Byline: Sean Barrett

Stranger than fiction

For decades, the Powers That Be have flip-flopped on Angkor Wat being one of the Seven Wonders of the World almost as much as the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame has on the inclusion of Iggy and The Stooges. But John Shors, author of historical novels about the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China, has no doubt as to its value. 

Despite having more than two million foreign visitors last year; an Angelina Jolie movie shot among its ruins; its likeness immortalised in a video game and a Texan thrash metal band now bearing its name, Angkor Wat’s appearance in Shors’ new title represents the first time the temple has served as the setting for a novel.

Temple of a Thousand Faces takes places in the 12th century, the height of the Khmer Empire. Because so little is known about this time, Shors had to supplement scant historical documents – such as A Record of Cambodia by 13th century Chinese diplomat Zhou Daguan – with impressions from his trips to Cambodia and his own imagination (the latter he stimulated by surrounding himself with photographs of the temple’s bas reliefs while he wrote).

Central to the main plot is the year 1177, a time when the Angkorean Empire was at the height of its powers. When Cham King Jaya Indravaraman invades the temples, the Khmer ruler Jayavaraman VII and his wife Jayarajadevi are forced into hiding in the surrounding jungle while they raise the necessary army to reclaim their kingdom. The remaining characters, all of whom are fictitious, were inspired by Shors’ interactions with the Cambodian people during his time in the country. One, he tells the reader in an interview at the end of the book, “embodies the characteristics of the women I met in Cambodia: strong, clever, witty, hospitable”.

In addition to the strong prince, his mystical wife and the Cham king, the book follows a Cham warrior who is torn between his loyalty to Indravaraman and his love for a Khmer woman. His conflict adds shades of grey to something that would otherwise be in danger of becoming a black and white melodrama. Also figuring prominently is a fishing and trading family whose struggle illustrates how such wars affected the peasant stock at the time and, more importantly, how they responded.

Reflecting the beauty and splendour of Angkor Wat, Shors’ third-person narration reads like a poet’s description of the jungles, the temples and the hearts of each character. Most all of the characters speak like philosophers. Even Boran, the fisherman, has this to say to his sons: “…war is vile, like a carcass in the water. It corrupts the pure. It maims the innocent… when the fighting starts, when the poor drench the earth with their blood, the rich will stand ready to seize whatever hasn’t been destroyed. That’s the nature of war.” Some things, it seems, never change.

Running throughout are themes of reincarnation, Buddhism and Hinduism, love and death. At more than 500 pages, Temple of a Thousand Faces is as epic as the Bayon statues which bear the face of its protagonist. And given how Shors condenses narration into prose like a Zen scribe, those pages are not thin. Altruistically enough, a portion of the book’s proceeds go towards the Jayavaraman VII Children’s Hospital in Siem Reap.

Temple of a Thousand Faces, by John Shors, is available at Monument Books priced at $15.

 

Rock the mic right

Though open mics often focus on verbal skills such as poetry and comedy, the concept could well predate spoken language

Though open mics often focus on verbal skills such as poetry and comedy, the concept could well predate spoken language. Perhaps it once involved our big-foreheaded ancestors grunting melodiously for each other’s entertainment, evolving with the march of time into a way for folk to share their talents in the absence of any fourth wall. There are now more open mic nights in Phnom Penh than there are days of the week, so to help you navigate the scene here are a few of our favourites and what you can expect to hear when you get there.

Most laidback: Sundance Inn & Saloon

As intimate, friendly and casual as that girl you went around with for a few weeks during college, Sundance’s weekly open mic is a hotbed of talent. Most weeks, you can find Scott Bywater, of Cambodian Space Project fame, performing a lively set of both originals and covers. The nights are as loose as the cheap liquor suggests and, as such, are a good way to jam with people you wouldn’t get a chance to otherwise. They tend, like Sundance itself, to draw a good crowd of regulars who are supportive and appreciative of covers, originals and/or improvisation. From 8pm on Tuesdays at Sundance Inn & Saloon, #61 St. 172.

