Author:

Dish: A roundhouse kick to the tongue

*There was way too much Chuck Norris-related awesomeness for just one story – Ed
Originally formed as rest stops for travellers along China’s famed Silk Road, Dim Sum restaurants have become a culinary staple throughout Asia and even certain Western cities. As of September, adventurous souls travelling through Phnom Penh – or at least those drunken souls passing through Street 51 – can find a brand new spin on just such a place.

In a short time, Chuck Norris Dim Sum has caught the eyes and palates of a very diverse crowd. Many a barang are drawn in by the name and artwork and, according to owner, Mike, “come in and start laughing, whoever you are, and hopefully the conversation’s gonna be nice”. Meanwhile, the late-night club-hopping young Khmer crowd “probably don’t know who Chuck Norris is but they don’t care; they just want dim sum”. While they could survive on the hype generated by its name alone, attention to tradition and quality are not thrown out whatsoever. What separates Chuck Norris Dim Sum from other Chinese places in town is their unique combination of a traditionally trained Dim Sum chef from China and a creative team of one (Mike) from America.

This creative contrast has led to such dishes as the ‘wasabi bomb’ and BBQ Chinese chicken as well as a certain amount of friction. Says Mike: “He’s very particular on some things; some things he won’t change up. For example, we asked, ‘Oh, can you make a version of this without dried shrimp’ and he said, ‘Absolutely not.’ He refuses to.” Though working around these standards can sometimes be a challenge, it does much to balance Mike’s ideas with Chinese tradition. With Korean, Japanese, Chinese and American influences, Chuck Norris Dim Sum is as much a fusion of different cultures as the real Chuck Norris’ Chun Kuk Do fighting style. Without Westernising the flavour, they have presented one dish in particular as a challenge. The dumpling roulette, available in pork or vegetarian, consists of six dumplings: five normal ones and one sneaky bastard stuffed with spicy Chinese mustard (aka ‘Chuck Norris-style’). “Everyone dives in at one time, that’s the strategy. You all dive in and you don’t know who’s gonna get it.” Duly, we all dived in. Mike ate the wildcard and contorted his face in pain. “It’s at the border of ‘this is too much’. That’s what we wanted.” It’s what they achieved too; afterwards, we ordered another with all six made Chuck Norris-style (2-for- 1happy hour is 7-9pm every day; opening hours are 6pm to 5am).

In addition to the ubiquitous draft pull, they offer $2 mixed drinks (such as gin and tonic, whiskey and coke, rum and soda), and shots of Soju, which is a Korean version of sake. The difference: Soju is distilled, a la whiskey or vodka, and aged for several years; Sake is fermented, a la beer or wine. Taking it to the next level, vthey’ve gone so far as to infuse this liquor, as many bar owners do with vodka. Options include “Baby coconut, or lime, or chilli, spicy chilli, and – hold on; lemme check – it’s not quite ready yet, but there will be a passion fruit one as well.”

Chuck Norris Dim Sum follows the number one ethic of Chuck’s fighting style: “I will develop myself to the maximum of my potential in all ways.” Mike and his Dim Sum chef are constantly playing with flavours and menu items. “We’re gonna try to get more unique with the menu as time goes on. We were talking about a bacon-wrapped bombei pork dim sum. I’m not sure when that’ll be released, but we’re working on it.” Join Chuck Norris Dim Sum in its path towards righteousness and glory.

Chuck Norris Dim Sum, Golden Sorya Mall, St. 51 (between Heart of Darkness and Pontoon). Eat in and takeaway only.

 

A force of one

The life of Carlos Ray ‘Chuck’ Norris is an action-packed one, spanning everything from military service and martial arts to action films and serving as the inspiration for thousands of satirical factoids about his heroic feats. In between pounding the Republican campaign trail and promoting everything from home fitness equipment to World of Warcraft, the ultimate tough guy has even stamped his boot print on Phnom Penh.

Shy and bullied as a boy, Chuck’s worldview underwent its first blistering punch to the jaw while he was serving in the US Air Force in the late 1950s. His time in Korea was spent not drinking Soju and whoring, but rather studying the indigenous Tang Soo Do martial art. Eventually he returned to America complete with black belt, established Karate schools throughout the country, and put all he had learned into founding his own system of Chun Kuk Do (‘The Universal Way’), which mixes Eastern and Western fighting techniques (Norris later made history by becoming the first man from the Western hemisphere to achieve an Eighth Degree Black Belt Grand Master ranking in Tae Kwon Do).

By the late 1960s, the martial arts career of this icon-in-the-making was an unstoppable hurricane of roundhouse kicks, but even that wasn’t enough to feed the beast inside. It was about this time that Norris befriended Bruce Lee, who launched his acting career by casting him as the villain in Way of the Dragon. Like a meteor, Norris ascended into the stratosphere of film where he has remained for more than half a century: he has more than 40 films, 23 starring roles, and a television series, Walker Texas Ranger, which ran for eight and a half years, under his belt. When not busy clobbering opponents, he was writing books on martial arts and Zen; two autobiographies and two Wild West novels – although legend has it Norris didn’t ‘write’ those books; the words simply assembled themselves out of fear.

After the cancellation of Walker, Texas Ranger, he seemed to fall from the limelight, but Chuck Norris doesn’t sleep; he only waits. With the success of US talk show host Conan O’Brien’s Walker Texas Ranger lever (which, when pulled, shows comedic out-of-context clips from the show), and the explosion of Chuck Norris internet facts, this god-made man arose once more – and immediately wrote an ‘official’ Chuck Norris facts book, just to set the record straight.

