Siem Reap Scene 19 Mar 2009

Written by Post Staff

Thursday, 19 March 2009

Photo by: PETER OLSZEWSKI Nest founder Joe Polito at the site. NEST BEING BUILT Siem Reap's flash new night spot, Nest Angkor cafe bar, is now scheduled to open on dusty Sivutha Boulevard on Monday, April 6. The driving force behind the project is former Hotel de la Paix general manager Joe Polito, who lives in Bali and runs the acclaimed Nest in Bangkok. He told the Post on the weekend, "We are looking at April 6, and we're fairly confident that's going to happen. We did the same project in Bangkok and it was three months from design to opening, but this one has taken much longer." The Bangkok Nest is on top of an existing building and did not require foundations to be laid. But Nest Angkor, an innovative open-air garden-style cafe constructed from PVC-canvas sails, needed a foundation and also required the construction of a two-storey building behind the bar as a back-of-house support area with toilets and washrooms. The newly appointed Nest general manager is Ivan Comizzoli, an Italian national who arrived in Cambodia in January. He's had extensive international experience in cruise ship and hotel management, including a stint with Disney in the United States and some unusual African postings. Director of Nest is Socheat Cheng, who oversees the Angkor Mondial restaurant near FCC Angkor. KIDNAPPING MEMORIES The March 6 kidnapping of the daughter of Siem Reap's military police chief rekindled expat memories of the dramatic school siege in Siem Reap on June 16, 2005, when gunmen held terrified students hostage. This month's kidnapping, a bungled Oceans Eleven scenario, didn't garner international attention, but the 2005 drama, in which a child was killed, was a global news sensation, and CNN's coverage propelled photographer John McDermott into a new , albeit short-lived career path, as an international news correspondent. "Yeah, well, that was just one of those things, something that happened really fast, and the whole CNN thing came out like a fluke. They called me and the next thing I knew I was on. It was remarkable. It went all over the world," McDermott said. CNN's Mark Colvin reported that McDermott "was a witness to what happened when armed security forces broke the siege". McDermott then reported, "I'm inside the compound now, where the hostages were on the ground. Two of them, it appears, are dead. One is injured. It looks like they're trying to get information from him. The fourth hostage-taker, as I said, three hostage-takers on the ground - not hostages - three hostage-takers on the ground. "The reports are that there was one young girl, possibly a Canadian girl, that was killed, but nobody knows who killed, whether it was friendly fire or whether it was a cold-blooded... there's no, I have no report on that whatsoever. I just ... one girl it appears has been killed." Photo by: PHOTO SUPPLIED Christian Izard, founder , the Suites and Sweet Resort.

MIRACLE ON HOTEL ROW
Whether Siem Reap's hotel row on National Road 6 needs another large hotel is open to debate, but several more are under construction and another newbie, Angkor Miracle Resort and Spa, has set its opening date for April 12, according to its front office manager, Chan Picheth.

Director of sales and marketing is Kelly Dara and the general manager, as previously reported in the Post, is Australian Darryl Hissey, the former GM of Prince D'Angkor hotel.

The hotel has 247 rooms and suites, and will feature a 270-seat a la carte restaurant, a balcony restaurant, a lobby coffee shop and executive lounge, mezzanine lounge and poolside bars.

Siem Reap is underserviced with conference and meeting faculties, and the Miracle hotel has targeted this shortfall with three theatre-style conference rooms seating 200, 240 and 300 people, respectively. The hotel also has a 20-seat boardroom and a business centre.

Another hotel, the Suites and Sweet Resort, scheduled to open on July 1, has a new take with its architecture, designed along the lines of a floating Cambodian village. Siem Reap architect Alain Hely drew up the plans and design work for furniture and decor was rendered Khmer-style by Theam Leam.

The boutique hotel, with 18 poolside suites, is the brainchild of founder, 52-year-old Christian Izard, a former human resources honcho who, in 1988, won Le Figaro and TMP/Hudson's HR Manager of the Year award. Izard arrived in Cambodia in January last year intent on starting a "second life" in a new field.

CENTRE MARKET REVAMPS
Part of Siem Reap's Centre Market has been revamped with new signage, banners and coloured lights.

