Got riddim

FRIDAY 13 | The thought of endorsing roots reggae groups founded by Frenchmen can trigger apprehension in reggae snobs, especially when such groups have never set foot on Jamaican soil. But what Vibratone lack in geographical legitimacy they more than make up for with enthusiasm, as evidenced by their recent performance at Doors’ Vibe Music Festival. Between them, Ben and Leonard (guitar), Julien (bass), Vibol (keys), Luis (drums) and Maia (vocals) boast an eclectic background, with musical roots from Brazil to France to the Philippines, yet their all-original reggae genuinely rocks. Keep your ears peeled for Dreams, of which Maia says: “Dreams talks about just that: dreams. The wants, needs and desires that we all have. When I wrote it, it began on a really materialistic note – be it money, a house, a car – then Julien and I spoke and I realised it needed more substance, so there is this transition between the first and second verses.  It talks about being at peace with oneself and gaining happiness through fulfilment. We have another song called Who Are You Fooling? and it’s very political; it criticises the status quo and speaks about injustices.”  Joining Vibratone tonight is DJ Polaak.

WHO: Vibratone & DJ Polaak
WHAT: All-original reggae
WHERE: Doors, Street 84 & 47
WHEN: 9:30pm December 13
WHY: See ‘WHAT’

 

Top Secrets

The eyes, long recognised as the window to the soul, are often hidden, out of frame; the silencing finger is held to the lips, mouths are mute, tongues still, torsos twisted and distorted, forms forcing the skin to acknowledge something… we are in a dreamlike space, sometimes a nightmare. The images are strong, frequently malevolent, but softened with a latticework of flowers that weave from painting to painting.

We are in a world of secrets, the hidden, the unspoken. But just as our bodies can unwittingly deliver up our invisible thoughts, the paintings expose the universal truth of our inner secrets. We are walking through Secrets, the latest exhibition by Oeur Sokuntevy, at Java Café and Gallery until January 12.

“A secret. It’s in here. The secret is something that you live with in your mind,” says the Battambang-born and -trained artist, an artist who observes life around her and transforms it into surreal and compelling paintings. These works come from observing how difficult it can be for people “to tell their own secrets to somebody, or express feelings to someone. I know, it’s Cambodian, they don’t do, but I do understand them and I transfer the feelings through the painting.”

The dreamlike space that the paintings conjure up draws us into the internal mind where secrets live. “Something in the mind, it’s something that’s connected. I think both are connected. For example: you have a feeling, you’re afraid of something, you’re worried about something. You can dream about it.” Ubiquitous flowers form something of a rope on which the connection can hang. “Mostly in these paintings I combine with the flower. The beautiful strong flower, scary flower, it connects to our emotions: a human being, they could be open, they could die.

Sokuntevy’s work rises as much from the social and emotional environment as the physical. “What do I think about, what is my feeling about? I always ask myself, what is my mood today? It depends on how I feel; it’s Cambodian daily life, everything that’s around me. After I’ve finished all of that, I make the story out of it, so I always ask myself what I like most in this month: I like to draw people, I like to draw flowers and then I combine and I make up the story.”

Sokuntevy is aware of her position as a young Cambodian artist, a link between the older, more traditional world of Angkor Wat oil paintings and the new world of Facebook and iPhones. “I’m a new generation. I’m from my parents, of course. I know how to speak English and I learn other cultures and I like to speak, so show my feelings. Cambodians like my parents will not tell these stories to me, but I do understand the story and I tell the story and try to combine, to make up the painting.  Of course it’s not 100% the story about this person or that person. It’s the general idea.

“People inspire me. Everyone. When they say something to me, I always keep it in my mind and I can transfer those ideas into the painting.  Everybody is different. Some people they have to drink tea before they draw, some people draw and they have tea later.”

