The Phnom Penh Post 7day

THE PHNOM PENH POST ​APR 26 - MAY 2, 2013 . ISSUE #193

Exiled The people Burma banished

‘I knew it was a bomb’ Cambodia’s Boston Marathon runner

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Contents

THE PHNOM PENH POST • 7Days • Apr 26 - MAY 2, 2013

03 | 7 Questions: a multi-layered artist 04 | Face masks uncovered: do they work?

05 | A Cambodian runner recalls Boston 06 | Father, lecturer, KRT witness 07 | Focus on Burma’s Muslim minorities 10 | A drag star with Lao heritage 17 | What’s on: watch, see, party CEO: Chris Dawe

Contributors: Bennett Murray, Ruth

Publisher: Ross Dunkley

Keber, Alex Crook, Scott Howes

Telephone: +855 23 214 311

Copy Editor: Emily Geminder

7Days Editor: Poppy McPherson

Designers: Valinda Aim

Contributing Editors: Rosa Ellen, Claire Cover Photo: Gregory Constantine Knox Post Media Ltd. Level 8, No. 888, Building F, The Phnom Penh Centre, Cnr Sothearos Blvd. and Sihanouk Blvd., Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Website: www.phnompenhpost.com/7days/ www.phnompenhpost.com/7days/whatson © Copyright Post Media Limited The title 7Days, in either English or Khmer languages, its associated logos or devices and the contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written consent of Post Media Limited. 7Days is a wholly owned publication of Post Media Limited and appears as an insert to The Phnom Penh Post. It is an integral part of the newspaper and must not be sold separately. 7Days is printed by Post Commercial Printing and all liability for the content is taken by the publisher.

‘Jujubee’s definitely an extension of who I am – she’s more of a daredevil’: a draq queen and reality TV star opens up.

PHOTO SUPPLIED

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From Boston to Burma: the human stories

Poppy mcpherson his week, a video emerged online showing a monk beating a man to death. In footage shot by Myanmar police and posted on the BBC website, a young Muslim trying to hide in a bush is hauled out and beaten by a group that includes a man in saffron robes. He is struck again and again before someone pulls out a sword and he is left, it seems, for dead.

At the centre of the violence are Myanmar’s Muslim minority groups. Anti-Muslim violence has spread from Rakhine state in western Myanmar to the central city of Meiktila, where that footage was taken last month. At least 43 were killed.

Our cover picture this week is of a Rohingya mother whose son made the long voyage by boat from Bangladesh to Malaysia in an attempt to escape the violence. When photographer Greg Constantine went back two years later, the family still hadn’t heard from their missing child.

Constantine’s remarkable series of black and white stills – which will show in Phnom Penh in May – reveal a group of people oppressed beyond endurance.

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This week, we look at whether surgical masks really protect their wearers from air pollution and disease. BLOOMBERG

He told us how each of seven shots came to be, and in doing so, unraveled seven stories of humanity behind the camera lens.

Few could have missed another sad occasion over the last few weeks – the events in Boston.

The area is home to a sizeable CambodianAmerican population. We heard from one Cambodian marathon runner who was caught up in the bombings. In an interview with Sky News, he said: “I’m Cambodian, I know what a bomb sounds like.” Having escaped the Kingdom shortly before the Khmer Rouge takeover, he counts himself a double survivor.

Also this week, we heard the quiet, charming story of Roel Manalo, the pianist who soundtracks the cocktail hour at Raffles. A relic from an old-world glamour, he sits in the corner and plays his varied repertoire each evening. He told us the secrets to five-star hospitality – and how if you give him a song to learn, you won’t regret it.

Another, rather different, symbol of glamour comes in the form of drag queen Jujubee – the man born in Boston to Lao parents who became one of America’s biggest drag stars. She’ll be performing at the arts and entertainment

gala Glamazon next Thursday. Behind all the sparkly stuff, she told me about the “crazy child” who was accidentally named after a mode of transportation by her immigrant parents.

On covering up, we also tackled the question of face-masks, and how effective they are in protecting against pollution and the transmission of disease. Do they make a difference – even a little bit? We heard the latest opinion from scientists and doctors.

From Boston to Burma, via Laos, there’s a global feel to this issue . Different pages, different part of the world. Enjoy reading.

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Quest ion s

Apr 26 - MAY 2, 2013 • 7Days • THE PHNOM PENH POST

Born in Versailles to a family of painters, Thomas Pierre likes to combine figurative art with abstraction. Having first come to Cambodia in 2009 to paint the temples of Angkor, Pierre has moved back to his Western roots for his new exhibition, Perspective, at Meta House.

Texture plays a major role in all his paintings, with effects ranging from wiry acrylic paint patterns to intentional puncture marks on the canvas. With acrylic works depicting European castles and 1950s American homes competing with textured abstracts, Pierre has created an ensemble exhibition that merges genres. Bennett Murray reports.

Why are you showing both figurative and abstract paintings in the one show?

Normally, you are a figurative artist or you are an abstract artist. But I do not like to just focus on one thing.

What I like is to paint – the subject is just [summoned by] the pleasure of the moment.

I’m very proud to have figurative and abstraction together, and I hope a lot of people are interested in that.

It’s not easy to show the two things together.

I work on both at the same time. I really like to paint a figurative image and to stop sometimes and then go work on the abstraction.

Are you an Impressionist

A M@keepitriel is in the studio@FX_PP Come into an air condition room after a long day out in the sun, now I know what those kids felt like when they walk into the Narnia closet CamboDonut@CamboDonut 38 years ago today the Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia and tried to destroy the Cambodian people and their spirit.

They failed.

French-born artist Thomas Pierre is combining two wildly different sides of painting for his new show, Perspective. SCOTT HOWES

or an Expressionist?

I’m more of an Impressionist. For Expressionists, it is different because there is more movement. But my paintings are more still.

How did you add texture to your paintings?

opening from the inside.

It is very important to show with this exhibition different things. To show to the young Khmer people that you can use different materials. That it is very interesting– to try different things, to do different things.

‘It’s not easy for the painter to sell paintings here, but it’s great to propose different ideas. ’ For some of the paintings, I created texture with acrylics.

And a lot of paper and glue. I like to mix different material. I like to work to capture different dimensions.

For some paintings, I raised the canvas and put holes in it. You can see the shadows beneath the painting. It is

I’ve been painting since I was young, and I’d go up to the studio with my parents so I really knew painting. I saw a lot of exhibitions with them.

They are totally different from each other. My dad is figurative, and he is a colourist. He likes to use a lot of colours. And my mother prefers to works with black and white.

What painters influence you?

I like [Miquel] Barceló, Henri Matisse and [Cesare] Dell’acqua. And I like the [19th-century orientalist] traveller painters.

How was it to spend five years painting in Berlin?

It’s a fantastic city for the artist. You have a lot of artists, a lot of great exhibitions, but it is not easy to live there if you’re a painter because there a lot of other painters. But I decided to leave because of the weather. Six months of the year, you have no light, so it is difficult to paint there if you want colour. So I went to the opposite side of the world.

How did having painters for parents influence you?

What inspiration do you draw from Cambodia?

Now that’s a difficult question to answer. I like the light and the colour. It’s very important. When I first came to Cambodia, I painted the temples. I came to Siem Reap, and I stayed there to take a lot of pictures and to paint, and I decided after six months to move to Phnom Penh. My first exhibition was three years ago at the National Museum.

But of course, I am painting Western subjects now. I would like for this exhibition to be the opposite to my [Cambodian subjects].

When I painted Angkor, I tried to do something different [from other Angkor paintings]. For this, I use the same ideas. Of course, it’s modern and contemporary.

Especially the American architecture of the 1950s, like you have in California.

I like to work here. It’s not easy for the painter to sell paintings here, but it’s great to propose different ideas.

SvaTom@SvaTom2003 "I'm actually quite nervous about development in Cambodia..." Sopheap Pich at The Asia Society. #seasonofcambodia #rightnow Jean-Benoît N. N.@Jean2Benoit I didn't miss the flooded streets #rainyseason Hun Sen's Eye@HunSensEye Yes, I call it Burma. Mostly bc it pisses off those smug junta jerkoffs. Sometimes I call and ask for "Mr. Burma," and they just stammer.

Sophat Soeung@SophatSoeung An observer told me there are likely no good scenarios for #PreahVihear later this year. #Cambodia #thailand #asean Robert Carmichael@ Carmichael_Rob It's fair to say that appealing to Chhouk Rin's better nature hasn't worked. Neither has telling him that the law requires him to answer.

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THE PHNOM PENH POST • 7Days • Apr 26 - MAY 2, 2013

Face masks: uncovered Ruth Keber

Epidemic scares like SARS and the H5N1 influenza t’s peak hour. virus, “bird flu”, have hit the The heat of continent hard – H5N1 motorbike and has claimed eight lives in car engines grows Cambodia so far this year unbearable as you wait for – and media reports have the lights to change. shown Asian cities awash with Toxic fumes pump out of cheap plastic surgical masks. exhaust pipes and choke the Both scientists and doctors already humid air. warn that masks can only The traffic lights slowly trap the biggest particles of count down the seconds until dust – while it is the smallest the green light appears. particles that are most Around you, tuk-tuk and dangerous. moto drivers, passengers University student Chenda and pedestrians wear plastic Prak said she has worn a surgical masks. medical mask when travelling It’s a common sight in around Phnom Penh since most Southeast Asian she was a teenager. countries, where the masks While the 25-year-old are worn for various reasons admitted she has also worn – often as an attempt to masks for cosmetic reasons ward off the transmission of – to cover pimples – their infectious disease, or protect primary use is to keep out against pollution. dust and protect against air But do they work? Experts pollution, she said. say the protective effects “The dust does not go into could be negligible – in fact, your nose; you can’t feel it.

Same with the pollution – the masks could offer a false you can’t smell it.” sense of security.

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Surgical masks trap only largest dirt particles and mucus droplets, experts say. RUTH KEBER

‘Simply put, the standard of face masks I see in Phnom Penh are of little value. ’ There’s no doubt about it, Phnom Penh is polluted.

A recent study found that air pollution in the capital is projected to rise as development and the city’s population continue to grow.

Much of the pollution comes from factories using outdated and unregulated means of production, private generators used to supplement unreliable power grids and the burning of biomass fuels, according to Professor Stephen Vermette who specialises in geography and development.

Vermette, who authored the 2011 study Mapping of Airborne Particulates: Phnom Penh, Cambodia, said dust particles from the road are becoming less significant, compared with smaller particles and gasses associated with car exhaust.

The two-stoke engines used in motorbikes produce more emissions, while second-hand vehicles pollute more than newer counterparts, he added.

The pollutants exist in the air as both fine and coarse particles.

“The fine particles are capable of penetrating deep into the lungs, while coarse particles reach the nose and throat.”

He said numerous epidemiological studies have linked the inhalation

Puppy love: pet owners in Hong Kong panicked over SARS. BLOOMBERG

of fine airborne particles to respiratory and cardiovascular mortality.

“Simply put, the standard of face masks I see worn in Phnom Penh are of little value to protect the wearer, other than, perhaps, from the coarsest of dust particles.”

Tiny particles can pass through and cause lung disease, said Dr Gavin Scott, who runs the Tropical and Travellers Medical Clinic.

“Surgical masks were designed to stop transmission of disease or dirt from the nose or mouth of the surgeon to the exposed insides of a patient.

“They only trap the large dirt particles and the large mucus droplets containing disease, essentially performing the same function as the nasal passages.

“Previously, we thought transmission was largely by large droplets containing the flu virus, which would be trapped by a mask.

However, we now know that when someone coughs, the influenza virus can travel by itself [not on mucus droplets] up to six feet away and through a mask.”

When Dr Allison Aiella from Columbia University, who specialises in epidemiology and infectious diseases, conducted a study on over a thousand students in different university halls of residence for influenza, she found that the masks had little influence.

For the study, a third of the students wore surgical masks and continuously washed their hands during the flu season.

Another third just wore a surgical mask and the last third were used as a control and used neither precaution.

There was a significant reduction in the rate of influenza among those participants who wore the facemask and used handhygiene intervention.

It cut the number of people contracting influenza in half, she said.

But she added that there were no substantial reductions in influenza in the facemask-only group compared with those who used no precautions.

“There were some reductions, but it was not statistically significant.”

If another 1918 flu epidemic hit us, Dr Scott said, the masks would be useless.

“Best advice would be to stay at least six feet from everyone and wash your hands frequently.”

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Apr 26 - MAY 2, 2013 • 7Days • THE PHNOM PENH POST

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‘I got another chance’ Bennett Murray oy Saath counts himself twice a survivor.

“I think I had yet another chance. I survived in Cambodia, and I survived in Boston.”

The 59-year-old runner was just minutes out of harm’s way when the twin blasts erupted at the finishing line of the Boston Marathon on April 15. Three people were killed, and 183 injured. After four days of endless media speculation, online sleuthing and conspiracy theories, it emerged that the bombers were the brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who both emigrated from Russia as children about a decade ago.

The first bomb exploded at the finish line minutes after Saath finished the marathon, while the second bomb exploded just down the street from where he had been running moments before.

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‘Some people thought it was fireworks, but I realised no, it’s a bomb. ’ The Boston Marathon bombings on April 15 claimed three lives and injured nearly 200. BLOOMBERG

“I was walking at the finish, where they gave me a blanket. I walked to get my medal, then ‘boom’,” said Saath, who added that he was about 100 meters away from the blast.

Saath said that he was tempted to slow down toward the end due to cramps, which could

Koy Saath (left), 59. PHOTO SUPPLIED

have cost him his life.

“I didn’t run fast that day; I was cramped up.

But luckily, I did not stop at the finish line. People were yelling, ‘There’s the finish line. Don’t stop!’”

When he heard the explosion, Saath instantly knew it was a bomb.

“Some people thought it was fireworks, but I realised no, it’s a bomb.”

Saath, who was a 21-year-old student at the Royal University of Law and Economics in 1975, said he experienced bombings on a regular basis prior to the fall of Phnom Penh on April 17.

“When I was young in the ’70s and we were fighting the communists, there were rockets. A lot of the time, you would be out riding your motorcycle when the bombs would come.”

Luckily for Saath, he left Cambodia two months before the Khmer Rouge captured

Phnom Penh with the intention of studying in France. But he soon found himself a refugee in Thailand when the Lon Nol government fell. Needing a more permanent home, he emigrated to the United States.

The rest of Saath’s family perished.

“All my family – two brothers and four sisters – were killed by the Khmer Rouge. No one survived as I know.”

After spending time in a refugee centre in Pennsylvania, he was accepted to the University of Rhode Island and received a degree in electrical engineering. He also met Luisa, a young Portuguese immigrant whom he married. In 1980, Saath took a job at an electrical company in Ohio, where he has lived and worked since.

It was at this time that he discovered a passion for running during community fun runs.

“To me, it keeps your mind and your body in balance. You got to keep yourself in shape; you just got to keep healthy. That’s my main goal.”

Saath said he loves the Boston Marathon for its inclusiveness and camaraderie.

“There are so many people from all around the world. The marathon fans cheer for everyone, they don’t care if it’s their families or whoever. They just cheer anyone.”

He has run regularly for the past 30 years, with his personnel record set at 26.2 miles (42.2 kilometers) in three hours and 24 minutes. This was Saath’s fourth consecutive Boston Marathon, and he has vowed to return next year. In fact, he’s already qualified.

“In Cambodia, you could not stay inside your house when the bombs came; you had to go live your life. You’ve got freedom in the US, so you have to keep going.”

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Feature

THE PHNOM PENH POST • 7Days • Apr 26 - MAY 2, 2013

Father François beyond Year Zero Father François Ponchaud came to Cambodia at the height of Sihanouk’s reign and stayed to witness the first frenzied weeks of the Khmer Rouge. The Cambodia: Year Zero author speaks to Julie Masis about the priesthood and his adopted homeland. atholic priest François Ponchaud first arrived in the Kingdom in 1965 and recently testified at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). Forced to leave Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge regime after being held in the French embassy compound for three weeks, the Frenchman returned in 1993 and holds Cambodian citizenship.

For more than 10 years he has been giving free weekly lectures (in French) on Cambodia’s history.

Attending his evening talks –where subjects range from his memories of Cambodia in the 1970s to the theological comparisons between Buddhism and Christianity – feels a bit like being a student in a university-level course. Ponchaud always speaks from memory, occasionally pointing at a map of Cambodia and taking questions from the audience. If you attend his talks, you might hear him say that the word “I” in Khmer is actually derived from the word “slave”, which is why the King never uses the singular pronoun when talking about himself; that after they saved the Khmers from Pol Pot, the Vietnamese stole as much as they could from Cambodia, even taking irrigation systems apart to carry parts back to Vietnam; and that in one Cambodian village, people pray to a statue of Pol Pot, believing him to be a powerful spirit.

When Ponchaud explains Catholicism to Cambodians, he draws comparisons between the Buddha and Jesus, to show how they are similar. For instance, he says Jesus was “enlightened” on the day of his baptism, in the same way that Buddha was enlightened after weeks of meditation. He doesn’t mind if Cambodian Catholics bring fruits to church and offer them to God, sit on the floor, or burn incense.

In addition to missionary work, Ponchaud has lived through wars on three continents, jumped out of an airplane, been imprisoned by the Viet Cong, helped to translate the Bible into Khmer (he knows French, Khmer, English, Latin, Greek and Hebrew), and written several books, including Cambodia: Year Zero and A Cathedral in the Rice Paddy. His latest book, the title of which has not yet been finalised, is scheduled to come out this month.