It has long been suggested that The Great Wall of China was built to keep Chuck Norris out, but failed miserably. Today, the man voted Top Dudeliest Dude by Maxim magazine in 2007 is at least partly responsible for bringing Dim Sum and, for authenticity’s sake, a Chinese Dim Sum chef to Phnom Penh’s Golden Sorya Mall. Inspired by the illustrious icon, American ad executive Mike, a Michigan native, last month opened the Chuck Norris Dim Sum restaurant/bar, where Eastern discipline meets the free spiritedness of the Wild West.

The restaurant will later this month be throwing a Chuck Norris party complete with Shake-weight contests, in which challengers shake a device shaped like a dumbbell six inches from their face to obtain strength and vigour; a spicy food-eating contest, where victory goes to whoever can ingest the most Chinese mustard in one sitting; martial arts-style board-breaking contests, and more (details in our next issue). In the meantime, remember: where old meets new, where East meets West, you will find Chuck Norris Dim Sum.

WHO: Chuck Norris disciples

WHAT: An ass-kickin’ restaurant launch party

WHERE: Chuck Norris Dim Sum, Golden Sorya Mall, St. 51 (between Heart of Darkness and Pontoon).

WHEN: To be confirmed (Watch This Space)

WHY: Chuck Norris roundhouse kicks people in the face first and asks questions later

 

Dish: Oodles of noodles

Adefinitive Cambodian breakfast or afternoon snack, num banh chok is so ubiquitous and well-loved that it’s often known simply as ‘Khmer noodles’. If you ask the average Cambodian about the dish, after telling you how delicious it is they’ll patiently explain to you that China didn’t invent noodles, they got the idea from num banh chok.

Num banh chok is the name of the noodles that are laboriously made by hand in heavy stone mills from fermented rice, but it’s also what the dishes made with these appetising noodles are called. In its simplest form, num banh chok – sometimes called num banh chok samlar Khmer – is the perfect dish to eat in warm weather: rice noodles topped with a cool fish gravy and crisp raw vegetables, including cucumbers, banana blossom, and water lily stems and fresh herbs, such as basil and mint.

Before the war, Phnom Penh’s most famous num banh chok came from a small town 15 kilometres outside of the city. In her book Cooking the Cambodian Way, Narin Jameson writes: “The dish was made from the very tasty fish in the Kampong Kantuot River, which runs through the town… the sellers made their own rice noodles and used vegetables from their own gardens. The only cost for this business was transportation from Kampong Kantuot to Phnom Penh, which was very little in the 1950s.”

There are many regional variations to the standard. There’s Kampot-style num banh chok, which relies on locally produced sweet dried shrimp, coconut cream, fish sauce and peanuts. Siem Reap has its own version, which has more garlic and coconut milk than the original, and is served with a sweet sauce called tik pha em. Sometimes, num banh chok is served with a curry chicken sauce made with shrimp paste and yams. Another version, num banh chok nam ya, features a red fish curry and is a delicacy often served at ceremonial occasions such as engagement or wedding ceremonies (if weddings aren’t your thing, you can also find it at the Russian Market).

 

Even the royals have their own version: num banh chok samlar makod, or rice noodles with crown sauce. The version cited in the most definitive English-language Khmer cookbook, The Cuisine of Cambodia by Nusara Thaitawat, comes from the first Cambodian cookbook, Princess Rasmi Sobhana’s opus The Cambodian Cookbook, released by the American Women’s Club of Cambodia in 1965. The royal version reflects the international taste of the royal household at the time and is made with chicken livers, Cognac and green peas.

But the history is far older and more storied that just one Cambodian princess. A popular Khmer folk legend about Thun Chey – a celebrated revolutionary and scholar – features the dish. In the legend, Thun Chey was effectively exiled from the Khmer Empire to China by the Khmer king who was scared of his power and popularity. In China, he was forced to resort to making a living selling num banh chok. The delicious dish quickly gained popularity with the Chinese, until even the emperor of China had heard about it. The emperor requested that Thun Chey bring the noodles to the palace and while he was tasting them, Thun Chey sneaked a look at the emperor’s face – an act that is strictly forbidden.

Predictably xenophobic, Thun Chey declares that the emperor of China looks like a dog, as opposed to the Khmer king who looks like the moon, and is promptly thrown in jail, only to be released and sent back to the Khmer empire soon after. Most Cambodians are familiar with the story and many will say that this is where China got the idea for noodles and the undeserved glory resulting from their invention.

If you want to try what may be the world’s first noodle yourself, you can find women walking around Phnom Penh in the mornings and early afternoon selling bowls of num banh chok out of baskets hanging off poles balanced on their shoulders, as well as at local markets including Psar Kandal and Psar Thmei.

 

Secret spaces and magical hours

They call it ‘ruin-lust’ and photographer Chea Phal has it bad. The symptoms? A romantic fascination with forgotten and decaying buildings coupled with a determination to capture their image before it is too late. The result? Forgotten, Sometimes Hidden, an exhibition of hauntingly beautiful photographs of Phnom Penh’s overlooked, unloved and at-risk architectural treasures.

This romantic fascination with decaying buildings and their sociological significance is far from a new phenomenon. It subtends the artworks of the 18th and 19th centuries, from Casper David Friedrich’s landscape paintings to Eugene Atget’s fin de siècle photographs of Paris in the throes of modernisation. In the latter half of the 20th century. Detroit, a city in seemingly perpetual decline, provided the perfect backdrop for photographers in the grip of ruin-lust, such as Romain Meffre and Yves Marchand.

It was Marchand’s photographs of Detroit in dissolution which inspired Chea, whose first solo exhibition is being unveiled at The Plantation Hotel during this year’s Our City Festival. “Marchand’s photos were mind-blowing,” he enthuses. “That’s what made me jump-start to photographing these buildings.”