Most technical: Opera Cafe

If this write-up were a video-game, Opera Cafe’s open mic would appear at the end and take place in Bowser’s castle. Ostensibly billed as a Jazz Jam, the mic is kept open by Gabi Faja for those able to improvise on that level of musicianship. For variety’s sake, Gabi often cedes his role as host to someone with a slightly different background. And you might want to consider fasting before you go: the cafe is home to some of the finest Italian food in town. From 8pm on Fridays at Opera Cafe, #188 St. 13.

Loudest: Paddy Rice

With drums, amplifiers, mics and guitars, Paddy Rice serves as much as a rehearsal space for local bands as it does an open mic. Host Jet, of rock trio Bum N’ Draze, is quick to encourage anyone to join – and will happily provide a drum beat and/or improvised leads if you need an extra body or two. Expect to get gawped at by tourists strolling along Riverside. From 8:30pm on Thursdays at Paddy Rice, #213/217 Sisowath Quay.

Most diverse: Show Box

Originally intended as an unplugged poetry slam, the open mic at Show Box has since evolved into a many headed monster – a process that started when someone brought in an acoustic guitar and moved the party upstairs to play through their speakers. The night still features spoken word poetry by the likes of Kosal Kiev, but you’re just as likely to see stand-up comedians, beat boxing and pretty much everything in between. From 8pm every first and third Thursday of the month at Show Box, #11 St. 330.

Youngest: The Terrace

What began as a recital for students of Australian saxophonist Euan Gray – the front man with The Rooftops in his native Oz – is now a very public happening. The night still starts with recitals by his pupils, some as young as ten and performing in public for the first time, but then the floor is opened up to acoustic solo and/or duo acts – with Euan always poised to throw crazy sax leads over whatever tunes you bring to the table, should you so desire. Expect a more subdued and attentive audience than you’d find at most pub jams. From 6:30pm every other Saturday (check ‘The Terrace on 95’ on Facebook) at The Terrace, #43 St. 95.

 

Black as phnom penh nights

‘Master of Suspense’ Alfred Hitchcock famously noted that “Mystery is an intellectual process… but suspense is essentially an emotional process.” Phnom Penh Noir tackles both as it steers us through the seamy underbelly of a city that is seemingly all underbelly.

Noir, as a genre, cops an attitude of cynical detachment, a jaded worldview and an obsession with crime. All of these are things easily found among the flotsam and jetsam of foreigners who pass through Cambodia’s capital. With this and the city’s troubled recent past in mind, Southeast Asian publishing house Heaven Lake Press put together a compilation of Noir crime stories set locally.

The two worst things a book can do are make readers perform so many mental gymnastics that they find it more difficult than rewarding, and make readers lose brain cells with its vapidity. Phnom Penh Noir occupies a satisfying middle ground: thrilling crime tales are peppered with hard-won insights into local culture and history.

The book is made up of 14 stories as diverse in length as they are in subject matter. Love and Death at Angkor follows a young man taken in by a cult who practices Hindu sex magic in Bantaey Srey temple; if David Foster Wallace’s work ‘makes the head throb heart-like’, this makes the sacral chakra buzz brain-like. Meanwhile, Andrew Nette’s Khmer Riche deals with “[t]he classic bandit capitalist that half of Asia’s wealth was founded on” in a gripping tale that shines a flashlight into a world few of us will ever set foot in.

But the most horrifying tale is Hell in the City by young Khmer author Suong Mak. It isn’t horrific in a b-horror-movie-shock-value kind of way, but more in a what-I’m-talking-about-here-is-completely-serious-and-I-need-you-to-feel-every-second-of-it kind of way. Rightly so, dealing as it does with sexual violence in Khmer culture.

Setting itself apart by not taking place in the present day is Richard Rubenstein’s Sabbatical Term. It follows a Western journalist who’s one of the few foreigners allowed access to the Khmer Rouge regime. His falling in love with a top level official as well as the regime’s Communist ideology leaves him blind to the horror unfolding around him until it’s almost too late.

