It’s a word oft-overused, but in this case it’s justified. New nightclub. Name: Epic. ‘Nuff said.
WHO: DJ Mistrezz C
WHAT: Epic nightclub opening
WHERE:#122b Sothearos Blvd (near Russian Embassy)
WHEN:12pm November 21
WHY: It’s a nightclub. It’s new. And it’s EPIC!
From the grim industrial wastelands of northern England to the grimy epicentre of Southeast Asia’s underbelly, John Gartland – making a rare appearance here alongside Krom tonight – has spent the past decade or so morphing from British playwright to the ‘noir poet’ of Bangkok. Noirish group Krom provide a suitably stirring sonic backdrop, with a selection of oh-so-haunting songs from their forthcoming third album, Mekong Delta Blues.
WHO: John Gartland & Krom
WHAT: The noir poet of Bangkok meets the sound of Southeast Asian noir
WHERE: Meta House, #37 Sothearos Blvd.
WHEN: 8pm November 20
WHY: “The noir hero is a knight in blood-caked armour. He’s dirty and he does his best to deny the fact that he’s a hero the whole time.” – Frank Miller
Living in the 21st century, it’s easy to become accustomed to the amount we consume and dispose. Almost everything we buy comes in plastic bags or wrapped in some other packaging. Few things are meant to last a long time, yet where does all this trash go? How do our actions affect the environment? Re-claimed, a new exhibition by students of Northbridge International School, aims to shed light on this global issue while highlighting art’s potential to both raise awareness and turn waste into something beautiful. This series of multimedia pieces includes original works created entirely from recycled materials.
WHO: Northbridge International School
WHAT: Re-claimed multimedia art exhibition
WHERE: The Insider Gallery, Intercontinental Hotel, #296 Mao Tse Tung Blvd.
WHEN: November 20 – December 15
WHY: Boost your eco-warrior credentials
Twenty five years ago today, the Convention On The Rights Of The Child was ratified, establishing fundamental rights for all young people: to survive; develop; be protected from violence, abuse and neglect, and take part in family, cultural and social life. Here in Phnom Penh, Unicef is marking the milestone with the help of Belgian photographer Isabelle Lesser, who hosted several Asia Motion workshops encouraging Cambodian kids to express their ideas through art. This exhibition is the arresting result.
WHO: Unicef & Isabelle Lesser
WHAT: Photo exhibition
WHERE: Wat Botum Park, Street 7
WHEN: November 20 – December 20
WHY: ““Millions of children are victims of violence and exploitation. They are physically and emotionally vulnerable and they can be scarred for life by mental or emotional abuse. That is why children should always have the first claim on our attention and resources. They must be at the heart of our thinking on challenges we are addressing on a daily basis. We know what to do, and we know how to do it. The means are at hand, it is up to us to seize the opportunity and build a world that is fit for children.” – Ban Ki-moon,
secretary-general of the United Nations
remarks on the convention in New York, 2009
Emerging from a bed of charcoal, figures made of sarong and mosquito netting twist and turn, looking inward and outward. Together they are a community, but at the same time isolated. Srey Bandaul’s latest art installation, Under The Sarong, plays on an ancient Khmer custom and a familiar fashion item. “A man is not allowed to stay beneath the sarong or to walk under the clothesline, especially the one hanging sarong, because it causes dissonance with the demon and it leads to misfortune or being despised,” says the artist. “A man fearing his wife is always said to be paralysed by the edge of the sarong.” The metaphor extends beyond gender to embody all power relations, with the artist’s use of charcoal echoing those layers. “A chunk of charcoal in Cambodian society can be considered a negative symbol,” says Srey Bandaul. “It easily causes a stain and is feared by even ghosts and demons. When people think that a ghost, demon or evil spirit invades the village, they take charcoal to draw marks on the foreheads of children in order to frighten that ghost or demon. A Khmer metaphor says that to colour or paint one’s face with charcoal means to deceive or fake the truth. When the sarong goes together with charcoal, how could they not get stained? And what will become of this?” Alongside the exhibition is a screening of the artist’s video installation, Site 2, the name of the refugee camp on the Thai border in which the artist spent his formative years. He traces patterns acrossthis place,so loaded with memories, again using the fabric of the sarong and mosquito netting.
WHO: Srey Bandaul
WHAT: Under The Sarong art exhibition opening and Site 2 video installation screening
WHERE: Romeet Gallery, #34 Street 178
WHEN: 6:30pm Nov 21 to Dec 18
WHY: Discover what lies beneath
Naysayers worried and whinged in the lead-up to this year’s Water Festival. My favourite gaudy vested anchorman finger-wagged a lot about it. A poor show this year: apparently just 248 boats, instead of the usual 800. Given the festival’s recent tragic history, mums in the provinces naturally fretted about their kids in the big smoke. The TV got grannies from Prey Veng to Battambang predicting something supernaturally shady with the whole shebang. There was carping down the Panda Mart about the loony street closures and which crooked rozzer was selling VIP access to locals who were entitled to pass for free.