Forgotten, Sometimes Hidden follows the trajectory of Chea’s countless days spent exploring Phnom Penh, during which he seeks out the city’s architectural secrets. The photographs capture the historical and aesthetic value of 12 buildings: some are well known, such as Vann Molyvann’s White Building; others are anonymous, rendered only through close-range shots of crumbling brick or exposed internal structures. “I guess when people see my pictures they might see the building first,” Chea explains. “But then they notice the emptiness inside.” This emptiness conveys a certain vulnerability as if, stripped of intended form and functionality, these buildings lie helpless in the face of eventual destruction.

Chea’s anxiety about the fate of Phnom Penh’s architectural landmarks is symbolised through his use of natural light in Forgotten, Sometimes Hidden. Part of the exhibition is dedicated to photographs taken in the so-called ‘magic hour,’ that suspended moment between day and darkness standing as a metaphor for the moribund buildings’ twilit existence. “I sometimes revisit the same places again and again to seek better lights. For me, the rather dark atmosphere can give us some sort of feeling that those buildings are fallen in an unfortunate situation,” he says regretfully. “Somehow, these structures are the least permanent of things. People feel differently about the city’s development, but for me Phnom Penh is losing its identity. I try to photograph it before it’s gone.”

For Chea himself, his work conjures mixed emotions. “There’s the excitement of seeing and capturing what most people haven’t seen or failed to see. It’s both thrilling and challenging to get into those neglected buildings and photograph them. Then I imagine what the building looked like in its prime. Some buildings deserve better care and love, and it saddens me to see their withered condition.”

The exhibition constitutes not only an image of a city in flux, but also a portrayal of an aspect of Cambodian history and identity in danger of disappearing. Chea hopes his work can connect people to this shared history, capturing the present while linking it to the past and future. “Nothing would make me happier than if I can provoke the audience to rethink this wonderful architecture. I think in about a decade it will be very hard to imagine what Phnom Penh looks like now. I hope the frozen moment in still pictures could help the next generation to understand and learn about our past.”

WHO: Chea Phal
WHAT: Forgotten, Sometimes Hidden photography exhibition
WHERE: The Plantation, #28 St. 184
WHEN: Until October 7
WHY: See your city before it’s gone

 

Renaissance woman

Amanda Bloom fuses the beauty of musical antiquity with the raw power of modern rock

Sir Isaac Asimov, Albert Einstein and Voltaire rank among history’s most notable freethinkers – progressive, intelligent souls who believe opinions should be formed not on the basis of tradition or dogma, but logic and reason. Among the most venerated wisdom that has poured forth from such lips over the centuries are the words of someone who is neither science fiction author, nor Enlightenment philosopher, nor theoretical physicist.

You could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Amanda Bloom – a willowy, porcelain-skinned wisp with a penchant for vintage clothing – is an elegant, Australian singer and composer who began studying piano at the age of three, wrote her first sonata aged six, and debuted at the Sydney Opera House at just 17. On her first album, The History of Things to Come, a song by the name of Rosetta – so called in honour of the Rosetta Stone, which famously unlocked the secrets of Ancient Egypt – contains the line: ‘An idea does not gain truth as it gains followers.’ When the album was released in 2010, the lyrics were immediately seized upon by freethinkers the world over. They’ve since been immortalised on everything from websites and radio shows to t-shirts and at least one tattoo.

These ten words lie at the core of what Bloom, deeply touched by baroque and world music, describes on the album liner notes as “An epic and astounding fusion of fantasy, circus, classical, and piano-driven alternative rock.” Strings, oboes, harpsichords, cellos and timpanis layer in orchestral splendour amid off-beat rhythms, stunning harmonies, and still more stirring words. “Imagine an 18th century tea party with Tori Amos, Cirque du Soleil, Yann Tiersen and Muse” is how she defines her own otherwise almost indefinable style.

The Advisor caught Bloom – whose first mission in Cambodia was to write a female empowerment anthem for German development agency GIZ, and who’s now recording her second album at former head of Sony International Chris Craker’s Karma Sound Studios – to talk Greek gods, rationalism, and facing the void.

How does it feel to see your own lyrics become a cult t-shirt?

The song Magdalene started becoming very popular online throughout these atheistic, freethinking communities across the States – people who were very anti-Bush. This was 2007. Online, I became known as this pin-up hero for rationalism. ‘Oh, she’s the ultimate blah, blah, blah.’ A line from Rosetta – ‘An idea does not gain truth as it gains followers’ – started spreading around the net as one of the best freethinking quotes of all time. Suddenly I’m, like, up there with Einstein. It was so cool. I’d always said the best thing would be to be quoted, so this was one of my great dreams. All these companies were making t-shirts of it. Meanwhile, in reality, I’m just shopping on eBay, getting pissed, really unhappy. Of course, online means nothing.

That first album was a tough one. 

I became obsessed. I had this sound in my head: it was music I wanted to hear but couldn’t find anywhere, so I thought: ‘Why not write it?’ I became fascinated by the idea of locking myself away from the world, just to see what there is when I try to strip everything away – just being in a bare room with my piano; trying to get back to the bare bones of music composition. I was writing for other pop groups when I was 20, 21 and at the time I thought ‘I’m not pretty enough to be the artist myself.’ I was massively introspective and obsessed with thinking. You know when you’re young, you’re so affected by things and I was so angered by a lot of other girls in my age group; they seemed so vacuous. I kept a diary and was reading a lot of philosophy; studying this, studying that. I thought: ‘Why is the music that’s out there so empty?’ I don’t know why I sound so serious, because I’m not that serious any more. That’s the funny thing: in my youth, the youth of others just annoyed me. Especially being a young girl in the music industry, there was this push towards pop and singing about crap; nothing. Rosetta is a song that was inspired by the Rosetta Stone. It’s a metaphor for truth and was based on the idea of what the world would be like if we could only tell the truth, especially the media. Then Magdalene is a song about religious hypocrisy and extremism in all different forms. That album, the ideas were very ambitious and huge. At the time, that’s where my mindset was at.

