleries are opening.

"Also there are now a number of people and institutions collecting
contemporary Cambodian art, private collectors but also the Singapore
Museum of Art for example. There's a large exhibition planned for 2013
in the U.S. which will include visual arts as well as dance and a
conference element."

Among the new wave there are also the more outrageous.

Oeur Sokuntevy enjoys tackling traditional Khmer values that hold
strong dictates for women, expectations that promote strict morals,
marriage and children.

Described by one critic as the 'trippiest' artist in the country,
Tevy, as she's known, uses animals instead of people. One painting has
a muscle-bound gay elephant tending a monkey, a satirical send-up of
Cambodia's middle class women and their indulgences such as
hairdressers and make-up, once spurned as Western vices by Cambodia's
former communist leaders.

"I started drawing my family and friends around me and people in
Cambodia. Then I supplemented the people with animals because we are
all related and we all live in the same community," she says.

Younger artists normally fetch between $450 and $800 a painting, but
Mesterharm says artists still need to expand, and remain reluctant to
focus on social issues in a country notorious for poverty and
corruption. Instead, there's a tendency to paint only what is
considered beautiful.

"Most of the art is quite colorful, people try to work with different
materials. They work in the fields of sculpture, painting and
photography," he says. "They also try to do something, which is
Cambodian. They try to find their own identity. Only if they do so
they will also find a market because this is what this scene still
lacks – a local market and an international market."

While Cambodian art still needs a wider market and broader acceptance,
its supporters insist a great deal has already been achieved given
most of the capital's intelligentsia were slaughtered after the Khmer
Rouge seized the country in 1975 and emptied the cities of their
people.

Thousands more were among the millions who perished in forced labor
camps and the years of war that followed. But now, as a new generation
untainted by conflict emerges, the artists are finally leaving their
mark on the country's cultural landscape.

By Luke Hunt
January 19, 2012
http://the-diplomat.com/sport-culture/2012/01/19/cambodian-art-blossoms/

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Cambodian solar project launched

Cambodia's biggest solar power initiative to date – expected to
provide electricity to 12,000 households in off-grid areas – will be
completed on January 31, according to officials involved with the
project.

Yiang Tal, chief of administration at the Rural Electrification Fund,
said more than 10,000 of a total of 12,000 solar home systems had
already been installed in Ratanakiri, Preah Vihear, Siem Reap and four
other provinces as part of a World Bank-funded project.

Some villagers are already using their newly installed panels.

Em Vanntha, a resident of Samrong village, in Pursat province, said he
signed up for the program two months ago and had a 50-watt panel
installed in his home in December. Previously, he relied on batteries
for electricity.

Em Vanntha said the US$5 a month he now paid for his solar home system
was less than he paid to regularly recharge old batteries or buy new
batteries.

"I think I have to pay about 700 or 800 riel [US$0.17 to $0.20] a day,
so it is affordable," he said.

About 43 per cent of Cambodia is covered by licensed power suppliers
and licenses are pending for an additional 18 per cent of the country,
according to the Electricity Authority of Cambodia.

This still leaves almost 40 per cent of the nation off the electricity
grid, but officials say the solar project is a way to reach these
areas.

"The solar home system provides access to clean power and
complementary electricity services to rural households that could not
be commercially connected by the grid, through off-grid options based
on renewable energy resources," World Bank senior operations officer
Veasna Bun wrote in an email.

Although the total cost of the 30- and 50-watt panels is about $260
and $330 per unit respectively, a $100 subsidy as part of the World
Bank loan drops the sale price for beneficiaries to about $160 and
$230 per unit, according to Veasna Bun.

Customers will have four years to pay off the panel costs, and they
will pay about $4.80 a month and $3.30 a month for 50- and 30-watt
panels, respectively, according to REF's Yiang Tal.

Soun Sun, a villager from Preah Vihear province, signed up for a
50-watt solar panel after his parents bought one from a private
company more than a year ago. He said they had never had a problem.

"I saw my parents using solar power, and I saw that it is not
difficult," Soun Sun said.

Laos-based firm Sunlabob had won the contract bid for the project and
had supplied materials and overseen installation over the past three
months, Yiang Tal said, adding that the total cost of purchasing the
panels was $4 million.

