Saturday, January 13, 2007
Taped Up
I walked right into it. A low hanging roof at the Russian Market, just the right level to hit my head.
Psaa Tuol Tom Poung (on its periphery) is a patchwork of different stalls and there are plenty of low-hanging obstacles to avoid. I’ve been around this particular market hundreds of times, but there are always surprises to be found.
I nearly fell over but caught myself, and standing up from a crouch, felt something dripping on my head. Some water from the corroded old metal roof was falling on me.
Or was it? The market vendors at the stalls nearby were looking alarmed. The water was still dripping, on the ground and on my clothes. I removed my hands from my pounding head and saw it wasn’t water, it was blood.
The ladies at the stalls quickly handed over tissues and I put pressure on what I now realized was some kind of head cut.
They urged me to sit down, but I didn’t know how bad it was and didn’t want to go into shock. Since the Russian Market is ringed by pharmacies and clinics I thanked them for the tissues and walked outside. I took a moto (for one block) to the nearest clinic. The clinic owner’s wife gave me some gauze for the bleeding, and phoned for her husband.
After ten minutes the clinic owner arrived, applied disinfectant and an anti-coagulant, and cleaned the cut. He noted that head cuts can really bleed, even small ones. Next up? Stitches. I thanked him for his time but told him I’d prefer a different doctor for that. Small clinics can be a roll of the dice – this one would have been cheap and the owner seemed to have some decent training, but I look at health as a pragmatic investment. That roof looked pretty grungy, a good approximation of a serrated knife edge.
I hopped a moto over to SOS clinic, one of the longest running (and most expensive) clinics in Phnom Penh. A friend was also in the waiting room, filling out his paperwork for a check-up. “Tertiary syphilis – I think I’m going blind,” I deadpanned as the nurse led me off.
A second cleaning and two stitches later I had tape on my head and tape on my mind. I went home, cleaned myself up, and got another moto back to the market. I scoured the bike parts section for a roll of strong duct tape, and headed back to where it all began.
In the States or Europe? This would be a matter of liability for lawyers. In Phnom Penh I’m a little more pragmatic. If I was Khmer the most obvious thing to do would be to hassle the stall owner (or market administration) for some compensation, but it would involve the same sort of dramatic argumentation you see in motorcycle accidents.
The stall owners were surprised at my return and relieved to hear all was OK. I asked them if I could use the duct tape to cover the edge of the roof. That way, the next person who hit it would get a nasty bump instead of a nasty cut.
The vendors smiled at the idea, helped me cut and stick the tape, and asked if they could keep the remainder to apply to some other places as well. I thanked them for their help earlier and headed off to look for some music CDs.
Who knows? Maybe it was a dumb idea – I’d just gotten whacked in the head, after all. Maybe the tape will come down after the next rain. But sometimes you’ve just gotta go with your impulses.
Tags: Cambodia
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Friday, January 12, 2007
The Khmer Rouge Tribunal Brought to you by... Microsoft?
Yes, it's true.
http://www.playfuls.com/news_10_8423-Microsoft-Becomes
-First-Private-Donor-For-Khmer-Rouge-Trials.html
It's a well intentioned move. However...
If there are numerous lag times, frequent error messages or the whole trial needs to reboot, this explains a fair bit.
More info? There's a multitude of sites covering the trial:
http://www.dccam.org/
http://www.yale.edu/cgp
http://www.krtrial.info/(Khmer)
http://www.cambodia.gov.kh/krt/
http://www.eccc.gov.kh
http://trialsanddenials.blogspot.com
Tags: cambodia,khmer+rouge
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Thursday, January 11, 2007
Books on TV
The Federation for the Development of the Book Sector in Cambodia (say that three times fast) has a TV advert about reading coming soon to a television near you! Looks like CTN will be the first to broadcast the spot.
And the first issue of the Book Federation's newsletter is out - in Khmer, French and English. (Whew.) Congratulations to both teams.
Available at the National Library or the Federation's Showroom.
Contact: bookfederation [via] online [dot] com [dot] kh
148 Norodom Boulevard, Phnom Penh.
023 726 414.