I love this album, but I’m so happy it’s in my past because it was the result of so many – I don’t know if you should be writing this; I’m not sure I want anyone to know this stuff, it’s very intimate. It’s kind of the Oscar Wilde Picture of Dorian Gray thing: creating something of incredible beauty, but then the reality is actually crumbling. By the time I’d finished it, I was broken inside because I’d given my everything to that album. Years and years of this idea of perfection and the idea of this music, and then I’d lost everything; fallen away from my friends, my family, my relationship at the time. I’d sacrificed so much for my music. By the time I’d finished, I realised that’s not the right way to be living – it’s not healthy. I’d rather be a good person than a great artist. I needed to get that balance again.

Then I went to the Middle East and finished some vocals there. That was at a time I realised I was living for my art, not living for myself, but I’ve always believed great art is the result of great living: you should never give up living well. It’s like Salvador Dali: he was brilliant, obviously, but you read his personal diaries and he’s such a narcissist; so self-obsessed. You think: ‘Fuck your art. I don’t care about your art any more. You’ve ruined it.’

Never read anything about your favourite artists. You’ll never think of them the same way again.

[Laughs] On that note, I’ll leave you. So, you love my album, hey? Awesome! See you later – I’m outta here… No? OK. Coming here was like a complete rebirth. It’s been this incredible blank canvas on which I can start painting my second album. The people here are incredible; so inspiring. They’ve all got such an incredible story; they have so much courage and they’re so brave. And I’ve had such great opportunities here. In Australia, there was talk of distributing the first album and playing live, but I really just wrote this album for myself, as a personal challenge.

The title track, The History of Things to Come, is about the fact that we all have responsibility for the things to come; this is history that we’re making now on a personal level. It’s a journey that comes from the idea that to become a full person, we must first break in half and then decide which halves you want to put together. You must break into a thousand pieces and then put those pieces back together yourself, from a position of knowledge and confidence in your own identity. What you’re born into – the school you go to, the people you know – a lot of that is chosen for you. It’s important as an adult to completely break apart and then put yourself back together again; to question everything and get back to absolutely nothing at all, and then to face that void, because we all fear the void so much and worry that we won’t be able to handle having nothing, or being nothing for a while. But that’s a beautiful place to be: nothing. From that, you can hand select what you want of yourself. So that song was about breaking apart and then rebuilding yourself. The irony is that through writing it, I did it – I completely broke apart. That song almost destroyed me and it became a meta-documentation of the journey it took to complete it. It was very intense. The song took three years to write. I programmed every note on the piano and developed RSI in my right hand.

Has recording the second album been a more positive experience? 

So positive, I can’t even begin to convey to you. All these songs, I wrote them with no judgement of myself. I just let them exist, let them breathe. I wasn’t trying to make them the best thing ever; I was just trying to be honest, which was so freeing because if you’re honest, there’s no right or wrong. As an artist, you always feel that your first instinct isn’t good enough; surely, you can keep perfecting it. But then it becomes inauthentic. What’s beautiful is the spontaneity of art: it’s more of an accurate insight into you. Also, this time, it would be nice for it to be successful, but I know now what the first album did to me psychologically. You know what? I just want to enjoy the process and do it for the sake of the music. I hope that comes across in how it sounds.

Tell us about the essence of this new album.

The working title is Atlas, after the god who was expelled from Greece and, the story has it, carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. But while that was incredibly painful and he suffered for it, he was also able to have an insight into the natural laws and truths of the universe, and he was able to learn about the world that way.

The songs were written in different parts of the world: there’s a song I wrote in Paris, called Marionette, about a wooden doll controlled by everyone else. There’s a song called Pictures of Indochine, which I wrote about moving from Sydney to Cambodia. Whenever I live in a developing country, it’s like I absorb the general attitude of the nation. I feel as though I’m developing as well. There’s a song called Eyes of Galena, which is about India: rebirth, starting again, having the power at any time of your life to wipe clean your own past and give yourself permission to start again. Give yourself permission to reform your own idea of yourself, and not believe in your past insecurities.

And Schumann Etudes, which is a nine-minute journey a friend described as ‘very Tim Burton’, I was even working on that on my laptop while we were in the car on our way to the studio. It’s a song about being creatively blocked, and meeting someone – this incredible gay guy Ezra Axelrod, a performer, in London – it’s about the walks we used to take together and him hearing me play a Schumann etude, which completely opened me up again. He used to say to me: ‘Just tell the truth. Just write songs as if you’re telling a friend a story.’ And so I did: I wrote the song in that style, so it’s quite a meta-song. There are more world aspects to this album, but it’ll be a lot less layered: a bit more naked, raw. The song from India will have the sitar on it; in Pictures of Indochine, I really want to use the Khmer xylophone, and Marionette has accordion.

Has being in Cambodia changed you?

I came here without the intention of writing music. I’ve always known deep down that the best things in life happen without you trying to make them happen: best moments, best friendships, best everything. Always. Don’t chase shadows. I came here and started teaching at a kindergarten, and I think it was being around kids and getting back to basics – in Sydney I was quite down – I’ve got back to living in the moment and really loving every second of the day. It was here that I realised the last album was written in the hope it would fulfil me, whereas this next album is a result of being fulfilled. I’ve already arrived and the songs are catching up with me. I’ve taken the pressure off. With the first, I was so hard on myself; it was an experiment in my own potential. Now I’m looking up and looking ahead and it’s working. It’s back to this philosophy of choosing what you want in your life, in a way. I don’t know. Now I’m drunk. Turn that thing off!