Compared to its closest neighbours, Cambodia's solar-energy potential
was huge, Sunlabob chief executive Andy Schroeter said, primarily
because there were few other options for alternative energy.

Whereas Laos had hydropower and Vietnam had wind-power potential,
Schroeter said, "Cambodia has none of these resources available. Solar
[power] has huge potential in Cambodia, especially for remote areas."

The current project was part of the government's broader plan to
provide all households with access to electricity by 2030, Yiang Tal
said.

"We've implemented only the first phase in these seven provinces," he
said. "We will continue to implement this project, and are looking for
funding."

Schroeter said Sunlabob was in talks with the government to continue
developing solar energy beyond household units, possibly expanding to
the construction of centralised systems in remote areas that
households could connect to.

It is also looking at a larger-scale solar plant that would allow
Sunlabob to sell energy to the state power company Electricite du
Cambodge.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012011853987/Business/largest-ever-cambodian-solar-project-launched.html

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Mike’s Burger House, Cambodian-American returns to Phnom Penh

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.

He is a truly hybrid Cambodian-American — a survivor of the atrocities
of the Khmer Rouge period, when 1.7 million people died by execution,
forced labor and starvation from 1975 to 1979; then a mail carrier for
22 years near Long Beach, California; and now one of a trickle of
refugees who continue to return to restart life in the land they once
fled.

It is not a large number. Over the years some have returned to enter
politics and some to try their hands at businesses. Many leave after a
while. One group that does not have the option of returning to the
United States is made up of Cambodian-born U.S. citizens who were
convicted of felonies in their adopted country and sent back here
under a special deportation law.

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.

Mike is a champion of the juicy all-beef hamburger, another import
that is struggling to graft itself onto the local culture. There are
no international hamburger chains in Cambodia, and Americans who live
here say Mike makes the only truly American burgers in Phnom Penh.

"Let me show them the way Americans eat," Mike said, describing the
training of his staff. "Show them it's clean, safe, how to wash,
really clean, from the bathroom to the kitchen. That's the way
Americans handle food. The more you keep clean, the healthier you
are."

Mike's Burger House has been open for about six months, and with its
sign advertising "I'm a Crazy Burger!" it is an almost perfect replica
of any hamburger hangout attached to a gas station in the United
States.

Its front counter displays packets of Americana: Pringles potato
chips, Slim Jim meat snacks, Rip Rolls and Reese's candy, Red Vine
licorice, Ritz Crackers, Oreo cookies and Chips Ahoy chocolate chip
cookies.

Americans who live here say Mike's offers a little taste of home. But
for many Cambodians, hamburgers remain a challenge.

"Sometimes the Cambodian people think I look down on them — 'They
don't know how to eat' — so I've got to step back and say, 'O.K., you
do it your way,"' he said.

Mike himself seems a little uncertain about his place between the two
worlds. "I have a warm feeling here, just a warm feeling," he said.
"Everywhere I go, I feel like I'm at home."

But he also said, "My heart is still American," and he speaks of his
fellow Cambodians with some of the bafflement of an outsider.

"On the street I don't feel it's hard to fit in," he said. "The only
difference is the way we talk in the United States. You say something
straight, and they think you're saying something bad."

But like Mike, all those of a certain age are children of the killing
fields, when most lost relatives, and many continue to live with
trauma.

"I've seen a lot of murdering," Mike said.

"It's just terrible when you see the bodies," he said, describing one
atrocity, "people screaming for help, women delivering babies on the
ground. I thought, 'How am I going to get through this? I'm going to
die, I'm going to die."'

Like many survivors of the Khmer Rouge, he also carries with him a
lingering memory of hunger. "Since then, I just love to eat," Mike
said.

"Me and my dad and my sister, we ate a lot of bamboo shoots," he
recalled. "Even now I can still do a chicken soup with bamboo shoots."

The memory spurred a panegyric to the joys of bamboo shoots.

"You can do a soup, you can do a curry," he said. "You can dry it out
and do sweet brown rice with pork. Then there's bamboo shoots with
water and salt, and along the road there's lemon grass. You can eat it
with a little rice or noodles."

