Some things that happened while I was gone…

I spent the last few weeks in Cambodia, mostly in the service of the workshop Cambodia’s Economic Transformation. The workshop was very nice, and I learned a lot.  I also managed to spend some quality time with friends and my extended Khmer family, which was sorely needed. Lots of photos over at my flickr page.

Lots to say and think about, very little of which will happen here anytime soon. Some things are barely worth noting (such as the planting of three homemade bombs in Phnom Penh, which were detonated in a controlled explosion and offered Hun Manet a nice set of photo-ops).

Some things that happened while I was over there, which readers of this blog might enjoy:

• Born Samnang and Sok Sam Ouern were released. This is good news. They weren’t given their freedom, but were released until the appeal which will happen in about a month. Born Samnang and Sok Sam Ouern are clearly completely unrelated to the killing of local labor leader Chea Vichea. Their release is almost certainly related to the death of brutal top cop Hok Lundy. With him and Heng Pov out of the way, the people who ordered to murder feel relatively certain that no new investigation could implicate them. [Who Killed Chea Vichea, Phnom Penh Post, DAS]
• Keng Vannsak died. The towering figure among twentieth century Khmer intellectuals managed to piss off enormous numbers of folks with his comments about Angkor and especially Jayavarman VII, but his contributions cannot be minimized. Here’s the eulogy given by another great Khmer intellectual, Khing Hoc Dy.
• The Khmer rock opera, Where Elephants Weep, was attacked by elements within the Cambodian sangha. A modernization of the great Khmer epic Tum Teav (and less risque than the original), Where Elephants Weep could be criticized on other fronts, perhaps, but ‘offending’ the honor of the clergy really doesn’t make much sense. I can’t really speak to the content of musical, unfortunately. I was intending to watch its presentation on national television, but thanks to a few stuck up monks, I was unable to do so. Ridiculous. [ShambalaSun, Somongkol, Danny Fisher, DAS]
• Weird news about the American military providing ongoing support to the Khmer military. Geez. Will they never learn? (That’s rhetorical. We know they won’t).
• Less newsy, but no less interesting, AlisoninCambodia continues her valuable archeblogging, with astonishingly good posts on Sambor Prei Kuk and Khmer canals.
• Meanwhile, StuckInCustoms posted a fantastic picture of the inner sanctuary of Angkor Wat.

Southeast Asian Link Dump for D5

IHT article on the current use of Khmer Rouge-era canals:

“There has never been a modern regime that placed more emphasis and resources towards developing irrigation,” wrote Jeffrey Himel, a water resource engineer, in a recent study of Cambodia’s irrigation system.

“The Khmer Rouge emptied all cities and towns, and put practically the entire population to work planting rice and digging irrigation dikes and canals.” Some of the canals were poorly designed – “hydraulic nonsense,” says Alain Goffeau, a French irrigation expert with the Asian Development Bank. But many were viable.

The Khmer Rouge built around three-quarters of Cambodia’s more than 1,000 canal networks, according to a survey commissioned by the United Nations in the 1990s.

Now, across this impoverished nation of 14 million people, the canals are being rebuilt by a government hoping to take advantage of the world’s increasing demand for rice.

John Vink – photog extraordinaire, associated with Magnum and Ka-Set, had some of his photos censored by the Ministry of Culture during an exhibit at the French Cultural Center, for being ‘too political.’ Go check it out.

Awzar Thi at Rule of Lords has, as usual, the most compelling response to the recent judicial coup in Thailand. Thank goodness for Rule of Lords. Go. Read. Now.

Thailand’s Constitutional Court has again taken someone out of government, but it too has not added credibility to anyone or anything. Instead, it has once more played the fool, and once more made a mockery of the justice that it purportedly represents.

Did it have an alternative? Of course it did. It could, and should, simply have refused to decide. That it didn’t is not for want of an alternative. It’s because it wasn’t looking for one.

Anthropological Notebook: Going to school

Holy nagas, I love this image of kids ferrying to school across the Stung Saen river in Cambodia, 2005. Taken from Lye Tuck-Po’s Anthropological Notebook blog:

via Anthropological Notebook: Going to school

The Royal Cremation of (Thai) Princess Galyani

Princess Galyani of Thailand (the elder sister of the current King, Bhumibol), died almost a year ago, in early January. I intend only consideration for her relatives and well-wishers in this post, which focuses not on her life and demise, but on the funeral ceremonies which follow:

Funeral ceremonies for members of the royal family, in Thailand as in Cambodia, tend to be chock-a-block full of almost every funeral highlight possible, and as such, are wonderful opportunities, for funeral junkies such as myself, to see a well-coordinated, no-expense-spared funeral, the kind which just doesn’t happen often anywhere, let alone in Cambodia. Oh, this is just too wonderful. (via TLC Studies Group List)

The entire page is lengthy, and I urge everyone to go check it out. But here are some beautiful photos from the page:

Urn for Princess Galyani's Remains

More photos after the jump….

What do you want to do before you die?

This project is just freaking awesome. Recipe: Polaroid Camera with film, stranger on the street, and one question: “What do you want to do before you die?” The project is expanding. Lots of answers involve babies and travel. The following is probably the funniest one (so far).