WHO:Oeur Sokuntevy
WHAT: Secrets art exhibition
WHERE: Upstairs at Java Café and Gallery, #56 Sihanouk Boulevard
WHEN: Until January 12
WHY: Unlock the secret: some people they have to drink tea before they draw, some people draw and they have tea later

 

Warped traditions

WEDNESDAY 11 | Ikat is a skill that has been practiced in Cambodia for more than 800 years. Seen today in the sampot hol skirts women wear to ceremonies and in the form of pidan, tapestries used to decorate pagodas, it’s an ancient art form that involves dyeing individual cotton threads which are eventually woven on traditional looms into full bolts of fabric. Basik 855, based in Phnom Penh, are fast becoming the new custodians of this craft: they hope to stimulate a renaissance by imparting a modern, global aesthetic onto ikat which is created on traditional warps and looms. Today, through a combination of photos, text and materials, Basik 855 will demonstrate how its artisans move from conceptualisation, trend forecasting and colour testing to a final design reflecting generations of talent.

WHO: Basik 855 and their ikat artisans
WHAT: Warped Traditions exhibition
WHERE: Artillery Cafe, Street 240½
WHEN: 7pm December 11
WHY: Ancient weaving techniques given a modern twist

 

Paraprosdokians, a wandering falsetto & the best God joke ever

Lanky Yankee Emo Philips – described by Jay Leno as “the best joke-writer in America”, by British comedian Gary Delaney as “the best joke-writer in the world” and by Weird Al Yankovic as one of the funniest people on the planet – is bringing the ‘idiot savant’ style of stand-up comedy that made him famous right here to the Comedy Club Cambodia.

For a taste of the comedic routine to come, look no further than Emo’s Facebook page, on which this veteran of more than 6,000 stand-up shows declares: “Welcome to my one & only Facebook page. How can you know it’s authentic? Because it’s linked to from my website, www.emophilips.com, which is linked to from here, which is linked to my from my website, which is linked to from here, which is…” (and so on and so forth).

Master of ‘the wisdom of children’ humour, Emo – who made his debut in Chicago in 1976 aged 20, at a time when there were but six comedy clubs in the entire US – is, to borrow from the Boston Globe, ‘admittedly a bit cuckoo, but he’s the king of that stand-up staple, the one-liner’. “I’m not sure exactly when or where I first heard one of Emo’s routines, but once I did I instantly became a fan,” Weird Al Yankovic once told Chicago Magazine. “Emo had the iconic look of somebody who could have been a major star in the era of silent films. His body language was indescribably weird and his material was flat-out brilliant.” And if you were asked at gunpoint to say who’s the funniest guy in the world, Mr Yankovic? “Without question I would have to say Emo Philips, especially if Emo happened to be the one holding the gun.”

Why so funny, you ask? Here’s another shining example: in 1990, approached by Time Out magazine in London for an interview, Emo, rather than leave anything to the gods of journalistic chance, agreed to be interviewed on its hallowed pages… by himself (coincidentally enabling him to pocket the writer’s fee). The results were nothing short of priceless, as this Emo-to-Emo exchange from the article entitled Me, Myself And I demonstrates:

Emo: How old are you?

Emo: 34.

I could see right away his joust of wit would not be for the faint-hearted.

Emo: How tall are you?

Emo: Six feet two.

Emo: How much do you weigh?

Emo: 145 pounds, naked. That is, if that scale outside the drugstore is anything to go by.

This last answer caught me totally off-guard. Laughter – a sweet, helpless laughter – welled up inside me, uncertain at first, and then increasing logarithmically, like the passion within the breasts of a tender young virgin chained to a post in the Coliseum as the baboon trainer approaches her with his lascivious charges.

So, Emo, is this to be that sort of interview? A silly, nonsensical, no-holds-barred affair, comic-take-all? Oh, you monster! You delightfully naughty monster! Well then, so be it! Make me your little whipping boy and toss caution to the breeze!

Emo: Emo, you are very talented.

Emo: Well, that’s not for me to say.

Emo: Darn you, Emo, modesty will get you nowhere! You must learn to blow your own horn in this world! Very well, if you refuse to praise yourself, then I will. I’ll shout it out from the highest mountaintop: Emo is talented! Emo is…

Emo: Please stop. You’re embarrassing me!