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For more than 10 years, Father Ponchaud has lectured on topics such as the similarities between Catholicism and Buddhism. supplied

war, but they didn’t ask my opinion. Several of my friends were killed.

So why did the war make you want to become a priest?

During the war, there was no religion. People lived like animals. The way I see it, religion is a way to make people Where were you born? more human. Algeria was not a religious war – it was not IsI was born in Savoy, France, close to the border with Swit- lam against Christianity. It was an anti-colonialist war. The zerland and Italy in 1939. The war started when I was two Algerians revolted against French colonialism. Now I think months old. My parents had a farm, and the Italians came to I’d rather be killed or go to prison than participate in such a my house. Then in 1944, the Germans came to chase out the war, but at the time I didn’t dare to go to prison.

Italians. I remember that I was scared of the Germans. They After the war, I went into the seminary and they sent me shot at our front door, but no one was hurt. to a Gregorian university in Rome. I met a lot of people My parents had a farm, and I worked on the farm until I who became popes later. Like the new Pope, I probably saw was 20 years old. We had 12 cows, pigs and chickens. We him. We were probably in the same university because we had a lot of fruits and berries – strawberries, apples and only have a two year age difference. pears. It’s a very beautiful region with mountains, and my When did you first come to Cambodia? parents made a living from selling the fresh fruits and vegetables to tourists. I have six brothers and six sisters, but I’m On November 4, 1965. I came by boat from Marseille. the only one who became a priest.

We arrived in Kampong Som. The forest was all around us. From Kampong Som to Phnom Penh we traveled via How did you decide to become a priest?

Kampot. Phnom Penh was a small town then, much smaller In 1959, I went to war in Algeria as a parachutist because than now – there were maybe only 400,000 residents. I was all the young people in France had to serve. That’s where 26 years old– I was young and good-looking.

I decided to become a priest. I jumped out of an airplane So what were you sent here to do? about 80 times, to prove my courage. I didn’t jump during I didn’t know what I was here to do. I was at the service the war. I jumped during the training. I served for two-and- of the bishop of Phnom Penh. During the first three years, a-half years, from 1959 to 1962. It was long. I didn’t like the I studied Khmer – mostly on my own, by speaking with

people, reading newspapers, and listening to the radio. I was alone in the countryside. In the villages there were some churches, but no Christians. It was my task to learn the language. I lived through five years of peace, five years of war, and three weeks under the Khmer Rouge.

What were the three weeks under the Khmer Rouge like?

I am the one who handed over the keys of the French embassy to the Khmer Rouge official of Phnom Penh. I was one of the translators at the consulate. I was at the end of the convoy when we left the embassy.

What were the three weeks in the embassy like?

On the second or third day, the Khmer Rouge asked us to hand over the traitors – Sirik Matak and one of the wives of Sihanouk. On the fourth day, a high Khmer Rouge official invited all the Cambodians to go meet their compatriots who were rebuilding the country. At that point, about 5,000 Cambodians left the French embassy. Legally, they were in an embassy, so they had the right to stay, but the Khmer Rouge didn’t know these laws, and the Cambodians had to leave because the Khmer Rouge were armed to the teeth.

The Cambodian wives (who were married to foreigners) were permitted to stay, but Cambodian husbands had to leave. The Khmer Rouge didn’t explain why, they just gave orders.

Why do you give lectures about Cambodia?

I started giving the talks more than ten years ago to help Catholic missionary volunteers learn about Cambodia’s history and culture. But then I saw that a lot of people were interested – and I think that it’s a service that I can give so that they can learn more about the people of Cambodia and work better with them. I think being a missionary is a way to help people understand each other.

How many people come to my lectures depends on the topic – sometimes as many as 60 people. If people come, it must be interesting for them. The lectures satisfy a demand.

People from the French embassy always come. The secretary comes regularly. The wife of the ambassador used to come.

But the ambassador himself doesn’t.

To learn more about Ponchaud’s lectures (in French), email him at fponchaud@gmail.com

Feature

Apr 26 - MAY 2, 2013 • 7Days • THE PHNOM PENH POST

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A family photograph

“I took this image in early 2009. It’s a photograph set on a bench in a makeshift teahouse in a refugee camp in southern Bangladesh. On this trip, I had heard about an entire village of Rohingya that had fled en masse . . . roughly 100 families . . . from the north of Rakhine state in Burma to Bangladesh one or two months prior. I had always been trying to find a big group of people leaving at one time – most of the people I had met had crossed over in small groups.

“This family all lived in one area of the makeshift [refugee] camp, they were a bit more developed and had a bit more [in their home in Rakhine state] than other Rohingyas I had met – businesses, homes. In talking with them, I heard why they all left at the same time, over three days, which led to conversations of policies of Nasaka [security forces in the north of Rakhine state]. One of these is to have really tight control over family networks, who lives where, through a registrar. They come and take photos – this is one of those. Nasaka monitor these and if there are any discrepancies, there will be huge consequences for that family. These people felt their lives were threatened and they fled. I go back to this community every time I go back. They still wear their longyis [a wrap around skirt worn by men and women around Burma] now, those things that identify them as people from Burma.”

In Burma, nowhere to call home Claire Knox

from around the world: Kenya, the Ivory Coast, the Ukraine. n the early months of 2006, But it was the images of the Rohingya, award-winning photojournalist who the UN have expressed are one of the Greg Constantine made his first most persecuted minorities in the world, that were seared into his memory, and he trips to the southern fringes of Bangladesh. He was there to document the returned to the Rohingya refugee camps in Rohingya community – hundreds of Bangladesh eight times. thousands of Muslim refugees from the The result of his time spent there is north of Myanmar’s Rakhine state – part of Exiled to Nowhere: Burma’s Rohingya, a poignant, black-and-white collection an unfinished, eight-year project entitled Nowhere People, a collection of photoof photographs accompanied by moving graphs of displaced and stateless people interviews and narratives from his subjects.

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passed, the Rohingya in Burma were denied For nearly half a century, Myanmar endured a stifling military dictatorship with the most basic of citizenship rights: banned one of the world’s worst human rights abuse from travelling outside of records. Ethnic minorities were treated CONTINUES TO PAGE 8 severely, and after a 1982 Citizenship Law

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Feature

THE PHNOM PENH POST • 7Days • Apr 26 - MAY 2, 2013

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7

‘The landscape for the Rohingya has shifted over the time I’ve been working on this, but for the worse. It’s an incredibly difficult story to keep documenting, incredibly sadder each year. ’

Pregnant in Bangladesh “I met Nur [above] in the summer of 2009. She lives in an area in southern Bangladesh in a makeshift camp with several other women. She left Burma because the Burmese authorities denied her and her partner the fundamental right to get married and have a family. Her family said to her: for you to have some kind of normal life, you are going to have to leave us and go to Bangladesh. That’s what she did. When I took that picture she was about six months pregnant, with their first child. If she had fallen pregnant in Burma and the authorities found out there would have been huge problems. Forced abortions are sadly very common for Rohingya women in northern Rakhine– they are so afraid that the authorities are going to find out they are pregnant and are driven by that desperate fear. I don’t want to say I see hope in this photo, but a part of me believes there is an expression in her face…it’s as if she is able to now breathe freely. I got this sense when I talked to her, she knew she still had lots of problems, eking out a living in terrible conditions, no medical care, no clean water, awful flooding, no clean water...but at least she has room to breathe now, if that makes sense.”

their towns, education, owning land and even restricted from marriage, compelling swathes of the community to flee into neighbouring states.

“The landscape for the Rohingya has shifted over the time I’ve been working on this, but for the worse. It’s an incredibly difficult story to keep documenting, incredibly sadder each year.

“Over the past few years it hasn’t necessarily been their statelessness which has taken me back there to photograph again and again, which was the original purpose. It has been what I have seen, that I think this is one of the most extreme cases of human rights abuses in the world, and until very recently it has been an

‘...not just of Rohingya in Rakhine or within Burma but also in Bangladesh, there is nothing for them to go home to. ’

Backbone of the community “These women come from the same village [as the family described on page seven]. All three refused to divulge the whereabouts of their husbands, who were wanted by the authorities and were in hiding, to Nasaka. They told me when the authorities came, it was just women and children in the village. Sixteen of these women – including the women in the photo - stood their ground, refusing to speak, and were marched into a shrimp pond where they were forced to stand up to their necks in water for eight hours. Mud was thrown at them, they were forced to look into the sun, they were verbally and physically abused. When Nasaka left, they were helped out by other women, and returned to find their homes locked up - that was the trigger for them to decide to leave for Bangladesh and become refugees. As with most societies in the world, the women are the backbone to communities.

incredibly under-reported story, that’s why I have continued,” he said.

On Monday, Human Rights Watch released a report condemning the Myanmar government’s treatment of the Rohingya people. It stated ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity had been committed, with more than 125,000 Rohingya displaced since violent attacks on the community in Rakhine state in May and October last year.

The report highlighted the October attacks, the deadliest of which, on October 23, killed 70 Rohingya – including 28 children- in Yan Thei were coordinated by government officials, Buddhist monks and an ethnic Rakhine nationalist party.

Last month, religious riots in the central Myanmar village of Meikhtila killed 43 people and left more than 12,000 Muslims displaced.

But Constantine said he was shocked and thought it was tragic that attention had only focused on the Rohingya since the bloody 2012 attacks.

He visited Rakhine state in the aftermath of the attacks, and recalled an “apartheid-type segregation.”

“I wanted to document the displacement, violence and the complete razing and destruction of these people’s property.”

There were moments the photographer felt unnerved in Bangladesh - he was chased out of refugee camps, followed, and questioned.

“I never felt physically in danger though This is a story governments don’t want people to know about. We’re at a point now where... Burma is, I guess you could say, opening up, and there becomes a point where the government cannot control what kind of information is coming out of the country like it could years ago.

“But I also met with many of the Rakhine leaders and, you know, there is this very real level of discrimination and racism from a lot of the political parties on the Rakhine side that I found shocking,” he said.

On another trip to northern Rakhine in February, Constantine remembers a young Rohingya man pining for his home, yearning to go back there “more than anything.”

“He [had] lived in a Muslim quarter in Sittwe. I had to tell him the whole area had nothing left... His eyes… He was shocked, he came to the realisation that there was nothing left for him to go home to. I think that’s really symbolic, not just of Rohingya in Rakhine or within Burma but also in Bangladesh, there is nothing for them to go home to.”

Constantine’s book has garnered critical acclaim and was named a 2012 Notable Photo Book of the Year by PDN Magazine in the US and formed part of exhibitions in London, Canberra and Brussels. On May 9, the photojournalist will present his book, which is now available at Monument Books, and more recent work on the Rohingya community in Myanmar facing race based violence, at Meta House on Sothearos Boulevard.

Feature

Apr 26 - MAY 2, 2013 • 7Days • THE PHNOM PENH POST

9

Physical scars

In the shadows

“This was taken on my very first trip in 2006. I was walking around a particularly awful refugee camp, one of the worst I’ve seen, it doesn’t exist anymore. I ran into this man and found he had left [Rakhine state] in 1992 because he was severely beaten during forced labour, causing blindness in one eye. He had been an unrecognised refugee since then. Over the years I saw people with emotional and physical scars of abuse. Nasaka have been the main perpetrators of most of the human rights abuses against Rohingya, they are notorious – forced labour, arbitrary land seizure, physical abuse, extortion, heavy taxation. The denial to get married. This camp was on the banks of the Naf river and the highway, you couldn’t miss it, all of a sudden thousands of people would appear in these camps on the side of the road. So getting access in was easy. Getting access to the sites now is becoming more and more sensitive. I have another image of this camp, of an old lady and her grandson. I don’t know what happened to either one of them, [it was] just one of those moments, I’d spent several days in there and the picture presented itself. It is quite telling, I think.

Her and the child’s expressions are of complete and total exhaustion. And what’s tragic, is most young kids that age never have that expression.

“You now have several generations of Rohingya kids who are living as unregistered refugees. These kids receive no education at all, are living in squalid, overcrowded conditions. Seven to ten family members living together in that small wooden hut – and it’s tiny, mach smaller than it looks as I used a wide lens. The light’s coming in and then there are the grid-like bars in the background - people can read into that photograph any way they want. It is one of my favourites; I’ve always loved it for a number of different reasons, as painful as it is to sometimes look at it. It was a very interesting and special time being there in that small hut. [It was] such a crappy, small space, to think seven to ten human beings could sleep in that – just shocking. The family were there, that’s the mother with the long, black hair on the left of the frame.

I told the woman what I was doing and asked if I could come in and they agreed. I found my place in a small corner in their hut and stayed there for half an hour, I just lingered around until the photograph created itself. I was there long enough so that she started to go about her everyday activities, and they’re the situations where some of the best photographs are born, where you just blend into the shadows a bit. Those situations make really honest images, which is what I strive for.”

Cracked dirt

Mother and father

“These communities find ways to exist every day. What I’ve tried to do with this project is not just show the hardships…hopefully people go away after seeing these pictures having a much greater appreciation for the ability of the Rohingya community to find a way to exist day to day to day. This was taken in southern Bangladesh of men working in a salt field during 2006. They are exploited labourers, but they have to find a way to feed their families. That was why I took that photograph. It projects exploitation but at the same time you don’t particularly know where these guys are, and the cracked dirt underneath their feet is quite symbolic.

They have, regardless of where they place their feet, no homes, no security. I’d met others: bonded labourers. What people don’t appreciate [is that] in southern Bangladesh the Rohingya play a crucial role in the economy of any number of different sectors- back-breaking jobs… fishing, construction, agriculture, salt fields, all huge industries in southern Bangladesh. Because they are beyond the protection of laws they are thrown into some really horrible situations. Trapped into debts, never able to pay it off, sucked into a cycle of exploitation.”

“This was taken in late 2009, right when the first few stories about the Rohingya boat people started to break, with the Thai authorities towing Rohingya boats back out to sea and cutting them loose to an uncertain fate. Instead of going to Indonesia, Malaysia or Thailand, where many of these people were trying to get to or were even in hospitals, I decided to go back to Bangladesh to photograph and hear the stories of the people that had been left behind. This is a mother and father whose son had paid smugglers to get him on a boat from Bangladesh to Malaysia. Their son had been gone for six weeks already and they hadn’t heard from him. At that time a lot of people in his situation were going missing or hadn’t been heard from. Two years later, in 2012, I was back in Bangladesh, sitting in a makeshift teashop talking to some Rohingya men when all of a sudden that father walked up and I recognised him immediately, the same exact eyes. I couldn’t believe it and asked my translator if he remembered me and he did. I’d always wondered what the fate was of his son, so I asked him. He hadn’t. You can read into that any way you want, but for most Rohinya who make it to Malaysia, their family members somehow find out about it eventually.”

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Feature

THE PHNOM PENH POST • 7Days • Apr 26 - MAY 2, 2013

All that glitters is bol

Apr 26 - MAY 2, 2013 • 7Days • THE PHNOM PENH POST

old

Feature

11

Drag star Jujubee is best known for her stint as a sassy contestant on American reality TV hit RuPaul’s Drag Race – but she’s just as happy to talk about her family drama, beloved Lao heritage and the next stop on her tour: Cambodia.

Poppy McPherson

can be stripped down. But the feeling of greatness will still be there after it comes off. ’ve got a secret – I’ve never watched a drag “That’s what drag is – it can transcend that iffy line show. Until last week, I’d never seen between what a man can be and what a woman can be.

American reality TV sensation RuPaul’s It wipes it all away because you have strong powerful Drag Race and had no idea what it might men dressing as strong powerful woman. Drag is about be. Perhaps something to do with India and Formula celebrating the beauty of a woman.”

One. I’m a far gloomier sort of TV viewer. Between While RuPaul promotes a celebratory attitude looping news on CNN and multiple Aung San Suu Kyi towards womanhood, the show can also be incredibly documentaries, the odd one, or four, Locked Up Abroad bitchy – see the “reading” scenes. episodes might slip through and that’s the closest I The most important things Charisma taught her, she come to reality TV. I’m behind the curve – drag scores says, were more than “great makeup and hair ideas” but plenty of avant-garde cred in the hipster quarters of the also “how to be a really nice drag queen.”

West, and Drag Race pulled record audiences for its “Sometimes you are introduced to ones with way too network. Even Scarlett Johansson’s a fan. Now that I’ve much attitude, and I didn’t want to be one of those. watched the show and sort of met (does Skype count?)

“I’m a very direct person, but I don’t want to hurt one of its biggest stars, larger-than-life former contespeople’s feelings. I’m very aware of what people feel. I tant Jujubee – the 28-year-old Laotian who is one find that some people spotlight themselves – I’d rather Out of drag, performer Airline preps alter ego Jujubee’s wigs. be around everybody. I enjoy people.”

America’s most loved drag queens – I’ve discovered PHOTO SUPPLIED something.

That doesn’t mean she’s a pushover. After her father She’s wonderful.