What the stories suffer from most is a sort of forced psychological machismo (only one contributor is female) which makes it hard to take seriously. Only a few of the authors are guilty of this but when they screw this up, they reinforce the absolute worst of the ‘Southeast Asia playground’ mentality. Take for example this sentence from Fires of Forever: “Not the sunburned tourists getting on that allegedly air-conditioned bus to go sightseeing at the pile of skulls in the Killing Fields for an inoculation of ignoble history that lets them justify their trip here and the coming night in bars where blowjobs from smooth-skinned black-haired beauties are always only a few dollars more.”

Some of the insights that pepper the stories feel like things creepy bar flies will tell you unsolicited. In Rebirth, author Neil Wilford speaks of “the walk of shame in the harsh morning light” and how whores “never look the same then, especially at the ATM”.

In spite of occasional cringe-inducing outbursts, Phnom Penh Noir is a worthwhile read that entertains and enlightens as it takes you through the many facets of a city you thought you knew so well. If you’re not careful, you just might learn something – even if that something is that Phnom Penh really is all seamy underbelly.

 

Phnom Penh Noir, edited by Christopher G Moore, is available at Monument Books on Norodom Boulevard for $16 and at

phnompenhnoir.com.

 

Learning the contours of the countryside

One thing Freddie Mercury and I have in common is that “I want to ride my bicycle; I want to ride it where I like.” And I can. Kind of. Liberating as the freedom and low-maintenance of bicycle ownership is it puts the rider on the bottom rung of Phnom Penh traffic’s pecking order. Imagine being a tadpole in a tank full of sharks, except that the sharks spit dust and black smoke in your face.

As it turns out, you don’t have to get on a slow moving, nausea-inducing bus to feel the uninterrupted joy of moving through the world at your own pace. Instead, become one with your bicycle in the ultimate marriage of man and machine, and have the scenery grace your eyeballs as you speed through, in it but not of it. Because when endorphins, adrenalin, serotonin and dopamine flood your nervous system, the last thing you want to feel is the shove of an angry Lexus.

There is a place – 20 minutes by boat from the docks near Dreamland – that King Sisowath Monivong called home during the Japanese invasion of 1940 and is now known as Areykhsat. This is where Chan-La, Ratana and Tonet were born, raised and live.

The three met when Chan-La and Ratana were growing up in Sovannaphum Care Orphanage where Tonet often volunteered to look after the kids. At 18, Chan-La left to attend public school and Ratana left to begin work. The three stayed in touch throughout and, after a year of preparation, have just launched Areykhsat Bike Adventure.

The idea is not only to show folk how beautiful rural Cambodia is, but also to give back to the local community. The latter is such a part of Chan-La’s modus operandi that he spends 15 hours a week volunteering as an English teacher in a nearby school. Profits go directly towards helping orphaned local children: “Especially those kids who don’t have the opportunity to go to school,” says Chan-La, who, along with his co-founders, has already taken in three such orphans and hopes to care for more as the business expands.

Going beyond the aesthetic experience of most eco-tours, they teach people about the area they know like the backs of their hands. This includes a temple whose gate is guarded not by tigers or nagas, but by eight-foot-tall shrimp. The tour also goes through fishing villages and farms so folk can “meet villagers, see farming, see fishing and try traditional food”. Then comes a trip across Areykhsat lake in a traditional boat as fishermen haul in the day’s catch.

As we stand on a Buddhist crematorium overlooking the largest lemongrass farm in Southeast Asia, Chan-La pauses for thought. “Most foreigners don’t have a chance to see something like this,” he says. That’s just the thing, though. Now we do. To book a tour, call 097 7659477.