Most vocal, though, were the rheum-eyed jades, those been-there-done-that couldabeens who shuffle the seedy expat path between babytalking their lap-sat bodega girls down 51 in broad daylight and late-night, pompous tit-for-tat grammar scuffles on their bitter ‘Cambodia is Crap’ Facebook pages. The races may be over, but those gouty dotards are still bitching about the lack of shady daydrinking spots on the riverfront, and how that provincial plastic-belt salesman cheated them out of half a pent. You’d think they would’ve ironed their cleanest singlet and fucked off on the apparently extortionate $8 bus to Snooky or the sexpat express to Pattaya for the duration. Or forever, even. Anything to get away from the crowds of everyday out-of-town Cambodians (or ‘peasants’, as they’re called on the official Tourism website) spending hard-earned cash, overcoming natural trepidation and enduring a 14-hour chickentaxi sauna to come root for their home-grown boats hauling arse.
And, shiver me timbers, didn’t they?! I’ve enjoyed my fair share of sweaty slappy man comps in which vigorous teams of colour-coded beefcake achieve something thrilling together, but I didn’t expect to see that kind of manly action – and with far more august historic pedigree – this past Bon Om Touk. ‘Cos let’s get real, Khmer fellers. Though props for handcrafting a space-visible religious wonderment, you’ve snoozed on your laurels since 1150AD. Drinking coffee en masse at every available street corner and screaming at John Cena fake-beating the crap out of an actor in lycra tights and a bedazzled cod piece don’t count. It’s yelling at American TV with a bunch of similarly skiving mates. An active celebration of the majestic tradition and awe-inspiring cultural muscle that created a once great empire it certainly ain’t.
Every year since I’ve lived in CharmingVille I admit I’ve upped sticks and headed out to somewhere beachy or chill, but this time me and The Hubster decided to stay. I didn’t know what to expect except maybe a beer concert and some kind of half-arsed regatta. So imagine my surprise when, after negotiating the three separate road blocks in the 100 yards between Marital HQ and Riverside, my Lifemate and I met with the spectacle of hundreds of thrusting mariners standing shoulder to shoulder and rowing in perfect unison, club coloured and kroma’d, while clumps of floating lotus and water hyacinth swept by. Delighted citizens thronged the banks and cheered and selfied and snacked. Wiry blokes just off their boats with muddy legs and lip-hung fag ends still had the energy to tomfool with rivals and pose for toothy portraits. Monks shared prehistoric binoculars, ladies in eyewatering jimjams, toesocks and matching hats sold pneumatic bags of squid floss to toddlers half their size, and a wizened codger sporting a pork pie hat and amulet tattoos sat on the parapet swinging his legs and teasing his giggling grandkids. I looked up and saw throngs of smiling tourists watching the races with icy cold beers and cameras from balconies and rooftops along the Quay. Cops of every stripe hogged the shade.
I felt a bit wrong going into the ‘foreigner’s only’ tent, but they had white satin chair covers and headsets translating the live commentary in English. Hubster pretended he was Malaysian. We sat there in relative cool with a great view of the flower-festooned water dragons, some with female crews and apsara coxswains, knifing through the swift, olive Tonle Sap and urged on by their hometowns on both banks. I learned that some had rowed kilometres down various rivers to get here. We motoed across the Japanese Bridge early on Day 2 as the first racers geared up and watched 40 men in yellow T-shirts and red krama climb down the hasty ladders to the mash and trash of sludge below, 80 flip-flops left behind as they pushed off with rousing chants. These dudes meant business. These rice farmers and shop keepers and motodops and fishers. These 21st-century strugglers, stoic, shy, dirt poor. And usually invisible. They outshone the Ministries’ lacy floating light show, and the fireworks, and all the combed-over, white-suited Oknhas and their bejewelled wives. They brought the pomp and swag and vigour of Angkor princes and stirred us pasty city folk, for just three days of the year, and I was so glad to see it. Young guys full of noble piss and vinegar, old ones quietly confident and twinkly, all justifiably proud of a tradition 1,000 years old, and giving everyone who stayed behind a Very Good Show.
I simply cannot say ‘no’ to a dare. When someone tells me ‘I dare you’, my heartbeat picks up, my shoulders become all tense and something inside my brain switches off. I feel a rush of adrenaline overflowing my hypothalamus and clouding my judgment.