But the southeast corner of the market has been emptied, leaving many stallholders disgruntled and out of pocket, as previously reported in the Post.

But now Leang Peou, assistant at Super Market Centre, has revealed that some stallholders were given the heave-ho to make way for larger food shops, as part of a strategy to diversify the market. Leang Peou said that construction work on the new shops started earlier this month and is scheduled to finish in May.

Leang Peou said the market's new stores are designed to compensate for the financial crisis, which has thrown cold water on the throng of souvenir shops selling identical wares at Centre Market.

Some stallholders said that the launch in recent weeks of three new night markets has also detracted from trade. The redesigned shops in the southeast corner are the first stage in a larger plan to expand the market, Leang Peou said, adding that future development will be influenced by the success or failure of the new food stores.

WATER WORKS, POWER ON
Siem Reap's public utilities dramas have abated ... seemingly.

The water supply is now almost back to normal. Most of the businesses that were without water for most of six weeks report that water supplies are now normal about 90 percent of the time.

Meanwhile, the sidewalk cafe seating saga has subdued with compromise being reached - cafes can still use half the sidewalks but walking space has also been freed up for pedestrians

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Angkorian extravaganza dazzles

Written by Peter Olszewski

Thursday, 19 March 2009

Siem Reap Nightly light and dance show hopes to bring more people to temple. Photo by: PHOTO SUPPLIED Performers bring the ancient Angkorian courts to life at the Angkor Wat Night Festival. When the president of the Executive Council of UNESCO, Benin's Olabiyi Babalola Joseph Yai, strolled across the causeway at Angkor Wat on Sunday evening, dressed in traditional African garb and accompanied by Cambodia's deputy prime minister and other high-level officials, he walked into a ferocious battle being fought by Angkorian warriors.

His walk on the wild side was a promenade into the past, represented by actors reliving the glory days of ancient Angkor during the reign of King Suryavaram II, as part of the Angkor Wat Night Festival, a cultural entertainment extravaganza that is now a nightly fixture within the hallowed precincts of the famous temple.

The show, staged by the Sou Ching Group in conjunction with Apsara and with the blessing of the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, is massive - moving across the interior of Angkor Wat each night and culminating in a traditional dance show held on a stage with light gantries that have been permanently erected deep in the heart of the temple grounds.

About 250 employees now turn up each evening to stage the show, including more than 150 dancers and circus and martial arts performers, 45 night lighting technicians and engineers, and another 50 support staff.

The entire temple interior is lit up and wired for sound, with a dining area near the stage providing a five-course Khmer dinner for pre-booked guests.

On Sunday night, 85 VIP guests dined in the temple, including high-level officials from the government and UNESCO, in Siem Reap to investigate whether more temples should be earmarked for listing as World Heritage sites.

Unesco's presence at the function signals the organisation's green light to the nightly temple event. And, despite the fact that the show could be viewed as a commercial intrusion into the sacred temple that could make preservation purists balk, there has been no resistance to this development, organisers said.

"There has been no controversy over the show, absolutely none," said Jamie Rossiter, director of marketing for the Sou Ching Group Co Ltd.

Rossiter said Sou Ching launched the show, which had been in planning for more than six months, on February 9 amid a carnival atmosphere, with free admission for Cambodians for the first fortnight. Admission fees are now US$15 for foreigners and $3 for Cambodians.

"We had 600 to 700 people turning up when it was free. We were absolutely chocker around that stage area, and the people seemed to really enjoy it," Rossiter said.

"All the food vendors were turning up, which became a problem because at the end of the night there was food everywhere. Our lighting crew was spending an hour-and-a-half every night just cleaning up because it's a temple and we have to leave it in pristine condition. All the lights, all the equipment, gets packed away every night and then put out again. The stage is a permanent fixture, but everything else is taken away each night."

Collaborative effort
The show was scripted by Rossiter and a New York producer, Mark Rowley, and is loosely based on accounts written by Chinese ambassador Zhou Daguan after his visit to Angkor during the reign of its builder, King Suryavarman II, who ruled from AD 1113 to 1150.