She has said she was five years old when she realised died when she was 15, she stopped speaking to her A real giggle. As hilarious as she is glamorous – think she didn’t like girls, and still in primary school when she mother. They haven’t said a word to one another in 13 Jolie lips, curves eased into sequined bodycon – and realized she quite liked being gay. years. creative with the catchphrases – ‘I’ll read a b—, ‘I’ll pee It wasn’t easy. Her father’s friends gossiped about her, “She basically put my sisters and I in a situation where on your pillow’. She’s both, to use her favourite phrase, and few people around her could give advice on her we had to distance ourselves from her. There were a few totally “fierce”, and totally ordinary. Some nights she sexuality. choices that she made in her life that didn’t seem too struts on stage channeling Beyonce in a diamante“Being gay wasn’t anything that anybody talked about appropriate for us. I was always a child who had an adult studded leotard after hours applying enormous at school or anything. It was quite difficult, but I came mindset. When I got to the age that I could speak up for amounts of makeup and hairspray; other nights she to the realisation very early, when I was like 10, you can’t myself and my sisters, I would go and protect my sisters. cooks at home and watches dumb TV. She’s addicted to change who you are, you can only build upon what’s “Sometimes in life there are people you should Wheel of Fortune and court shows. She geeks out over already there. I decided to be me – it’s more fun to be be really close to, but things happen. I think one of Laotian recipes. She lazes around with her “boyfriendme.” my sisters is communicating with her. I forgive her slash-manager” Chris.

At 18, she performed in drag for the first time. for my sake, but I don’t think I’m gonna restart that On the show, she won hearts with her dramatic “Oh my gosh, my first performance. It was a relationship.” performances in the Drag Race contests that the rivals room of maybe four people, but It was when the separation was still undergo in hopes of being named the top drag act in the important part was getting fresh, just a few years after her the country. The competitions consist of everything through. I did it, and I enjoyed it. father’s death, that she first started from lipsynching to “reading” – a drag game where the It was exhilarating. It was like: this performing in drag. Does she see rivals rip into flaws of other contestants. is what I wanna do, this is what I it as an escape from the everyday We’ll probably never shriek together about what want.” world? b— stole her ring or fall down and cry to Total Eclipse As for the name “Jujubee”? “It “It was three years after my dad of the Heart, but there’s much more to talk about than was the most random choosing,” passed so it definitely brought that. She’s got an interesting backstory – starting with she says. me back to childhood again – I a downright bizarre real name – and a lot to say about Her “drag mother”, a queen was imagining this new world.” women, men, drag and the reality behind reality TV. called Charisma, chose it when she If he saw her now, she says, When we speak, she’s just bounced off the plane won an amateur competition. her father would be proud. from California – finishing a tour of nightclubs and (“When you say drag mother, When she was a child university campuses around the country that has kept it’s like a mentor. He’s been so he gave her pep talks her busy since last November, the end of the last season amazing. I’m probably going to call from the front seat of RuPaul’s All Stars Drag Race, a “best of ” competition him ‘he’ and ‘she’, interchangeably!” while driving her featuring favourite characters from the series. But what Jujubee is also happy with being to school. she really wants to talk about is Cambodia. She’s here called either “she” or “he” and “He would next week to perform at Glamazon, the second year of refers to herself as both man and always tell me to be a great person, that I was Phnom Penh’s most extravagant arts and entertainment woman.) smart, I was beautiful and that gala. The show promises dance and avant-garde “I won and they announced no matter what anybody said segments, a catwalk show, a transformation section ‘Jujubee’. She just announced it about me, it was OK. As a parent, – participants will be given a style make-over – and a out of thin air. Then it turned out he obviously knew that I was drag act courtesy of Jujubee. The trip will be her first to to be a fruit.” different from everybody else.

Southeast Asia.

If Jujubee is sparkly leotards “His friends probably said “I’m so excited, you don’t even understand. I haven’t and witty comebacks, then something, but he always stood been in that area ever. I’m so excited to see everything.” who is Airline? up for me because he was my She was born in Boston, though both her parents are “I’m a bit more reserved. father, and he was a great man.”

Laotian. They moved to the US nine years before she I have fun, but I like to She keeps in touch with her was born – to New Mexico and then Boston. Jujubee blend in. Jujubee’s definitely an Lao heritage and sees her sisters still lives there. extension of who I am – she’s more at least once a week.

As for “Jujubee”, it’s just a stage name. Her real name of a daredevil.”

“We’re constantly trying to is “Airline”.

She proved so popular on season figure out the most authentic “Someone messed up,” she says. “It was supposed to two of RuPaul’s Drag Race – she recipes for Laotian food.” be Airlin, and the ‘e’ was added on mistakenly. I didn’t came in third – that the creators She looks at her time on Drag know when I was a kid. When I came to the realisation made her a “professor” on a spinoff Race as “a big soap opera” and it wasn’t a normal name, I thought it was kind of cool, show, RuPaul’s DragU. In each Jujubee as a character she loves so I just kept it.” episode, three women are given Her parents didn’t speak any English when she was but will eventually leave behind. drag makeovers and taught to born and missed the error.

“The whole Jujubee thing embrace their “inner divas”.

“So the understanding of what the ‘e’ sound would is just so much work – I don’t “There are parts that are just turn the name into wasn’t there and I mean, I think it’s think I could ever be that satire and just funny, but when funny because I do fly all the time, so my name makes person, but it’s a fun job. There you delve really deep into it, up for it. are so many memories. When these women come in with really “I like Airline better – it’s weirder, you know.”

I’m an old man, I want to look personal issues that they don’t want She was never a typical child, she says. She embraced to tackle alone and I thought that back and just giggle.” dress-up early, and caught onto sexuality quickly.

She won’t take Juju to old was a special thing.

“We were really poor, so it wasn’t like we had age, she says. “I’m not gonna be “I think everyone desires to feel everything in the world to entertain us, but I had my a drag queen in a walker!” But if as beautiful as they can, and if it two sisters and me and we played house. A lot. It was she did, “it’d have to be a really takes a bit of makeup and a wig the imagination that was the thing for me.” sparkly walker.” then that’s OK – it all comes off, it

I

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Lifestyle

THE PHNOM PENH POST • 7Days • Apr 26 - MAY 2, 2013

Is he a real man or a game boy?

JACKSON LORD SEATON Dear Jackson, I am a 21-year-old Aussie girl in a committed relationship with a 20-year-old Khmer boy. I love him to death, but he doesn’t work and just sits around playing video games all day. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t seem to hold a job or attend classes for more than a week at a time.

My Khmer girlfriends have implied that it is a cultural thing, that it takes a long time here for boys to become independent adults. How do I get my lazy boyfriend to become a man?

Aussie girl, your question gives me questions of my own. First of all, who’s supporting this deadbeat boyfriend of yours? Are you? Are his parents? And why? My first inclination is to say cut the lifeline – make going to school or getting a job a necessity. So long as he has the means to sit around all day, he will. Pull the rug from under his feet and you’ve unplugged his Nintendo. Another question: what do you really see in this guy? For me, real love needs to satisfy certain criteria. First of all, there’s a spiritual connection – that consuming fire, two souls together, all that stuff. You’ll know if you have it.

Second: physical chemistry – that is, great sex.

Third of all – and I don’t see this here – you need to be proud of your partner; they need to be wholeheartedly engaged in some sort of pursuit outside of the relationship that they take pride in, something that causes you in turn to feel admiration. Now, this can be anything: work, art, being able to bake the best apple crumble in Indochina. Whatever. But what about your couch potato? Are you proud of his new high score in Angry Birds?

I don’t buy the “it’s a cultural thing” excuse.

For a while, I taught at a university in Phnom Penh. While some of my students were idle, Wikipedia-copying – like many in the West – there were numerous young men and women in my classes who were bright, motivated, and ambitious. Being a slacker is definitely not a cultural thing – the problem here, I think, is your boy’s personality.

That being said, he is only 20. At 20, I was living in a sit-around, rock ‘n’ roll-listening undergraduate marijuana haze. I pulled out of it.

Most men do. Think of your 20-year-old male

friends back home. Really, how many of them have interesting careers? How many of them are productive and engaged? It wasn’t until they were in their mid-twenties that most of my male friends began to kick themselves into gear. Your lazy boyfriend might just need some gentle encouragement. And time.

But if you still want to work on him fast and hard, all’s not lost. While I rarely recommend game-playing, in this case, it could work.

You could easily tell your boyfriend about a handsome young man who approached you at

lunch. A well-dressed Khmer guy who’s running a successful business on his own. “He’s from the same area as you,” you say. “Do you know him?” Could this motivate your man? If not for himself, then perhaps to impress you?

Or, failing that, you can try giving him a strict ultimatum. That is, something like, “Get off of your ass, get a job, or it’s over.” If such a last resort ultimatum doesn’t encourage him, that will call into question whether your boyfriend “loves you to death” too – he could be just enjoying the ride.

Movie Review

Army figurines fail again on film Stephanie Merry Franchise reboots are multiplying at an alarming rate. No longer do filmmakers wait a decade or two for the memory of the last failure to fade. Instead, like a quick fix for a frozen computer, they push a few buttons and, voila, fresh start.

Take, for example, 2009’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, which transformed toy soldiers into Channing Tatum and Dennis Quaid. It was annihilated by critics but performed well at the box office, which means G.I. Joe: Retaliation is being billed as a reboot. Except it’s not.

There’s a new director, Jon Chu – the man behind a couple Step Up installments and the Justin Bieber documentary – and Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick signed on. But rather than wiping the slate clean, the filmmakers integrate, seemingly at random, elements from the last film. The derided, skin-tight black leather armor may have disappeared, but Tatum returns, as does a plot point involving a villain masquerading as the US president. The writers resuscitated one deceased character, but left others incapacitated. They stay just faithful enough to the last film to make this preposterous CGI-centric 3D extravaganza feel like a confused patchwork of new and old. It’s as if the computer successfully restarted, but half the icons disappeared.

As the movie opens, Tatum’s character,

Bruce Willis and The Rock star in the latest installment of the G.I. Joe franchise. bloomberg

Duke, leads his team to Pakistan on what turns out to be a suicide mission ordered by the fake president. But this villain underestimates the Joes, and a few survive, including the new de facto commander, Roadblock (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson). Now the target of the US government, the group has to go off the grid.

All the nefarious threads lead to their archenemy, Cobra Commander, who seeks total world domination. The heroes’ scheming

includes tracking down the original G.I. Joe, now a curmudgeonly general, played by Bruce Willis. Meanwhile, a needless subplot carried over from the past film follows one of the Joes, the mute ninja Snake Eyes. He now lives in the Himalayas, answering to the cartoonish Blind Master, played by an over-the-top RZA. Total world domination? A Wu-Tang Clan rapper as a blind ninja expert? Willis as the cocky, grizzled risk-taker – again? Although

this all sounds utterly hilarious, the film’s comedic intentions remain cloudy. For all its absurdity, the movie takes itself awfully seriously. Yes, the goofy one-liners are there, but so are the earnest back stories about making it against all odds.

And although G.I. Joe is merely a movie based on Hasbro toys, the action – the real point of all this – feels just as lifeless. With so many sequences obviously computergenerated, the excitement bleeds right out of the fight scenes. Almost nothing is plausible.

The fact that a spray of machine gun fire obliterates throwing stars without so much as touching the man hurling them is of minimal ridiculousness compared to the zip-lining chase scenes across mountainous cliffs.

The brightest points of the movie come and go in the first 30 minutes with the bickering banter between Johnson and Tatum. For a couple of muscle-bound ruffians, they certainly have impressive screen presence, which explains why Johnson has the dubious honour of jump-starting so many franchises. (Look for him in Fast & Furious 6 this year – or don’t.)

If G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra teaches us one very small thing, it’s that box office returns have more to do with familiar franchise names than film quality. People may flock to G.I. Joe: Retaliation despite its inert illogic. But don’t say you weren’t warned. As a wise man once said, “knowing is half the battle.” washington post

Lifestyle

Apr 26 - MAY 2, 2013 • 7Days • THE PHNOM PENH POST

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Revellers in Bangkok celebrate Songkran, Thailand's frenzied water festival, with drumming and water fights. alexander crook

Restaurant Review

Nepal’s ultimate comfort food It may not be on the menu, but the best steamed momo in Southeast Asia, along with 167 other delights, can be found at Sher E Punjab 2 on Sothearos Boulevard. vincent MacIsaac

Worth flying to Phnom Penh for: Sher E Punjab's 'artful' chicken jalfrezy (right) and vegetable samosas (left). scott howes

plate of salted peanuts that arrived before you were even seated. Now, Crowds have discovered one of my you are welcomed by a small basket favourite restaurants in Southeast Asia, of nimgin, which look like shattered one I’d been keeping a secret for several chips and have just a hint of an obscure years as I watched its gracious Nepalese palate-cleansing flavour. owner gradually crack the code of Every dish on the menu has a number; the hyper-competitive and deeply there are 167. I advise beginning at the fragmented dining market here. back and flipping forward: the same I doubted Shiva would make it but am way you read the Cambodia Daily. genuinely pleased that he has.

Start with the naan. Among the nearly 20 types, the cheese gobi (minced He started with the menu, adding cauliflower), paneer (cottage cheese) photos and a mistletoe motif, then WiFi for the intern crowd – who seem and keema (minced lamb) are more to need Google to digest – and finally filling than the rest. The descriptions, a charming, no-nonsense wife, who is however, are deceptive – “stuffed with” quick to giggle. She’s banished young should be “sprinkled with” – but the waitresses in miniskirts and replaced prices, 75 cents to $3, suggest that this them with courteous staff who have is definitional not intentional. The memorised the menu. naan arrives steaming from the kitchen Shiva (or was it his wife, Aunja?) has with four homemade sauces. Go for also dispensed with the disquieting the mint, but don’t miss the one that is attempts at Westernisation (baked a few shades darker than the Mekong. potatoes stuffed with sour cream The wine menu is waiter-friendly: no and corn nibbles) that came across as embarrassing moments with corkscrews because all the caps twist off. W09 desperate and grotesque, as well as the

(again, each one has a number) is an almost sweet red from South Africa. It’s dangerously close to overly bold, but after a few sips it begins to liberate your senses. It also suits the climate here, especially if you are sitting at one of the three outdoor tables, and costs just $14.

The main courses are arranged nationalistically – Khmer, Indian and Chinese – but the sub-categories align with ingredients and types: curries, chicken, vegetarian, mutton, seafood, etc. The standouts are all Indian, and these are almost exclusively northern, primarily Punjabi.

Best to go with the chicken jalfrezy ($5.50): it’s worth a flight to Phnom Penh. This is artful cooking : a fresh mix of flavours and ingredients that could easily clash if not handled prudently.

The recipes are not new, but they seem fresh: an accomplishment few kitchens in Phnom Penh can pull off. Here, decor is quickly replacing competence.

There are plenty of dishes as well for those who believe that food should not

only be good but good for you. Things like dahl ($1.50) and vegetable samosas ($2), as well as the less clichéd, like vegetable Jaipuri ($4).

Not on the menu, but possible to order, are the crown jewels of Nepalese comfort food: momo, the ultimate dumpling. These joyous gifts are served either steamed or fried, stuffed (not sprinkled) with minced chicken or vegetables, and ordered from the sister restaurant: Kathmandu Kitchen, round the corner on the backpacker enclave of Street 258.

Both restaurants offer takeout and free delivery as well as catering. Menus can be received by email. Reservations are recommended in the evening.

Tipping is appreciated by the wait staff, most of whom are students. Open: 8.30am to 10.30pm, 7 days a week. ​​​​​​​ Sher E Punjab

No 72, Sothearos Boulevard Tel: 012 985 844 Email: sher-e-punjab@email.com

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What’s on TV

THE PHNOM PENH POST 7DAYS april 26 - may 02 , 2013

Friday

S T A R

02:20 Higher Ground 04:15 Little Black Book 06:00 Enemy Of The State 08:15 The Fan 10:15 The Smurfe 12:00 Eight Legged Freaks 13:45 Enemy Of The State 16:00 Varsity Blues 18:00 The Fan 20:00 The Smurfe 22:00 Little Black Book

14:00 Tom S Jerry:

04:00 15:30 Arjun 8 Trie Adventure Of Trie Ice 04:55 06:55 Lotus 08:45 17:00 Arjun And Trie Dragon Warriors 10:10 18:30 Oggy And Trie Cockroaches 12:35 14:55 19:0o Adventure Time 16:35 20:00 Tom 8 Jerry Show 18:05 21:00 The Amazing World Of Gumball 20:00 22:00 Oggy And The Cockroaches 21:40 23:00 Chowder 23:10

Best Of The Festivals Return To Me Rampart Chronicle The Avengers Spider-Man 3 Year One Zombieland Act Of Valor Men In Black Men In Black Ii Transporter: The Series

12:50 So You Think You Can Dance 14:35 Justified 15:25 Numb3rs 16:15 CSI 17:10 CSI: Miami 18:05 Criss Angel Mindfreak 18:35 E Buzz 19:05 Blue Bloods 20:00 The Voice 20:55 NCIS: Los Angeles 21:50 Hannibal 22:40 E Buzz

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Animation The Amazing World Of Gumball

14:30 Mlb Regular Season

16:00 Hot Water

17:30 Baseball Tonight International

17:00 Russian Premier Liga

18:30 Fox Sports Central Live

19:00 Wheels 2

19:00 Asean Basketball League

oin Gumball Watterson and his 21:00 Fox Sports Central family as they must deal with all 21:30 Football Asia kind of funny and crazy situations.

22:00 Smash way.

