Comment

Cambodian altruism in the face of poverty

By Kurt A. MacLeod

The Cambodia Daily, July 10, 2008

n the streets of the capital of Phnom Penh, I recently passed a shiny new black Rolls Royce Phantom with a sparkling silver grill. The US$400,000 vehicle was absolutely beautiful as it coasted down the streets cluttered with small entrepreneurs eking out a living on a per capita GDP of just over US$550 per year.

The previous week I had seen a 2007 Bentley with leather interior, and which sells for a quarter of a million, plying the chaotic streets of the city. As the Rolls Royce rumbled by, I thought not only about the value of the car but also about the wealth of the family that bought the car as a show of opulence in face of poverty.

I was on my way to a meeting called by a Cambodian youth organization (YRDP) that had been collecting donations for the survivors of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar. Soon after the cyclone hit the southern Delta of Myanmar and left more than 135,000 dead or missing, 15 members of the youth group wanted to show their solidarity with the people of Myanmar. When the devastating earthquake hit China, they added the plight of those families affected. (more…)

Comment

Gods go hungry

The Phnom Penh Post, Friday, 27 June 2008

couple of nights ago, I had a nightmare that my house was on fire and everything was burned to ashes. I woke up in the middle of the night and told my wife my strange dream.

Deemed a bad omen for the family, my wife spontaneously warned me not to forget to light three incense sticks and throw away a handful of rice in the morning. As believed by many Cambodians, people think that this practice will get rid of bad luck after a nightmare.

With a lackadaisical belief in superstitions, I told my wife that I was not going to throw away more rice just because of a nightmare anymore. (more…)

Comment

The Phnom Penh Post

30 May 2008

Cycle your way to cheaper living

by Moeun Chhean Nariddh

s the price of gasoline is skyrocketing, many Cambodians have thought about ways to cut the cost of travel by using other alternative means of transport.

I have personally decided to cycle to work a few times a week. In so doing, I am able to save some money I would spend on gasoline to cover the rising price of food.

Walking or riding a bicycle is also good for health. (more…)

Dith Pran, survivor of Cambodian horror, faces cancer with serenity

BY JUDY PEET Star-Ledger Staff (New Jersey, USA), Wednesday, March 19, 2008

The world knows him as a powerful voice for the ghosts of the Cambodian Killing Fields, but Dith Pran speaks barely above a whisper now.

The man who survived starvation, torture and Pol Pot’s murderous children’s brigade is now fighting a new war from a hospital bed in New Jersey. This time the enemy is even more relentless: pancreatic cancer.

Friends and family say that if anyone can win this battle, it is Pran, 65, once described as a survivor “in the Darwinian sense,” whose story was the basis for the Academy Award-winning 1984 movie, “The Killing Fields.” (more…)

Comment

A Bassac Theater tale

It was 25 years ago in 1982 when I and my schoolmates were lucky enough to come to the Bassac Theater at the river front south of the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh and see the early traditional arts performances after the Khmer Rouge regime collapsed.

Though we had little knowledge or feeling of a national pride as teenagers, we were proud enough to see the impressive theatre and its marvelous beauty. Surrounded by a spacious garden of blooming frangipani and other flowers, the theater was really a good place to relax and enjoy oneself. Below the staircase leading to the upper floor, we watched golden and silver fish swimming in a pool and dancing to the music inside the auditorium. (more…)

Mud houses give shelter
to Svay Rieng’s poor

By Moeun Chhean Nariddh

            Banteay Kraing, Svay Rieng: In 1936, Pailin’s heart of love was revealed when Cambodian writer Nhok Them published his novel The Rose of Pailin that tells the story of two lovers: Chao Cheth and Khun Neary.

In the then gem-rich town on the Thai border, an impoverished young man, Chao Cheth, was lucky enough to marry Khun Neary, the daughter of a millionaire, despite the fact that they were from different social classes.

Five hundred kilometers away on the Vietnamese border, the residents of Banteay Kraing village say Chao Cheth would not have been so lucky had he been born here. His advances might well have been rejected had he lived in a mud house and wanted to marry a girl from a large wooden house with a tiled roof. (more…)

Opinion

The Cambodia Daily

Monday, December 24, 2007

Beating a Monk Also Does Harm To Oneself

The beating of monks who took part in a recent protest was not only a serious violation of human rights, but it’s also one of the most serious sins that could be committed by Buddhists.

        Those who beat the monks will be inflicted by double karmas this life and the next. To hurt a monk is to hurt one’s own happiness.

        After these people were born, their parents probably invited monks to give blessings so that they could have a long and happy life. (more…)

UNDERSTANDING TRAUMA IN CAMBODIA
by Matthias WITZEL
CSD-DED consultant, Psycho-therapist, clinical psychologist

Fear stems from lack of information During our outreach activities and research, we quickly realized that fear is one of the most evident symptoms in Cambodia today, blocking a creative, engaged and healthy life of many people.

Fear is a lack of information (or knowledge, understanding).

In response to fear, the first step is to get control and ownership of one’s own life in or after threatening situations, to get knowledge about the structure and content of the destructive circumstances. The second step is to seek new skills, and/or to reactivate earlier developed skills in order to cope and to reorganize life in a healthy way.

Step one is only a precondition; it does not give enough skills to deal with damaged self esteem, destructive behavior, lack of trust, or lack of ownership according to a self-actualized, creative, robust living.

For example, if family members do not understand that trauma can lead to an outburst of anger, panic or sudden grief (common symptoms) or that traumatized people change their communication pattern, are more suspicious and afraid, and tend to withdraw from society, how can they understand their suffering relatives, how can they appreciate them in their life struggle. Instead, oftentimes, they are labeled as “ch’kuet”, crazy. (more…)

Press Release

 Cambodia: Leading Rights Groups Support UN Envoy

        ( Washington , DC , December 18, 2007) – Five leading international human rights organizations today called upon the Cambodian government to respect its international human rights commitments as well as United Nations officials mandated to monitor them.

        The five organizations – Human Rights Watch , the Asian Human Rights Commission, the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA), the Intern ational Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), and the World Organisation against Torture (OMCT) – expressed deep concern about the Cambodian government’s ongoing unwillingness to engage with the UN secretary-general’s special representative on human rights in Cambodia , Professor Yash Ghai.

         Following critical remarks by the special representative at the end of a 10-day fact-finding mission to Cambodia , Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on December 12 called Ghai – a distinguished professor of constitutional law in Kenya who has been special representative since 2005 – a “human rights tourist” and vowed to never meet him. (more…)

In Memory of Chea-Sor Phanachonon

(15 Nov 2006-19 Nov 2007)

Internews staff and IMMF family would like to extend our condolences to journalist Chea Kimsan and his family for the loss of their beloved baby son, Chea-Sor Phanachonon, and a 4-year-old niece, Deth Yariza, to a recent traffic accident in Kompong Cham province, Cambodia. We pray that Phanachonon and Yariza be reborn in a happy world.