"UNESCO approved the script and they suggested that stage area," Rossiter said.

The dancers' costumes were supplied by the Ministry of Culture.

"We worked together on designing the costumes, drawing on the reliefs around Angkor Wat, but of course they show no colour," Rossiter said.

"The ministry then made the costumes in colour on our behalf. Several choreographers came in and hired their own dancers over a six-month period."

Area residents were hired as warriors for the fighting scenes and trained by a circus performer and a Khmer martial arts Grand Master. "A performer from the circus in Battambang taught the men how to do things like back flips," Rossiter said.

Bokator Grand Master San Kim Sean was recruited to train the men. Bokator is an ancient Khmer martial art, the predecessor of pradal serey, which is now known as Muay Thai.

Rossiter said the creation of a nightly show at Angkor Wat is the result of encouragement the Sou Ching Company received about two years ago directly from Prime Minister Hun Sen's offices to ramp up visitor activity at the temple.

"Apsara, UNESCO and the government together said we need to use the temple more, we need visitors to be visiting more and enjoying it more, that there is more we can be doing with these temples.

"We were approached two years ago by the prime minister's office, and we then did the night lighting of Angkor Wat, which was successful. We then wanted to expand on that. We thought there is still more we can do. We can create another experience involving Angkor Wat," he said.

Sou Ching Electronic began advertising Night Lighting tours of Angkor last year, after a November 28, 2006, decree from the government granting the Siem Reap-based company the right to distribute electricity to several zones, including the temple zone.

This followed agreements between Eletricite du Cambodge and the Apsara Authority that came in 2006. The decree listed Va Chouda as one of three registered owners of the company. Va Chouda is now a director and CEO of Sou Ching, which is named after his daughter.

Rossiter said the extension of the original night light tour, the Angkor Wat Night Festival, is "essentially Va Chouda's project and he's overseen the whole thing".

"It was his personal connections that got the Grand Master involved, and with his connections to the Ministry of Culture, he's a driving force behind the show".

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NGO seeks to bring critical thinking to the classroom

Written by Kyle Sherer

Thursday, 19 March 2009

Nearly two years after the government launched a training program for Cambodian teachers, schools in Siem Reap have shown few improvements, said Andrea Messmer, general manager of the NGO Schools for Children of Cambodia.

"One of the main reasons education is poor in Siem Reap is that there's still very little training for teachers," Messmer said.

The government training scheme has proved unsatisfactory because it only applies to new teachers, Messmer said, leaving most current teachers and their ineffective teaching practices unchanged.

Additionally, the training is watered down by a Chinese whispers-like teaching method, which involves the Ministry of Education training the Provincial Department of Education, which trains the District Office of Education, which trains a cluster school, which trains teachers at individual schools.

Finally, the teachers are being trained in what Messmer calls a rote-style system that discourages critical thinking.

"If you walk into the average classroom, you will see a teacher reading from a book and students repeating what was read," Messmer said.

"Students don't get a chance to learn from each other or interact."

To address the shortcomings of the Siem Reap education system, Schools for Children of Cambodia has recently trained 53 teachers, school directors and deputy directors from four area primary schools.

To make sure the program was effective, Messmer said the NGO partnered with the government-run Teacher Training College and sought insight from communities.

"We're big on community involvement and using their ideas, not our ideas. It might take a little longer, but it gets the community involved in education," she said.

The teachers and directors attended two weekend sessions in February and March, where they were taught in what Messmer said is a more participatory, engaged style of pedagogy that attempts to stimulate discussion among students.

The NGO will follow up the training program in May, sending classroom monitors to evaluate the new teaching methods and identify additional areas where support is needed.

In the long term, Messmer hopes that Schools for Children of Cambodia will change a negative attitude toward education that is common in rural Siem Reap.

"Many parents are undervaluing education," she said.

Read More

Angkorian extravaganza dazzles

Written by Peter Olszewski

Thursday, 19 March 2009

Siem Reap Nightly light and dance show hopes to bring more people to temple. Photo by: PHOTO SUPPLIED Performers bring the ancient Angkorian courts to life at the Angkor Wat Night Festival. When the president of the Executive Council of UNESCO, Benin's Olabiyi Babalola Joseph Yai, strolled across the causeway at Angkor Wat on Sunday evening, dressed in traditional African garb and accompanied by Cambodia's deputy prime minister and other high-level officials, he walked into a ferocious battle being fought by Angkorian warriors.