22:30 The Football Review 23:00 Global Football

21:00

23:30 Fox Sports Central

19:30 Mobil 1 The Grid 20:00 Inside Wtcc 20:30 Score Tonight 21:00 Motogp Champ 22:00 Fim Mx1s Mx2 World Champ 22:30 Sbk Superbike World Champ 23:00 Score Tonight 23:30 Premier League Darts

12:25 Monster Fish 13:20 Animal Autopsy 14:15 Paranatural 15:10 Ufos: The Untold Stories 16:05 Alien Invasion 17:00 Naked Science 18:00 Fish Warrior 19:00 Locked Up Abroad 20:00 Paranatural 21:00 Ufos: The Untold Stories 22:00 Taboo 23:00 Paranatural

v

Saturday

14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 17:30 18:00 19:00 19:30 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

American Chopper Life On A Wire | Survivorman How Do They Do It ?

How It’s Made River Monsters How It’s Made Factory Made Mythbusters A Haunting Nightmare Next Door How It’s Made

13:00 Rogue Nature With Dave Salmoni 14:00 Raised Wild 15:00 Finding Bigfoot 16:00 Untamed & Uncut 17:00 Must Love Cats 18:00 Echo and the Elephants of

Amboseli

18:30 Dark Days in Monkey City 19:00 Rogue Nature With Dave Salmoni 20:00 Biggest & Baddest 21:00 Wildest Africa 22:00 Wild Recon 23:00 Must Love Cats

S T A R

03:45 Eight Legged Freaks 05:30 Hollywood On Set 06:00 Varsity Blues 07:45 The Smurfe 09:30 Hollywood On Set 10:00 Eight Legged Freaks 11:45 The Fan 14:00 Varsity Blues 15:45 Little Black Book 17:30 Hollywood On Set 18:00 The Smurfe 20:00 Eight Legged Freaks

15:00 Tom S Jerry Show 17:00 Ben 10: Omniverse 18:00 Oggy And The Cockroaches 19:00 Ninjago: Masters Of Spinjitzu 20:00 Tom S Jerry Show 21:00 The Amazing World Of Gumball 22:00 Oggy And The Cockroaches 23:00 Chowder

01:25 03:30 05:10 06:50 08:20 10:30 12:10 13:40 16:05 18:25 20:00 22:30

Coriolanus Bernie Bully Spy Kids: X-Men Men In Black Men In Black II The Avengers Spider-Man 3 Brave The Hunger Games Ghost Rider

13:30 Life With Boys 14:00 The Fairly Oddparents 15:00 Spongebob Squarepants 16:00 Kung Fu Panda 16:30 Kid Vs Kat 17:00 Penguins Of Madagascar 17:30 Fanboy S Chum Chum 18:00 Spongebob Squarepants 19:00 Penguins Of Madagascar 20:00 Back At The Barnyard 20:30 Fanboy S Chum Chum 21:00 The Fairly Oddparents

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Action

17:30 Scorecast Saturday

The Hunger Games

Katniss Everdeen voluntarily takes her younger sister’s place in the Hunger Games, a televised fight to the death in which two teenagers from each of the twelve Districts of Panem are chosen at random to compete.

20:00

18:00 Fox Sports Central Week In

Review 18:30 Baseball Tonight International

13:30 Wheels 2 14:00 Sports Max 14:55 Hsbc Asian 5 Nations Rugby

19:30 X Games Aspen

17:00 Motogp Champ

20:30 Planet Speed

18:00 Gp2 Series

21:00 Fox Sports Central Week In

Review

20:00 Muaythai Warriors

21:30 Asean Basketball League

21:00 Hsbc Asian 5 Nations Rugby

23:30 Full Time Reaction

23:00 Fim Mx1 World Champ

13:20 Cesar Millan’s Leader Of The

Pack 14:15 Dog Whisperer 15:10 Doomsday Preppers 16:05 Armageddon Outfitters 17:00 Hard Time 18:00 Breakout 19:00 Bid S Destroy 19:30 Bid S Destroy 20:00 Ufos: The Untold Stories 21:00 Lost Continent Of The Pacific 22:00 Light The Ocean 23:00 Wild Russia

Sunday

14:00 My Shocking Story 15:00 Build It Bigger 16:00 Magic Of Science 16:30 One Way Out 17:00 Dual Survival 18:00 Body Bizarre 19:00 Dirty Jobs Down Under 20:00 Gold Rush 21:00 Bering Sea Gold 22:00 Combat Countdown 23:00 Build It Bigger

12:00 Animal Planet Showcase 13:00 Pit Bulls and Parolees 14:00 Austin Stevens Adventures 15:00 Wild Recon 16:00 Biggest S Baddest 17:00 Finding Bigfoot 18:00 Bad Dog! 19:00 Tales of Nature 20:00 My Cat from Hell 21:00 River Monsters 22:00 Raised Wild 23:00 Rattlesnake Republic

S T A R

04:15 Kangaroo Jack 06:00 Eight Legged Freaks 07:45 Little Black Book 10:00 Varsity Blues 11:45 The Smurfe

15:00 Tom S Jerry Show 17:00 Dragons: Riders Of The Berk 18:00 Oggy And The Cockroaches

13:30 Hollywood On Set

19:00 Adventure Time

14:00 Eight Legged Freaks

20:00 Tom S Jerry Show

16:00 The Fan 18:00 Varsity Blues

21:00 The Amazing World Of Gumball

20:00 Kangaroo Jack

22:00 Oggy And The Cockroaches

21:30 Hollywood On Set 22:00 Saving Private Ryan

23:00 Chowder

01:50 Shark Night 03:20 Best Of The Festivals 04:15 Everything Must Go 05:55 Cloudy With A Chance Of Meat-

13:30 Life With Boys 14:00 The Fairly Oddparents 15:00 Spongebob Squarepants 16:00 Kung Fu Panda 16:30 Kid Vs Kat 17:00 Penguins Of Madagascar 17:30 Fanboy S Chum Chum 18:00 Spongebob Squarepants 19:00 Penguins Of Madagascar 20:00 Back At The Barnyard 20:30 Fanboy S Chum Chum 21:00 The Fairly Oddparents

balls

07:25 Three Inches 09:00 Ufc 159: Jones Vs Sonnen 12:00 Act Of Valor 13:55 Spider-Man 15:55 The Hunger Games 18:25 The Bounty Hunter 20:15 Once Upon A Time 21:00 Da Vinci’s Demons 21:55 Da Vinci’s Demons NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Action Saving Private Ryan

Following the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.

01:30 Great Ireland Run

05:00 V8 Supercars Champ

12:25 Unlikely Animal Friends

14:00 Auction Hunters

13:00 Tales of Nature

02:00 Fox Sports Central Week In

06:00 Hsbc Asian 5 Nations Rugby

13:20 Hard Time

14:30 Auction Hunters

14:00 Rattlesnake Republic

08:00 South African Women’s Open

14:15 Highway Thru Hell:

15:00 Gold Rush

15:00 Raised Wild

02:30 03:00 06:00 10:00 10:30 13:30 14:00

22:00

16:00 16:30

Review Full Time Reaction Mlb Regular Season Nascar Sprint Cup Series Full Time Reaction Mlb Regular Season Full Time Reaction Asean Basketball League Planet Speed Sbk Champ

09:00 Inside Sailing 09:30 Football Asia 10:00 Afc Champions League 12:00 Fia World Rally Champ 13:00 Achilles Formula Drift Australia 15:00 Fim Fmx World Champs

15:10 Ufos: The Untold Stories 16:05 Paranatural 17:00 Cesar Millan’s Leader Of The Pack 18:00 Dog Whisperer 19:00 Great Migrations

16:00 Full Time Reaction

20:00 Mengele The Angel Of Death

16:30 Scorecast Sunday 17:00 Muaythai Warriors

16:00 Bering Sea Gold 17:00 Mythbusters 18:00 Build It Bigger 19:00 Magic Of Science 19:30 One Way Out 20:00 Hour Asia

16:00 Bad Dog! 17:00 Pit Bulls and Parolees 18:00 Untamed China with Nigel Marven 19:00 Biggest a Baddest 20:00 Wildest Africa

21:00 Bear Grylls: Fine Dining

21:00 Rattlesnake Republic

22:00 Ufos: The Untold Stories

22:00 Auction Hunters

22:00 Untamed a Uncut

23:00 Paranatural

22:30 Auction Hunters

23:00 Pit Bulls and Parolees

Monday

S T A R

02:45 The Fan

14:00 Tom S Jerry Show

04:10 Wall-E

12:30 Spongebob Squarepants

04:40 Littie Black Book

15:00 Bola Kampung

05:50 Love And Other Impossible

13:30 Adventures Of Jim My Neutron

06:30 Enemy Of The State

15:30 Oggy And The Cockroaches

08:40 Kangaroo Jack

16:30 Adventure Time

10:15 Littie Black Book

17:30 Regular Show

12:15 Varsity Blues

18:00 Oggy And The Cockroaches

12:45

14:00 The Smurfe

19:00 Adventure Time

14:15

16:00 Eight Legged Freaks|

20:00 Tom & Jerry Show

16:20

17:45 Enemy Of The State

21:00 The Amazing World Of Gumball

20:00 Varsity Blues

22:00 Oggy And The Cockroaches

22:00 The Fan

23:00 Chowder

07:30 09:10 10:35

18:05 19:00 20:00 21:30

Pursuits Year One Chronicle X-Men: First Class Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs Julie S Julia Bruce Almighty Da Vinci’s Demons Da Vinci’s Demons Zombieland The Hunger Games

14:00 Kung Fu Panda 14:30 The Fairly Oddparents 15:00 Victorious 15:30 Icarly 16:00 Big Time Rush 16:30 Totally Spies 17:00 Spongebob Squarepants 17:30 Rocket Monkeys 18:00 Nicktoons 18:30 Nicktoons

What’s on TV

april 26- 02 may , 2013 7DAYS THE PHNOM PENH POST

Monday

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

18:30 Fox Sports Central Live 19:00 Nascar Sprint Cup Series 20:00 Nascar Nationwide Series 21:00 Fox Sports Central 21:30 Sbk Superbike 22:30 Sbk Superbike 23:30 Fox Sports Central

17:00 South African Women’s Open Hl

14:15 Doomsday Preppers

18:00 Planet Speed

15:10 Armageddon Outfitters

18:30 Inside Wtcc

16:05 Travel Madness

19:00 The Verdict 19:30 Copa Lagos 20:30 Score Tonight 21:00 Copa Lagos 22:00 The Verdict

16:30 Travel Madness 17:00 The Living Edens 18:00 Fish Warrior 19:00 Seconds From Disaster

22:30 Great Goals

20:00 Doomsday Preppers

23:00 Score Tonight

21:00 Armageddon Outfitters

23:30 Premier League Darts

22:00 Mengele The Angel Of Death

13:00 Mythbusters 14:00 Dirty Jobs Down Under 15:00 Nightmare Next Door 16:00 Beyond Survival With Les Stroud 17:00 How Do They Do It? 17:30 How It’s Made 18:00 River Monsters 19:00 Deadliest Catch 20:00 A Day In The Life Of Bear Grylls 21:00 Gold Rush 22:00 Bering Sea Gold 23:00 Deadliest Catch

Hillbilly Handfishin Biggest & Baddest Wildest Africa Wild Recon Dogs 101 Predation!

Hillbilly Handfishin’ Off The Hook: Extreme Catches Snake Crusader With Bruce George 21:00 Rattlesnake Republic 22:00 Austin Stevens Adventures 23:00 Dogs 101 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 20:30

The Smurfe Hollywood On Set The Fan Varsity Blues Enemy Of The State The Fan Little Black Book Enemy Of The State Kangaroo Jack The Smurfe Eight Legged Freaks Saving Private Ryan

14:00 Tom S Jerry Show 15:00 Bola Kampung 15:30 Oggy And The Cockroaches 16:30 Adventure Time 17:30 Regular Show 18:00 Oggy And The Cockroaches 19:00 Adventure Time 20:00 Tom A Jerry Show 21:00 The Amazing World Of Gumball 22:00 Oggy And The Cockroaches 23:00 Chowder

03:45 Conan O’brien Can’t Stop 05:15 Cloudy With A Chance Of Meat-

Animation Chowder

Determined to make her own path in life, Princess Merida defies a custom that brings chaos to her kingdom. Granted one wish, Merida must rely on her bravery and her archery skills to undo a beastly curse.

23:00

Tuesday

S T A R

03:45 05:30 06:00 08:00 10:00 12:15 14:15 16:00 18:15 20:00 22:00 23:45

15

12:30 Spongebob Squarepants 13:30 Adventures Of Jim My Neutron 14:00 Kung Fu Panda 14:30 The Fairly Oddparents 15:00 Victorious 15:30 Icarly 16:00 Big Time Rush 16:30 Totally Spies 17:00 Spongebob Squarepants 17:30 Rocket Monkeys 18:00 Nicktoons 18:30 Nicktoons

balls

06:45 Love, Wedding And Marriage 08:20 Bruce Almighty 10:00 The Ujy Truth 11:35 Tooth Fary 2 13:10 The Hunger Games 15:40 Spkter-Man 17:40 Spider-Man 3 20:00 Kung Fu Hustle 21:40 Da Vinci’s Demons 22:35 Da Vinci’s Demons| NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

14:30 Mlb Regular Season

16:00 Planet Speed

15:10 Hard Time

17:30 Baseball Tonight International

16:25 The Verdict

16:05 Breakout

16:55 Afc Champions League

17:00 The Living Edens

18:30 Fox Sports Central Live 19:00 Vietnam Triathlon

19:00 Sbk Superbike Champ 20:00 Golf Focus

20:00 Cardiff Half Marathon

20:30 Score Tonight

20:30 The Football Review

21:00 Laureus Spirit Of Sport

21:00 Fox Sports Central 21:30 Afc Champions League 23:30 Fox Sports Central

21:30 Golf Focus 22:00 Singha Pattaya Open

18:00 Manta Mystery 19:00 Seconds From Disaster 20:00 Mega Factories 21:00 Hard Time 22:00 Breakout

23:00 Score Tonight

23:00 Bid S Destroy

23:30 Premier League Darts

23:30 Bid & Destroy

14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 17:30 18:00 19:00 19:30 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

Gold Rush Bering Sea Gold Survivorman How Do They Do It ?

How It’s Made River Monsters Auction Hunters Auction Hunters Dirty Jobs Down Under Man, Woman, Wild Dual Survival Auction Hunters

13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 18:30 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

Rogue Nature With Dave Salmoni River Monsters: Untold Stories Venom In Vegas Austin Stevens Adventures Must Love Cats Echo And The Elephants Of Amboseli Dark Days In Monkey City Taking On Tyson Untamed China With Nigel Marven Must Love Cats Tales Of Nature Must Love Cats

02:00 The Amazing World Of Gumball 03:00 My Gym Partners A Monkey 04:00 Chowder 05:00 Tom S Jerry Show 05:30 Courage The Cowardly Dog 06:00 Oggy And The Cockroaches 07:00 Adventure Time 08:00 Oggy And The Cockroaches 16:30 Adventure Time 17:30 Regular Show 18:00 Oggy And The Cockroaches 19:00 Adventure Time

14:25 14:25 15:55 15:55 17:35 17:35 20:00 20:00 21:55 21:55 23:35 23:35

Zombieland Zombieland Men In Black Men In Black The Avengers The Avengers I, Robot I, Robot Rio Rio The Hunger Games The Hunger Games

Da Vinci’s Demons

Written by David S. Goyer, the series follows the “untold” story of Leonardo Da Vinci: the genius during his early years in Renaissance Florence.

As a 25-year old artist, inventor, ...

21:40

Wednesday

S T A R

02:30 Wanderlust 04:10 Varsity Blues 06:00 Kangaroo Jack 08:00 Enemy Of The State 10:15 The Smurfe 12:00 Little Black Book 14:00 The Fan 16:00 Kangaroo Jack 18:00 The Smurfe 19:45 Enemy Of The State 22:00 Higher Ground 23:50 Little Black Book

Adventure

14:30 15:00 15:30 16:00 16:30 17:00 17:30 18:00 18:30 19:00 19:30 20:30

The Fairly Oddparents Victorious Icarly Big Time Rush Figure It Out Spongebob Squarepants Rocket Monkeys Nicktoons : Teenage Mutant Nnja Turtles Nicktoons : Robot S Monster Spongebob Squarepants The Fairly Oddparents House Of Anubis

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

14:00 Intelligent Sport Uk Challenge

14:00 Hsbc Asian 5 Nations Rugby

12:25 Wicked Tuna

12:30 Auction Hunters

14:30 Zurich Classic Of New Orleans

16:00 Max Power

13:20 Wicked Tuna

13:00 Dirty Jobs Down Under

15:30 Baseball Tonight International

16:55 Afc Champions League

14:15 Unlikely Animal Friends

14:00 Man, Woman, Wild

16:25 Afc Cup Live 02:05hrs Live 18:30 Fox Sports Central Live 19:00 Hsbc Sevens World Series 19:30 Chang World Of Football

19:00 Sbk Superbike Champ 20:00 Smash 20:30 Score Tonight 21:00 Mobil 1 The Grid 21:30 Smash

20:00 Zurich Classic Of New Orleans

22:00 Muaythai Warriors

21:00 Fox Sports Central

23:00 Score Tonight

21:30 Afc Champions League

23:30 Afc Cup

15:10 Cesar Millan’s Leader Of The Pack 15:00 Dual Survival 16:05 Dog Whisperer [

16:00 Survivorman

17:00 The Living Edens

17:00 How Do They Do It ?

