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(8 votes, average: 2.75 out of 5)
Loading ...Dear Oudam,
Thank you for your excellent and informative website. You seem to be genuinely concerned about our homeland Cambodia, and it shows through your passionate and inspiring articles. As a Cambodian American, I am very proud of you and your contributions to our community.
Last summer, at the age of 19, I visited Cambodia for the very first time in my life. At first, I really didn’t want to go after reading and hearing so much negative things about the country. But after some persuasion by my parents, I decided to give it a shot. I didn’t know what to expect and braced for the worst.
Well, what can I say? I fell in love with the country and the people as soon as I set foot on Cambodia. Even though I was born in the U.S., for the first time in my life I felt truly at home. It was a strange and magical feeling.
I think Cambodia is a land of gentle, friendly people. Even though it was heart-wrenching to see little kids digging through garbage and the conditions that some people live under, I think our country has come a long way since the Khmer Rouge. As a Cambodian American, I am very proud of what our people have achieved. Even our poorest people manage to find ways to survive in a respectable manner and to enjoy life with what they have. They are not angry like some people here in America.
The only thing that I didn’t like about Cambodia were the old white geezers who run around with young Khmer girls. They were everywhere and no one seemed to care that they were in our country to take advantage of our people.
Dear Steve,
Thanks for your inspiring account. Through this website, I hope to build a bridge for young Cambodians from around the world to celebrate their Khmer heritage and reconnect with their roots. I am very encouraged to find bright young overseas Cambodians like you take an interest in the rebuilding of our beloved homeland.
You are absolutely right that Cambodia is not the hell hole as it is sometimes made out to be by the naysayers. You just have to visit the country and decide for yourself. Sometimes, the negativity alone can keep good, decent people from visiting our heavily tourism-dependent country.
As for the Cambodian people’s apparent apathy toward the “old white geezers who run around with young Khmer girls,” I think this is an area where you and I can make a major impact. Remember that Cambodia is still reeling from decades of war and destruction, so the most important thing on most people’s minds is day-to-day survival, not sexual exploitation of our women and children by foreigners. The “old white geezers” recognize the extreme poverty in our country and simply move in to prey on less fortunate people. Some of them may find a twisted sense of psychological victory in sexually dominating a race they view inferior to them.
You must understand that many Cambodians associate Westerners with wealth, power, and even righteousness. Consequently, the mischiefs of some Westerners in Cambodia tend to become, over time, normalized and even accepted by the Cambodian people. In fact, some people in Cambodia even consider a teen-aged Khmer girl to be “somnang” (fortunate) to be hitched to a middle-aged white man.
As Cambodians from overseas, we can help explain to our compatriots back home that these behaviors are neither normal nor acceptable in Western societies. In fact, here in America incarcerated child molesters are so hated that they are routinely beaten– even killed– by fellow inmates. While I don’t condone this type of vigilante justice, it’s indicative of the level of revulsion, even among thieves and murderers, that Americans have for sex predators. This is a major reason that the pedophiles are venturing overseas to take advantage of poor law enforcement in developing countries like Cambodia.
When I visit Cambodia, I don’t get angry when my relatives, friends and acquaintances condone the sexual exploits of the “old white geezers.” I just take the time to calmly explain and educate them about how Western societies view sexual predators, and how our apathy toward them is hurting our honor and national image. If my compatriots do not agree with my stance, or simply pretend to sympathize with me just to get on my good side, then all I could do is to distance myself from them and focus on the things that I could do. For instance, I would personally boycott any restaurants and hotels whose employees smile and bow at foreign customers but not at their own kind. I know my boycott may not run them out of business, but I do it anyway because it’s the right thing to do.
You don’t have to accept what you know to be wrong just because you feel powerless to make a difference. There are many skillful and respectful ways you can influence positive changes without being seen as overbearing or confrontational. Remember that most Cambodians are not privileged to travel back and forth between Cambodia and foreign countries, so they don’t have a personal understanding of outside cultures like we do. Many rely on information they hear from their friends and relatives, the media, and even from the foreign “sexpats” themselves.
Cambodian expatriates wield a lot of economic and social power when we return to our homeland; we just have to play our cards right and use our influences to encourage positive changes in calm, realistic and intelligent ways.
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(3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5) Loading ...David Finch, 42, of Birmingham, had allegedly been punching and kicking his 20-year-old Cambodian girlfriend on the footpath when his neighbours decided they could take no more, said Chhit Vuthy, deputy police chief of Psar Kandal 1 in the capital.
“They formed a mob and managed to hit him hard in the head but we arrived just in time and then they had to let him go,” Vuthy said. “He has no respect for Cambodians, and they were angry.”