His walk on the wild side was a promenade into the past, represented by actors reliving the glory days of ancient Angkor during the reign of King Suryavaram II, as part of the Angkor Wat Night Festival, a cultural entertainment extravaganza that is now a nightly fixture within the hallowed precincts of the famous temple.

The show, staged by the Sou Ching Group in conjunction with Apsara and with the blessing of the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, is massive - moving across the interior of Angkor Wat each night and culminating in a traditional dance show held on a stage with light gantries that have been permanently erected deep in the heart of the temple grounds.

About 250 employees now turn up each evening to stage the show, including more than 150 dancers and circus and martial arts performers, 45 night lighting technicians and engineers, and another 50 support staff.

The entire temple interior is lit up and wired for sound, with a dining area near the stage providing a five-course Khmer dinner for pre-booked guests.

On Sunday night, 85 VIP guests dined in the temple, including high-level officials from the government and UNESCO, in Siem Reap to investigate whether more temples should be earmarked for listing as World Heritage sites.

Unesco's presence at the function signals the organisation's green light to the nightly temple event. And, despite the fact that the show could be viewed as a commercial intrusion into the sacred temple that could make preservation purists balk, there has been no resistance to this development, organisers said.

"There has been no controversy over the show, absolutely none," said Jamie Rossiter, director of marketing for the Sou Ching Group Co Ltd.

Rossiter said Sou Ching launched the show, which had been in planning for more than six months, on February 9 amid a carnival atmosphere, with free admission for Cambodians for the first fortnight. Admission fees are now US$15 for foreigners and $3 for Cambodians.

"We had 600 to 700 people turning up when it was free. We were absolutely chocker around that stage area, and the people seemed to really enjoy it," Rossiter said.

"All the food vendors were turning up, which became a problem because at the end of the night there was food everywhere. Our lighting crew was spending an hour-and-a-half every night just cleaning up because it's a temple and we have to leave it in pristine condition. All the lights, all the equipment, gets packed away every night and then put out again. The stage is a permanent fixture, but everything else is taken away each night."

Collaborative effort
The show was scripted by Rossiter and a New York producer, Mark Rowley, and is loosely based on accounts written by Chinese ambassador Zhou Daguan after his visit to Angkor during the reign of its builder, King Suryavarman II, who ruled from AD 1113 to 1150.

"UNESCO approved the script and they suggested that stage area," Rossiter said.

The dancers' costumes were supplied by the Ministry of Culture.

"We worked together on designing the costumes, drawing on the reliefs around Angkor Wat, but of course they show no colour," Rossiter said.

"The ministry then made the costumes in colour on our behalf. Several choreographers came in and hired their own dancers over a six-month period."

Area residents were hired as warriors for the fighting scenes and trained by a circus performer and a Khmer martial arts Grand Master. "A performer from the circus in Battambang taught the men how to do things like back flips," Rossiter said.

Bokator Grand Master San Kim Sean was recruited to train the men. Bokator is an ancient Khmer martial art, the predecessor of pradal serey, which is now known as Muay Thai.

Rossiter said the creation of a nightly show at Angkor Wat is the result of encouragement the Sou Ching Company received about two years ago directly from Prime Minister Hun Sen's offices to ramp up visitor activity at the temple.

"Apsara, UNESCO and the government together said we need to use the temple more, we need visitors to be visiting more and enjoying it more, that there is more we can be doing with these temples.

"We were approached two years ago by the prime minister's office, and we then did the night lighting of Angkor Wat, which was successful. We then wanted to expand on that. We thought there is still more we can do. We can create another experience involving Angkor Wat," he said.

Sou Ching Electronic began advertising Night Lighting tours of Angkor last year, after a November 28, 2006, decree from the government granting the Siem Reap-based company the right to distribute electricity to several zones, including the temple zone.

