It’s a very small world. It seems that where ever I go, Marin seems to turn up sooner or later.
I first met him during a brief stint grant-writing at United Cambodian Community in Long Beach. Years later, after I moved to Cambodia, we both ended up working in Siem Reap. For several years he was based in Phnom Penh, doing his best to reconnect to a country he left as a child, under very difficult circumstances.
All during this time, he was writing.
Marin would sometimes talk of his attempts to recapture his fleeting memory, having grown up as an orphan. Memory of wartime is a tricky territory to explore, but he started chronicling what he could remember, which grew and grew. Over time what was a brief manuscript blossomed into a book. Returning to the USA to continue his higher education, he doubled down on his writing — and the tale began to take its final shape.
Marin has many more stories to tell, and I’m excited to see him release his very first book.
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Book Launch: April 12, La Lune, Long Beach.
When: Friday, April 12, 2013
Time: 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Where: La Lune Restaurants
2801 E. Spring St.
Long Beach, CA. 90806
*$25 including drinks, 2 appetizers, and 3 courses meal buffet style.
* Raffle tickets.
This last weekend I presented on E-Books in a ‘lightning session’ at BarCamp Angkor.
I would enjoy talking more about e-book publishing, especially since it’s a new sector sorting itself out.
I’ve been developing Khmer language e-books with Our Books Cambodia, and taken an initial foray into e-publishing with a collection of my own comics.
There are lots of areas to explore, and some obstacles I’d advise to avoid. Hoping I can talk in more detail about publishing platforms, ‘Digital Rights Management‘, cross-platform promotion, Khmer language e-books, and much much more at future tech and publishing events!
Valentine’s Day will never be banned, just turned into another opportunity to collect bribes/overtime by officials. “At least one commune officer will come to stand in my guesthouse and sit close to reception to carefully check the identity cards of my customers,” he said.
“They will wear civilian clothing and disguise themselves as staff.”
from Phnom Penh Post:”Police to cool Valentine’s day teenage lust“
This music forms a constant background soundtrack to life in Cambodia, where the majority party oversees the vast majority of the media as well.
Of course, community advocates engaging with the powers that be also use music – beyond the highly public offerings from The Messenger Band and legendary Chapei player Kung Nei (a former resident of Dey Krahom) to ‘Gagnam Style’ – the latter used when delivering an anti-evictions petition.
Note the sunglasses and kramas. Protests are photographed and recorded studiously by the police. Which is why there are protest songs but very few singers who will publicly associate themselves with ‘controversial’ lyrics. For sharing topical songs, it’s all about context, as seen above.
There is a large body of colloquial Cambodian songs and slogans that have not been documented, arising from communities experiencing land grabs and economic distress. If you’re an anthropologist or ethnomusicologist, know Khmer and have a digital recorder, there’s a PhD thesis topic for you.
For the next Cambodia election, it will be fun to explore the aesthetic approach of candidates and platforms. It sure reveals a lot about their underlying perspective. But a dance-off or Cambodian Idol competition to choose representatives is probably off the cards.