18:00 Hooked

17:30 How It’s Made

19:00 Locked Up Abroad

18:00 River Monsters

20:00 Unlikely Animal Friends

19:00 Build It Bigger

21:00 Cesar Millan’s Leader Of The Pack 20:00 Combat Countdown 22:00 Dog Whisperer

21:00 World War Ii In Colour

23:00 Unlikely Animal Friends

22:00 Magic Of Science

13:00 Taking On Tyson 14:00 Untamed China With Nigel 15:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 18:30 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

Marven Must Love Cats Tales Of Nature Must Love Cats Echo And The Elephants Of Amboseli Dark Days In Monkey City Taking On Tyson Bad Dog! Too Cute!

Pit Bulls And Parolees Must Love Cats

S T A R

Comedy Little Black Book

A woman snoops through her boyfriend’s palm pilot and reveals his former girlfriends, which causes her to question why they’re still listed in his little black book.

23:50

Thursday

01:35 Saving Private Ryan

13:00 Adventure Time

03:55 John Sandford’s Certain Prey

12:30 Spongebob Squarepants

04:20 Eight Legged Freaks

14:00 Tom A Jerry Show

05:25 Tooth Fairy 2

13:30 Adventures Of Jim My Neutron

06:00 Dr. Seuss1 The Lorax

15:00 The Amazing World Of Gumball

14:00 Kung Fu Panda

07:45 Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo

15:30 Oggy And The Cockroaches

07:00 War Horse

09:15 Stakeout

16:30 Adventure Time

11:15 Faster

17:30 Regular Show

13:00 A Guy Thing

18:00 Oggy And The Cockroaches

14:45 Patriot Games

19:00 Adventure Time

16:45 Deuce Bigalow:

20:00 Tom 8 Jerry Show

18:15 Stakeout

21:00 The Amazing World Of Gumball

18:15 Limitless

20:15 Ghost Ship

22:00 Oggy And The Cockroaches

20:00 The Hunger Games

18:00 Nicktoons :

22:00 Take Shelte

23:00 Chowder

22:25 Dylan Dog: Dead Of Night

18:30 Nicktoons :

14:30 The Fairly Oddparents

09:25 Julie S Julia

15:00 Victorious

11:30 Bruce Almighty

15:30 Icarly

13:15 Perfect Stranger

16:00 Big Time Rush

15:05 Kung Fu Hustle

16:30 Figure It Out

16:45 Men In Black Ii

17:00 Spongebob Squarepants 17:30 Rocket Monkeys

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

14:30 Mlb Regular Season 17:30 Baseball Tonight International 18:30 Fox Sports Central Live 19:00 Abl Crossover 19:30 Total Rugby 20:00 Copa Lagos 21:00 Fox Sports Central 21:30 Ufc Tonight 22:00 Ufc Couhctdown 23:00 Total Rugby 23:30 Fox Sports Central

14:15 Highway Thru Hell:

12:00 Build It Bigger

13:00 Taking On Tyson

15:10 Bid S Destroy

13:00 Combat Countdown

14:00 Bad Dog!

15:35 Bid A Destroy

14:00 World War Ii In Colour

15:00 Too Cute!

16:05 Wild Russia

15:00 Magic Of Science

17:00 The Living Edens

15:30 One Way Out

18:00 Hooked

16:00 Survivorman

19:00 Locked Up Abroad

17:00 How Do They Do It ?

22:00 Volvo China Open

20:00 Highway Thru Hell: Canada

17:30 How It’s Made

21:00 Bid A Destroy

18:00 River Monsters

23:00 Score Tonight

21:30 Bid 8 Destroy -

19:00 Body Bizarre

22:00 Hard Time

20:00 My Shocking Story

23:00 Highway Thru Hell:

21:00 American Chopper

20:00 Wheels 2 20:30 Score Tonight 21:00 Sbk Superbike World Champ 21:30 Wheels 2

23:30 Volvo China Open

16:00 Pit Bulls And Parolees 17:00 Must Love Cats 18:00 Echo And The Elephants Of

Amboseli 18:30 Dark Days In Monkey City 19:00 Taking On Tyson 20:00 Raised Wild

Comedy Dylan Dog: Dead Of Night

The adventures of supernatural private eye, Dylan Dog, who seeks out the monsters of the Louisiana bayou in his signature red shirt, black jacket, and blue jeans.

21:00 Finding Bigfoot 22:00 Untamed & Uncut 23:00 Must Love Cats

22:25

16

Mind boggles

THE PHNOM PENH POST • 7Days • Apr 26 - MAY 2, 2013

Free will astrology Week of APRIL 25

Aries

(March 21 – April 19) How we react to the sound of the wind gives clues to our temperament, said philosopher Theodor W. Adorno. The unhappy person thinks of “the fragility of his house and suffers from shallow sleep and violent dreams.” But for the happy person, the wind sings “the song of protectedness: its furious howling concedes that it has power over him no longer.” I bring this up to illustrate a point about your life. There will be a strong and vivid influence coming your way that is like the wind as described by Adorno. It’s neither bad nor good in itself, but may seem like one or the other depending on the state of mind you choose to cultivate.

Taurus

(April 20 – May 20) In 1921, Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev -- born under the sign of the Bull -- premiered his opera The Love for Three Oranges in the United States. Here’s how *The New York Times* felt about it: “There are a few, but only a very few, passages that bear recognizable kinship with what has hitherto been considered music.”

It’s possible, Taurus, that you will get a similar reaction when you debut your new approach or endeavor. And that may disturb you. But I think it would be a good omen -- a sign that you’re taking a brave risk as you try something innovative and unfamiliar.

Gemini

(May 21 – June 20) I’m passionate about doing whatever I can to make the world a better place. How boring and sad it would be if I only thought of satisfying my personal needs. But I also remember what Aldous Huxley said: “There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.” Even if you have mad skills at healing and fixing everyone whose life you touch, Gemini, Huxley’s reminder is good for you to honor right now. The place that’s in most pressing need of transmutation -- and where you’re most likely to be successful -- is within you.

Now here’s the trick ending: To the degree that you regenerate yourself, you will improve everyone around you. Your inner work will be contagious.

Cancer

(June 21 – July 22) Thomas Jefferson almost pulled off a miracle in 1784. America was a young country. There were only 13 states and a few unorganized territories. As a representative to the Continental Congress, Jefferson proposed an ordinance that would have prohibited slavery in those territories, including what would later become Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. By just one vote, alas, the provision failed to pass. Can you imagine what the United States would have been like if slavery had been partly extinguished decades before the Civil War? The moral of the story, Cancerian, is that at certain pregnant moments, small shifts can have big consequences. The astrological omens suggest your life will be proof of that in the coming weeks.

Leo

(July 23 – Aug. 22) I believe you will crawl or scramble or glide to the top of some mountain in the next four weeks. What mountain do you want it to be? A crumbly molehill?

A pile of cheap but useful gravel? A lofty peak where you can see for miles and miles? I urge you to decide soon on which of the possibilities you will choose. Then affirm your intention to call on all your resources, allies, and powers to help you make the ascent. This is a chance for serious expansion, Leo. Unleash your soulful ambitions.

Virgo

(Aug. 23 – Sept. 22) Have you ever seen a moonbow? It’s like a rainbow but is created by the reflected light of the moon instead of the sun. For this phenomenon to occur, the sky must be dark. The moon has to be full and setting in the west, near the horizon, and rain must be falling. So it’s a rare event. All the conditions have to be just right. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, it’s more likely than usual that you’ll spot one of these exceptional beauties in the coming days. Your affinity for curious wonders and mysterious marvels of all kinds will be at a peak. I suspect you will have a knack for being exactly where you need to be in order to experience them.

© Copyright 2013 Rob Brezsny

Libra

(Sept. 23 – Oct. 22) Lonesome George was about a hundred years old when he died last year. He was the last remaining member of a giant tortoise species that had lived on Ecuador’s Pinta Island for thousands of years. But scientists say his kind is not necessarily extinct forever.

They believe that by cross-breeding tortoises of other related species, they could recreate a 100-percentpure version of Lonesome George’s species. I suspect, Libra, that you may be able to pull off a metaphorically comparable resurrection -- especially if you initiate the effort in the coming weeks.

Scorpio

(Oct. 23 – Nov. 21) Let’s imagine ourselves near the snowy summit of Washington’s Mount Rainier. We’re in an unusual kind of cave. Volcanic steam rises from cracks in the rocky floor. Above us is a roof made of ice. As we stand between the heat and the chill, we find the temperature quite cozy. The extremes collaborate to produce a happy medium. Can you accomplish something in your life that’s similar to what’s going on in this cave? Metaphorically, I mean? I think you can.

“FLUSHED WITH PRIDE”

Sagittarius

(Nov. 22 – Dec. 21) We cannot accept the world as it is,” remarked Belgian author Hugo Claus. “Each day we should wake up foaming at the mouth from the injustice of things.”

I don’t subscribe to the idea that each day should begin like this. On some mornings we should rise and greet the world singing songs of praise for the great fortune of being alive. But I do think Claus’s approach is precisely right on certain occasions -- like now, for you Sagittarians. The time is ripe to tap into your reservoir of righteous anger. Fight to right the wrongs that disturb you the most.

Capricorn

(Dec. 22 – Jan. 19) “Your story begins the moment Eros enters you,” says Anne Carson in her book Eros the Bittersweet.

“That incursion is the biggest risk of your life. How you handle it is an index of the quality, wisdom and decorum of the things inside of you. As you handle it you come into contact with what is inside of you, in a sudden and startling way. You perceive what you are, what you lack, what you could be.” I want to extend Carson’s dramatic hypothesis. I’d like to propose that eros enters you again and again in the course of your life, and your story resets each time. How will you handle it when it makes its next incursion? Get ready, because here it comes.

Aquarius

(Jan. 20 – Feb. 18) “I prefer by far warmth and softness to mere brilliancy and coldness,” wrote Anais Nin in one of her early diaries. “Some people remind me of sharp dazzling diamonds. Valuable but lifeless and loveless. Others, of the simplest field flowers, with hearts full of dew and with all the tints of celestial beauty reflected in their modest petals.” I suspect that even if you normally love cold brilliancy, Aquarius, you will need an abundance of warmth and softness in the coming days. To attract the best possible embodiments of this influence, get clear about your favorite forms of it. Be picky! Don’t accept sloppy sentimentality.

Pisces

(Feb. 19 – March 20) Ludwig Wittgenstein was a genius.

His last book, which influenced many different fields of thought, is regarded as one of the most important philosophy tomes of the 20th century. And yet he was a big fan of foolishness. “If people did not sometimes do silly things,” he observed, “nothing intelligent would ever get done.” Another time he said, “Never stay up on the barren heights of cleverness, but come down into the green valleys of silliness.” Here’s one more of his opinions: “Don’t be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense.” I hope that’s enough evidence to support my advice, Pisces, which is: Now is a good time for you to get both smarter and wiser. And a good way to do that is to play and play and play some more.

Across

1 Where vows are exchanged 6 Coolidge’s vice president Charles 11 NFL signal-callers 14 River to the English Channel 15 Battery terminal 16 Abu Dhabi’s country, for short 17 Antarctic bird 19 Be on the side of caution?

20 PC linkup letters 21 LLC, in the U.K. 22 One of the Siamese twins 23 Dance in the streets 27 What Ray Lewis played 29 Zsa Zsa’s sister 30 Tears 32 Brown building?

33 Pulp fiction gumshoe 34 Agitated fits 36 Protests gone awry 39 Writing liquids 41 “Do well!”

43 Abbr. that can replace a lot of things 44 “No Country for Old Men” codirector Coen 46 Sounder of mind 48 Artist’s choice 49 “It’s a pity!”

51 Truth or ___ 52 Do the final step of 53 Glue relatives 56 Passes on, as wisdom 58 Abraham found one caught in a thicket 59 Significant time in history 60 All eternity, poetically 61 “Hail, Caesar!”

62 Child born May 1, 2002, on Nov. 1, 2012 68 A pop 69 It comes before penta 70 Cake section 71 Serpentine letter 72 Leg of a military march 73 Court reporter, e.g.

Down

1 “What would you like to know?”

2 Wahine’s gift 3 Type of foil or can 4 ___-Saxon 5 Auto mechanics’ jobs 6 John’s “Blues Brothers” co-star 7 Director Lee 8 “___ you mind?”

9 Corrected, as text

10 Summon 11 Beloved figure in England 12 Tractor shelters 13 Material that’s worsted for wear?

18 California oak 23 Adjust one’s shoelace 24 Happening 25 Sidewalk destroyers 26 Cinematic spectacles 28 U.S.-Canada border lake 31 Home extension?

35 Six-Day War battleground 37 “In your face!” is one 38 Coasters with runners 40 Shopper’s incentive 42 Named formally 45 “No, No” girl of Broadway 47 Undoes, as an amendment 50 Area between curbs 53 ___ myrtle (shrub) 54 Downspout sites 55 Present-day hero?

57 One who’s attained Nirvana 63 Renowned Dadaist Jean 64 “Sorry, laddie” 65 “Got it,” to a tar or gob 66 Dawson or Deighton 67 Big round hairdo, in slang

Thursday’s solution

Thursday’s solution

Apr 26 - MAY 2, 2013 • 7Days • THE PHNOM PENH POST

FRIDAY AFRO-SWAG FASHION SHOW Afro-beats, African food specials all night and models from around the world. $3 admission.

Show Box, #11 Street 330. 6pm KHMER ARCHITECTURE TOUR LECTURE Cambodian architect Yam Sokly presents a lecture on Sino-Khmer architecture. Free entrance.

Meta House, #37 Sothearos Boulevard. 6:30pm SOPHIE ROSE Sophie Rose, singer and song writer, performs contemporary soul. Special guest Ziad Samma.

Le Jardin, #16 Street 360. 7pm BLOOD AND SAND LAUNCH Photographer Erika Piñeros documents the bullfighting culture of her native Colombia through a series of photographs.

Chinese House, #45 Sisowath Quay. 7pm JAWORSKI 7 Post-punk, new wave, indie and then some. The band plays original material as well as covers from The Cure , The Smiths, Joy Division, Gang of Four and Devo as well as contemporary 1980s revivalist bands like The Killers, Bloc Party and Two Door Cinema Club.

Equinox, #3A Street 278. 7pm RITCHY AND PHIL British pop from the 1970s and 80s, with special guest David Treal on drums.

Red Apron, corner of Street 19 and 240. 7pm

The $6 entrance includes one standard drink.

Pontoon Club, #80 Street 172.

9pm CRIMINAL RECORDS A night of alternative Indie tunes with the occasional avant-garde live act.

La Croisette, #241 Sisowath Quay. 9:30pm

FILM SINK OR SWIM In 2012, the Goethe-Institute Bangkok invited participants from Cambodia, Laos, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam to produce short documentaries about various water issues. Join the premiere screening of the 15 films (all with English subtitles).

Meta House, #37 Sothearos Boulevard. 4pm

MOLOCH TROPICAL A democratically elected president and his closest collaborators are getting ready for a major state celebration with foreign leaders and dignitaries.

But the party is put at risk when he wakes up to find the country in turmoil. As the day goes on, the rebellion worsens. Will anyone come to the party that the he so elaborately planned?

French, with English subtitles.

Institut français, #218 Street 184. 6:30pm CLASH OF THE EMPIRES In this American “mockbuster” filmed in Kampot, Clash of the

Empires (formerly know as Age of the Hobbits) follows the story of an enslaved hero who escapes his bond, gathers his troops and begins a dangerous quest to claim an enchanted dagger that will give his people a chance for freedom from an oppressive warlord. Antonio Greco, who stars as King Korn, will introduce the movie.

Meta House, #37 Sothearos Boulevard. 7pm

SATURDAY DRAWING WITH CHARCOAL This workshop shows participants how to produce very professionallooking black and white images that are drawn with little chunks of charcoal and an eraser. You will also be shown how charcoal can be a good way of learning various gray gradients and lighting techniques. Workshop is $30. Sign up at info@ phnompenhcommunitycollege. com. Participants who bring a friend and also sign up for the afternoon acrylic workshop pay $40 in total.

Phnom Penh Community College, corner of Street 63 and 294. 9am DREAM THERAPY WORKSHOP Dream analyst Jane Teresa will show you how to look at your dreams as reflections of your unique unconscious beliefs and feelings about life. She will also show you how to apply her method of creative therapy (dream alchemy), to transform negative unconscious beliefs into beliefs that will support

AWESOME HITS Hit the dance floor with Riverside’s open space band.

Riverside Bistro, #273A, Sisowath Quay. 8pm PENTHOUSE Club music presented by DJ Tensions. Special cocktail is Penthouse Miami served for $4.

Vodka and champagne bottles are 20 per cent off from 1am. Free entrance.

Nova, #19 Street 214. 9pm KIN Soul, pop, blues, gypsy and reggae meet jazz - eclectic band Kin celebrates the mix of genres with energy and style.

Doors, #18 Street 47 and 84.

9pm STATION TO STATION Covers from David Bowie’s best years, from Life on Mars to Let’s Dance.

Sharky’s, #126 Street 130. 9pm PROFESSOR KINSKI’S DUB CLUB MEETS BASS SESSION DJs Sequence, Kaotek and Mercy connect with Dub Addiction mastermind Professor Kinski.

Meta House, #37 Sothearos Boulevard. 9pm DOWN BY THE RIVER

DJ GANG AND DJ ROB

The Royal Palace is seen from the far side of the river. SCOTT HOWES

your intentions, and heal painful or unresolved unconscious emotions and issues.

Ragamuffin, #123A Street 12BT. 9:30am SATURDAY AND SUNDAY ROAST AT SCORE Classic weekend roast served at Score Sports Bar and Grill every weekend.