This followed agreements between Eletricite du Cambodge and the Apsara Authority that came in 2006. The decree listed Va Chouda as one of three registered owners of the company. Va Chouda is now a director and CEO of Sou Ching, which is named after his daughter.

Rossiter said the extension of the original night light tour, the Angkor Wat Night Festival, is "essentially Va Chouda's project and he's overseen the whole thing".

"It was his personal connections that got the Grand Master involved, and with his connections to the Ministry of Culture, he's a driving force behind the show".

Read More

Siem Reap's elephant man

Written by Kyle Sherer

Thursday, 12 March 2009

Siem Reap Far from the tourist centres, Compagnie des Elephants d'Angkor's Gavin Bourchier stands as guardian of Angkor's dwindling population of pachyderms. Photo by: KYLE SHERER Gavin Bourchier, elephant manager, with Chitoeun, one of the elephants at at Compagnie des Elephants d'Angkor. SIEM Reap is home to only 17 elephants, but that small number comprises almost a fifth of Cambodia's total number of domestic pachyderms, the second-largest provincial population after Mondulkiri. Unlike Phnom Penh's legendary elephant Sambo, who every day meanders down the Riverside strip entertaining tourists, Siem Reap's elephants' stomping ground does not include its bustling tourist centre; and Gavin Bourchier, elephant manager at Compagnie des Elephants d'Angkor, wants to keep it that way.

"I've had phone calls," Bourchier told the Post. "‘Can we borrow a baby elephant and put a comical hat on it and make it do tricks?' I have a low opinion of the human race anyway, but I think people who like harmonica playing, hula hoop-spinning elephants ... well, it says a lot about the person."

Bourchier oversees all of Siem Reap's remaining elephants, and under his regime the only interaction they have with tourists is giving rides near the temples, a "necessary evil" that provides funding.

He acknowledges that Sambo "seems to have a fair deal", but doesn't want to do the same thing in Siem Reap because he's worried about escalation.

"You start having elephants walk the street, you're one step away from the problems in Bangkok. It's best not to encourage it."

Elephant exploitation for a quick tourist buck is just one of Bourchier's worries. Cambodian pachyderms are threatened by habitat loss, an aging population, poaching and, he said, the elephant in the room: a lack of trust and coordination between various NGOs and the Cambodian government.

Unless that hurdle is cleared soon, Bourchier said, domestic elephants could vanish from the country altogether.

"In 10 or 20 years, the number of domestic elephants will absolutely crash. Not decline, but plummet," he said.

Aging problems
His view is shared by Matt Maltby, project adviser at Fauna and Flora International who has recently put together a Cambodian domestic elephant census - the first nationwide survey conducted by one body.

The results show that there are 102 domestic elephants left in the Kingdom, down from 160 five years ago. "Following current trends and an aging domestic population, there are likely to be none remaining in 10 or 15 years," he said.

The reason for the decline is demographics. "There are 17 elephants in Siem Reap," Gavin said. "And their general condition is ‘aging'. Most elephants are getting old. If everything goes well, an elephant can live to around 70. ... The average age of an elephant in Cambodia is 46 to 48."

Further, Bourchier said, "Reaching mid- to late-30s for females really knocks them on the head as far as breeding goes".

Even when elephants become pregnant, there are still the formidable challenges in bringing them to birth and helping them raise offspring.

Maternal behaviour in elephants is learned, not instinctive, and many domestic elephants do not have the experience to rear their young.

Bourchier said one course of action that could rehabilitate the withering pachyderm population is by making a stud book compiling the age, gender and location of all domestic elephants in Cambodia, so that a comprehensive breeding program can be started.

But he claims that his first attempt at compiling the list ended in failure. "It didn't come to fruition. That was four years ago."

While the low domestic population of elephants makes the stud book a simple task on paper, the scattered populations of elephants, and the logistical difficulty involved in banding together disparate owners and NGOs, makes doing so highly intimidating.

"It does require a great deal of cooperation to turn things around," Bourchier said. "But sorting out a stud book is realistic, as long as the cooperation is there."