Food was an entry point for many Cambodian refugees into the U.S.
economy. Hundreds opened donut shops and virtually took over the donut
industry in Southern California. The Cambodian donut shop became as
common locally as the Chinese laundry and the Vietnamese nail salon.

Mike took another path, and after graduating from Long Beach Community
College, he landed what he said was a dream job as a mail carrier for
the U.S. Postal Service.

"I was so excited!" he said, growing excited again. "Are you kidding
me? The post office! They started me at $10.75 an hour — I'm a rich
man!"

"I tell you, I love the job, I love the job," he said. "You just go
out there delivering the mail, you put the right mail to the houses, I
was running, boom, boom, boom, boom."

There was rain, there were dogs, there were long days, but he was happy.

"If you compare this with the killing field, it was heaven," he said.
"What are those guys complaining about? It was easy for me."

But as his marriage collapsed and his personal life came apart, he
decided to take a look at Cambodia, where he met and married a young
woman, Borey Mean, who is now 29 and works side by side with him at
the burger house.

It was love at first sight. "My heart just came out — boom — like
popcorn!" she said, throwing her arms into the air. As for her effect
on Mike, "She pulled me from the U.S.A. to here," he said.

After returning from a visit with him to the United States, where they
sampled every kind of fast food, Ms. Borey Mean said, she told her
husband, "I miss hamburgers!" So, he said, "I made hamburgers, just to
please her."

"I got a kilogram of meat and brought it home," he said. "I chopped it
and pounded it. You make the meatball first, make it into a patty, and
I fried it for her and put on the sauce, and she said, 'This is it! Oh
my goodness, this is it!"'

When Mike instructs his Cambodian customers on the right way to eat a
hamburger, his all-American enthusiasm bursts through.

"When you bite into it, you've got to feel it from top to bottom," he
says he tells them. "You've got to sink your teeth into the soft bun,
and when you hit the meat, the sauce, the crunchy iceberg lettuce, all
the way down, then you'll know what I'm talking about. Your body is
going to crave it. You'll call for more."

Back Home in Cambodia With Food as Comfort
By SETH MYDANS
Published: January 12, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/world/asia/back-home-in-cambodia-with-food-as-comfort.html

Friday, January 13, 2012

Cambodian youth need better knowledge and skills to compete

Cambodian youth need better knowledge and skills to compete within the
Asean marketplace, as the region becomes more closely integrated,
youth advocates say.

"It is difficult for individual young people, especially those in the
countryside, to know what the job market demands, because their
understanding of Asean is still limited," Cheang Sokha, executive
director of the Youth Resource Development Program, told "Hello VOA"
Monday.

"So, the government must do research to find out where we are now,
what our strong and weak points are and what the regional market
demands will be, so that we can start focusing on the skills
required," he said. "And then it must make its findings widely known
to youth so that they are better prepared."

This year, Cambodia is the rotating head of Asean, which hopes to
fully integrate economically by 2015.

Despite a population of 14 million people, Cambodia is only able to
employ a small number of the 300,000 university students who graduate
annually. Students say their skills do not match the market demands.

"Youth themselves need to focus more on real sciences like technology,
rather than social sciences, if they want to integrate well into the
Asean community," Him Sothearoth, a fourth-year student of
international studies at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, said as
another guest on "Hello VOA." "In terms of know-how, the abilities of
Cambodian students are the lowest of Asean countries," she said.

A caller from Kampon Speu province who identified himself as Sareoun
said it is unfair to compare Cambodia, which suffered years of civil
strife, to other Asean countries.

"Even though the quality of our education is not as good as we want
now, we have improved to an acceptable level," he said, adding that
Cambodian youth will be competitive in Asean in the near future thanks
to what he called "a mushrooming of higher education institutions."

Him Sothearoth, is a 4th year student of International Studies at
Royal University of Phnom Penh with Cheang Sokha, executive director
of Youth Resource Development Program, on "Hello VOA" program on
Monday.

http://www.voanews.com/khmer-english/news/Cambodian-Youth-Ill-Equipped-for-Asean-Integration-Advocates-137295743.html

Educational crisis in Cambodia

Corruption, funding shortages and an obsession with profit are
plaguing the quality of university education in Cambodia, students
say, driving them overseas in search of masters and PhD programmes,
write Shane Worrell and Chhay Channyda for The Phnom Penh Post.

