The foothills of western Cambodia”s wild Cardamom Mountains stretch all the way to Kampong Chhnang. The provincial landscape is one of rolling green hills, and many of these have become traditional Khmer sites of worship. With the exception of one hill across the Tonle Sap River, none of the hills…
On a recent trip to Kampong Chhnang with my friend, Srey Mom, I was very keen on finding a historical site that I”d heard of long before. The area northwest of the city is covered in the traces of the Khmer Rouge, including derelict buildings and the abandoned airport, but…
A few months ago, I made a trip to Kampong Chhnang with my friend, Srey Mom, to check out the old, abandoned Chinese-built airport and some of the surrounding Khmer Rouge era infrastructure. While the massive airport, large enough to accommodate 747s, was the highlight of the trip, we happened…
by Mac Hathaway As the director of the Hathaway Gender Consultancy Ltd., I work closely with international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to provide empirical research on issues related to gender. The efforts of the NGO community in dealing with gender-issues in Cambodia have been laudable. Through strengthening education, providing cultural training,…
In this new column, each week Dave Finch will review one of the DVDs that arrive on the shelves of Phnom Penh’s Russian Market at around the time they hit the big screens in the USA. If you like the title you’ll love it and if you think it sounds…
It’s amusing sometimes to hear the newbie sexpat go on about the virtues of Oriental girls, with their stereotypical traits of quietness, submissiveness, and tolerance of infidelity. They come here, they say, to find the perfect girl. But they end up with slappers whose idea of a laugh is sticking…
Going through some old magazines that were lying around my house last weekend, I came across an edition of the feminist quarterly Leisure Studies (No. 22, July 2003). I used to subscribe. It contained an article by Sheila Jeffries, a well-known theorist on sex tourism, called, ‘Sex Tourism: Do Women…
There is certain a psychological symptom that manifests itself after many ugly breakups. Jilted lovers, weary husbands, parting on bitter terms come to think of their ex’s as ‘the bitch who wrecked my life.’ Some men undoubtedly feel their ex’s don’t want them to be happy, that she would do…
It was two years ago that I read Francois Bizot’s The Gate for the first time. Lying in bed on the fourth floor of a Khmer hotel, the window open next to me, the sun pounring through threadbare curtains, the book drew me into seductive a world of equal parts…
That day was her only one off that month, and she wanted to go to Kandal to see her family. It wasn’t often that she got to see them. She was born in a village and grew up farming and fishing, but she moved to Takhmao as a teenager, stitching…
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