Maltby maintains the decline of domestic elephants isn't a death sentence for the species in Cambodia. But Bourchier believes the futures of both domestic and wild elephants are linked, and NGOs need to join forces to make a stud book before the domestic elephant disappears.

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Young entrepreneur to breathe new life into old Honolulu Cafe

Written by Shannon Dunlap

Thursday, 12 March 2009

Photo by: Shannon Dunlap Selantra proprietor Khoy Dara in Siem Reap. THE Honolulu Cafe on Wat Bo Road is about to be reborn as the Selantra Restaurant, a Khmer-language twist on the Italian word cilantro, otherwise known as coriander. The revamped Selantra is twice the size of the former Honolulu Cafe, has been trendily redesigned and will double as art gallery. The restaurant will hold a launch party on Monday, and the debut art exhibition will feature the charcoal works of Phnom Penh's Em Riem. Later, other emerging Khmer artists will be featured.

The proprietor, 24-year-old Khoy Dara, has also revamped the menu and teamed with experienced chef Chamroeun, who has worked at several Siem Reap hotels, including the Day Inn Angkor Resort.

The duo has collaborated to design signature salads and original sauces and, according to Khoy Dara, a highlight of the new menu is the special pepper sauce served up with sirloin steaks.

Khoy Dara himself is one of the success stories of Siem Reap's tourism sector.

When he was nine years old, Khoy Dara was taken in by the Sunrise Angkor Children's Village orphanage and, as a teenager, he worked as a waiter in hotels and became the assistant restaurant manager at the Cafe de la Paix.

He's still working in this position, but in 2007 he doubled up his workload by setting up the Honolulu Cafe and has now reinvested capital to reopen as the Selantra.

He admits that he is taking a big risk and that he worries about the economic crisis and the sharp drop in tourist numbers.

"Everything is more money. A really good coffee machine can be US$8,000," he said.

But Khoy Dara has ample motivation to succeed - at 24 he is the head of a large household.

He adopted four orphans, now aged seven to14, from the Cambodian-Thai border when he was little more than a child himself.

"No one to take care of them, no one to give money, no one to give food - so I bring them to live with me."

Now he also has a wife and two very young biological children, which, together with his two jobs, makes for a very busy life.
Yet he has no complaints. "It is almost 24 hours a day," he said, "but I love my business."

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Children gear up for annual puppet festival

Written by Kyle Sherer

Thursday, 12 March 2009

TEN giant puppets, up to 15 feet tall, are taking shape in a Siem Reap workshop, where they will be hidden from public view until the third annual Giant Puppet Project hits the streets on March 28. Almost 500 children are crafting the puppets for the carnival, which was started in 2007 by London-based Jig Cochrane, and local expats Stuart Cochlin and Sasha Constable.

This year, the festival has partnered with 14 NGOs, including Green Gecko, Friends International and Handicap International, to involve a record number of disadvantaged children. Under the direction of Cochrane, the children are building puppets that express messages about health, safety and Khmer culture.

"The children are given a platform to teach the rest of the town through the carnival. That's the main aim of the project. That, and to have fun," Cochrane said.

This year, the carnival will have puppets built around the themes of endangered species, health and hygiene, road safety, and the universe and planets.

While many of the models are still under construction, Cochrane reported that a team from the Green Gecko orphanage has this week completed a puppet of the endangered Greater Adjutant bird, which boasts a monstrous wingspan of eight metres.

Cochrane said that the children will also build a giant puppet out of plastic bottles, as part of a campaign to encourage recycling.

The puppets are based on traditional Eastern lantern puppets. "At night we have music floats and everything lights up," Cochrane said.
"All the puppets have lights inside. It's quite a spectacle."

Cochlin, the project's director, said that in the long-term he hopes to hand over management of the Giant Puppet Project to Cambodian organisers, a plan that will involve "sharing the knowledge of how to make these puppets, training the local Khmers how to teach and raising the funding to keep it going".

"The only way it can be sustainable is if it's completely Khmer-run," he said.

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Teacher training to aid poor communes

Written by Kyle Sherer

Thursday, 12 March 2009

AFTER four months of community meetings, the Temple Garden Foundation will start a teacher-training program this month for eight villages in Siem Reap's Chi Kraeng district, program officials have said. The foundation, established in February last year, has overseen infrastructure projects in Pongro Kraum, Spean Tnaut and Pongro Leu communes.