If the government hopes to keep its best and brightest at home, it
must resolve these issues and build a world-class university system
from within, said Sim Socheata, one of three Cambodians on scholarship
at the University of Melbourne, Australia, who spoke to the Post about
their frustrations with Cambodian education. "It is time for
Cambodians to start researching, analysing, drawing conclusions and
suggesting what needs to be done," said the 29-year-old, who is
studying for her masters in public health.

Obstacles hindering Cambodia's higher education system include low
salaries for teachers - which force them into second jobs - lack of
materials and equipment and a "mushrooming" of the private system,
which has encouraged a focus on profit over quality and flooded the
labour market with graduates who can't find work in their field, she
said.

Full report on The Phnom Penh Post site
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012010353742/National-news/for-many-its-a-matter-of-degrees.html

Comment:

There is a far larger educational crisis in Cambodia. Cambodian
parents often remove their girls from school before theycomplete grade
3.

Later, as young women, their lack of education makes it impossible to
get a decent job and they frequently wind up in near-slave conditions
and desperately poor.

The many aid organisations here only focus on children - it seems they
think that once a women hits 18, she's a lost cause (educationally).

So even if the children were lucky enough to get an education, all of
their income would be drained caring for their destitute parent.

Educate the mothers, on the other hand, and you also dramatically
increase the chance her children will get a good education.

The only group I know of that is really helping is the Women's Library
in Siem Reap, run by the US non-profit, GETSET-GO.
http://getset-go.org/learningcenterhome.html

It is the only place many women can go to get education denied them as
girls, which they can use to build an independent, dignified life.

If you really care about education in Cambodia and Cambodia's future,
then you'll want to support the Women's Library and more like it.

Srey Chilat

Friday, January 6, 2012

Improving the quality of education in Cambodia

Corruption, funding shortages and an obsession with profit are
plaguing the quality of university education in Cambodia, students
say, driving them overseas in search of master's and PhD programs.

If the government hopes to keep its best and brightest at home, it
must resolve these issues and build a world-class university system
from within, said Sim Socheata, one of three Cambodians on scholarship
at the University of Melbourne, Australia, who spoke to the Post about
their frustrations with Cambodian education.

"It is time for Cambodians to start researching, analysing, drawing
conclusions and suggesting what needs to be done . . . Up until now,
this has been largely left to external advisers," said the
29-year-old, who is studying for her master's in public health.

Obstacles hindering Cambodia's higher education system include low
salaries for teachers – which force them into second jobs – a lack of
materials and equipment and a "mushrooming" of the private system,
which has encouraged a focus on profit over quality, and flooded the
labour market with graduates who can't find work in their field, she
said.

Men Nimmith, 42, moved to Australia to study for a PhD in law in a
quest to do the "bigger and better things" he believes are impossible
with only a Cambodian degree.

"Higher education in Cambodia has lower quality and very limited
facilities. For example, poor library and teaching/learning
techniques," he said.

But Cambodian students suffer not because the government cannot afford
to properly fund education, but because it chooses not to, he said.

"[The government is] spending too little on the education sector, and
too much on the military," he said, adding that rampant corruption
also takes a toll.

In the place of quality learning, a system of "ceremonial education",
in which bribes are paid for degrees, is flourishing, Men Nimmith
said.

"It is dangerous that several of the universities are very powerful
and active in selling diplomas. It is frightening," he said, declining
to name specific universities.

Mak Ngoy, director general of higher education at the Ministry of
Education, denies such corruption exists and said such beliefs have
arisen from "confusion".

"There is no such issue. Those who don't study or go to school, we
will not give degrees. There is no buying of degrees in Cambodia," he
said.

"The concept of private university tuition fees started in 1997. So
it's not buying a degree. It is just a study tuition fee. People may
be confused by this."

Khim Keovathanak, 37, from Phnom Penh, is studying for a PhD in health
systems in Melbourne and spends his holiday teaching at the Royal
University of Phnom Penh.