Score Sports Bar and Grill, #5 Street 288. 12-5pm INTERMEDIATE LEVEL PAINTING WITH ACRYLICS After spending the first hour being acquainted with the basics of acrylic painting, participants will be look at colour palettes, light temperature and shading, textures, and transparency with paint. Participants who bring a friend and also sign up for the morning charcoal workshop pay $40 in total.

Phnom Penh Community College, corner of Street 63 and 294. 1:30pm KONINGINNEDAG 2013 The last ever Queen’s Day of the Netherlands and the coronation of the new King WillemAlexander. Enjoy Orange Beer, poffertjes (mini pancakes), a flea market and kids games.

Cellier D’Asie, #62 Street 432.

4pm PASS THE JAM Live music and open mic featuring Euan Gray. New performers encouraged to share their talents. Limited seats, so arrive on time.

The Terrace on 95, #43 Street

95. 6:30pm

#363 Sisowath Quay. 8:30pm

LITTLE KITCHEN: SOUTH AFRICA In honor of South African Freedom Day, South African amateur cooks will serve traditional South African cuisine in an all-you-can eat buffet.

Short films screenings and drink specials included. Admission is $15. All tickets support NGO M’Lup Russey. Buy tickets in advance at the Meta House Art Cafe, or make a reservation at littlekitchenpp@hotmail.com.

Only 70 tickets will be sold.

Meta House, #37 Sothearos Boulevard. 6:30pm

Q’VANS SALSA PARTY Live Cuban salsa party.

The Latin Quarter, corner of Street 178 and 19. 9pm

RITCHY AND PHIL British pop from the 1970s and 80s, with special guest David Treal on drums.

Red Apron, corner of Street 19 and 240. 7pm BERLIN TROPICAL PARTY Electronic beats, German eats and tropical vibes. Featuring DJ Tech, Tonle Dub and Sequence.

Free entry.

Show Box, #11 Street 330. 8pm A JET SET Jet and his band perform melodic, singer-songwriter material mainly from the 1970s before shaking it up with standards from the 1920s-1950s to add a bit of swing to the mix.

The Village, #1 Street 330.

8:30pm SALSA NIGHT With DJ Jimmy.

Foreign Correspondents Club,

DURIAN FAREWELL CONCERT The last concert for the Durian funk band is being held at the venue where it all started.

Equinox, #3A Street 278.

9:30pm DJ TECH 12 AND MC HYDROPONICS $6 entrance includes one Stoli mixer. Buy one Stoli bottle, get one free.

Pontoon Club, #80 Street 172.

9pm SWAGGER Features the DJs of Invisible Agent, a Phnom Penh-based electronica music label, as well as live painting by Chhan Dina. Free entrance.

Meta House, Sothearos Boulevard. 10pm

FILM BRENDAN ET LE SECRET DE KELLS In Ninth Century Ireland in the fortified abbey of Kells lives Brendan, a 12-year-old monk. He meets with Aidan, a celebrated master “guardian” of illuminated books. Aidan will initiate Kells in “the art of illumination” and Kells’ prodigious talent is revealed.

18

Entertainment

THE PHNOM PENH POST • 7Days • Apr 26 - MAY 2, 2013

French version.

Institut français, #218 Street 184. 2:30pm A SERIES OF DOCUMENTARIES Four Khmer-language documentaries highlighting the art of producing silver sculptures, artwork from goldsmiths, and the Khmer Khmok-Smach masks.

Produced by the Department of Cinema and Cultural Diffusion.

Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center, #64 Street 200. 4pm

MOLOCH TROPICAL A democratically elected president and his closest collaborators are getting ready for a major state celebration with foreign leaders and dignitaries.

But the party is put at risk when he wakes up to find the country in turmoil. As the day goes on, the rebellion worsens. Will anyone come to the party that the he so elaborately planned?

French, with English subtitles.

Institut Français, #218 Street 184. 6:30pm

SUNDAY ROAST SUNDAZE All day roast. Free beer or glass of wine.

From $7.50 The Local, #8 Street 144. All day.

ACRO YOGA AND PARTNER YOGA WORKSHOP Join Daphne Chua and Marc Bauchet, visiting teachers from Saigon. Partner Yoga (morning session) conditions our bodies, minds and hearts. We play with gravity and cultivate the art of communication through contact and movement. Acro Yoga (afternoon session) adds deep core and alignment work in a fun and supportive environment, balanced with therapeutic floating, yoga and the benefits of mutual healing techniques. $25 per session or $40 for both. Email phnompenhyoga@gmail.com or call 012 739 419 for details.

Yoga! Phnom Penh Studio, #172 Z2 Norodom Boulevard.

10:30am, 12:30pm SATURDAY AND SUNDAY ROAST AT SCORE Classic weekend roast served at Score Sports Bar and Grill every weekend.

Score Sports Bar and Grill, #5 Street 288. 12-5pm SUNDAY CARVERY A traditional carvery with a selection of succulent roast

THURSDAY – GLAMAZON Phnom Penh’s avant-garde extravaganza returns for a second year. With an “overthe-top outrageous” dress code, Naga World will host an evening of haute couture, extreme make-overs and kitsch performances from celebrity drag acts including Jujubee from RuPaul’s Drag Race. A catwalk show, dancing from the Central School of Ballet and ditties from Rhiannon Johnson are on the cards. It’s for a good cause too, with proceeds donated to conservation group Wildlife Alliance.

Tickets $30 and available from The Dollhouse, Paperdolls and NYX Stores.

Naga World, Samdech Hun Sen. 7:30pm

meats.

The Exchange, #28 Street 47.

1pm HASH HOUSE HARRIERS Cross country running and walking through fields, farms and foliage followed by Anchor beer and soft drinks. Walkers and runners of all shapes and sizes are welcome. $5 for expats, $2 for locals. Fees include all bottled water, cool drinks and beer.

Phnom Penh Railway Station, corner of Monivong and Russian Boulevards. 2pm TOUCH RUGBY Social touch (non-contact) rugby.

New-comers welcome, contact pptouchrugby@gmail.com for more info and to be put on the mailing list.

ISPP, #144 Norodom Boulevard. 3-5pm TEXAS BBQ All you can eat Texas barbecue. $7.50 per head.

Sundance Inn and Saloon, #61 Street 172. 3pm ULTIMATE FRISBEE Pickup games and league games.

All levels welcome. Contact Greg at gbloom88@gmail.com for more information.

Northbridge International School. 3pm CHESS CLUB No charge, but we ask that you buy a drink to justify our presence.

Open Wine Restaurant, #219

Street 19. 4pm JAM SESSION With Smokin’ Kenny Smith. All musicians welcome. Margaritas and Cranbullkas sold.

Sharky Rock n Roll Bar and Restaurant, #126 Street 130.

8pm FILIPINO DANNY Acoustic covers of crowd favorites every Sunday.

The Local, corner of Sisowath Quay and Street 144. 8pm FILIPINO NIGHT All friends from the Philippines are welcome! Features timeless Filipino hits. Angkor Draft, cocktail and spirits are at buy two get one free.

Riverside Bistro, #273A Sisowath Quay. 8pm EUAN GRAY & GTS JAZZ Every Sunday.

Riverhouse Lounge, corner of Sisowath Quay and Street 110.

8:30pm

FILM NARGIS- WHEN TIME STOPPED BREATHING Burma’s first ever feature-length documentary captures the aftermath of the 2008 Cyclone Nargis, which killed nearly 140,000 people. For years, the creators of this award-winning documentary would not reveal their true identities and could

FRIDAY - BLOOD AND SAND With a history that stretches back to the 12th Century in Spain, bullfighting is a time-honoured tradition, both loved and loathed around the world. Introduced to Colombia by the Spanish conquistadors centuries ago, it has evolved into a national sport. Today, there are those who cherish it and those calling for its ban.

Phnom Penh-based photographer Erika Piñeros, who is known in Cambodia for her documentation of land rights issues, now focuses on her native country’s controversial sport. By photographing the matadores and the bulls they are pitted against in the bullring, she documents of an art form that, for better or worse, is facing extinction.

Chinese House, #45 Sisowath Quay. 7pm

not screen the film in their own country.

Meta House, #37 Sothearos Boulevard. 4pm

TRUE LOVE - PHEAKDEY SNEY The story of a young woman who moves from the province to Phnom Penh. But instead of a better life, she falls into the hands of human traffickers.

Meta House, #37 Sothearos Boulevard. 6:30pm

MONDAY HAPPY MONDAYS Reggae and wood-fired pizza.

Show Box, #11 Street 330. 6pm MARGARITA MAYHEM Shake your blues away with Margaritas in every flavour. Buy one get one free all night. Enjoy mash-up remixes and tunes with DJ Narata.

Riverhouse Lounge, corner of Sisowath Quay and Street 110.

8:30pm OLD MASTER CHARLIE Acoustic guitar & harmonica with songs ranging from old classics to modern music.

Riverside Bistro, #273A, Sisowath Quay. 8pm

TUESDAY

TWO 4 TUESDAY Resident DJs playing the best popular dance tracks, buy two get one free for cocktails and mixed drinks all night.

Riverhouse Lounge, corner Sisowath Quay and Street 110.

4pm QUIZ NIGHT Teams can accumulate points just for playing and win great prizes at the end of the season.

Weekly prizes are featured as well. $1 per person, with winning team taking all.

The Gym Sports Bar, #42 Street 178. 5:30pm DEMOCRATS ABROAD ANNUAL MEETING US Democrats Abroad will hold a meeting and officer elections.

All are encouraged to attend, but only registered member of Democrats Abroad can vote.

Meta House, #37 Sothearos Boulevard. 6pm WONDERFUL DUAL Songs by KC and Michael on acoustic guitar and keyboard.

Riverside Bistro, #273A, Sisowath Quay. 8pm OPEN MIC Musicians, poets, comedians or other entertainers invited to join.

Sundance Inn and Saloon, #61 Street 172. 8pm CONCERT Presented by Korean Vocal Ensemble. Features songs from Cambodia, Korea and Europe.

Admission $5, students $2. Call

077 787 038 for reservations.

Meta House, #37 Sothearos Boulevard. 8pm LADY + THE TRAMP Originals and covers on piano and guitar.

The Village, #1 Street 360.

8:30pm

FILM SUR LA PLANCHE This is the story of an imperiled sisterhood of four girls on the run.

French with English subtitles.

Institut français, #218 Street 184. 2:30pm FOREST MOUNTAIN VOICES This documentary, created by an indigenous community media team based in Ratanakiri, overcomes barriers imposed by high levels of illiteracy and widespread poverty. Also screening is Spirit Forest by Ream Chamrouen.

Meta House, #37 Sothearos Boulevard. 4pm

WEDNESDAY ULTIMATE FRISBEE Pickup games from 4.30pm at ISPP field. Contact Greg at gbloom88@gmail.com for more information.

ISPP, Street 380 between Street 57 and 51. 3-5pm IN BETWEEN

Entertainment

Apr 26 - MAY 2, 2013 • 7Days • THE PHNOM PENH POST

19

Join us to improve your flexibility, strength, balance, posture and stress levels!

Email phnompenhyoga@ gmail.com or call 012 739 419 for details.

SATURDAY - LITTLE KITCHEN: SOUTH AFRICA To mark the nineteenth anniversary of South Africa’s first post-apartheid elections, Little Kitchen will provide a feast of South African “rainbow cuisine” for its monthly charity fundraiser. The food will be prepared by amateur cooks from South Africa.

The revenue will benefit M’Lup Russey, an NGO which works on providing emergency foster-care to children who have been separated from their families, as well as supporting young people who leave orphanages to start safe and independent lives. Past Little Kitchen buffets have featured Balkan, Mexican and Persian dishes. Tickets cost $15, and only 70 will be sold. Buy tickets at Meta House Art cafe, or make a reservation at littlekitchenpp@hotmail.com.

Meta House, #37 Sothearos Boulevard. 6:30pm

Gay and lesbian night, with prizes for best dressed.

Show Box, #11 Street 330.

7pm GTS JAZZ New York jazz night. A selection of standard and original tunes to recreate a typical jazz club feel.

Sofitel Phnom Penh Phokeethra 25 Old Auguste Site, Sothearos Blvd. 7:30pm TRIVIA NIGHT $2 entry per player, maximum seven people per team.

The Willow #1 St 21. 7:30pm DIVA NIGHT Ladies get special offers.

Angkor draft, cocktails and spirits are buy two get one free.

Boys dressed like ladies are welcome.

Riverside Bistro, #273A, Sisowath Quay. 8pm QUIZ NIGHT Lots of prizes and drink specials. $1 entry.

Sundance Inn and Saloon #61 Street 172. 8pm MIXED 8 BALL COMPETITION First prize is a $25 Bar Tab, second and third prize is a bottle of wine.

Sharky’s, #126 Street 130.

8:30pm

FILM

LOOKING BACK, LOOKING AHEAD PART 1 Consists of 10 minidocumentaries on Khmer Rouge history and reconciliation, produced by students from Phnom Penh’s Department of Media and Communication.

Meta House, #37 Sothearos Boulevard. 4pm REDLIGHT A documentary about child sexploitation, focusing on the personal stories of Cambodian victims, grassroots activist Somaly Mam and politician Mu Sochua.

Meta House, #37 Sothearos Boulevard. 7pm

THURSDAY BALL HOCKEY Sticks provided. Contact Greg at gbloom88@gmail.com for more information.

City Villa, corner of Street 360 and 71. 7pm PHNOM PENH BOWLING LEAGUE All welcome, regardless of skills. Three games played each week with average scores recorded over the season for a final league ranking and winner’s trophy. Entry is $6 each.

Parkway Square, corner of Mao Tse Toung Blvd and Street 163. 7:30pm

SATURDAY - DURIAN FAREWELL CONCERT Fans of the funk band Durian will be saddened to hear that the band will play its last gig this weekend. Founded in 2011 by an eclectic assortment of expats, Durian has played its special style of funk music in Phnom Penh for over a year. After a six month hiatus, the band returned to the stage in December 2012.

Its music combines the sounds of the trombone, trumpet, conga drums, sax, bass, guitar, and lead singer Rhiannon Johnson’s fabulous vocals.

Equinox, #3A Street 278. 9:30pm

GLAMAZON 2.0 Presented by the Dollhouse hair salon, the Glamazon fashion show is to feature the collections of Keok’jay and Juli Handayani, as well as performances by the Phnom Penh Central School of Ballet, singer Rhiannon Johnson and PPSS. Hosted by Jujubee, the star of Rapaul’s Drage Race.

Tickets are $30, available at Paperdolls, Dollhouse, all NYX stores and Cha’Nails.

NagaWorld, Samdech Hun Sen Boulevard. 7:30pm JAMMING NIGHT Acoustic and rock music. Join our band with your own talent.

Riverside Bistro, #273A, Sisowath Quay. 8pm LADIES NIGHT It’s ladies night and the feeling’s right. Hot dance and house tunes. Buy two get one free.

Riverhouse Lounge, corner of Sisowath Quay and Street 110. 8:30pm OPEN MIC NIGHT All musicians and singers welcome to join.

Paddy Rice, corner of Sisowath Quay and Street 136. 9pm SWING DANCING With Mama Swing Equinox, #3A Street 278. 9pm

X-PAT SOUND SYSTEM Psytrance/techtrance with German DJ Chris Quixote.

Meta House, #37 Sothearos Boulevard. 9pm VANITY NIGHT Ladies receive one free bottle of 12-year-old whiskey, a bottle of vodka or one free carafe of cocktail.

NOVA, #19 Street 214. 9pm

FILM REEL PEACE During the many years of hostilities in Sri Lanka there was a lot of misrepresentation of the conflict and the impact that this was having on the lives of ordinary civilians on both sides. This documentary is a compilation of six short films from Sinhalese and Tamil writers.

Meta House, #37 Sothearos Boulevard. 4pm KINSHASA SYMPHONY This documentary by Claus Wischmann and Martin Baer shows how people living in one of the most chaotic cities in the world have managed to forge one of the most complex systems of human cooperation ever invented: a symphony orchestra. It is a film about the Congo, about the people of Kinshasa and about music.

Meta House, #37 Sothearos Boulevard. 7pm

ONGOING BLOOD AND SAND LAUNCH Photographer Erika Piñeros documents the bullfighting culture of her native Colombia through a series of photographs.

Chinese House, #45 Sisowath Quay.

CLAY EXHIBITION BY OUK SOCHEATHY Socheathy works with clay as it were an entity with its own life.

The form is revealed by itself, a subtle mixture of human artistic intervention and spontaneity.

Institut français, #218 Street 184. 11am-6:30pm. Runs until May 18.

IN MOTION A Collection of Photographs by Todd Brown. Discover a fresh side of Southeast Asia through a compilation of images from Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, and India.

Chinese House, #45 Sisowath Quay.

OPEN SPACE BAND Live music Wednesday-Sunday, playing ‘60s, soul, jazz, blues, rock Riverside Bistro, #273A Sisowath Quay. 8pm YOGA CLASSES Daily Yoga Classes with Oskar and Alison at two locations.

PRETHEA CHA The exhibition will showcase the work of talented German photographer Jessica Hetke, who spent time at three of CLA’s traditional arts teachers’ homes, and captured their everyday lives.

Cambodia Living Arts, #128G9 Sothearos Boulevard.

From April 2.