WHO: Areykhsat Bike Adventure
WHAT: Bicycle tours
WHERE: Areykhsat, Kandal province
WHEN: Every day
WHY: Explore Cambodia at a civilised pace

 

Dish: On the bubble

The year: 248,000 BC. Ug returns to his village aglow with pride, eager to share his discovery of strange new magic which could warm his family during the winter. He calls it ‘fire’. No longer will his people be forced to survive on nuts and berries; ‘fire’ gives them the option of eating a nut, berry and woolly mammoth soufflé. Thus, more or less, the practice of cooking was born.

In archaeological terms, it wasn’t all that long ago that homo sapiens switched from being omnivores to what Heribert Watzke, the chemist who set up the food material science department at Nestlé in Switzerland, calls ‘coctivores’ – taken from the Latin coquere (‘to cook’). As we humans have gradually altered, augmented and processed our food, taking it further and further away from its natural form, our diets have changed us. Folk in Australia and the States are now taking the initiative to go back to their roots. Rather than trading in their shirts and phones for loincloths and clubs, however, they’re eating food as nature intended: raw.

Raw foodism – the practice of eating foods cooked no higher than 104°F (40°C) – was started in the late 19th century by Swiss doctor Maximilian Bircher-Benner, better known for inventing muesli. It wasn’t until the 1980s that it became popularised by the book Raw Energy – Eat Your Way to Radiant Health, which advocates a 75% raw diet rich in seeds, sprouts and fresh vegetable juices as a means to fight disease, slow the ageing process, and improve emotional health.

In the past ten years, raw foodism has become increasingly popular in Australia and America, particularly in California where actor Woody Harrelson has opened his own raw restaurant. But if you think raw foodists are nothing but carrot nibblers, think again: menus comprise far more than simple salads. And as James Stewart, owner of RAWsome raw food supermarket in California, says: “When you start eating raw protein and whatnot, you actually can feel it within minutes or hours. It’s that quick. Energetically, your body feels clean. You don’t feel challenged or bogged down, you don’t get tired.”

Central to raw food theory is the fact that cooking food destroys natural enzymes – the life force within food which triggers digestion – exhausting the poor old pancreas. We might feel fine eating cooked food, but that’s largely because most of us have never experienced the alternative. The first place to offer that alternative here in Phnom Penh is ARTillery, where the menu – already more vegan-friendly than most – has been expanded to include several raw dishes.

“Eating raw food gives me more energy and it was that that started it,” says co-owner Emma, who trained under a raw food chef in Australia. “I was feeling quite sluggish here, drinking beers and eating a lot of rice. I was still vegetarian but I wasn’t feeling that great and I’m really into putting things in your food that can make you feel better.” Try it and brace yourself for what she describes as “a mental energy that you can’t get from any other diet”.

Take, for example, ARTillery’s raw pizza: to make the base, flax seeds, almonds and cashews are first ground finely then put into a dehydrator, which uses heat and air to reduce water content. They then add a salsa-esque topping and cashew ‘cream’ – essentially, cashews soaked in water then blended to make a fatty cream. Other choices include raw falafel; raw crackers with raw hummus; raw coconut and cashew pie; raw cheesecake, and a raw apple pie which could outdo any of its cooked counterparts in a county fair.

For the hardcore element, the arts cafe also offers a five-day ‘raw food cleanse’: three raw meals delivered to your door containing zero animal products, zero sugars, no processed fats and no preservatives, all washed down with booster shots, such as chlorophyll and spirulina, to reap the maximum health benefits.

After November’s initial test run, 17 out of 20 of ARTillery’s raw food experimentalists came back for more – despite one or two reporting the occasional craving for something hot. “It’s really for resetting your body,” says Emma. “It makes you analyse what you’re putting in your body and why, making sure you’re getting the most amount of nutrients from what you actually put inside.” To sign up for the next cleanse, starting December 3, call Emma on 078 985530. 

ARTillery, Street 240½ (near Mosaic Gallery); 078 985530.