But program director Will Haynes-Morrow said development can be difficult in rural Siem Reap.

"When the Khmer Rouge acted as ‘community organiser,' they created a fear of community cooperation that persists to this day," Haynes-Morrow said.

And he believes the stigma against village unity is also being inadvertently supported by some NGOs.

"There's a counterproductive influence from a lot of NGOs with not-great strategies. I really have to say that the vast majority of NGOs have good intentions, and a large number are doing a good job. But it only takes a few to influence the community in a bad way."

Haynes-Morrow said that while NGO projects can benefit individuals, they can harm the community by diminishing its capacity to manage itself.

"If a village has the capacity to take on 30 percent of a project, but the NGO comes in and provides 100 percent, then there's disrespect for the villagers' ability to do something and ability starts to diminish."

The foundation challenges villagers to nominate their own project, create a schedule, write a budget and manage it. "We can see that people have a capacity to help on a project, but they've been influenced by other NGOs to the point where they say, ‘I'm poor and I can't do anything.'

"We're trying to get people to realise they have a lot of ability as a community, if they just come together."

The teacher training project will involve workshops for 34 area teachers, who have no formal credentials. The foundation is paying for the licensed instructor, but the villagers are contributing to the teacher's travel and lodging expenses.

"The idea is to connect them through their donations to the reality that, if they contribute, their children will have better education."

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Angkor image

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In Siem Reap, an art form passes on

Written by Jason Leahey

Thursday, 05 March 2009

Siem Reap Cambodian shadow puppetry is as old as the Angkor temples, but the craft is at risk of being lost to more modern forms of entertainment. One young Cambodian, however, is fighting to keep it alive. Photo by: Jason Leahey Goun Koung (left), a master in the Cambodian art of shadow puppetry, works alongside a student in the NGO House of Peace, which hopes to preserve the ancient craft. In a humble building on National Road 6's extravagant hotel row in Siem Reap, 75-year-old Goun Koung laboured meticulously in his workshop, creating puppets, a craft he has practised since he was 18. In the morning he makes puppets in the workshop that is part of the House of Peace NGO, and in the afternoon he teaches the younger generation the ancient art of Khmer shadow puppetry. "When I was young, I loved the pictures of the Ramayana carved on Angkor Wat," he explained. "I did not want Cambodia to lose the heritage. I want the children to know it, too."

Shadow puppets - tanned hides manipulated between cloth screens and roaring bonfires - date back to the golden age of the Angkor empire.
The icons and legends they depict still adorn the walls of the temples, but puppetry itself has become a dying art.

The youthful House of Peace director, 20-year-old Koung Sovannra, said only four or five shadow-puppet schools still exist in Cambodia.

Most puppet masters were butchered by the Khmer Rouge, and revitalisation of the art has been difficult in a society riddled with poverty.

But the workshop at House of Peace rings with activity. On plastic-reed mats, Goun Koung and his disciples squat over tanned cow hides, punching holes with wooden mallets and metal awls, cutting tiny half-moon incisions with scalpel-like knives, tracing delicate ink lines with fine brushes.

No one uses a guide pattern; no one references a text-book. Skill, patience, a steady hand and a keen eye are the essentials that the puppet master teaches his 15 adolescent students and the few older boys who have stayed on to further hone their craft.

A craft, not livelihood
Though the students' work is beautiful by anyone's measure, that beauty does not necessarily lead to a livelihood.

Koung Sovannra said, "Khmer people, they only like looking at the puppet. They do not want to buy".

House of Peace students are advised that they probably won't be able to make a living from the craft.

Their efforts should be a source of pride, not necessarily financial gain.

IF I DON'T DO THIS, THEN I THINK MAYBE PUPPETRY WILL BE LOST.


Woleak, a 13-year-old student, has been learning puppet carving for almost a year.

Like all House of Peace students, his family is poor, and like all new puppet makers, he specialises in carving small puppets - the elephants, chickens and cows used in the Ramayana iconography.

