So I’m in Cambodia where I spend a lot of downtime being alone entertaining myself. One such entertainment endeavor has been Lady Gaga. I bought her HBO special Monster Ball DVD bootleg in the capital and I’ve probably watched it 15 times since. I love Lady Gaga and I’m seeing her soon in Thailand for [...]
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Below is an opinion piece from a Thai insider at the ASEAN summit, held recently in Phnom Penh, about Hun Sen’s temper, actions, and Cambodians’ personal spending habits. But let me go on a tangent for a minute… swinging in a hammock yesterday I realized, at this point since observing the congested population of NGO’s [...]
“Located at the confluence of the Tonlé Sap, Mekong, and Bassac rivers, Phnom Penh is a city of two million people, many of whom live along the riverbanks. Millions of people are sustained these rivers and their accompanying deltaic landscape. The result is a topography defined by a mosaic of formal and informal urbanisms and an intense interdependence between the inhabitants of [...]
I can’t believe my eyes, students have started their own club at my school. Growing up in the large tourist and NGO based town of Siem Reap, a special 17 year old has been empowered by English. I never believed that could happen, being empowered by English, since in my Cambodian classroom nobody wants to [...]
Damn you better get a trendy Khmer shop to hand wash your digs or you will look…traditional.
Twirka in the front Party in the back. T Inspired by the blog Accidental Chinese Hipsters.
I live with a pretty well off family. My host dad’s a nurse at a local NGO hospital and I think he makes about $400 per month. In comparison, the average beginning teacher makes about $50, depending on a few things, for example, where they were educated. Sure this is rural Cambodia, but $50 is [...]
Hong Mouy said that the park is a public place, so it is fine to use it as a place to release stress; but she is put off by couples showing affection. “When I saw them kissing each other in public like that, it made me not want to go back.” In a speech relating [...]
A cool souvenir from Van’s Off The Wall Tour. Pop punk is back. Inspired by the blog Accidental Chinese Hipsters.
The rise of Happy Herb Pizza in Cambodia can only mean one thing: Dead Heads. Inspired by the blog Accidental Chinese Hipsters.
How inconvenient for me that my filler English word is a popular condom brand here.
Cross cultural difference #5,638, Cambodian names are mostly unisex. Sopeeyup, Makara, and Ratana are all gender neutral. This in no way implies gender is neutral in Khmer culture. Actually, how is an adult gender neutral anyway? Are shorts gender neutral? Seriously I’m asking. Gender neutral baby Gender neutral Halloween costume
Motorcycles and a scowl? This hip tott knows he’s cool. Inspired by the blog Accidental Chinese Hipsters.
Is that anything like a chicken kebab I can persistently lick?
My young 2 year old host brother already killed one puppy. I saw him carrying it everywhere earlier in the day, and he must have smothered it because later they told me, “Pratana killed a puppy.” I laughed. Hard. Something about his bursting excitement for this new little creature thrilled him so much, he suffocated [...]
If you live abroad in developing countries you’re bound to get sick…a lot. Different bacteria and scary sanitation practices. Here are some recent phone conversations I’ve had with my medical staff bff, Joanne. Day 1 “Joanne, my stomach really hurts.” “Are you constipated?” “Yeah.” “Well I don’t wanna say you’re full of shit but…” Day [...]
There’s a lot for me to take away from living in Cambodia, but two of the most prominent involve child rearing and respect. Rearing. Khmer kids don’t cry as much as American kids. If they fall, they cry for 15 seconds then move on. When their brother snatches their favorite toy away (a knife), they [...]
Tie-dye and Keds, 90′s fashion is in, and Pratana knows it. Inspired by Accidental Chinese Hipsters.
LaMom and her staff (family) work so hard each day, meticulously crafting goodies with each tedious step: from hand-mixing the batter, to packaging 200 individually-wrapped treats. These are savory rice crispy treats with scallions in the middle. Mmm.
Since everyone knows this saying, maybe the best way for my students to learn Engrish phrases is to put them on shirts.
Dressing up for parties in Khmer culture is pretty uniform. Think ancient Angkor Empire silks partnered with the 90′s prom-dress-selling store Cache. My beautiful friend Rachel makin’ it look good (and breathable).
