Monday, June 28, 2010

Apsara dancing


Last weekend I went to a wedding reception, where all kinds of dancers performed, including amateur Apsara, traditional Cambodian dancers. "The Rough Guide to Cambodia" has this to say about Apsara dance:
No visit to Cambodia is complete without at least a quick glimpse of women performing the ancient art of apsara dance, as depicted on the walls of Angkor's temples. Donning glittering silk tunics, sequinned tops (into which they are sewn before each performance to achieve the requisite tight fit) and elaborate golden headdresses, they execute their movements with great deftness and deliberation, knees bent in plie, heels touching the floor first at each step, coy smiles on their faces. Every position has its own particular symbolism - a finger pointing to the sky, for instance, indicates "today", while standing sideways to the audience with the sole of the foot facing upwards represents flying.
In the regin of Jayavarman VII there were over three thousand apsara dancers at court - the dances were performed exclusively for the king - and so prized was their skill that when Thais sacked Angkor in the fifteenth century, they took a troupe of dancers back home with them. Historically, the art form was taught only at the royal court, but so few exponents survived the ravages of the Khmer Rouge that the genre was very nearly extinguished. Subsequently, when Princess Boppha Devi - who had been a principal dancer with the royal troup - wished to revive it, she found it helpful to study temple panels to establish the movements. It was not until 1995, a full sixteen years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, that Cambodians once again witnessed a public performance of apsara dance, at Angkor Wat.
Below is a photo of the amateur Apsara dancers at the wedding reception, in what sounds like the flying position.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

more than thirty years later + media resources

I have to admit, I know very little about Cambodia's history. Until I met someone who worked there, I hadn't heard about the UN Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials (UNAKRT), which is bringing to trial a few surviving members of the regime that killed 1.7 million Cambodians, or 1/4 of the population, in the 1970s. The Khmer Rouge has come up twice in conversation in the short couple of weeks that I have been here: once, with a co-worker who explained that he was educated in a camp in Thailand because he "couldn't live in Cambodia" at the time, and again, with a farmer who was talking about his fields and motioned to a nearby Khmer Rouge burial ground.

Here is an article in the Phnom Penh Post about the first case that will receive a verdict, a man called Duch who was the director of the Tuol Sleng Prison and responsible for 16,000 deaths. I've seen articles that are hoping for a life sentence for him; he is hoping to be released. With internationally-supported tribunals like this, some say that the money (more than $50 million) would've been better spent for poverty alleviation efforts in Cambodia today, rather than seeking largely ineffective "justice" for unimaginable genocide decades after it occurred - after all, what single penalty can possibly make up for the death of 16,000 mothers and brothers? Since the fall of the regime, former Khmer Rouge members have been living in society, and two-thirds of Cambodians today were not even alive during the regime. This NPR segment talks about the feeling of ambivalence among some Cambodians towards the perpetrators. The following is a reporter's discussion of a woman's response to the question of how she feels about living in the same community as a former Khmer Rouge member:
Nobody here has a problem with him, she says. He's a good neighbor, he's gentle, and he comes to all the weddings and funerals and helps out around the village when needed. I'm not angry at him, she says, I'm angry at the Khmer Rouge who killed my husband and my two sons. But he is not that man.
Hod Troy says she's not paying much attention to the tribunal, either. I'm too busy, she says - and she's not alone. The day Duch's trial opened, I stopped at a small cafe just down the road from the trial venue. You could see the court from the cafe, but nobody was looking. All eyes were glued to two televisions on the back wall airing a Khmer soap opera.
Here is some video coverage of Tuol Sleng and an interview on NPR.

Here's a summary of a documentary screened at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York last Sunday, called "Enemies of the People," which includes interviews with former Khmer Rouge members. Here's a trailer, where you see Thet Sambath, the Cambodian co-director, talk in an almost eerily friendly way with Brother Number Two, Nuon Chea, to get information about what happened in the killing fields.

Perhaps as important as the trials, here is an article about the push to teach about the Khmer Rouge in schools.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

pursat food pictures

Photos: (1) a market lady in Pursat, whose stall smelled incredible, (2) hot peppers, (3) cutting jackfruit, (4) these sea urchin-looking fruit are called rambutan, and are pretty tasty, (5) desserts - the ones in focus are palm cakes, wrapped in banana leaves

Monday, June 14, 2010

language pains

Thida, talking about planting basil.

I am currently a couple hours north of Phnom Penh, at a sort of training-of-trainers for the homestead gardening project. These trainers (also called Model Farmers) receive agricultural materials and training from the NGO where I am interning, and they then facilitate trainings and provide support for 20 community members each. They expand their own gardens, raise poultry, and practice the improved techniques they've learned. With 150 model farmers in this region alone, spread among 3 districts, that totals 3000 households exposed to improved gardening techniques. The idea is that improved gardening will mean more available healthy vegetables and, in combination with nutrition training, will lead to better nutrition, especially for women and young children.


So that's the basic project. Obviously, these trainings are conducted in Khmer, and I currently know how to say only "water," "one," and "thank you." Granted, weather.com predicts 90 degrees and high humidity every day for the next couple months, so these are important words, and my role in these trainings is merely as an observer, so no one is suffering besides me. But I'd forgotten how frustrating it is to be inadvertently left out of almost every conversation. There are so many things I want to ask and so much that is lost when everyone sounds like Charlie Brown's parents to me. Like in that photo above, I want to know how she explained planting the basil. Did she use an analogy? What did she assume that the farmer already knew? Everyone has been very accomodating, and those who know any English smilingly engage me in conversation. This is a hard language to learn, I think, as it sounds nothing like English, French or Spanish, and the alphabet is new to me. Click here for a rather monotone video of a very important Khmer phrase!

UPDATE: I will be starting tutoring sessions Thursday!

Saturday, June 12, 2010

hello, phnom penh!

I took advantage of a virtually free Saturday morning to walk along Street 240 in my new city. Street 240 is tree-lined, and full of souvenir shops and restaurants.

The main purpose of the stroll was a visit to a secondhand bookstore I'd heard about, D's Books. I bought High Fidelity, Angela's Ashes (it's time for a re-read!), and The Nudist on the Late Shift (real-life quirky Silicon Valley characters).

Ninety-five percent of Cambodians are Buddhist, and the monks' clothing adds a lovely pop of orange to the sidwalks.

In the heat of the day, a big group of people of all ages were eating, kicking flip flops around and chatting underneath a pagoda near the river across from the Royal Palace, where King Norodom Sihamoni lives. A woman had climbed down a steep set of stairs to the river to take advantage of the free water to do laundry. By this point in the day, I was dripping with sweat and my sunglasses kept sliding off my nose. These little girls in the photo were napping in the middle of it all.

In the background of this street sign is one of the bulidings of the Royal Palace complex.

A couple streets away, I saw these outside of an artist's workshop. I suspect they were positioned by a seventh-grade boy...

Religious incense burners are found all over the place in Phnom Penh.

These were both taken through a fence, as I didn't feel like paying for admission to the Royal Palace Complex. The first gave me a good chance to put my rotating LCD screen to good use!

She had just finished pouring a big bottle of water over herself, which we all felt like doing in the burning sun.

Lunchtime, of course involving rice.

Fruit and flowers!

important things first...



The supermarket near my house caters to Western tastes with a Khmer flair, as there is a section of Cheetos, Doritos, and Fritos as well as a section with fresh lemongrass and whole fish whose eyes follow you down the aisle. Goal: try all of the varieties of Fanta available in Phnom Penh. The can in the top photo tasted like cola despite the berries pictured, the bottom one is the same Pineapple Fanta I grew to love in Mauritania - delicious!