Emo: But you just have to learn how good you are!

Emo: I beg you, change the subject.

Emo: You are so wonderful. Very well, I shall soldier on. Now Emo, you are getting to be quite the frequent visitor to our shores, old chap.

Emo: Oh, yes. In fact, they’re getting to know me so well at Heathrow Immigration that this time I was able to completely bypass the six-month rabies quarantine…

In 2005, a joke penned by Emo some 20 years previously was declared by ship-of-fools.com, ‘the magazine of Christian unrest’, to be the world’s greatest religious joke of all time. In case you missed it – and we’re sure Emo wouldn’t mind us sharing it with you on our hallowed pages – here it is again:

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said: ‘Don’t do it!’ He said: “Nobody loves me.” I said: ‘God loves you. Do you believe in God?’ He said: “Yes.” I said: ‘Are you a Christian or a Jew?’ He said: “A Christian.” I said: ‘Me too! Protestant or Catholic?’ He said: “Protestant.” I said: ‘Me too! What franchise?’ He said: “Baptist.” I said: ‘Me too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?’ He said: “Northern Baptist.” I said: ‘Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?’ He said: “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said: ‘Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?’ He said: “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said: ‘Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879 or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?’ He said: “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I said: ‘Die, heretic!’

Now a resident of Los Angeles, Emo – via Comedy Club Cambodia’s very own Dan Riley – told The Advisor: “It’s beautifully situated for living (you can swim in the ocean in the morning and ski in the mountains in the afternoon, I’m told) but, because of its non-central location, it is not at all well-situated for a touring American comedian. This Asian tour is the first time since I played Australia in ’95 that living on the west coast has come in handy (last year I played Jakarta, but the promoter sent me the long way, through Istanbul). I am on the road… well, I guess for you, approximately 75 metric weeks a year.”

After decades of stand-up comedy, what else is left? “I’ve been branching out into the classical music field. Last year I narrated Peter & The Wolf for the Glendale Philharmonic; this January, for the same orchestra, I will be narrating Carnival Of The Animals. Please know, though, that I have not at all changed the nature of my stand-up act; please don’t stay away from my show on the false assumption that it is now ‘good for you’.”

Emo’s appearance at Pontoon on December 10 marks his first time on Cambodian soil – and he has solemnly sworn to perform at least one of his jokes in Khmer (his shortest one, he insists). “Last year at this time I performed three nights in Jakarta and fell so much in love with Indonesia that I stayed an extra three weeks. I would love to spend three weeks in Cambodia as well, but sadly can only spend three days. All I know is that I have never written the number three so many times in a single paragraph in all my life and that, yes, this is actually sentence number three… which means, of course, that I should stop now.” And has he done much by way of preparing for his arrival in Phnom Penh? “To me, a country is like a movie: I try to learn as little about it beforehand as possible, in order to maximise the surprise. All I know is that, from all my friends who have visited, Cambodia has gotten the most glowing reviews.”

Emo will not be alone. Sharing the stage is British-born comedic comet Gina Yashere, who made her name state-side on NBC’s Last Comic Standing and in the guise of Madame Yashere, The Surly Psychic, on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. ‘One of the best comics in the world,’ gushes The Guardian of this bombastic personality behind sell-out stand-up shows Skinny Bitch and Laughing To America (you may also have spotted her on Mock The Week). MCing for the evening will be Roddy Fraser, Scottish musician-cum-comedian now resident in Phnom Penh.

Says Dan Riley of the show, for which tickets are $10: “I’ve been an Emo Philiac (fan of Emo) for many years now. I even printed out some of his sublime one-liners and stuck them on the wall of my guesthouse in Kampot for guests to enjoy. I’ve never been more eager or excited to see an act than I am about Emo and I’m sure many have been impressed that we’ve managed to get him without having to charge an arm and a leg for tickets. That he’s supported by the amazing Gina Yashere is just incredible.”