Already? Cheap date.

I know. I’m such a lightweight. Let’s talk about vintage clothes…

If you insist. Where did the love of vintage come from?

Vintage is my procrastination. The irony is that now I’m selling vintage clothes professionally, I procrastinate by doing my music. ‘Maybe I’ll just write a new song instead of tagging these items.’ I’ve even tried to trick myself and it does work! But you know what’s good now? I wear the vintage while playing the gig, so it’s perfect. It’s the same obsession with music: timelessness. It’s an obsession with classical music, with renaissance, with baroque. It’s this looking back to look forward thing. But also, so much of the newly designed stuff out there is junk. The clothes don’t work with the body, they work against it. Vintage is so romantic – and it’s often a lot cheaper.

So, if you had a time machine…  

[Laughs] I’d go back to before this wine and I wouldn’t order it!

WHO: Amanda Bloom
WHAT: An epic and astounding fusion of fantasy, circus, classical, and piano-driven alternative rock
WHERE: Meta House, #37 Sothearos Blvd.
WHEN: 8pm October 11
WHY: See WHAT

 

Get funky for monkeys

In 1979, while filming an episode of Life on Earth with the BBC’s Natural History Unit, a young David Attenborough – today the world’s most famous natural history film-maker – came face-to-face with what were then the world’s most famous macaques. On a tiny offshore island in Japan, the naturalist – sporting rolled-up denims – delivered his piece de camera barefoot as dozens of these Old World primates swarmed his ankles. The troop had become famous for what he described as “making some remarkable changes in their behaviour”.

“For a long time, people thought that the way creatures like these feed was largely instinctive. But then in 1952, scientists visited this island and in order to entice them out into the open so that they could observe them more clearly, they started offering them sweet potatoes…” [At this point in the clip, one particularly bold macaque swipes a sweet potato from the presenter’s hand, trots across the beach to a shallow pool, dips the potato into the water and gives it a vigorous scrub.]

“After about a year, a young female called Emo began to take her roots down to a pool and wash off the sand and mud before eating them. Within a few weeks, her close friends and family – including her mother – were copying her. The habit spread and, eight years later, almost all the monkeys on the island habitually washed their sweet potatoes. Then a new variation arose. Instead of using fresh water, the monkeys took the roots down to the sea and washed them there – even when they were clean already. Perhaps they simply liked salt on their potatoes.”

It would not be the last time macaques, second only to humans in terms of geographical distribution, made the international headlines. Last year, award-winning photographer David Slater left his camera unattended at a national park in Indonesia. Before long, an inquisitive rare crested black macaque – mesmerised by her reflection in the lens – had seized the camera and somehow shot a splendid self-portrait, complete with goofy grin.

Macaques’ closeness to us, hinted at in such hijinks, has made possible extraordinary medical advances, including the development of rabies and polio vaccines, and drugs to manage HIV/Aids. With populations in Cambodia under continued threat from illegal hunting, Innov8 International is throwing a party tonight to raise funds for a new macaque enclosure at Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Sanctuary, managed by Wildlife Alliance. Break out your best animal prints and get wild to the sound of Afrikana’s conga drums and DJ Wez T. Tickets for the event – sponsored by Smart Mobile, Total, Excell and Asian Tigers Mobility – cost $10 and include a welcome drink and canapés, and there are raffle prizes aplenty. Get yours at The Dollhouse, Jasmine Boutique, Mad Monkey Restaurant or Ebony Tree.

WHO: Animal lovers
WHAT: Rumble in the Jungle fundraiser
WHERE: Ebony Tree, St. 178
WHEN: 6:30pm October 4
WHY: Give orphaned macaques a safe place to go

 

The time it’s war

It is written by Chinese military tactician Sun Tzu in his ancient sacred treatise The Art of War that “if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.” The immortal words of this legendary general have been put into deadly effect over the millennia by some of history’s most accomplished warmongers, among them Mao Tse Tung, the Viet Cong, and the US Army. The odds of such tactics being deployed during Battle of the Bands II, however, are about as high as those of World War III being triggered by a ten-pin bowling match.

Or are they? Take The 33 Strategies of War: distilled nuggets of warmongering wisdom from the likes of Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great and Tzu, applied to the trials and tribulations of life in the 21st century. As eight of the capital’s maddest and baddest bands charge Sharky’s for the rock bar’s second annual bloodfest, they’d perhaps do well to remember a few of its most pugnacious gems. Worthy of note, for example, might be numbers 10: Create a Threatening Presence (Deterrence Strategies); 30: Penetrate Their Minds (Communication Strategies), and 22: Know How To End Things (The Exit Strategy). There may even be sufficient wiggle room for a spot of 33: Sow Uncertainty and Panic Through Acts of Terror (The Chain Reaction Strategy).

For as Jack Black, in the guise of music teacher/ frustrated rock star Dewey Finn, put it so eloquently in School of Rock, entering any Battle of the Bands will test “your head and your mind and your brain”.

At stake are more than just bragging rights. Says Sharky’s music manager, Dave: “It’s a stepping stone, especially for the younger up-and-coming bands. It’s a great showcase, there’s no doubt about that. Any band who wins it is gonna be in more magazines; get more publicity, appear on the radio more…” Last year’s winners, The Anti-Fate, walked away with $200 and a diary bulging with gigs. Judges will be on the lookout for, among other things, quality of musicianship, and stage presence. “It’s down to essentially the rapport they get between the audience and the band. It’s their ability to entertain the audience the best, for whatever reason.” Let battle commence!

