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

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

Bunbrith Sath (bunrithsa@lchealth.org) – producer “Khmer Sentimental Show�

Buntha Krouch (bunthakr@lchealth.org) – producer “Koun Khmer�

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

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.

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