DANCE WORLD CAMBODIA Classes in a range of dance forms from ballet, jazz, and tap, to break dancing, k-pop, and belly dancing. There are classes available for all ages. For class prices and timetables go to danceworldcambo.wordpress. com Dance World Cambodia #313 Sisowath Quay, (Hotel Cambodiana - Entrance at Physique Club Gym) WINE, FOOD AND MUSIC Each day for nearly a week prepare to be serenaded by Lolito on piano and DJ Lady Bluesabelle mixing global sounds of world jazz, Latin, soul and tropical beats during sunset.

Le Bar at the Sofitel, #26 Sothearos Boulevard. 6pm till late, every week Tuesday through Saturday.

DECONSTRUCTING PHNOM PEHH A photo-montage by English photographer David Holliday that reconstructs edifices of the city’s architecture based on the artist’s memory.

Intercontinental Hotel, # 296 Mao Tse Toung Boulevard.

Runs until May 5.

DRIP EXHIBITION Inspired by the villas of Kep from the mid 20th Century, Hak aims to demonstrate the old 1950s and 60s architecture through a multi-medium approach.

Institut français, #218 Street 184. Runs until May 18.

“DORSU! THE STRUGGLE FOR CHANGE” LAUNCH Photo exhibition by Heather Stilwell. Each photograph was taken within the last year during street protests, at garment factories, or inside people’s homes to capture moments that are rarely seen by the everyday observer.

Craft Peace Cafe, #14 Street 392.

20

Last look

THE PHNOM PENH POST • 7Days • Apr 26 - MAY 2, 2013

Keys to success: piano man hits right chord Rosa ellen ITH its cane lounge chairs, colonial-era jungle ceiling paintings, storied history as a foreign correspondents’ hang-out and an oft-touted Jackie Kennedy connection – Raffles’s Elephant Bar oozes old-world sophistication. But it wouldn’t be the same without the tinkling melodies of pianist Roel Manalo. For the past seven years, at cocktail hour, the self-taught Philippines-born musician has been lubricating the atmosphere of the iconic hotel bar with a seemingly endless repertoire of songs, from Gershwin to Abba.

With his dark suit, combed hair and an air of serene jolliness, 50year-old Manalo summons the era of the bar with more than just his florid finger work.

“When I come here, I look around and if there’s someone in a meeting, I play something quite soft – a little classical. Then, when the crowd is getting a bit wilder, I adjust to a louder song – but the piano is higher than the pool table, and I have to adjust the sound.”

Life at the five-star hotel – where he lives in a guest room and plays six days a week from 6pm to 10:45pm – is “excellent”, he says, and his extensive songbook deflects any monotony.

For some months before he arrived from the Philippines to

W

Tickling the ivories: Raffles’s Elephant Bar would be far quieter without Roel Manalo. scott howes

play at the Phnom Penh hotel, the bar was without a resident pianist.

Without music, the only sounds echoing the cream, high-ceilinged space of the Elephant Bar are clinking glasses and the desultory knocks of billiard balls. How does he set the mood?

“Love songs,” he says. “Mariah Carey. I start with Hero and then Open Arms. But sometimes [guests] don’t know I’m just practicing and moving my fingers. I do it for 10 minutes [mimics fluttering his hands

The view from Preah Vihear. scott howes

up and down the keys] and then start from the book.”

A hefty bound songbook, with literally hundreds of song titles like a karaoke catalogue, sits near the upright piano for people to choose from. A Mariah Carey ballad might seem an unlikely choice, but Manalo keeps himself entertained with his own improvisations. He has been known to play a 15-minute long – Summertime.

“I play mostly standards from the age bracket . . . but sometimes a

standard song I have to play a new way and make it longer and longer.

In the Philippines, I played in a fivestar hotel, but I like playing abroad.

In the Philippines, there’s a lot of competition.”

With a small but musical Filipino community in Phnom Penh, it’s not hard for the musician to find fellow jamming partners on his nights off. Every now and then, after playing until 10:45 or later – for two-hour stretches – the pianist ditches his suit for shorts and joins

with Filipino rockers at bars like Memphis.

“Sometimes I go there for guest keyboard. We do some rock ‘n’ roll – it’s a nice change,” he smiles.

Karaoke is huge in the Philippines, adds Raffles’s marketing manager, Noemi Payumo, who is also Filipino and has noticed a relatively high number of working musicians in Phnom Penh.

“Maybe we’re gifted,” Manalo suggests.

His preferred jam is jazz, but despite his prodigious song knowledge, there are music requests he gets in advance from guests that he must teach himself on his keyboard in his room, with help from YouTube.

Sometimes the midday movie feel of the nostalgic piano music is no joke: the hardest-to-learn request he has received was the theme to the Shirley Maclaine tearjerker Terms of Endearment [“I thought, ‘Oh my God.’”] or a Beethoven sonata, by the highbrow bar-goer.

From picking up the piano from his nieces in Quezon province, Philippines, to replacing a whole house band on a cruise ship and entertaining elderly folk in Japan, Manalo has had a varied career, but says he is content filling the Elephant Bar with his melodies.

“Everything is magic”, he says, smiling like a pro, before preparing for another shift at the ebony and ivory.

The Lowdown on Temple Town

April 26 - MAY 2, 2013

Priceless

FULL MARATHON DEBUTS NEXT YEAR New governor for Siem Reap

By Thik Kaliyann

S

iem Reap, renowned for its annual Angkor Wat International Half Marathon race run in December, will now be host to a full marathon to be held in the low season to attract more visitors to town.

The inaugural 42 kilometre full marathon will be held next year, on August 17, 2014, according to the event manager Muy Lath, and will be called the ‘Angkor Empire Full Marathon.’ He added that, like the half marathon, disabled people can also compete.

Muy Lath said the website for the first Angkor Empire Full Marathon is now under construction, and will be finished next month.

But organisers have wasted no time in gearing up for the marathon – officials were in Siem Reap last week busily signing up sponsors, and some details were released about the route which will take runners into the heart of

Last year’s half marathon attracted a record field of contenders . PHOTOS SUPPLIED

PHOTOS SUPPLIED

town. And, like the half marathon, the majority of the route will be through the Angkor Archeological Park, a World Heritage site.

So as of next year Siem Reap will become an international runner’s paradise, with two major races: the full marathon in August and the half marathon in December.

Last year the registered number of runners for the 17th Angkor Wat International Half Marathon was 6,241, and this year Muy Lath

By Thik Kaliyann

hopes the number will top 7,000 participants.

But it is too early to predict the number of runners who will compete in the full marathon.

The half marathon is an internationally recognised charity to raise funds for the relief of victims of antipersonnel mines in Cambodia.

It has been held annually to give courage and hope to victims of land mines, and as part of an ongoing campaign for a ban on the inhumane use of antipersonnel mines.

Bike ride from Laos to raise funds for hospital

By Miranda Glasser A five-day fund-raising bike ride from the Laos border to Siem Reap will kick off on May14, led by six-time national biking champion and former Olympic Cycling Federation member, Mr Lucky, aka Samnang Meas, who also won the 2012 Angkor Wat Bike Race.

Funds raised will go to the Angkor Hospital for Children.

Ride organiser and PEPY Tours coordinator Choch Chor said that on May 14 six riders, Khmer and western, will set out from the Laos-Cambodia border, making their way to Siem Reap, covering approximately 450 kilometres along the way. “We will leave Siem Reap on May 10,� Choch said. “On May 12 we arrive at the border and

we will explore, take it easy and prepare for the bike ride. On May 14 we leave from the border, down to Steung Treung, then to Preah Vihear province, to Ko Ker temple and from there to Beng Melea. We’ll finish in front of Angkor Wat.�

The group will no doubt be helped in their efforts by the presence of group leader, Samnang Meas. “He is an incredible man,�

Choch said. “He loves cycling. He knows most of the Cambodian dirt roads. He’s been riding bicycles everywhere so that is a big help. Without him it would be hard because we don’t know the routes.�

Choch Chor said the idea was conceived following a KhmerTalks session. KhmerTalks is similar to ideas-sharing concept TEDX, but designed for Khmers, with all talks

Bike ride organiser Choch Chor with eager KhmerTalks Siem Reap co-founders, at Angkor Wat. PHOTO

SUPPLIED

in Khmer. Talks take place in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. “I volunteer for KhmerTalks Siem Reap,� Choch said. “We’ve hosted events here four or five times already and each time we try to raise a bit of money for the children’s hospital. A while ago we were discussing if we could do anything different. I’ve been doing a lot of bike riding lately

Ready to eat Asian Food Cakes - Mini Pizza’s - Pies Dessert’s - Fresh Juice and more ‡ •‡”˜‡ ƒ˜ œœƒ ‘ƥ‡‡ ƒÂ?† ÂŽÂŽ Â?ƒ–—”ƒŽ ‡™ ‡ƒŽƒÂ?† …‡ ”‡ƒÂ? ‡Ž ÇŁ Í”Í?͛͛ Í•Í›Í? Í›Í?Í” ÇĄ Í”Í?͛͛ ͙͔͙ Í?Í™Í? Â?ƒ‹Ž ÇŁ •Â?ƒ’’›Ǥ•‹‡Â?Â”Â‡ÂƒÂ’ĚˇÂ‰Â?ƒ‹ŽǤ…‘Â? ™™™Ǥˆƒ…‡„‘‘Â?Ǥ…‘Â?Ȁ•Â?ƒ’’›Ǥ•‹‡Â?”‡ƒ’ ‡Š‹Â?† ‘–‡Ž ‹˜‹‡”ƒ Č‹Â”Â‹Â˜Â‡Â”Â•Â‹Â†Â‡ČŒ ƒÂ?† ‹Â? ˆ”‘Â?– ‘ˆ ˜› —‡•– ‘—•‡ǥ ‹‡Â? Â‡ÂƒÂ’ÇĄ ƒÂ?„‘†‹ƒ

so I thought of a bike ride. We all agreed.�

Choch said that as well as raising money for the hospital, riders also want to encourage people to donate blood. He said that a lack of information and a fear that it may be dangerous stops a lot of people donating blood. “They need to know that it is not dangerous, and it’s giving those who need blood an opportunity to live another day.�

He added, “The other idea is to raise awareness in Cambodia’s younger generation about getting involved with social action. To encourage them to give whatever they can – their time, their money, their materials – to whatever is needed around them. It doesn’t have to be the children’s hospital, that’s just one example.�

Rumours, speculation and inside tips about a new governor being installed in Siem Reap province have been swirling since July last year.

On November 23 last year Insider’s Man About columnist reported, “Who will be the next governor of Siem Reap? The rumour mill is running rife, and the smart money seems to be on Khim Bun Song, the owner of the five-star hotel, Borei Angkor Resort and Spa. “Khim Bun Song is one of four deputy governors of Siem Reap, and he is also a Brigadier General in charge of the Siem Reap Military Command. “But Siem Reap officialdom is remaining tight lipped about who will be Sou Phirin’s successor.

Bun Tharith, another Siem Reap deputy governor said, ‘I don’t know about this matter. But if we get some information, we will surely let Siem Reap residents know’.�

On Monday this week Bun Tharith, true to his word, informed Insider that as of April 18, the installment of a new governor for Siem Reap became official.

Bun Tharith told Insider, “Khim Bun Song, Siem Reap Military Commander is going to replace Sou Phirin’s position as governor of Siem Reap province.�

Bun Tharith added that a ceremony to install the new governor will be held soon, but a firm date has not yet been advised.

On April 18, while speaking during the inauguration of a new administration building of Kampot province, Prime Minister Hun Sen said that ten cities and provinces would get new governors.

He said the governor of Oddar Meanchy would be replaced due to ill health, and the governor of Banteay Meanchey province would stand down because he was running as a political candidate in the July general election.

Eight other governors would retire due to age and the Siem Reap governor was included in this list, along with the governors of KampongThom, Kampong Cham, Stung Treng, Kandal, Kampong Speu, Mondolkiri, and Phnom Penh Municipality.

Governor’s terms run for four years and the retirement age is 60.

Siem Reap’s new district governor, Khim Bun Song.

PHOTO SUPPLIED

2

Siem Reap Insider

Man About Town Peter Olszewski PUKE-INDUCING JARGON Thai-based Khiri Travel has kicked off a minor flap with a press release about creating a “Cambodia immersion trip for millionaires.”

The press release claims that Khiri Travel Cambodia “has created a flexible 10-day luxury trip for millionaire travellers seeking immersion in Khmer culture. Highlights include helicopter visits to spectacular 11th century mountain temples away from the crowds, a personal dinner with a view of Angkor, and a private jet to an exclusive island retreat on the Cambodian Riviera.”

This has got up the nose of the website Property Report, where an unnamed hack writes, “I don’t have a problem with comfort and high end travel – I work on a luxury property magazine – but I have a problem with the destination management company in question selling this trip as the ultimate immersion into Khmer culture. As far as my modest studies of Khmer culture go, private jets and helicopters is not part of Khmer culture, unless, of course, you were part of the elite.”

The hack ends the piece by saying, “So what destination management firms like Khiri Travel should do is stop pretending that private helicopters and jets will immerse anyone in anything other than self-indulgence. Being honest and real about what is taking place in Cambodia right now will go a long way in making sure the progress will be for the better.”

The press release also got up Man About’s nose due to his intense aversion to jargon. Hence the press release’s claim that the lucky millionaires will mix engagements with “dining at privately-run local restaurants that Khiri knows produce nuanced high quality dining in evocative Khmer settings” was puke-inducing.

Indeed, “nuanced high quality dining” is almost up there, but not quite, with the wankerism employed by over-enthusiastic wine writers who produce such incomprehensible gibberish as “profound, mellow and opulent in character” and “dense yet harmonious herbal character of medium body, smooth yet grippy.”

KINGS ROAD DEVELOPMENT More details have emerged about the ambitious and upscale retail project called Kings Road Angkor which is emerging near the Old Market. Much has been made of the fact that this approximately 5,000 square-metre, open-air shopping centre will house a Hard Rock Café. This will of course be the feature business in the complex, but wait, there’s more. Alain Dupuis, director of Meas Development, which together along with Phnom Penh-based Worldwide Investment Group signed the Hard Rock Deal, this week revealed some of the other businesses that will open in the complex.

He listed the Blue Pumpkin, Terrazza, Yoshinoya, Emperor of China, Pho 24, California Grill and an Indian restaurant.

He added, “There will be six other restaurants not run by us – two Japanese, three Cambodian and a Costa Coffee.”

Meanwhile, the unconfirmed buzz around town is that retail sites at the complex have been going for a minimum of $2,500 – and the complex is fully sold out.

This will be a vibrant fillip to downtown business and there’s much speculation as to how it will affect the slightly down-atheel Pub Street.

PARK HYATT UPDATE The opening date for the classy new Park Hyatt has not yet been confirmed. But general manager Franz Mascarenhas says, “Good progress has been made on site and I expect we will open around end June, early July 2013.”

The town’s cafe au laiters and espressonites are eagerly awaiting the opening of the Park Hyatt’s café, hoping that the glasswalled magnificence will be the new centre of the café culture universe which has sadly been displaced since the close of the Hotel de la Paix café. Former la Paix adherents have been shuffling around town with their laptop cords in tow, trying to find a fitting place to plug into.

The Red Piano Restaurant Siem Reap is looking for a western chef · Reliable · Experience in Cambodia a Plus Send CV to Geertcaboor@online.com.kh

THE PHNOM PENH POST Siem Reap insider Apr 26 - MAY 2, 2013

Brit snapper launches international exhibition of local photos

By Miranda Glasser

D

itch diggers working near Angkor Wat and residentsofAndong slum are some of the images featured in an exhibition for Oxfam by British photographer Emma Hardy.

The exhibition, titled Cambodia: Losing Ground, which highlights landgrabbing, has been shown in London, and is now showing in Washington DC until the end of the month.

Hardy was commissioned

by Oxfam earlier this year to put together an exhibition in support of the organisation’s land campaign, which calls for global action on land grabs.

“There was an agenda from Oxfam Cambodia to tell the story of land grabs, that is Cambodians being forcibly evicted from their homes and land by the government to make way for developments and land sales for factories etc.” she says. “Oxfam asked me to put together images to help support their lobby against the World Bank and other governments who lend to Cambodia, thus perpetuating the land grab situation.”

Hardy, who has photographed for The New York Times, Vanity Fair and The

A white horse adds a unique touch to an Angkor Wat photo. EMMA HARDY

Telegraph magazine, says she wasn’t actually photographing for an exhibition per se. “When I was travelling through Cambodia I was documenting the people that I met, and trying to illustrate their situations without resorting to pathos or a less dignified, victim-type approach,” she says. “I was very inspired by the dignity, courage, and grace of the people I met, and this is what I tried to capture in my photographs.”

The photographs are taken in and around Phnom Penh, Pursat province, Kampong Chhnang, Kampong Speu and Siem Reap. Of the Siem Reap images, perhaps the most striking is a white horse in front of one of the smaller temples at Angkor Wat. The picture has an old, almost painting-like quality to it.

“The horse is adorned with ceremonial harness, and imitates the remarkably detailed marble carvings of decorated war horses inside the long

Emma Hardy photographing monkeys at Angkor Wat. PHOTO SUPPLIED

corridors of Angkor Wat main temple itself,” says Hardy. “This white horse had his head bowed and arched. He looked like a painting or a carving, at once unreal and timeless.”

Hardy also snapped some ditch-diggers she spotted near the temple complex, an image she feels epitomises the juxtaposition of “ancient and modern.”