Cambodia's system lacks rules, regulations and uniformity, which
results in students not being taught "the basics" of university, such
as meeting deadlines and avoiding plagiarism, he said.

"The teachers are being constrained in terms of doing their job
properly. They are not being paid enough and are in environments not
conducive to their work," he said. "They have to provide for a
family, so they have to do other jobs."

The UNDP-funded Human Capital Report, released in August, voices
similar concerns.

"In most cases, students graduating from university with degrees in
management, accounting and business administration were found to be
lacking in the essential skills and practical experience required for
employment in the field for which they were supposed to be qualified,"
the report says.

Scoping Study: Research Capacities of Cambodia's Universities,
commissioned by the Development Research Forum in Cambodia and
released last year, examines 15 universities, public and private, and
concludes that research is lacking, due partly to a "missing
generation of academics in the immediate post-conflict era", but
exacerbated by inadequate funding and professional development of
staff.

"There is a relative absence of any government budget allocation for
research activities in public universities," it said. "Salaries remain
low [and] lecturers tend to take up part-time teaching at a number of
other institutions."

The report recommends universities develop research, form partnerships
with civil society groups, state agencies and the private sector, and
establish long-term goals.

Mak Ngoy cannot say how much money the government invests in education
because he is "not in charge of it", but he defends the funding put
into universities.

"The education sector receives much more than other sectors. I have no
figure, but I know it's a lot . . . We (also) have support from donors
and development partners.

"The Cambodian government regards the education sector as a priority
and always increases money for it from one year to another," he said.

Public university teachers earn at least US$100 per month plus between
$2.30 for each hour of actual teaching, but if their universities
offer additional private classes, teachers can earn more than $500 per
month, Mak Ngoy said.

As to why teachers are taking second or third jobs, "it's better to ask them".

Cambodia's higher education sector, which comprises 97 institutions,
38 of them public, has come a long way since the 1990s, when only
students who won scholarships could study, Mak Ngoy said.

"We did not have full peace until 1998. So we have had 13 years to
build the education system, and we have seen an increase in both
quality and quantity."

About 10 employers the Post spoke to, including phone companies, NGOs
and banks, said experience is the most important thing they look for
in jobseekers, followed by education.

One Phnom Penh-based technology company told the Post it prefers
graduates who have studied in other countries, preferably Japan, the
US or Australia, because they have "more advanced skills".

However, this is not something the company mentions in job
descriptions or interviews, so it asked not to be named.

Mak Ngoy acknowledges that many students want to study in countries
such as Japan and Australia.

"[But these] are developed countries, so development means that
everything is better, including the education system. [However] paying
to study at university here is not too expensive, [and] we give more
than 5,000 students per year a scholarship."

Ek Tha, spokesman for the Press and Quick Reaction Unit of the Council
of Ministers, said the government is looking to countries such as the
US, Canada and Australia for ways to improve.

"Those governments heavily invest in education, and this is why
Cambodia wants to improve its quality of education by calling for
investment in education. We want our children and students to obtain
higher education [here] like students overseas."

While Cambodia's students wait for this change, Sim Socheata said they
also need to take responsibility for their learning.

"How serious do Cambodian students commit to reading books other than
the required course books?" she asked.

"We need to promote the culture of reading among our generations, as
through reading we begin to acquire broader knowledge outside what we
learn through the system."

For many, it's a matter of degrees
Shane Worrell with additional reporting by Chhay Channyda
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012010353742/National-news/for-many-its-a-matter-of-degrees.html

Traditional Khmer preun music rediscovered

A rare type of traditional music known in Khmer as preun has been
rediscovered in Cambodia in the depths of rural Samrong district in
Oddor Meanchey province.

Cambodian cultural researcher, Young Yorn, 30, came across a folk
group that performs the musical style while in the northwest of the
Kingdom. He says the ancient music was different from other
traditional Cambodian music that he has studied.

Young Yorn says it is uncertain when the musical form began. What is
known is that the khen, an instrument made from long bamboo pipes, can
be seen on a carving on Bayon temple.