Tags: cambodia,literature
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Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Instrumental
Note the labels on this roneat - they're Western music notes. Him Sophy, working with Cambodian Living Arts, has created some hybrid instruments for their Cambodian-American Opera project. Below is a slightly revised gong vong thom.
Cambodian music has no notation system, and is taught orally. There has some academic writing (notably Him Sophy, Sam-Ang Sam) and last year Reyum published Keo Narom's book on the topic. Retired professor Mao Phoeung is also compiling an extensive Encyclopedia of Khmer music.
Generally if you say 'opera' I'll stifle a yawn. (If you say 'Andrew Lloyd Webber' I'm out the door.) But I'm impressed with what the team is assembling, given the technical challenges of overseas collaboration. How do you email information halfway around your world to musical partners? MP3s are pretty bulky. They've set up a system to email simple musical notation files (customized for these instruments) which makes it much easier.
I'm looking forward to checking out the final product, which will premiere this year.
Sounds like these guys are having fun!
(Photos (c) Cambodian Living Arts, cheers!)
Tags: cambodia,music,opera
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Tuesday, January 09, 2007
OPEN NOW !
In the tradition of 400 year-old European coffee-house culture,
management and staff wish to extend this concept
to provide a centre for social dialogue.
Our minimalist interior provides a perfect frame for
performances and exhibitions by Cambodian & international artists.
ART CAFÉ offers authentic specialties of Alsace-Palatinate cuisine
as well as selected wines&spirits cultivated from well-known vintners in this region.
JOSEF BEUYS
1927-1986
multiples
"To make people free is the aim of art,
therefore art for me is the science of freedom"
Josef Beuys
ART CAFÉ , No84Eo,Street 108, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, e-mail artcafe-pp@camnet.com.kh
phone 012 834 517
from: What's On
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Monday, January 08, 2007
Local Color
Finally got around to seeing the much-touted Rodin exhibit at Phnom Penh's National Museum this last weekend. It's going to continue through the end of February so you've got some time to check it out.
For three bucks, it lived up to the hype.
One hundred years ago, the sculptor became fascinated by a troupe of Cambodian dancers visiting France and followed their travels, producing a series of sketches. The color drawings are kept in a special climate-controlled room and accompanied by photographs of the encounter, which is a story in and of itself.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/29/features/rodin.php
If you've heard someone 'thinking out loud', this must be 'drawing out loud'. The artist was grappling to depict an unfamiliar but fascinating series of movements, and you can really sense his enthusiasm to record it on paper. Some sketches are fully colored and well rendered, others just focus on a face or a moving limb.
(More images at http://www.khmerinstitute.org/rodin/rodin.html)
Meanwhile, over at 'The Comics Reporter', Tom Spurgeon reviews Lorenzo Mattotti's Angkor.
For about $40 a copy can be yours from Carnets d' Asie. Mattotti has to have one of the most vivid color senses of the current crop of European cartoonists. The volume follows the French trend of lavishly illustrated travel memoirs - readers just can't seem to get enough of them. English translation is in the works. (I'll splash out for one when I win the lottery.)
And as regards travel, comic artist Lisa Mandel (Sept Mois au Cambodge) will visit in February to do another comic/travel book with students from Phare art school. More news to come.
Review: http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/briefings/cr_reviews/7194/
More Mattotti: English (via robot): http://tinyurl.com/y6x76w
French: http://www.auracan.com/Indiscretions/2004/20040227.html
Postscript 13/01/06: Penny Edwards on the Rodin Exhibition
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/TXT/current/stories/1601/how.htm
Tags: Cambodia,visual+art
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Saturday, January 06, 2007
Server Migration
Just like the folks arriving in Cambodia for the cool weather, or animals traveling as the seasons change, so too is my blog 'migrating' to a new web server. If you've had any trouble accessing it, just hang loose.
Many thanks to Khmer Connection for their tireless help in hosting it (alongside nearly thirty thousand member profiles, many with personal pages).
New Years' Resolution: Revise my template. I've had pretty much the same design for nearly five years.
Tags: Cambodia
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