 

Jailhouse rap

It had been a long time since I last went to the circus. The love affair started during childhood, under the travelling big tops that came to small American towns, bringing with them worlds of magic. It then progressed, later in life, to witnessing and taking part in extreme psychedelic sideshows, with glass eating, fire spinning and genital stapling – but it’s probably best not to ask about that. The experience was always a powerful electric shock to the subconscious; something that broke the walls formed by routine, expanded ideas about what it’s possible to do with the body and mind, and filled the soul with infant-like wonder, awe of the world. None of this, however, prepared me for Phare Ponleu Selpak.

The first thing that engages the viewer is the two musicians on stage, with an instrument-to-human ration of about 5:1. Then there’s how they interact and improvise with the circus performers, giving cues back and forth no different than a jamming band. Groups of acrobats work together as if they all occupy a single body. A young man speed paints as performance art. A young contortionist, bent over backwards, uses her feet to shoot a bow and arrow at a balloon.

Most impressively, the whole thing goes beyond the usual role of circus, gripping the viewer’s emotions and carrying them along for a wordless narrative, holding tightly all the way. As Francroix, communications manager of Phare Ponleu Selpak and an acrobat with a decade’s experience, explains: “The technique is there to explain something, to tell a story. In that way, we are similar to a French contemporary circus but it’s Khmer style – telling Khmer stories about how people are living in Cambodia.” Entranced, I decide to run away to Battambang to join the Phare Ponleu Selpak circus school.

The first step was to trace Khmer circus back to its roots. Was this just another export from Europe, carelessly left behind like litter in the late 19th century? Not even close. Paintings in a 400-year-old pagoda in Kampong Chhnang depict circus acts, as do bas reliefs in Angkor Wat’s Bayon temple, which feature juggling, acrobatics, and acts with animals. All of this coming from a culture which couldn’t possibly have had any contact with the bloodbaths that passed for circuses in ancient Rome.

So where did it go and why did it lie dormant for so many years? Not even historians, the people whose job it is to work that out, have been able to work that out. What’s more important, though, is that it was revived. During the last throes of the Khmer Rouge regime, Cambodian refugees in Vietnam and Russia instinctively knew how urgent it was to preserve something of their culture. That something was circus.

One of these refugees, Narin, trained and studied with other orphaned youths in Russia. With the help of sympathetic Russian, Vietnamese, and Laotian harbourers, she brought her skills back to found the Circus School in the Royal University of Phnom Penh. Khoun Det, a graduate of the programme and fellow refugee, brought a similar vision to what had hitherto been a visual arts school in the Anh Chan village of Battambang province. After eight bumpy hours on a bus, I am finally here.

The environment is alien but soothingly so. A bizzaro campus set up, with a ceaseless jam session from the music school, gives the place a kind of folk festival vibe. The theatre school, animation studio, painting and drawing school, graphic design school, public school and playground are abuzz with children of every age deeply involved in their respective labours of love. Walking straight through, to the right of their home-field big top, leads me to the circus school.

Originally used as a self-defence and gymnastics space, the building still echoes that, albeit with modified equipment. Seven-year-olds from the on-site school cartwheel about gleefully as jugglers practice to the 4/4 timing of their coaches’ “Muy, bpee, bpaiy, bpowun…” Asked for a breakdown of the day, Alex, a volunteer aerials acrobat coach, says: “It depends on the age group. For the very young kids, they come in and they have classes with different instructions in acrobatics and juggling. They come every weekday, sometimes on Saturdays, from eight to twelve o’clock then from two to four o’clock.

“The teenagers, who have been there for quite a while, they train themselves. They’ve already got mad skills; they’re just helping out the younger guys. It’s a big family: they’re all brothers, sisters, uncles and aunties. Then from four to six, some of them have rehearsals depending on what shows are going on. When they’re working with coaches, it’s not really a structured class; they’re working on their own specific stuff for the shows that they’re involved in.” This particular circus stays in the family, too: most graduates come straight back to teach others and help keep the project alive.