 

 

Ghoulies & ghosties

Things that go ‘bump’ in the night, to which the Western tradition of Halloween is today largely dedicated, have long been part of Southeast Asian folklore. Notable among the region’s most frightful spectres is the Arp, a disembodied female head who floats around at night scaring the bejesus out of nocturnal types with her glistening fangs and glowing, bloody entrails.

Legend has it she’s the ghost of a Khmer princess defeated in battle and later burnt at the stake after the Siamese aristocrat to whom she’d been promised caught her in the arms of her lover (a lower-ranking lover, at that). In desperation, a Khmer sorceress cast a powerful spell to protect the princess, but by the time the magic took effect only her head and intestines had escaped the flames. Today, this grisly apparition – all that remains of her royal highness – is believed to roam the Southeast Asian countryside under cover of darkness, sating its infernal appetite for flesh by preying on everything from pigs to pregnant women.

Twentieth-century ethnographer Phraya Anuman Rajadhon was the first scholar in Thailand to study regional beliefs in the paranormal. He notes that the Arp’s taste for the blood of the unborn is believed by many folk in rural areas to be the cause of diseases affecting women during pregnancy. To protect mothers-to-be, relatives place thorny branches around the home until after the child is delivered to snag the Arp’s dangling viscera. Once the newborn has been safely ushered into this world, they then bury the placenta as far away as possible in as deep a hole as possible in order to thwart attacks by the bloodthirsty spirit.

Such grisliness was made famous in the first Cambodian film produced following the fall of the Khmer Rouge: Konm Eak Madia Arp (‘My Mother is Arp’) became a cult hit almost overnight when it was released in 1980 following years of cultural suppression by the doomed Marxist regime. But the arb is not alone in Cambodia’s annals of horror. In the Buddhist Institute of Cambodia’s Collection of Old Khmer Tales, which hark back to the dark days of animism, stories serve to instruct not on the virtues of being good, but as a warning against the perils of evil.

“Like the Germanic tales originally collected by the Grimm brothers, these Khmer folktales are not sweet, gentle stories designed to whisk children away into a land of dreams and wonder, but rather stark warnings as to the very real perils and pitfalls of the world in which they live,” notes khmerbuddhistrelief.org, on which several such tales have been translated into English. “Concocted at a time when wild animals still posed a mortal threat in daily life, the stories can be violent, cruel and unmerciful. Intellect almost always triumphs over brute strength, but not always in the interest of justice. Clever schemes may be devised for the sake of self-preservation or revenge, or simply used to manipulate and exploit the ignorant and naive for no other end than amusement. Such are the harsh realities of the world for which these tales give the listener fair warning.”

As you don ghoulish garb to celebrate the pagan rituals of October 31, consider yourself duly warned. But as Spike Milligan famously said: “Things that go ‘bump’ in the night should not really give one a fright. It’s the hole in each ear that lets in the fear; that, and the absence of light!”

HALLOWEEN HIGHLIGHTS:

SAT 27

Drawn of the dead

Spooky face painting, remote control car races and live art demos by Global Art. 3pm at the Garden Terrace, Himawari Hotel, #313 Sisowath Quay.

Occult viewing

Italian director/musician Antonio Nardone’s film Blood Red Karma tells the story of Marc, a young man who disappeared in Cambodia while researching mysterious ghost stories. The madness which slowly possesses Marc leads the audience into the dark side of Cambodian beliefs amid the horrors of the country’s recent past. 4pm at Meta House, #37 Sothearos Blvd.

Spooked

DJ Westly spins while you battle it out for costume prizes. 7pm at Okun Ja, St. 336.

Trick or treat?

Cuba’s most famous musical sons Warapo provide the soundtrack to a special Halloween dinner ‘with surprises’. 8pm at Latin Quarter, cnr St. 178 and 19.

Kinky witch

Don your scariest costume and rub shoulders with Kinky Witches with tunes by DJs Audi, N.me and Lefty. 9pm at Nova, #19 St. 214.

SUN 28

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Fancy dress, drinking games, live music and Halloween mayhem. 3pm at Sundance Saloon, #61 St. 178.

WED 31: High spirits

DJ Gang, a resident at Pontoon, takes the turntables for the FCC’s hip-hop-electro/dirty dutch Halloween night. 8:30pm at The FCC, Sisowath Quay.

NOV 2: Get your freak on     

Free shots for the most imaginative Halloween costumes at What’s Up Phnom Penh’s Halloween shindig, with tunes by Bassbender and BBoy Peanut. 8pm at The Eighty8, #96 St. 88.

 

My brother’s killer

‘On the afternoon of the 13th, we thought we could hear a boat engine at intervals throughout the afternoon but we couldn’t be sure. Suddenly, a boat came in closer. I was about to go up on deck when the boat opened fire and sent some shots over our mast.’ – Kerry Hamill’s journal, August 13 1978.

The end, when it finally came, was as unforeseeable as it was barbaric. Foxy Lady, a 28ft traditional Malaysian perahu bedar, was just a few months into what was meant to be the trip of a lifetime. From Darwin harbour on Australia’s rugged northern coast, the tiny yacht had nosed her way through the crystalline waters of the Pacific Ocean, past Timor and Flores, then on to Bali and Singapore, heading up the Straits of Malacca and around the tip of the Malaysian peninsula. On board, a trio of tanned young adventurers passed for captain and crew.

Kerry Hamill was 27 when he wrote his last journal entry from Foxy Lady in August 1978. The eldest son of a tight-knit New Zealand family, he – along with fellow travellers Stuart Glass, a Canadian, and John Dewhirst from England – would within weeks become one of only nine foreigners ever executed by the Khmer Rouge.