I squint, look the darer in the eye and, in true Marty McFly fashion, exclaim: ‘Nobody calls me chicken!’
It’s dinnertime on a Monday afternoon and I’m leisurely walking with a couple of friends down Street 228. We’re going to Black Bambu, a recently opened restaurant I’ve eyed for review. I can see my friends, a couple of Kiwi girls, giggling and whispering something in a secretive way. I get an ominous feeling: they are up to something. Finally, one of them steps forward. Her tone is frolicsome: “Adolfo, you know, we were thinking if you would dare to…” Allow me to summarise: they dare me to include a specific word (chosen by them, of course) in this review; a word to be revealed only after I accept the challenge. It goes without saying; I accept.
Entering Black Bambu’s perfectly kept garden, a spotless white statue of a meditating Buddha welcomes us with a nirvanic smile. We cross the big glass doors of the building and feel stupefied: the radiant white, diaphanous and elegant space opening in front of us reminds me of Hollywood’s depictions of Heaven. I almost expect Morgan Freeman to walk down the stairs at any moment (dressed in an immaculate white suit) and hand me a menu.
We sit at the terrace, where the breeze is surprisingly cool and pleasant, and stare at the beautifully put together menu of unambitious size (about 20 different tapas) and creative, mouth-watering items. Al, the manager and head chef, personally takes our order.
First come the cocktails. I know my sangria, and this is a good one: pieces of orange and apple float idly inside the generously sized cup; the sweet aftertaste of cinnamon is complemented by the timid tang of liquor. Smiling and attentive waiters start bringing the main courses. The ciabatta (made with grilled pear, goat cheese, bacon and caramelised onion) is spongy; biting into it, your mouth fills with the unmistakable warmness of just-out-of-the-oven French bread. The contrast between the savoury and sweet flavours is both perplexing and pleasing.
The mini Australian beef burgers – three cute little burgers served upon a stylish slate board – bring to mind the Latin phrase omne trium perfectum (‘everything that comes in threes is perfect’). With regard to tenderness, the patties fall nothing short of Kobe beef. The bits of pickle mixed with hand-made mayonnaise are the icing on the cake.
The desserts put a perfect ending to our hedonistic evening. The dulce de leche is an original and sophisticated take on the South American recipe, in which the chef ingeniously adds a top layer of whipped cream and a base of chocolate mixed with coconut oil. The result is a dessert so good that eating it fills you with shame, because, by the Universal Law of Opposites, you know something this good must inevitably be, in some way or another, terribly bad.
It’s during dessert that the mischievous Kiwi girls finally reveal their choice of word to be inserted into this review. I won’t take away the satisfaction of guessing which one it is. Let me simply end this piece by stating that Black Bambu is, without vacillation, one of the most outstanding upscale restaurants I’ve tried in Phnom Penh. Good luck guessing!
Black Bambu, #29 Street 228; 023 966 895
With the Khmer Rouge’s top surviving leaders dominating the where-are-the-genocide-leaders-now pages, it’s somewhat surprising to see a lower-ranking former comrade getting the kind of publicity that can’t be labelled ‘atrocity’. Tep Khunnal, once Pol Pot’s chief aide and close confidante, has dropped his out-of-date Marxist ways – including the boring uniform – to teach management and leadership at a Cambodian university. With a past that includes time in New York, Khunnal is now a converted capitalist who has steadfastly replaced Karl with Peter – Drucker, that is: the legendary American management guru famous for a long list of slogans that shuns laziness, unoriginality and not being sincere when you greet someone at the door. Rockefeller Without Borders hopes that Khunnal’s story of capitalist bravery can inspire other ex-Khmer Rouge Marxist loyalists to turn in their membership card (but still keep the benefits including all-you-can-eat wings at Lone Pine Café) and serve the nation in productive ways.
Good teachers are, of course, always needed in the Kingdom, but what about other, equally as important professions that require experienced practitioners with wide-ranging skills? I am specifically referring to the need for men and women who can bring enthusiasm and new ideas to such neglected areas as: national airline air-sickness bag design (make the bag look more like something you’d want to be sick in); crowd-pleasing political speech-writer (three-hour speeches guaranteed to keep people awake); motivational poster photography (more back-breaking field work and less beautiful oceans, please), and Hallmark card-writing that doesn’t actually sound like Hallmark card-writing.
As a registered NGO, Rockefeller Without Borders intends to help this country by strategically filling those crucial posts. In fact, my chief aide and close confidante (gotta keep it real to relate, right?), Ricardo, is now on a bus to Pailin to do a bit of promoting and recruiting. We are setting up a booth in the lobby of the lovely tree-lined Pailin Hotel, known for a stellar happy hour that attracts a lively ex-KR crowd whose only interest in fighting these days is over control of the jukebox.
