Cambodia’s Nascent Blogosphere
We’ve been told there’s an emerging blogoshpere in Cambodia. We’re less interested in the, “hey! digital media technology is spreading to the Third World!” factor, and more interested in the notion that Cambodians are using online writing as a way of dealing with their painful, not often discussed past. Their blogs are recording personal and collective memory, sorting through the country’s history of brutal repression under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, and talking openly about wounds that have never really healed.
If you’re a Cambodian blogger, we’d love to hear from you. If you’re a Cambodian living here in the US, we’d love to hear from you as well. What are your observations on the way your country has changed in past decades? Is this generation bringing a new or different kind of awareness to the history of South East Asia?
August 1st, 2005 at 11:36 am
The most famous Cambodian blogger, of course, is former the former king, King Sihanouk. His site may not be a blog in the technical sense, but he posts updates at least once a day, usually in French, Khmer and/or English, and much of the content has a blog-like quality to it.
When I wasin Cambodia eight years ago, Internet access was still extraodinarily rare. Apart from the young turk politician Sam Rainsy and Dith Pran (whose story was told in The Killing Fields; he lives in the US now), almost no one was using it back then. But there’s definitely been an explosion of content coming out of Cambodia lately. I wish I knew more Khmer than “Hello, how are you” and “My name is Andy” — I’m sure there’s great reading out there right now. Beth Kanter might be a good source; she works a lot in Cambodia and I think she speaks Khmer as well.
ac
August 10th, 2005 at 12:09 pm
the Asia Foundation has been working with a number of rural communities to create ICT Centers and bring internet access to the masses. their contact info is here: http://www.asiafoundation.org/Locations/cambodia_contact.html
George Chigas (george_chigas@uml.edu) has been in contact with folks on the ground in Cambodia around the UN tribunal on the Khmer Rouge genocide. He may know of some local bloggers.
Narong Hul (narong@cambodianbuddhist.org) has been producing Cambodian Buddhist Content online for a worldwide audience for over about 7 years now.
There a number of Cambodian media producer’s in Lowell who produce regular television content and a regular radio show. Many of them are connected to folks in Cambodia as well as Cambodian communities in the United States. Contacting Jason Daniels at LTC (local community media center - jason@ltc.org) might get you to some of these folks as well.
Finally, AsianAvenue.com has one of the largest communities of Asian’s worldwide and I know a lot of young Cambodian’s here in Lowell are connected into that network.
August 10th, 2005 at 12:16 pm
hi andy and felicia-
wow, great suggestions. thanks so much guys. we just had our morning story meeting and we’re putting this show back on the middle burner (off the back but not quite on the front). look for this some time next week, hopefully. i’m going to get started on tracking down some of the folks you recommended.
robin
August 10th, 2005 at 4:04 pm
Also Robin here are tow more media producers in Lowell:
Bunbrith Sath (bunrithsa@lchealth.org) – producer “Khmer Sentimental Show�
Buntha Krouch (bunthakr@lchealth.org) – producer “Koun Khmer�
August 12th, 2005 at 2:28 pm
Hi there,
I posted about this on my Cambodian blog and encouraged any bloggers from Cambodia to contribute their ideas.
Jinja, an expat living in Cambodia has made some good points:
http://jinja.apsara.org/blog/2005/08/cafe-khmer-rouge.htm
August 17th, 2005 at 5:07 pm
Hi Beth-
I enjoyed speaking to you this past week. Jinja does make some very good points in his post (if you haven’t read it yet you should folks). It may be that we’re on the wrong track, or that we have to re-think our premise for the show. It may be that there are bloggers in Cambodia blogging about the Khmer Rouge, but I haven’t spoken to them yet (I have interviews scheduled with a few for later this week). When I do talk to them there are other subjects I’d like to explore, starting with the basics. What are you writing about? What’s happening in Cambodia that’s important to you? Based on those conversations I think I’ll have a better sense of whether or not we’re heading in the right direction.
I’m also exploring the possibility that it may be the Cambodian/SE Asian expats/refugees and the children of refugees that are dealing with the past in their writing. I got some wonderful recommendations from Brown University’s Beth Taylor, who teaches a course called Writing the Southeast Asian War. Many of her students in recent years have been the children of Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian and Hmong refugees, who are writing about the things that happened to their parents and the impact it’s had on their own lives.
So, we’re workin’ here…ideas and suggestions still much appreciated.
robin
February 14th, 2006 at 11:46 pm
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