WHO: Emo Philips (US) and Gina Yashere (UK)
WHAT: Comedy Club Cambodia
WHERE: Pontoon, #80 Street 172
WHEN: 8:30pm December 10
WHY: The word ‘Emo’ is about more than pale-faced, self-obsessed Goths

 

 

Santa Clause

MONDAYn 9  | Oh, the Irish: never ones to miss an excuse for boozin’, bless ‘em, and Christmas is no exception. Join the ever-pickled livers behind The Irish Place today for a Christmas tour of no less than 12 bars across the capital. And don’t forget to ask Santa for some Alka-Seltzers. Ouch.

WHO: The seasonally spirited
WHAT: The 12 Bars Of Christmas
WHERE: The Irish Place, plus 11 other bars
WHEN: December 9 (time TBC)
WHY: Christmas may come but once a year, but there’s no reason the hangover can’t last a month or two

 

Intelligent energy

Just for today, I will not be angry.
Just for today, I will not worry.
Just for today, I will be grateful.
Just for today, I will do my work honestly.
Just for today, I will be kind to every living thing.

– Mikao Usui

The year is 1922. A young Japanese Buddhist, frustrated in his quest to discover the meaning of life through Zen, takes the somewhat drastic decision to instead court death. For 21 days he stood beneath the thunderous waters of a mystic waterfall on Mount Kurama until his body could take it no more and he slid into unconsciousness. Far from waking with the mother of all migraines, this young monk sprang to his feet believing his mind had been penetrated by the high-frequency ‘intelligent’ energy that flows through the universe – energy that can serve as the catalyst for self-healing and existential equilibrium. Mumbo jumbo? Not according to devotees of Mikao Usui, known today as Usui Sensei by reiki students the world over. The Advisor meets reiki master Jane Morrissey to talk intelligent energy, healing highs and why that weight loitering on your hips shouldn’t be considered ‘fat’.

How did you discover reiki healing, or did it discover you?

When I was about 18, I was suffering from depression. I’d lost three grandparents; was suicidal, had no idea what was going on and felt really, really lost. I went to see a psychologist and they just said: ‘Here are some pills.’ They had lots of side effects and I just felt numb. I gained a lot of weight and, because of that, ended up with an eating disorder. I was fortunate to find a massage therapist who specialised in reiki. I started to realise there’s only so much you can talk about things, which can help release it but it becomes a cycle. I struggled because I was around people who were very conventional, very traditional. ‘Why are you crying? What’s wrong with you?’ I was a very sensitive child; I’ve always picked up on spirits and energy. From a young age, I was told: ‘That’s not OK. I’m going to beat that out of you.’ You’re not allowed to feel emotion; to express emotion. By the time I was 18 it wasn’t just grief I was dealing with; it was so many repressed emotions: frustration, hatred. I was adopted as a very young child: by the time I got to my family I was three months old and had been through three sets of hands. I’d never formed a bond with anyone. Eventually I found this girl that I worked with and started doing massage therapy and immediately felt things starting to flow better, but certain things had got stuck. What is this? Why won’t it go away? ‘Would you like to try reiki?’ What, you put your hands on me and it just goes away?! It was through working with her that I was able to stop taking antidepressants and could start to feel again. I saw results I’d never seen before: my body started to function differently, my posture had changed.

I became really passionate about natural healing and energy. I started learning the set hand positions, but over time have developed my own style and now work intuitively. When someone comes to see me it’s about finding out first what’s happening with them and trusting my own intuition. I can actually feel what the other person is feeling, which sometimes is very difficult because with a lot of people there’s a lot of sadness, grief, anger. I’ll see different colours, too; I work a lot with colour therapy. People underestimate the power of colour. The way I was taught was based on tradition: ‘Place hands here, place hands here, place hands here…’ It was very structured. When it came to developing my own method, I found that very frustrating because I felt I had my own natural style, but the teacher kept saying: ‘Jane, what are you doing?! You can’t do this…’ I understand that traditionally things were taught in a certain way, but I also understand people have the intuition to know what their style is and how they’re meant to work with it. My way of teaching is to empower people and get them to learn what’s happening in their body.