One former cadre whom we certainly cannot recruit to write heartfelt Hallmark cards (at least not at an office) is Kang Keng Iew, alias Comrade Duch, the commander of S-21. Duch is doing time for the heinous crimes he admitted committing. Prior to his incarceration, Duch converted to Christianity to (presumably) cleanse himself of his sins. Taking stock, then: Khunnal turned to the soul-numbing forces of capitalism and Duch to the soul-saving forces of Jesus. Both agree, however, that all shops should be closed on Sundays.
Experienced soldiers the world over often move onto civilian work where their training can be put to good use. Ex-military men and women deserve a career without guns – especially if they are willing to help their country. Now that he’s reformed and using his strategic thinking in better ways, I wonder if Tep Khunnal preaches the importance of this Peter Drucker slogan to keep future generations from repeating the mistakes of a dark past: “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.” Words that are getting hallelujahs and high-fives all the way to Pailin!
THIS WEEK IN ADD
• 27-member committee to break garment-sector minimum wage deadlock with rock, paper, scissors
• Photocopy shop workers traumatised by the pressure to always copy others
• Cambodia’s 2 million Facebook users say they will like you but only if you like them first
• Barangs celebrate Water Festival with a cultural piss-up
• Men who can’t afford an expensive erection happily turning to counterfeit Viagra
It would be easy to mistake the Eric Kayser Artisan Boulanger for yet another nondescript international chain riding the Aeon Mall coattails. But ask anyone who has tried their breads and they will tell you: EK is likely the finest bakery in the capital. The difference is the ingredients. The shop uses only the best, and you can taste the quality in every bite. There is a shop in Aeon and another on Street 240 out front of the White Mansion Hotel. While the breads are the same at both places, Street 240 is far more accessible. Eric Kayser Artisan Boulanger, Aeon Mall & #26 Street 240.
From the outset, it’s worth nothing that this isn’t a book for everybody and it probably won’t be flying off the shelves. It’s a nearly 400-page-long, densely annotated analysis of the diplomatic relations between Britain and Cambodia between 1964 and 1970. That may or may not be your thing. If it is, you’re gonna love this book.
The problem, however, is that Britain played a pretty minor role in shaping Cambodia’s history during this period. British influence in the region had faded alarmingly after India’s independence in 1947, and even more so after Burma’s in 1948, so despite the flood of diplomatic cables and papers quoted in the book, its role really didn’t amount to much. In 1967 the British closed its military bases in Malaysia and Singapore, really bringing the curtain down on its strategic role in the region.
Of most interest to the author, Nicholas Tarling, is the gap between Britain’s need to play along with the diplomatic interests of the United States, at the height of the Cold War, and its own rather more neutral King Sihanouk-centric philosophy.
While Sihanouk bravely strove to maintain Cambodia’s neutrality, caught between the superpowers’ travails in Vietnam, both China and the US put him under enormous and unsustainable pressure. Britain also had to try to find a middle ground, recognising as it did the existence of the People’s Republic of China (which the US did not, until 1979) and would have been happy to see a non-aligned Southeast Asia, much as Sihanouk would have done.
King Sihanouk is the most interesting personality in the book (almost all the other characters being minor Foreign Office mandarins of the mid-1960s). While Tarling talks of Sihanouk’s ‘baffling’ and ‘mercurial personality’, his ‘flamboyance’, ‘exaggerated vanity’ and ‘outrageous speeches’, one never really gets a sense of the man; buried beneath the thick layers of academic verbiage, Sihanouk fails to come alive as the spectacular character he clearly was.
While Britain privately admitted that it had had ‘nothing but trouble from the touchy, temperamental and doubtfully sane ruler’, it recognised that continuing diplomatic relations might help prevent Cambodia becoming a satellite of China, and ‘exasperating and unpredictable though the personality of Prince Sihanouk might be, he has so far maintained the peace and unity of Cambodia’. Sadly, this was not to be: Sihanouk was overthrown in March 1970, and Cambodia’s long slide into the hell of civil war and the Khmer Rouge really began.
Far more interesting to the general reader was Britain’s behaviour towards Cambodia after the fall of the Khmer Rouge: between 1985 and 1989, authorised by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s elite SAS military regiment ran a series of training camps for Khmer Rouge allies in Thailand close to the Cambodian border and created a ‘sabotage battalion’ of 250 experts in explosives and ambushes. That sadly falls outside the scope of this book.
Britain And Sihanouk’s Cambodia, by Nicholas Tarling, is now available from Monument Books for $39.50