Having asked nicely, I’m given free use of this extraordinary space – along with the thoughtful advice to stretch first – in order to try out my own circus skills. Spinning, flipping, climbing, and suspending, I taste the peace and clarity that lies on the other side of concentration and focus. But that doesn’t come before numerous entertaining pratfalls. An inexpertly mounted aerial silk can swing from side to side, nearly colliding with other gymnasts, as I learn. Back flips cannot be done on suspended rings unless immediately following a front flip: arms, as it turns out, simply don’t bend that way. It’s clear these guys are physically and psychologically light years beyond that.

Being naturally hypermobile (double jointed) in all four ball-and-socket joints, I thought I might have a natural advantage. While that isn’t entirely untrue, there’s a lot more to it than I’d expected. It requires years of practice and training, as well as upper body strength. Apparently, I have neither.`

This puts into perspective just how much discipline these young circus students have inside them. Since 2003, their first tour of Europe, they’ve returned there every summer and are today received with increasing enthusiasm in France, Germany, Spain and the UK. Their act has also graced the stages of Manila, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, China, Korea, Japan, Tasmania and Algeria. Here in Cambodia, they now plan to visit Phnom Penh once a month and are in the process of building their own tent in Siem Reap.

With the taming of all this talent, surely their parents must be beaming with pride? Actually, come to think of it, how do traditional Khmer villagers respond to so colourful a career choice? It wasn’t easy at first, say the students. Srey Bandoul, founder of the visual arts school, recalls: “People thought circus, for the girls,” he gestures with his hands around his belly, “they cannot get pregnant.” Says Francois: “At first, it was difficult for them to accept it because the circus is very close; it’s very touchy feely and they’re on the stage. We spent a lot of time explaining what circus is.” Today, smiling parents can be seen in the front row during every performance.

The next show coming to the capital, directed by the first generation of circus graduates, is being staged with the Philippine Educational Theatre Association. Eclipse is a dark tale of discrimination, alienation and divine retribution. “This is one of our most theatrical,” says Zoe, one of the circus administrators. “It’s also very Khmer; you don’t see the influence of Western cultures like in other shows that we have.”

WHO: The circus
WHAT: Eclipse
WHERE: Beeline Arena, Chroy Changvar Peninsula (2nd right after Japanese Bridge)
WHEN: 6pm November 24
WHY: “Circus art is about courage, solidarity, and peace.” – Phare Ponleu Selpak founder, Khoun Det

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

 

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!

 

 

City of zombies

Since 1932’s White Zombie, the zombie of Haitian Voodoo’s practice of black magic has been the stuff of cinematic (and, increasingly, literary) gold. In the ’30s and ’40s, inspiration was lifted almost directly from the Haitian myth of the ‘Zombi’ (literally, ‘spirit of the dead), in which the victim would appear dead to the public eye only to be exhumed as a mindless drone completely under the control of its master. Many went so far as to directly link their antagonists to Voodoo lore.

After a long and restful slumber, the zombie paradigm shifted in 1968 with George Romero’s low-budget, black-and-white classic Night of the Living Dead, a film which instantly became the standard by which all other zombie movies are judged. Many would argue that it still is. Rather than supernatural beings controlled by a master, the enemy became us. Zombies came to represent man’s inhumanity towards man and all of the darkest acts human nature is capable of. Night dressed its monsters in normal everyday clothing as opposed to ritualistic garb. It was one of the first zombie films to give a scientific reason for the disease as opposed to a supernatural one. Almost all zombie movies which came after have followed in its footsteps, sometimes even neglecting to reveal the cause due to its irrelevance.

Once it had stumbled awkwardly though the ’70s, the sub-genre experienced an explosive revival, with gore classics such as the Evil Dead trilogy and Re-animator. While remaining faithful to the DIY aesthetic, the ’80s (as they did to so many other things) turned the gore up to 11. As the violence became more extreme, some plots fared better than others. Recognising this, filmmakers often chose to create tongue-in-cheek B-movies which sometimes bordered on the slapstick, and more often embraced it wholeheartedly.