 Have you had the chance to work with many Cambodians yet? If ever there was a population in need of healing…

Long term, I want to work with more Khmers. My preferred plan is to work with Westerners as well. People come here and, although it’s a much slower pace, they still adopt the same lifestyle: it’s like they’re still in America or the UK. ‘I’m going to work and I’m not going to have any balance.’ Interestingly, the other day, I read an article saying that Cambodia is one of the Earth’s energy centres. That’s why people are so drawn here – and it works very well with reiki being about natural healing. People have said to me: ‘It’s interesting that I’ve actually had to come to Cambodia to heal.’ Longer term, I would love to go into the provinces, work on a volunteer basis and just give to the people who can’t come to the city. Getting them to relax and feel there’s a different way of doing things. There’s so much black magic here, so much darkness. I feel my purpose here is to increase the light.

Is reiki healing a skill anyone can acquire or are certain people more attuned to it than others?    

I believe anyone can tap into it – we all have the gift – but it depends on intention and practice. When you’re trained, you get attuned to certain levels of energy. What it really comes down to is how much you practice. I practice self-reiki at least one or two hours a day and the more I practice, the more I can attune to others. It’s about discipline. And one of the interesting things about reiki is that you find the people who come to you are dealing with exactly the same things you’ve dealt with. Every time a new client walks in, they’ll mention something and it just resonates because I’ve been there. I’m very open, because I’m proud of the journey I’ve been on and sharing that journey with people makes them realise it’s OK. ‘My God, she really understands. I’m not alone. If she got better, I can get better too.’

How do you train someone?

We start with meditation: helping people get in touch with their own body and feeling what’s happening. Before you can feel what’s happening in someone else, you need to feel what’s happening in your own body. That’s what level one of reiki is about: feeling the energy; doing exercises, learning the different hand positions and practising on yourself. Everyone’s going to feel something different: reiki is a very individual experience. I have my own level of protection. In terms of the body, there are several layers: your physical body, energetic body and your auric body. I’ve built mine up to a level of strength where I can’t really absorb anything from anyone else. I can feel it, but it never actually attaches to me. I have my own practices in terms of managing that energy. One of those is to have my own space.

What do you feel during a session?

Lots of heat; lots of tingling: I can literally feel the energy flowing into my body. I can feel where there’s an imbalance. There’s a tight bit, like a block, that you can feel. A lot of people who start reiki have a lot of weight on them but it isn’t fat, it’s emotion.

I like that: ‘I’m not fat, I’m emotional!’

[Laughs] You can keep that one! Our stomach is our emotional core and all of our energy is attached to that core. Sneezing is another really common one: that’s very much a release. Same with tears – and you might not even know why you’re crying. The best one I ever had was when someone was practising on me and I was in hysterics. He had his foot on my forearm and I was rolling around on the floor in hysterics for a good ten minutes – we both were! It was this beautiful release. There are so many ways the energy can come out: some people giggle, some people twitch… Someone I worked with recently, when they first came in they were very depressed; they didn’t want to go out or do anything. They hated the world. After one session – this is how powerful it can be – I got an email the next day saying: ‘I have never felt so calm and peaceful in all of my life.’ I had another client who’d realised they were in a job they didn’t want to be in. Now she’s going for an interview for a job that she has no experience in but intuitively knows she can do. I’ve even given reiki to someone in a coma. I like to call them miracles, but some people would say: ‘You’re crazy!’ But I actually believe in miracles, so…

Are you religious?

I prefer ‘spiritual’. People often associate religion with reiki, which is unfortunate because people are so tied up in religion. I offered my services to someone in Cambodia with cancer, because reiki can help regenerate the cells in the body, but I was told that what I was doing was ‘demonic’, to which I said: ‘Thank you for your candidness!’ [Laughs] I believe in a higher level of consciousness, a higher being, a spiritual energy. I wouldn’t necessarily say ‘God’.

What should someone new to reiki expect of their first session?