Sometimes a lady likes to be pampered. One weekend in Siem Reap town, the wiffle (wife + biffle) and I were looking for a pleasant massage until my frugal upbringing, and the bargaining nature of this country, fercockt the whole thing. “$10 with oils, $8 without,” the employee said. A good bargain, sure, but I [...]
Sorry I don’t actually know yet, just had to post this.
You may be wondering what I do in Cambodia. If not, good for you, you’re out living the American Dream and I shall live vicariously through your striking endeavors. Today is International Women’s Day, a holiday women made up so they can shove how shitty you’ve treated us for the past, forever, in your face, [...]
Sometimes Cambodia is just what you think it is. I was swinging in a hammock under the shade of my wooden house on stilts, watching the siblings play in a mound of dirt*, when I got an idea. I ran to my room and made a cape and a mask. Two minutes later characters were born. [...]
You didn’t get paid. Surprise!. via You didn’t get paid. Surprise!.
Women boarding a bus. It's hard for me to step outside, or inside, without sweating and have knotty hair, but the women here have mastered looking good in unreasonable conditions. Exhibit A. Cute.
Warning: I’m insensitive? In the past five months, I’ve managed to attend just one Khmer wedding during wedding season. If you are in Cambodia, you know this is truly an incredible feat. Yes, I will teach you the coy art of politely declining slash getting out of zousands of wedding invitations. Some involve blaming Peace [...]
Just got back from a Christianish Khmer wedding. Still have two more installments to go. Reminded me of a quote from Marge Simpson during a zombie apocolypse when Bart becomes the chosen one, “Marge: What kind of civilized people eat the body and blood of their savior?”
If you want to be truly offended, be sure to come to Cambodia where you’ll be called “black and ugly” in the same sentence. Soon after, you will fight back the urge to strangle people who refuse to believe you come from America, not Africa, South Africa, Sri Lanka, or any country where people have (beautiful, [...]
<a href="[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiiUA-01cAw&w=420&h=315]" title="Little Tour of Phnom Penh, the Capital">Little Tour of Phnom Penh, the Capital
View from a bus. No narration.
<a href="[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN5DvP-e8yE&w=420&h=315]" title="Little Tour of Takeo Province from a Bus">Little Tour of Takeo Province from a Bus
No narration.
<a href="[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4wYmkcMa1k&w=420&h=315]" title="Meet My Khmer Family (Listen hard, it gets noisy.)">Meet My Khmer Family (Listen hard, it gets noisy.)
<a href="[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B_ZdpPlB6k&w=420&h=315]" title="Little Tour of my Village">Little Tour of my Village
Far away, in a tropical country so hot everyday is the peak of summer, there was a man named Narin. Unlike your average 31 year old Khmer man, Narin followed both Christianity and Buddhist traditions. He was more emotional than most, admitting that a series of emotional tribulations, after his first marriage began, led him [...]
1.) Congratulating myself! You did it you crazy sack of shi! You’ve been in a foreign country for four strange, long, exciting months. That seems so short in a Peace Corps time span but holy hell most people don’t spend four months abroad, and I certainly have never. Go me! New goal one achieved–daily congratulations. [...]
So many relatively cool and new things happen to me everyday but it’s so much easier to see the bad. Maybe because it all becomes a relative asian clusterfuck blur anyway it’s hard to determine what’s special. These last day twos have been pretty difficult. I was elated after IST(in service training) inspired, pumped. I [...]
A common forewarning about Peace Corps is you’ll be giving up a part of yourself. You won’t forgo all of it (culture runs deep) but there are materialistic and personal traits you’re forced to throw away. Dress becomes survival. What shirt is the breeziest? Which pants won’t get stuck in my bike chain that [...]
Living abroad is weird. Or maybe not, but living abroad the way Peace Corps does surely is. I meet foreigners all the time who work in Cambodia, but most can’t speak a lick of Khmer and they certainly don’t live with host families. These observations stir two conflicting emotions in me: envy of their privacy [...]
I have five minutes to kill before I walk one minute away to catch a tuk tuk to the provincial town in Takeo where I’ll have some Peace Corps meetings and at the very end of the day, probably, I’ll find out where my new home in Cambodia is. Sunday I’ll travel there for a [...]
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