At the time, few people outside Cambodia knew of the atrocities being committed. Before Foxy Lady’s course was forever altered, Kerry had sent countless letters back home, regaling his family with breathless tales they’d read aloud by a blazing fire in the coastal wilds of Whakatane. Suddenly, the letters stopped. The silence was deafening. It would be a further 18 months before the Hamills finally discovered what awful fate had befallen their son.

“I remember my mum looking out to sea approaching Christmas time and saying ‘Kerry’s going to come over the horizon and surprise us with tales of his adventures,’” says his little brother Rob, today an Olympic and Trans-Atlantic rowing champion. Their parents, Esther and Miles, fretted about what to do; who to contact. Kerry’s father wrote letters of his own, bashing away furiously at an antiquated typewriter stuffed with carbon sheaves. The theorising began: pirates; maybe a shipwreck. Perhaps their son had just decided to go silent for a while.

Sixteen months later, the phone finally rang – only the voice at the other end wasn’t Kerry’s, but that of a neighbour: ‘Get the local paper.’ John, the second eldest, went to a nearby dairy. There it was, in bold type face on the front page: his brother’s torture and execution at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. A few months later, John – also 27 – walked to the edge of a cliff and jumped. Rob, then 14, sought solace in the numbing arms of alcohol.

Today, asked what he remembers of Kerry, Rob is silent for a moment. Eventually, slowly and deeply, he exhales. Each word is carefully weighed before being spoken. “He was outgoing; his own man. He wasn’t overly demonstrative. He was really calm and just a lovely guy. One of his acquaintances said he was ‘a gorgeous, beautiful man’ and that phrase has stuck with me forever. He was a very able, helpful, loving guy.” [His voice breaks] “I can’t say much more…”

More than 30 years have passed since Foxy Lady was blown off course in a storm, straying into waters controlled by Democratic Kampuchea’s out-of-control Marxist machine. Stuart was shot dead immediately; Kerry and John were taken for interrogation at S-21. John was executed weeks later; two months of torture followed for Kerry. At best, he was blindfolded, taken to a pre-dug trench, made to kneel down beside it, hit over the head with a metal bar, his throat slit, and then buried. At worst, he was dragged into the street and burned alive.

Not knowing why, or even how, has haunted Rob ever since. In 1997, rowing across the Atlantic Ocean with the late Phil Stubbs, his anguish loomed like a tidal wave. “I was grief stricken, even though it had been 20-plus years,” he says from his New Zealand home. “Whether it was through exhaustion, or sleep deprivation, or the connection with the ocean – Kerry had a strong connection with water – every day on the boat, when I was rowing or when I was in the cabin while my teammate was out rowing, he didn’t know but at some point every day I grieved for my brother. It was at that point that I knew I had to do something to pay tribute to his life and to what happened.”

They won the race by a full eight days, but more than a decade passed before the invitation to testify at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal finally came. “When the court case came up, I knew that was the time I was going to go to Cambodia, whether it was just to try to find out more about what happened, or just to honour him. Soon after that, I was contacted by a film producer called James Bellamy to see if I wanted to tell the whole story.”

Thirty-one years to the day that Kerry had first set foot on Cambodian soil, on 13 August 2009 Rob Hamill landed at Phnom Penh International Airport to confront his brother’s torturers. “It was incredibly poignant. The first day I arrived at the airport was very traumatic. When I came through customs I remember the first guy I saw looked like a commander in the Khmer Rouge, with the big hat and the medals. I don’t think I’d ever had my photograph taken at an airport before. They took my passport and then took my photo. I was horrified; really angry. I felt like I was going through the same process my brother had gone through 31 years prior at S-21.

“I got through that and calmed down a bit, then went to get my bags and my mind was going. I saw all these bags coming out on the carousel and they became metaphoric corpses. I went from anger to being quite emotional, suddenly feeling for all the lives that had been affected by the Khmer Rouge. It was a bizarre moment for me. I hadn’t prepared myself for that at all.”

Within the clinical white walls of the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia, Rob delivered one of the tribunal’s most incendiary testimonies. That time, he was better prepared. As S-21 prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, took the stand, their eyes locked. “He challenged me: it was more than a feeling. The judges came in, we stood up and I looked across the courtroom and he was just staring at me. We stared at each other for about ten seconds. I felt that was quite a challenging thing to do, for someone who was supposedly remorseful and seeking forgiveness. It intrigued me. For me, trying to forgive, it didn’t bode well.”

Reading his victim impact statement out to the court, Rob said: “Duch, at times I have wanted to ‘smash’ you, to use your words, in the same way that you smashed so many others. At times I have imagined you shackled, starved, whipped and clubbed viciously. I have imagined your scrotum electrified, being forced to eat your own faeces, being nearly drowned and having your throat cut. I have wanted that to be your experience, your reality.”

Duch, who admitted overseeing the deaths of at least four of the nine foreigners, told the judges that he couldn’t remember Kerry. “My interpretation of that,” says Rob, “is that it’s a lot worse than I ever could have imagined, so he tried not to even go there because it wouldn’t have made him look any better. I haven’t read every word that was written or that he said in the court, but my general feeling is that there are parts of his testimony that are genuine and heart-felt and really remorseful; the problem is it’s been very inconsistent and contradictory.”

In February 2012, Duch’s 30-year sentence was extended to life imprisonment for his crimes during the murderous rule of the Khmer Rouge. But does Rob believe justice been served? “Having someone be brought to trial and shown up for who they are is important, but justice is bigger than that. It’s more of an overall bigger picture: getting people talking about the issue, about what happened; the trauma inflicted on all the families that were affected by this.”