Although it would seem that the awful zombie-themed comedies of the 1990s put the final bullet in the zombie’s head, the undead walk among us today stronger than ever. Sparked by Max Brooks’ (son of filmmaker Mel Brooks) bestselling book, The Zombie Survival Guide in 2003, as well as Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s Shaun of the Dead in 2004, the zombie sub-genre simply won’t stay dead. Even outside of Halloween time, many fans of the survival guide often discuss their z-day survival strategies, watch old zombie classics, and gladly crowd theatres to catch new releases.

The zombie begins to receive serious cultural and sociological discussion, looking back on Dawn of the Dead and others, to paint an overarching metaphor of the zombie as a brain-dead, insensate consumer who, without remorse or emotions, only desires ‘more’. Meanwhile, everything from AMC’s 2010 adaptation of The Walking Dead to the 2009 spoof novel Pride, Prejudice and Zombies finds itself in the homes of millions of people.

Springing up in the midst of all this have been several quazi-zombie movies in which the affected have greater speed, intelligence and stamina, usually due to some sort of virus. While most purists argue that these are not really ‘zombies’, the twist to the genre certainly adds more room for creative liberties. In the aftermath of Cambodia’s recent outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease, filmmaker Touch Oudom has decided to throw his hat into the ring with the upcoming release, RUN.

Drawing inspiration from the modern zombie of 28 days later, 28 weeks later, and the Resident Evil films (though “only the first two”, he makes a point of mentioning), Dom has cast the infected as his villains because their strength doesn’t lie only in numbers; they are harder to kill, and they’re way more scary in general. RUN sees Cambodia struck with a new strain which causes people to “become uncontrollable” and “lose themselves”. In addition to directing, editing, and screenwriting, Dom is also a visual artist who draws out the storyboard concepts to give the infected exactly the right look.

In order to wrangle together the necessary interest, he has created a nine-minute short also entitled RUN (which can be found on YouTube.com by typing in ‘aromfilm run’; it’s the first result). Sensing great talent, the project was picked up by WestEc Media, a local distribution company. RUN is their first local production. Using his own initiative and the support of WestEc, Dom has assembled a crew of his friends as well as professionals in the industry.

Adding something else to the production is Dom’s policy of telling the actors NOT to act. More specifically, he requests that all actors bring their own personalities, demeanours, backgrounds, and current situations onto the screen with only the names altered. He even goes so far as to have sections for personality traits, favourite hobbies, and occupation on the casting application form. The theory is that it will reduce the need for character research and role coaching while bringing out better and more natural performances from everyone involved. Because there are Khmer and expat actors performing for a similarly mixed audience, the plan is for this to be a bilingual film with bilingual subtitles running throughout.

As any true zombie lover would, Dom has chosen to forego computer effects and digital enhancement in favour of make-up, fake blood, and home-made gore. Aside from being really damn cool, this also adds another layer of fun, leaving the viewer wondering just how it was done, and serves as a worthy homage to the style’s early predecessors.

Beyond the link to Cambodia’s recent disease scare, the timing of this project becomes even more uncanny. It was during the hedonistic economic boom of the late 1970s and 1980s that zombies began to take on the role of critiquing rampant consumerism. 1978’s Dawn of the Dead unsubtly takes place in a shopping mall. The living dead – a mindless, unthinking, unfeeling herd – are consumer culture writ large and many of these films show us the extremes of what such a culture renders us capable of. Though Cambodia has produced plenty of horror films in the past, many based around local folklore, this is the first zombie movie to come out of The Kingdom. It does so just as globalisation and consumerism find their way into the nouveau riche districts of Phnom Penh and serves, just as it did in the West, as a strongly worded warning.

Filming begins soon in Gasolina, International University, Naga Clinic, the Phnom Penh ports, and Dreamland, so if you see any mutants with torn flesh roaming these parts any time soon, try not to panic.

WHO: Zombies
WHAT: RUN
WHERE: Phnom Penh
WHEN: October
WHY: They want to eat your braaaaaain