"So we can say that preun has existed in Cambodia for a very long
time," Young Yorn says.

The Samrong preun group has three performers, two of them sing and the
third plays the khen.

Mun Hai, a 56-year-old farmer, leads the group. He saw his
grandparents perform the music when he was a young boy. When he was 25
he learned the music from an older woman in his community. Taking up a
singing role in the three-member troupe he and two others have
performed in Banteay Meanchey and Battambang provinces.

"Some people call preun khen music and other people in our community
call it preun kantol uk which is in the language of the Suoy ethnic
minority. They call it that because there is only one musical
instrument in the performance," he says.

Soon after Mun Hai started performing preun both his bandmates died
and Mun Hai thought he was the only person who knew how to play the
ancient music. Later he teamed up with Sam Kong Kea, also a farmer who
could also perform in the style .

Sam Kong Kea, 52, lives about 20 kilometres from Mun Hai's home in
Tomnob Thmey village in Oddor Meanchey province. He learned preun from
his brother who was killed during Khmer Rouge regime.

"Preun was performed at ground-breaking ceremonies, Khmer New Year
celebrations, spiritual offering ceremonies or funerals, but I rarely
saw people performing it at wedding ceremonies," Sam Kong Kea says.

Sam Kong Kea said the younger generation was not interested in the
folk music. He tried to teach it to his sons because he was afraid the
rare music would be lost if he didn't.

The musical style also exists across the border in Thailand, but is
fast dying out.

Chaimongkol Chalermsukjitsri, president of the Language and Culture
Association of Surin said there were about five bands operating in
Surin but, he said, the style wouldn't last because ethnic Khmers
there did not speak in their mother tongue.

"In Surin, we have a problem with the language. The younger generation
does not try to speak their mother language. They just speak Thai. The
original language is the life of preun music. If people lose their own
language, their traditional music will vanish too," Caimongkol said.

"We all have to help to preserve it. We need to establish more preun
bands. We should bring masters of preun to pass on their knowledge to
the younger people before the old people die."

Ancient music rediscovered
Roth Meas
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012010453763/Lifestyle/ancient-music-rediscovered.html

Traditional Khmer preun music rediscovered

A rare type of traditional music known in Khmer as preun has been
rediscovered in Cambodia in the depths of rural Samrong district in
Oddor Meanchey province.

Cambodian cultural researcher, Young Yorn, 30, came across a folk
group that performs the musical style while in the northwest of the
Kingdom. He says the ancient music was different from other
traditional Cambodian music that he has studied.

Young Yorn says it is uncertain when the musical form began. What is
known is that the khen, an instrument made from long bamboo pipes, can
be seen on a carving on Bayon temple.

"So we can say that preun has existed in Cambodia for a very long
time," Young Yorn says.

The Samrong preun group has three performers, two of them sing and the
third plays the khen.

Mun Hai, a 56-year-old farmer, leads the group. He saw his
grandparents perform the music when he was a young boy. When he was 25
he learned the music from an older woman in his community. Taking up a
singing role in the three-member troupe he and two others have
performed in Banteay Meanchey and Battambang provinces.

"Some people call preun khen music and other people in our community
call it preun kantol uk which is in the language of the Suoy ethnic
minority. They call it that because there is only one musical
instrument in the performance," he says.

Soon after Mun Hai started performing preun both his bandmates died
and Mun Hai thought he was the only person who knew how to play the
ancient music. Later he teamed up with Sam Kong Kea, also a farmer who
could also perform in the style .

Sam Kong Kea, 52, lives about 20 kilometres from Mun Hai's home in
Tomnob Thmey village in Oddor Meanchey province. He learned preun from
his brother who was killed during Khmer Rouge regime.

"Preun was performed at ground-breaking ceremonies, Khmer New Year
celebrations, spiritual offering ceremonies or funerals, but I rarely
saw people performing it at wedding ceremonies," Sam Kong Kea says.

Sam Kong Kea said the younger generation was not interested in the
folk music. He tried to teach it to his sons because he was afraid the
rare music would be lost if he didn't.

The musical style also exists across the border in Thailand, but is
fast dying out.