Preparation is key and tells me a lot about what I’m going to be facing. Colour is important, so I have a variety of different colours in my space. Before someone even gets here, by intuitively laying out the colours I know what I’m going to be working with. When they arrive, it’s about making them comfortable and whatever they want to share with me is whatever they want to share. Some people just come and lie down, without talking. Sessions are normally an hour but the first is 90 minutes because I want to get a feel for them and it’s important they get a feel for me. I can pick up what’s happening from a person’s body shape, their language and also the colours they’re wearing. In the first session, I focus exclusively on the head. A lot of things happening in the body actually stem from what’s going on in the mind. After a session, I feel energised because the energy flows through me: it’s a natural high.

WHO: Jane Morrissey
WHAT: Reiki master
WHERE: Phnom Penh (contact holistichealingcambodia@nullgmail.com)
WHEN: Now
WHY: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a human experience.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

 

Flickers of the Future

The Missing Picture, Rithy Panh’s 2013 documentary, is among the director’s most disquieting films on life under the Khmer Rouge. It is certainly his most celebrated.

Panh’s film screened at this year’s Cannes Film Festival under the Un Certain Regard section, where it took first prize. In October the Busan International Film Festival, Asia’s largest, beknighted Panh with the Asian Filmmaker of the Year award. The movie was Cambodia’s sole entry to the 86th Academy Awards, submitted under Best Foreign Language Film.

It represents Panh’s personal recollection of the Khmer Rouge takeover and its inhumane aftermath. “It was a time for study and books,” reads narrator Randal Duoc as the camera pans across a setting of motionless clay figurines who stand in for the director’s lost family. “I remember how sweet life was. I loved to hear my father read us poetry at night.

“Then came the war,” he continues in French, his voice soaked with joylessness. “The bombs drew near in the 1970s. I remember the first who died. Our fear. My sorrow as a child.” So goes much of Cambodia’s history, composed in languages few locals understand and presented to audiences in faraway, inconsequential cities. In this case, however, the historical oversight will be mended when The Missing Picture screens in Khmer at the 2013 Cambodia International Film Festival.

The week-long event runs from December 7 – 12 and films will be screened at five locations, including Rithy Panh’s magnificent Bophana Centre and a giant outdoor screen at Koh Pich. The other theatres are Legend Cinema at City Mall, Platinum Cineplex at Sorya and La Cinema at the French Institute. Entry is free to more than 60 public screenings.

Cambodia, as might be expected, is well represented in the festival’s show list. In addition to Panh’s award-winning entry, the schedule includes the much talked about Kalyanee Mam film A River Changes Course; Australian James Gerrand’s historical documentary The Prince & The Prophecy (as well as Cambodia Kampuchea and The Last God King) and the debut of Sok Visal’s first feature-length film, Gems On The Run.

The programme also includes a tribute to the country’s newest celluloid starlet Thorn Thanet, who has captured the heart of Phnom Penh’s cinematic community with her penchant for scoffing at pulp roles and KTV drivel, regardless of the money on offer.

In addition to Cambodia-focused works, the festival will also screen a series of ‘Cult Indian Classics’, including Rajkumar Hirani’s feature film 3 Idiots, India’s second-highest grossing film (after the 2013 romantic comedy Chennai Express).

The Archive Lounge at Bophana Centre will serve as the festival’s social centre and organisers promise a caffeine-fuelled week of cinematic observations and moving images.

WHO: Celluloid lovers
WHAT: Cambodia International Film Festival
WHERE: Cinemas across Phnom Penh (see cambodia-iff.com for details)
WHEN: December 7 – 12
WHY: Foster dialogue between different cultures through the seventh art

Guilty Pleasures

I’ve just taken up a light smoking regime after five years off the darts. For 20 years I worshipped the odious durrie as slavishly as the next sad gasper. Then, in the name of love, I went cold turkey. My pink-lunged, sweet-tongued bloke and I skipped wheezeless down the smoke-free bridal path of life.

But as addicts of any stripe will tell you, shit gets you when you least expect it. I now have three packets of risibly renamed Mevius cached in various orifices around our flat.

I shower after each secret, sordid suck. I feel dirtier than coal.