Mob and extrajudicial killings of suspected criminals remain relatively common in Cambodia.
Finch, a long-term expatriate in Cambodia who ran and lived in his bar, Broken Bricks, had a history of violence and drugs were believed to be involved, police said.
Vuthy said he was unsure whether the father of one would now be deported or sent to court. The victim was taken to hospital with a suspected broken arm and bruising but released soon after.
The incident is the second of its kind since Cambodia banned marriages to foreigners last month, citing potential for abuse and exploitation of often poor and under-educated Khmer women.
Two weeks earlier a German man was charged with aggravated assault after breaking both his Cambodian wife’s arms, repeatedly beating her and locking her in their house for weeks at a time.
Oudam’s comments:
Finch’s Khmer neighbors must have realized that if they did not take matters into their own hands and simply waited for police to arrive, this vicious monster might never pay for his crime. So, they decided to lend “mouy dai, mouy jerng” to the cause of justice before police could intervene to “save” the criminal.
I hear that mob justice is quite common in Cambodia these days. If you get your purse snatched by a petty criminal on the streets of Phnom Penh, you can yell “Jour!!!” and have the thief beaten to a pulp by strangers.
What’s encouraging about the above story is that ordinary Khmer citizens dared to act against a member of an elite group, i.e. Western expatriates, when he misbehaved in our country. That Finch had the audacity to punch and kick his Khmer girlfriend with reckless abandon out in the open, in front of his neighbors, shows just how little respect he had for the Khmer people.
Mob justice is a source of both great joy and great sadness. On one hand, it reflects the people’s deep desire for the rule of law. On the other hand, it is a sign of corrupt and ineffective law enforcement. The practice is rife where good people have little confidence in the judicial system. Ordinary people should never feel the need to play the roles of the police, the judge and the punisher. These roles belong to the state, and it’s up to the state to perform them satisfactorily.
Click here to discuss this topic on KhmerCity.net!
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(20 votes, average: 3.05 out of 5) Loading ...Update (4/15/08): The celebration was a huge success. Thousands of people of all ages took part in this joyous occasion. Thanks to all the organizers and volunteers, the event helped to raise much needed donations for Wat Buddharangsey.
This year’s celebration was a special occasion for me as I was able to participate personally, as a volunteer who helped setting up tents and selling raffle tickets to raise money for the temple.
I’ll post some pictures from the event soon.
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If you’ll be in the Houston area on April 13, please be sure to come join the Khmer New Year Celebration at Wat Buddharangsey, at 15211 Sellers Rd., Houston, TX 77060 (Tel: 281-999-8678).
Besides honoring our Khmer tradition and cultural heritage, the event is always fun and entertaining to people of all ages. There’ll be plenty of food, concession stands, and parking spaces for everyone.
At this year’s celebration there will be a DJ who will operate a karaoke system for those of you who’d like to sing karaoke songs. So, if you would like to perform, please bring your own DVDs containing your favorite songs to the temple.
As usual we will be selling raffle tickets to raise money for the temple. To make the event more fun and productive, we need people to bring gifts to be offered as prizes for the raffle winners. The more attractive the prizes, the more raffle tickets we’ll sell, and the more money is raised for the temple.
See you there!
For more information, please visit Wat Buddharangsey’s website.
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(15 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5) Loading ...I’m not sure when this video was made, but I’m very happy to see Touch Sounnich recovering and making the best of the situation.
If anyone knows her personally or has any connections with her family, please invite them to join Khmercity.net. There are a lot of good people on the site, and I think she’ll find a very a supportive community there.
The above video is a vast improvement from her conditions when she was in the hospital in Thailand:
Part 1:
Part 2:
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(18 votes, average: 3.39 out of 5) Loading ...WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
If your answer is NOTHING; join the club.
The complete question is “What have you done to help the country or the people of Cambodia?”
After observing and participating in Khmer Chat on Oudam.com these past few weeks, I realize that there are so many intelligent/bright/very capable Cambodians from around the world.
Just think of the possibilities if we truly unite.
Oudam’s response:
Hi M,
Thanks for joining Khmercity.net and for sharing your thoughts.
I’ve created Oudam.com and Khmercity.net to foster greater Khmer unity and appreciation for our rich culture and heritage. To the extent that Cambodians from all over the world are coming to my websites to chat, make friends, and listen to Khmer music, the sites are accomplishing their goals of bringing our people together and drawing interest to Cambodian concerns.
When my family settled in America some 27 years, we did not have a lot of Cambodians living around us. I wish there was a Khmer community website like khmercity.net back then. As our people are scattered all over the world, I think the web could play an important role in bridging the physical distances that divide us.
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