Chaimongkol Chalermsukjitsri, president of the Language and Culture
Association of Surin said there were about five bands operating in
Surin but, he said, the style wouldn't last because ethnic Khmers
there did not speak in their mother tongue.

"In Surin, we have a problem with the language. The younger generation
does not try to speak their mother language. They just speak Thai. The
original language is the life of preun music. If people lose their own
language, their traditional music will vanish too," Caimongkol said.

"We all have to help to preserve it. We need to establish more preun
bands. We should bring masters of preun to pass on their knowledge to
the younger people before the old people die."

Ancient music rediscovered
Roth Meas
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012010453763/Lifestyle/ancient-music-rediscovered.html

New Generation Redefines Cambodian Art

After almost 14-years of peace, Cambodia has moved from a country
engulfed by war to one of the region's top tourist destination.
Conflict has also given way to a fledgling manufacturing industry and
a evolving culture reflected in an emerging Cambodian art scene.

Traditional art

Cambodian art was once known for its rigid, two-dimensional copies of
Angora Wat and pleasant countryside scenes that pre-dated the
country's 30-year war. Then came depictions of the sheer terror under
the Khmer Rouge, which decimated traditional culture and banned most
visual art, except for purely political purposes.

In the immediate years after the war the country's art scene was
almost non-existent. Now, artists strive to reflect a rapidly
normalizing society.

Nico Mesterharm, the director of the Meta House Art Gallery in Phnom
Penh, arrived here from his native Germany when Cambodian art was
still defined by commercial painters who mainly depicted traditional
motifs.

Emerging trends

Now, he says local artists are fusing local traditions with the modern
and borrowing ideas from abroad.

"They see also that there is a thriving art scene in neighboring
countries Thailand and Vietnam," said Mesterharm. "So they learn from
other countries, from the achievement which have taken place in other
countries."

He says the country's art scene started to change in 2005, when about
25 Cambodia contemporary artists started a project called Visual Arts
Open.

This sparked the move towards contemporary arts and away from painting
copies of landscapes or portraits to emphasize interpretation.

Chhim Sothy is among these new artists. His paintings fetch up to
$3,000 each and have been exhibited across Asia, in Europe and the
United States.

He says the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge dominated his early work
while religion and, in particular, Buddhism were also major
influences. But he now looks at other sources of inspiration.

"For my favorite painting, I like more contemporary art or abstract
art like Picasso, William Kooning, Gauguin or van Gough, I like this
style," he said. "Now I change a lot, work about the family, about the
people around me, sometimes abstract, sometimes thinking about real
life. I'm very happy because I develop a lot."

Modern art

Chhim Sothy uses oil on canvas, many shades of green, blues and a
splash of red in his nudes which relate more to urban family life than
the erotic. Mother and child are constant themes in his work which
also mixes mythical characters of Hindu poems with man as the explorer
of life.

It is a long way from the Institute of Culture and Fine Arts where
most of the country's painters are groomed in rudimentary art. It is
also a long way from the days when he sold pictures to tourists for a
few dollars.

"For some time I mix together, combine together with classical and
modern art for new art," said Chhim. "Now my artwork is so expensive
because it's a new creation, it's my concept."

The resurgence and fusion of local classical art with outside
contemporary influences is changing the cultural landscape. Film,
dance and music have also a witnessed re-awakening.

Local tendencies

But Mesterharm says there are still nagging problems concerning local
art, in particular, there is a tendency to only depict what is
considered beautiful. Artists remain reluctant to focus on social
issues in a country where poverty and corruption are prevalent.

"Most of the art is quite colorful people try to work with different
materials," said Mesterharm. "They work in the fields of sculpture,
painting and photography. They also try to do something, which is
Cambodian. They try to find their own identity. Only if they do so
they will also find a market because this is what this scene still
lacks is a local market and an international market."

While the Cambodian art scene searches for broader recognition, its
supporters say local artists have already come a long way, considering
how they are working to overcome 30 years of war and the Khmer Rouge,
who effectively annihilated Cambodian art and culture for decades.

New Generation Redefines Cambodian Art
Luke Hunt, Phnom Penh
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/asia/New-Generation-Redefines-Cambodian-Art-136725158.html