Cham Ritual Arts, Opportunist Protesters, and Rice Porn

Hot damn – I wish I was in Singapore for this event. And how often do I say that? Really. Via Noelbynature’s great Southeast Asian Archaeology blog,

Cham Ritual Arts
Wednesday, 9 Jul 2008
Asian Civilisations Museum, Ngee Ann Auditorium, 7.00 pm – 8.00 pm

The temple remains of the Cham kingdoms of central and southern coastal Vietnam are the legacy of the eastern most region of Southeast Asia. The lecture will cover the various aspects of Cham ritual arts by examining the different temple remains and the objects found at the temple sites. The speaker will trace the history of these remains, from the Vat Chao stone stele inscription of the late 4th to 5th centuries to the material remains of stone and brick temples from around the 8th to 10th centuries. Find out more about the practice of Cham ritual arts through these remains and in turn discover what they reveal about the Cham civilisations.

Andrew Walker over at New Mandala has a good take on the public protests by the PAD (People’s Alliance for Democracy) in Bangkok lately. These protests have largely revolved around the nationalist complaint that the recognition of Cambodia’s historic and legal claim to Preah Vihea temple amounts to the abdication of Thai territory and sovreignty. It’s total b.s., of course, as even Minister of Foreign Affairs Noppadon – who originally stood by the agreement and correctly argued that no territory nor sovreignty was lost – has now capitulated and simply started blaming the last government. Andrew writes:

But I strongly suspect that the PA(S)D doesn’t want to go home (though court orders and a lack of mass support may force them to). They don’t want to leave the streets because they are not really interested in the specific issues that they have used to attack the government. These issues are just convenient tools. Government backdowns mean nothing because the PA(S)D has a much more ambitious agenda.

Their agenda is to bring the elected government down. Their agenda is to campaign for a perverted form of democracy-“sufficiency democracy”-in which representation is achieved by appointment. Their agenda is to impose a minority viewpoint on Thailand’s political future.

Is this part of the tradition of democratic protest? I don’t think so.

In other words, the PASD is that sinful beast of democratic politics – opportunist. I agree.

Finally, in a more upbeat note, enjoy some Rice Porn, courtesy AFP, via KI-Media. I loves me some good rice photos.

More at the KI-Media page, including a scrumptious photo of crickets being prepared for sale. I never ate a lot of bugs, since I rarely went out drinking in Cambodia, and – at least in the city, they are almost exclusively a ’salty snack’ for consumption while drinking – but I did attempt to try almost everything once, from spiders, to crickets, to a number of things I couldn’t identify. Most were actually delicious. I never, ever, managed to get the grubs down, though.

Suicidal Tendencies

Suicidal Tendencies

Originally uploaded by MLDD

This is almost certainly China. However, I saw this – ONCE – in Cambodia. Are people in Cambodia honestly more interested in living than in China? Or is this guy under some weird sort of house arrest?

Yikes.

via [yourmonkeycalled]

Fantastic New Photo Collection from Cambodia Online

The irrepressible, enormous, and much-missed May Ebihara, the only American anthropologist to perform village fieldwork in Cambodia prior to the Khmer Rouge, passed away a few years back, and is much missed. Her work, including her wonderful dissertation entitled merely “Svay: A Khmer Village in Cambodia,” continues to be a source of new knowledge and relevance.

Now, thanks to the work of Judy Ledgerwood and the Southeast Asian Studies Center at Northern Illinois University, her field photos from her work during the late 1950s are available online.

Many of the photos could be taken from the last few years. Others are quite different. Here’s a nice one of the beginning of the cremation phase of a funeral (probably a relatively high-status one).

Check out more here.

Bunnary got married!

My friend and former student Bunnary just got married! And she was kind enough to send me the photos! Congratulations Bunnary! Your new husband is a lucky man. May you both experience health, happiness, long life, and marital bliss!

Around the web…

On Burma: this IHT article highlights the ongoing role of Burmese Buddhist monks in the provision of real aid and comfort to survivors of Cyclone Nargis. It provides us with this chioce quote

“In my entire life, I have never seen a hospital. I don’t know where the government office is. I can’t buy anything in the market because I lost everything to the cyclone,” said Thi Dar. “So I came to the monk.”

A compelling read; these monks are worthy of veneration indeed.

Alison has this fantastic mashup of archaeology articles and recently updated Google satellite images on the important Cambodian site of Angkor Borei – very worth checking out.

Oh yeah, you’ve undoubtedly heard about the so-called ‘uncontacted’ tribe. Sheesh. Here’s a good response, via Strong over at SavageMinds.

I feel a little queasy that we have to sell the drive for cultural autonomy and respect for foraging peoples with the whole ‘never seen a white man’ drivel. The term ‘uncontacted’ is part of the problem; ‘isolated’ would be better, as these groups have seldom ‘never seen a white man.’ They usually have developed a habit of reacting hostilely when they do, perhaps suggesting that it’s not so much lack of contact, but certain kinds of contact that they have experienced.

The refusal of these countries – the United States, Russia, China, Israel, India, and Pakistan – to recognize or attend the recent treaty banning cluster bombs, is humiliating, shameful, and immoral. Those who attended should nevertheless feel good about the work they accomplished.

More rice pictures over at KI-Media