It’s to this end that Rob agreed to the filming of Brother Number One, an award-winning documentary by Annie Goldson, James Bellamy and Peter Gilbert that follows his journey to the ECCC and is screening at Meta House this week. Along the way, he visits Tuol Sleng, where his brother was tortured; meets three S-21 survivors; and penetrates a Khmer Rouge stronghold to find the Navy officer in charge when Kerry’s yacht was attacked. It is, above all, the story of an innocent man brought to his knees and killed in the prime of his life, and the impact his death had on just one family.

“Here in New Zealand, having this film made and people being able to watch it, and creating this conversation afterwards. I know people have seen the film and have gone away for days, weeks, contemplating it and talking about the ramifications of what happened at that time – and hopefully learning from it. That’s what the court has helped facilitate: books being written; conversations overheard in a cafe. It’s infinite, and that’s where the court has played a bigger role than having one person brought up in front of the world. It’s created a dialogue and that’s incredibly powerful.

“Whether Case 003 goes ahead or not, there’s an opportunity now to start up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission – the South African version of seeking justice. Could something be created in Cambodia to say ‘We 100% guarantee no one else is going to be brought to trial, but you’re probably feeling a lot of guilt about what you did, so come forward, talk about it and let’s get it out there.’?”

As for reconciling his own loss, Rob – whose request for a meeting with Duch has twice been refused – is more circumspect, but says the process of confronting the past for Brother Number One has been “very, very positive”. “If I think deeply about it the emotion starts coming up, which suggests there are issues still there and reinforces that the process of grieving never ends. I still want to meet with Duch. I’d like to find out more about what he was thinking; why he was thinking the way he was thinking and why he did the things that he did; the motives behind it.” [His voice breaks] “I can’t say too much…”

 

Dish: breakfasts first for a Kingdom

Breakfast: the most important meal of the day. But in the Kingdom of Wonder breakfast can often leave you wondering; when born and bred Phnom Penhites eat their first meal of the day they appear, to expat eyes, to be erroneously chowing down on their evening meal. Rice, noodles, mystery meats – a morning mash-up confusing enough to send even the most adventurous scurrying for the comfortable familiarity of one of the city’s numerous Western coffee shops. A caramel latte, a pain au chocolat, a bit of toast and jam: now that’s breakfast. It will also cost you about $10, thank you very much.

But step outside your air-conditioned comfort zone and you’ll discover that Khmer breakfasts are (despite occasional appearances to the contrary) delicious and, for those experiencing that end-of-the-month penury, dirt-cheap as well.

Bobor 

Touted as Cambodia’s rebuttal to Scottish porridge, bobor does not in fact contain the mighty Scottish oatflake, nor does it come in a box branded with a burly gentleman in a raunchily wind-blustered kilt. In fact, bobor has more in common with gruel than porridge. But don’t let this put you off; it’s a great way to start your day. A simple dish, it consists of soft-cooked rice drenched in steaming broth and spiced up with sundries. In more salubrious breakfast establishments, such as those lining Monivong Boulevard, you can choose whether you want your bobor with chicken (sait mowan), beef (sait gow) or fish (sait trai). But if you’re feeling brave just pull up a stool outside any morning market stall, ask for bobor and get what you’re given. This could range from the tender chicken breast, to crispy squid rings, to the marginally less appetising congealed pigs’ blood or unidentifiable gizzard. Topped off with roasted garlic, diced mint leaves and freckles of onion leaf, bobor is truly the monarch of the porridge glen. And this is coming from a Scot.

Bai Sait Chrouk

Cambodia’s answer to the bacon roll. You’ll spot a pork and rice vendor by the billows of smoke emanating from their street-side charcoal grills and, of course, the irresistible whiff of bacon. Pork and rice, like Ronseal, does exactly what is says on the tin: it’s just pork and rice. But the meat is consistently well-seasoned, oscillating between sweet and sour and complimented perfectly with a heaped spoonful of pickle or sweet chilli sauce. If you’re really ravening you can request a fried duck egg to top it all off. The breakfast of kings, and those with moderate to severe hangovers.

Num Banh Chok

If you’re one of those people who has ever, in a moment of weakness, found yourself at the fridge consuming last night’s cold curry with your bare hands, then prepare thyself for a new dawn. Num banh chok, Cambodia’s breakfast curry, is a national treasure as unique to the country as Angkor Wat or Howies Bar. Recipes vary noticeably from province to province, but the heart of the dish is constant: a whorl of thick rice noodles unceremoniously dumped in a bowl, fresh bean sprouts, chillies and herbs, ladled with a mild fish-based coconut curry. This is topped by wild herbs, long beans and lotus stems. A twist of fresh lime completes your breakfast curry.

Kuyteav

A Phnom Penh breakfast icon which, according to legend, cannot be truly replicated outside the capital’s environs. Of course, kuyteav is offered at roadside stalls from Poipet to Bavet, but what makes the city’s version special is its direct provenance from the first influx of Chinese immigrants centuries ago; the dish has remained unchanged ever since. The premise is simple: vermicelli noodles dipped in pork bone broth, and mixed with whatever remaining bits of said pig are to hand. The secret of kuyteav’s success is in the seasoning – an array of lettuce leaves, bean sprouts, herbs and caramelised garlic can be added during the cooking process, or presented separately for your individualised dining pleasure. Recipes are handed down as heirlooms and range widely from family to family, making kuyteav the adrenalin sport of breakfasts. But if you want the real deal, head to the corner of street 107 and Oknha Tep Phan: Phnom Penh kuyteav was born in this area, and it was here that it was first resurrected after the fall of the Khmer Rouge.

A bite of world history for breakfast? All of a sudden that caramel latte starts to look just a little less tempting.