“I came across this group of workers late in the afternoon,” she says. “They were dressed in standard issue government workers' clothes, faded to a soft blue. Dragonflies were filling the air, though these aren't apparent in the photograph. I felt this image spoke of ancient times as well as the present day. The tools they were using were not particularly modern. “In the background of the shot are two small ancient stone monuments, which very much speak of the area. At the time we were about five minutes’

drive by tuk tuk from Angkor Wat. I felt this image brought together many aspects of Cambodian life, both ancient and modern.”

The photographer says she was “speechless” seeing the giant trees intertwined with the temples at Ta Prohm.

“It was astonishing to see nature, in the form of these gigantic and swollen trunks and roots, just marauding through the strict stonework and slowly pulling it apart,” she says. “It’s like nothing is really sacred, the world will revert to wildness if left unchecked.”

Other images include shots of residents moved from their homes in Phnom Penh to Andong slum, and a forest protection activist listening intently at a group meeting.

Cambodia: Losing Ground ran for a week in March at London’s Redchurch Gallery, and is now at the Avenue Suites Hotel, Washington DC until the end of April.

Swiss tourism students in town on research visit

By Michael Scholten The the fiftieth anniversary of trade relations between Cambodia and Switzerland, 54 tourism students from Lucerne University visited the kingdom on a ten-day research excursion last month, organised by Siem Reap-based and Swiss-owned Lolei Travel agency.

The fiftieth anniversary of trade relations between Cambodia and Switzerland was marked with a visit to the Kingdom by 54 tourism students from Lucerne University on a ten-day research excursion last month, organised by Siem Reapbased and Swiss-owned Lolei Travel agency.

“The cultural, social and historical matters in Cambodia offer a great variety of research fields,” René Zeier, CEO of the

tourism school at Lucerne University, told the Insider, “Add the good infrastructure and the availability of exciting speakers, and you get a perfect place to deepen the students’ knowledge about the tourism industry in Southeast Asia.”

The Swiss guests made Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor their class room for one day and listened to the presentations by chanting monks from Wat Damnak, Apsara dancers, businessmen and journalists, among them Insider editor Peter Olszewski.

Christian Sack, general manager of Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor, underlined that “everything can be arranged” in booming Temple Town. He pointed out that recently a New York-based Chinese lawyer enjoyed a private dinner with his wife and two teenager kids at

Bayon temple and paid $14, 000 plus a $4,000 tip. Swiss expatriate Paul Wallimann talked about his Haven Restaurant in Siem Reap that gives work training to adult orphans after they leave their orphanages at the age of 18.

Wallimann asked students not to visit any orphanages, since a certain number of them were founded for business reasons only. “You can even rate them on Tripadvisor, which is a shame”, Wallimann added.

Peter Willers, German head of the demining unit number 6 at the Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC) informed the students about the clearance of landmines and unexploded bombs in Cambodia.

A more-than-ten-year-old survey claims 4500 square kilometres of land are contaminated by mines, but

Swiss students receive a blessing from Wat Damnak monks at Raffles Grand Hotel d’Angkor. PHOTO MICHAEL SCHOLTEN

Willers said that the less pessimistic results of a new survey will be published soon.

But Cambodia remains in the top three of contaminated countries, along with Angola and Afghanistan. It still relies on foreign money to get rid of the explosive heritage. The German government, for example, pays about $ 1.5 million per year, while the French government stopped all payments.

The Swiss students also visited Angkor Wat, where Professor Hans Leisen from the German Apsara Conservation Project was the tour guide.

Siem Reap Insider

Apr 26 - MAY 2, 2013 Siem Reap insider THE PHNOM PENH POST

3

Temple Town’s best kept fashion secret

By Miranda Glasser

A

lack of stylish clothes in western sizes was what first inspired French expat pals Gaëlle Toussaint and Hélène Tijou to found label Mitsou, back in 2011.

Mitsou is now perhaps Siem Reap’s best-kept secret. While the main shop is in Phnom Penh, the creative centre is in Siem Reap, with togs sold locally at Senteurs d’Angkor, Shinta Mani’s monthly street market and at occasional private sales at venues such as Upstairs Café.

At their Siem Reap workshop on National Road 6, the girls conjure up designs from which their head

Mitsou founders Hélène Tijou (left) and Gaëlle Toussaint in their workshop. MIRANDA GLASSER

seamstress, Rotha, creates templates.

The prototypes are then transformed into clothes by graduates at the Life and Hope Association Sewing School in Wat Damnak.

The duo, who first met a decade ago studying graphic and textile design in Lille, France, and later worked together, got the idea after moving to Cambodia in 2009 with their boyfriends to “have a new life.”

Charmingly finishing each other’s sentences in that way that only old friends can, Gaëlle and Hélène explain how it all started with a discussion about fashion.

“We’ve always liked fashion,” says Hélène. “We studied it so we said, ‘Why not create something together here?’ Because we are used to working together. We’ve known each other a long time and we have the same feeling about ideas.”

“And how to work,” adds Gaëlle. “We used to work together so it’s really easy, it’s not inconvenient. It’s natural.”

The girls quickly noticed there was not a lot of fashion in Siem Reap, particularly for expats such as themselves who struggled to find suitable clothes in their size. Towards the end of 2010, they founded Mitsou, and early 2011 saw them selling their first collection in the former Shanti shop on The Alley.

The concept was simple, but essential; clothes for everyday use that were comfortable but stylish and above all, easy to wear in the

Light, bright and breezy is part of Mitsou’s distinctive style. ANNA BELLA BETTS

tropics. Their recent collection includes classic white shift dresses and tops with accents of neutral pink or grey shades, with a splash of tangerine thrown in.

“We like to do creative things,” says Hélène “But also practical.

Clothes that you can wear all the time. I don’t want to say romantic but cute, or kind of poetic. Feminine – but not too much.”

They admit their dream celebrity to dress would be someone like Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jane Birkin or Kate Moss. “Casual but chic” says Gaëlle. “Kate Moss is the kind of person we like because her style is simple but sophisticated.

She adds that they draw

inspiration from many things. “A song, a film or if we see a good shape on somebody. We also keep an eye on all the magazines.”

“You just have to be curious about everything,” says Hélène. “But it could be a landscape, a light; you could be inspired by a colour.”

Last June, after countless requests from male expat friends, Mitsou introduced a menswear line at their Phnom Penh stockists. The range is now also sold in Siem Reap and proving possibly even more popular than the women’s line.

“We did a collection for First Floor Fashion Store and we decided to do twelve girls’ outfits and four men’s,” says Gaëlle. “Men’s shirts are so essential.”

Hélène adds, “I think it’s worse for men – they cannot find nice shirts that are fitted.”

The girls started off using their boyfriends as models, creating slimfitting shirts for the metro-sexual man – their partners being “not too big, quite skinny,” as they laughingly explain.

The soft cotton shirts sell for between $38 and $45, while the women’s wear starts at $25 for a vest top.

Mitsou clearly has a steady fanbase of loyal fashionistas, and every couple of months they’ll get a request from a friend and are happy to carry out this kind of bespoke service.

“We have around ten people who are always asking for new clothes or a special order. It’s quite made to measure,” says Gaëlle. “We adapt from our model to the person.

Sometimes people have ideas, they will show us a picture, so we also work like that.”

The duo’s fourth collection, inspired by dreamscapes, is due out in June, to coincide with the inaugural Phnom Penh Designers Week in which Mitsou has been invited to participate.

“It is a show over three nights showing three designers per night at The Plantation Hotel,” says Gaëlle.

“They chose us and we were really pleased. It’s a mix of Cambodian people and also European, but all based in Cambodia.”

4

Entertainment

THE PHNOM PENH POST Siem Reap insider Apr 26 - MAY 2, 2013

What’s

on

FRIDAY 26 ECLIPSE Another exciting circus show.

Tickets available from Beyond Unique Escapes. Tel: 077 562565 or email: bookings@ beyonduniqueescapes.com Phare the Cambodian Circus, behind National Museum Friday April 26 - 27, 7.30pm OLD’S KOOL MIX LIVE DJ D’Tonn and DJ Nicko. Jungle, drum & bass and techno.

X Bar, end of Pub St Friday April 26, 10pm till late KNOCK OUT POOL COMP Free entry, winner takes home a $30 food and drinks voucher.

Jungle Junction, High School Road Friday April 26, 7.30pm PARTY NIGHT Elements Bar, Pub Street.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday April 7:30pm

Circus excitement. Tickets available from Beyond Unique Escapes. Tel: 077 562565 or email: bookings@beyonduniqueescapes. com Phare the Cambodian Circus, behind National Museum Sunday April 28, 7.30pm WINE NIGHT Special offers for wine lovers.

25% discount on all wine, 50% on selected wines. encouraged to come meet and share ideas mingle and talk about what you're working on!

Soria Moria Boutique Hotel, Wat Bo road.

Sunday April 28, 12pm – 10pm BBQ POOL PARTY Sunday BBQ including homemade beef sausage, pork chops, chicken and vegetable skewers, jacket potatoes, crispy salad, special home-made sauce and a baguette.

The Siem Reap Hostel, 7 Makara Street Wat Damnak Sunday April 28, 4pm - 8pm

LADYBOY REVUE Linga Bar, Pub Street.

Friday April 26, 10:30pm

MONDAY 29

LADYBOY REVUE The Station Bar, Street 7, Old Market area.

Friday April 26, 9:30pm

KHMER LOCAL HANDICRAFT WORKSHOP ON SHOW Please come and join us and discover what the locals have for sale.

Apsara Holiday Hotel, National Road 6.

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 7am / Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday 7am and 5pm

LIVE MUSIC WITH CANAPES Victoria Angkor Resort and Spa Friday April 26, 5pm to 7pm

SATURDAY 27 THE SIEM REAP JAZZ QUINTET Jazz, swing and groove Laundry Bar, Old Market Saturday April 27, 9pm ECLIPSE (See Friday) Phare the Cambodian Circus, behind National Museum Saturday April 27, 7.30pm SUPER SATURDAY 50% discount on food Soria Moria Boutique Hotel, Wat Bo road.

Saturday April 27 12 – 8pm LADIES NIGHT Free glass of sparkling wine Elements Bar, Pub Street.

Saturday April 27, 7:30pm LADYBOY REVUE Linga Bar, Pub Street.

Saturday April 27, 10:30pm SHOW SPECTACULAR Show spectacular featuring ladyboys and Khmer comedy.

The Station Bar, Street 7, Old Market area.

Saturday April 27, 9pm

SUNDAY 28 TCHAMLAEK

TUESDAY 30 AUTHENTIC KHMER BBQ & APSARA DANCE SHOW $25 per person, poolside. Dining reservations: 07756 56 22 Heritage Suites, Wat Polangka Tuesday April 30, 7pm-8.30pm LIVE MUSIC AND OPEN MIC NIGHT House guitars available, all instruments welcome.

Fresh at Chilli Si-Dang, East River Road Tuesday April 30, 8pm LADIES NIGHT Complimentary glass of sparkling wine and free mini manicure/ pedicure on the Soria Moria rooftop.

Soria Moria Boutique Hotel, Wat Bo road.

Tuesday April 30, 7pm

WEDNESDAY 01 MAY MOVIE NIGHT Film: “The Last Stand”, 6pm Film: “Jack Reacher”, 8pm Hotdog and veggie hotdog movie meal specials

Free entrance & free popcorn Rosy Guesthouse, East River Road Wednesday May 01, 6pm $1 NIGHT All drinks $1, all food $1.

Soria Moria Boutique Hotel, Wat Bo road.

Wednesday May 01, 5pm – 10pm LIVE PIANO Asana Old Wooden House, The Lane, Pub St area Wednesday May 01, 7pm JAM NIGHT Open mic night, all welcome whether singing or playing a musical instrument.

X Bar, end of Pub Street.

Wednesday May 01, 8pm THE APSARA TERRACE Outdoor pan-Asian BBQ buffet with classical Khmer dances and Bokator Khmer martial arts.

Experience the magic of the Apsara dance in our lush gardens.

Traditional music, beautiful dancers, delicious food and a great atmosphere.

Raffles Grand Hotel d’Angkor, Vithei Charles de Gaulle.

Dinner Commences 7pm Culture Performances 7:45pm Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday LADIES NIGHT Free cocktail for all female customers.

Pyramid nightclub, National Road 6A Wednesday May 01, 8:30pm GOLDEN BUTTERFLIES LADY BOY SHOW The Station Bar, Street 7, Old Market area.

Wednesday May 01, 9:30pm

THURSDAY 02 OH MY BUDDHA! 50% off all food and drink, buy one get one free.

Soria Moria Boutique Hotel, Wat Bo road.

Thursday May 02, 12pm – 10pm LIVE! JAZZ IN THE CITY Saxophone, trombone, piano, guitar Happy hours at the cocktail bar.

Dining reservations 077 56 56 22 Heritage Suites, Beside Wat Polanka Thursday May 02, 6:30pm – 9.30pm WEEKLY CHARITY PUB QUIZ Come along and help a local charity helping local people. $1 entry The Warehouse Bar, the Old Market area Thursday May 02, 8pm

ONGOING

SUNDAY POOL BRUNCH $20 per person, access to the pool included Victoria Angkor Resort & Spa Every Sunday, 10.30am – 2.30pm LUMINOUS IN NOKOR Photography exhibition by Park JungMin FCC Angkor, Pokambor Ave (River Road) Ongoing until May 13 DOCUMENTING CAMBODIA Photojournalism exhibition featuring seven different Cambodia-based photographers Hotel 1961, River Road Ongoing until April 30 HOPE AND GLORY Exhibition of Cambodia-inspired etchings by Belgian artist Vicky Gruyters Hotel 1961, River Road Ongoing until mid-May BABEL GUESTHOUSE CLASSES: Zumba with Ti Sam ($8) Mondays & Wednesdays, 6-7pm Ashtanga yoga ($8) Mondays & Wednesdays, 7-8pm Babel Guesthouse, St 20, off Wat Bo SIEM REAP HOSTEL CLASSES: Yoga ($5, open to all levels. Please bring your own mat if you have one) Wednesday: 6pm, Sunday: 4:30pm Pilates ($5) Monday & Thursday, 6pm The Siem Reap Hostel, Wat Damnak Road.

PEACE CAFE CLASSES: Yogilates, ashtanga, hatha & restorative yoga: Mon-Fri: 8.30am & 6.30pm, weekends various (For more details check: http:// www.peacecafeangkor.org/ program.htm) Khmer lessons (free): Saturday and Sunday 16:00 – 17.00

Vegetarian cooking class: Every day 11.00 – 13.00 Peace Cafe, Wat Bo Area WEEK-LONG SPECIALS Earlybird Mondays, Tuesdays & Thursdays, 5-7pm: $1 off any main dish Sexy Saturday: Roll The Dice For Your Price: Roll 2 dice and pay the total amount in '000 Riel. Roll a double 6 and your drink is free! Price will always be lower than menu price Hangover Sunday (day) 12-5pm: Bloody Mary for $3. Menu special: Bacon butties and chip butties available Soccer Sunday, 6pm till late: Watch Sunday's double header English football matches on the new projector and enjoy offers on beers and Western food.

Monday Madness, 7-9pm: Free Angkor or juice with any rice or noodle dish ordered Two for Tuesday, 8-11pm: 2 for 1 on house cocktails or Angkor draft Toxic Thursday, 8-11pm: House short & mixer, house wine and Blur shot only $2.50 Freaky Friday, 7-11pm: Appetiser Medley only $8. 2 for 1 on all draft beers. House cocktails only $3 Under Construction Bar & Restaurant, Wat Bo Rd ANGKOR BODHI TREE RETREAT & MEDITATION CENTRE CLASSES: Meditation: Every day: 6.30am and 4pm Yoga: Sun - Wed and Friday: 6pm Chill pill class: Thursday & Saturday: 6pm & 8pm.

Tuesday 8pm.

Angkor Bodhi Tree Retreat & Meditation Centre, Wat Polanka area VICIOUS CYCLE BIKE RIDE 20-30km bike rides through the countryside. $5 to hire a mountain bike or bring your own. Rides take place most Saturdays but please check on: 012 462 165 or at: http://www.facebook.com/

groups/308395112548010/ Vicious Cycle Bike Shop & Bike Tours, St 26, off Wat Bo Most Saturdays, 8am COOKS IN TUK TUKS Cooking classes. Cost: $25 River Garden Hotel, River Road Daily, 10am LE TIGRE DU PAPIER COOKING CLASS Cost: $13 or $19 Le Tigre du Papier, Pub St Daily, 10am or 1pm AFTERNOON DELIGHT Hot drink and a slice of homemade cake (from the daily selection) for $4.50 Upstairs Café, Wat Bo Road Daily, 3pm – 5pm TRADITIONAL SUNDAY ROAST Meat alternates weekly; chicken, beef or pork plus all the trimmings for $6. Served all day until 6pm.

Sister Srey Café, River Road Every Sunday till 6pm SUNDAY ROAST Choice of roast beef or roast stuffed chicken with roast & mashed potato, cauliflower cheese, seasonal vegetables & gravy. Price is inclusive of one free beer. $8.

Molly Malone’s, Pub St Every Sunday, 12 – 10pm ‘LET THERE BE ROCK’ NIGHT Featuring the X-Rays live; covering Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, AC-DC and much more. Bar food available all night.

X Bar, end of Pub St Every Tuesday and Thursday, 7pm – 12am LADIES NIGHT PROMOTION Buy one get one free on selected cocktails.

Island Bar, Angkor Night Market.

Every Wednesday and Saturday 4pm till late LADIES NIGHT All cocktails buy 1 get 1 free.

Picasso, Alley West Every Wednesday 6pm