I blame my recidivism on another furtive and thrilling development in my deeply local apartment building. It’s not more German documentary filmmakers bent on scenic grit, or petrol-sniffing ne’er-do-wells with K-pop hair and bag-snatching on their minds. To a man they smoke like chimneys – not the wisest choice for the huffers especially – but it’s not them what made me do it.

Instead, a chain-smoking bookie has installed himself at the bottom of my stairwell. The siren allure of each freshly lit Ara has proved inescapable. I stump two flights down to increasingly futile gym classes, or waddle up 27,000 feet with groaning Lucky bags, reflexively scrabbling for my Bic. I’m Pavlov’s bitch to his fragrant butts.

As tourists sally past in green fleets of smoke-free cyclos, Ron, as I call him inside my head, arcs up another lung-buster and borrows wifi from the blind masseurs next door. Like a dapper bridge troll, he and his laptop lurk taking bets on the English Premier League. And he never lurks alone. Men of every ilk flutter around the irresistible flame that is Ron, his hot tips and the chance of untold bounty scored by 11 unpronounceable Poms. To Ron’s credit, and in contrast to the raucous chess smack-downs that daily ricochet round the neighbourhood tuk tuks, the transactions proceed with surprising restraint.

Given his nefarious career choice, Ron’s a twinkly and not at all shystery older fellow: natty from his backless loafers to blade-sharp safari shirts and a suspiciously jet-black combover.

He’s as close to a Cambodian OCD sufferer as I have ever seen. At 7.45am he folds out his tin table and computer in exactly the same place, to the centimetre, fastidiously wiping every surface over and over with a clean cotton handkerchief. He lights up on the dot of 8, cracks his first Angkor at precisely 10 and, fagging steadily, conducts brisk business with punters till 6 sharp. Then it’s up sticks with his meticulous tote book down the mini-mart for free wifi and a few more nails before heading home.

As I passed this fledgling enterprise for the first time I naively questioned, out loud, the legality of the whole setup. I was vehemently shushed by my Khmer-speaking husband. Ron’s customer demographic includes a good many patrons currently serving their country in a law enforcement capacity. Some days it’s like walkie-talkie Jenga down there.

But there’s another reason why my sainted other half likes the status quo. Apparently he places the odd wager with Ron and won almost 70 bucks on a recent Arsenal/Fulham match.

This is news to me. And, it dawns on me, golden leverage for later, when he hits me up about those filthy, dirty, delicious fags.

 

On Point

SATURDAY 7 | Prima ballerinas at Central School of Ballet Phnom Penh take to the stage tonight for Aspects, a three-part dance programme which includes a 20-minute one-act ballet, a contemporary dance trio and a community dance work by young Cambodians. Tickets ($9) are on sale now at Central School of Ballet Phnom Penh, #10 Street 183, and Amrita Performing Arts, #128 Sothearos Boulevard.

WHO: Central School of Ballet Phnom Penh
WHAT: Aspects dance performance
WHERE: Department of Performing Arts, Sangkat Tuol Svay Prey I, Khan Chamkamon
WHEN: 7pm December 7 & 8
WHY: “We should consider every day lost in which we don’t dance” – Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

 

Bubbly & milky

The name Chado derives from Japanese and usually translates to ‘The way of tea.’ The new gleaming white two-storey Chado on Street 19, however, is far more Asian tea mashup than it is any homage to the ancient ceremonies from the land of the rising sun. Chado serves teas of the Taiwanese milky and bubbly variety, and even ‘hybrid’ concoctions that stray happily away from the drink’s decidedly Taiwanese roots. Think fruity black teas in cutesy plastic cups with tapioca pearls (the bubble), rainbow jelly and oversized straws to suck down all the sweetness. Chado’s menu includes a respectable selection of coffees and more than a dozen flavours of Italian soda, too, and staff promise that food and evening barbecues are just days away (December 6, to be exact). Add to all that the chilled-out Japanese-style seating, frigid air-con, decent wifi and buy-one-get-one-free grand-opening offer, and it’s easy to see how milk bubble tea is all the rage.

Chado, #197 Street 19.