When one of his puppets is sold, Woleak receives 30 percent of the takings, which he uses to buy school supplies.

"I am very proud," he said. "I do not have to go ask my mother and father for money like most boys."

Director Koung Sovannra elaborated on the benefits of the workshop, saying, "Imagine you have the big sea and there is a place you want to go to eventually. Well, Woleak wants to study English and computer skills, and then he can study at the university".

"Then he can find the job, maybe be the manager of a hotel. That very good job is the place he can go," Koung Sovannra said.

"Shadow puppetry is the ship that can take him there," he added.

The House of Peace itself is mostly reliant on sales to tourists, especially during the high season.

But during the low season, the puppet school and the NGO's neighbouring day school are subsidised by Dr Chan Thon Serey, a Cambodian who lives in Germany and established House of Peace in 2004.

Mobile theatre
Chan Thon Serey sees shadow puppetry as important in improving the lives of Cambodian people, along with education, so he has extended operations by buying two vans dubbed Theatre Mobile and Library Mobile.

The latter is lined with bookshelves, and Koung Sovannra has begun assembling a collection of Khmer language and culture textbooks.

The Theatre mobile will transport the materials and puppeteers that bring a performance to life in the provinces.

The newly mobile Koung Sovannra's ambitions, however, are not limited to books and performance.

Orphaned by Aids, he has taken it upon himself to educate his students and Cambodians at large about the omnipresent dangers of the disease.

"The people in the countryside, they don't know how to keep Aids away," he said.
"We will tell the story."

When the students are ready, Goun Koung and his House of Peace mobile division will hit the road to include HIV education and prevention alongside the more traditional theatrical productions.

But the theatrical tradition remains secure in Koung Sovannra's heart.

He is also honing his puppet-making skills and his grand plan includes branching out beyond Siem Reap's borders to establish schools in other Cambodian provinces.

"If I don't do this, then I think maybe puppetry will be lost."

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Temple Watch: Focus on domestic rituals

Written by Dave Perkes

Thursday, 05 March 2009

The iconic faces of the Bayon have always been a symbol of Angkor. Said to represent a cross between the faces of Jayavarman VII and the compassionate Buddha, these faces have been a fascination to all who visit this magnificent temple. The 52 towers feature more than 200 remaining faces, and many people who visit Bayon focus on these without taking time to look at the outer galleries. There are 1.5 kilometres of bas reliefs in the outer galleries of the Bayon. Many scenes show great battles between Khmer soldiers, some with the assistance of Chinese soldiers. The reliefs of naval battles show boats, similar in style to the traditional craft used today, with fallen warriors succumbing to the jaws of crocodiles under the vessels. Many bas reliefs are of interest because they represent daily life 800 years ago. A keen-eyed observer will see fishing and farming scenes, gamblers, chess players, cock fighting and hunting. There are also domestic scenes of cooking and fish being smoked. The domestic rituals shown on the reliefs are going on in much the same way

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Siem Reap's satellite city takes shape

Written by Kyle Sherer

Thursday, 05 March 2009

Investors are snapping up properties, those involved with the development say, despite global crisis. Photo by: Kyle Sherer Meng Heang, architect of Borey Sieng Nam. CONSTRUCTION of Siem Reap's Borey Sieng Nam satellite city, about five kilometres southeast of the town centre, is nearing completion and investors are snapping up property, one of its designers said. Meng Heang, an architect involved in the project, told the Post that 90 percent of the area has been sold to eager buyers who predict it will turn into a hotspot as the population of Siem Reap climbs. Construction on the 52 hectares of land began three years ago, after it was subdivided by Siem Reap politician Sieng Nam. Meng Heang said that 60 percent of the housing is now complete, but because the new landowners are working to their own timetables, he couldn't provide an exact completion date.

The satellite city will contain housing, two markets, hotels, restaurants, guesthouses and a large quantity of office space. Lim Sophy, an executive at Cambodia Angkor Real Estate, said that the district will be less Westernised than Siem Reap town.

"The markets and businesses will be local, rather than European," he told the Post, adding that the area will likely appeal to Asian tourists.

David Coleman, property adviser at Cambodia Angkor Real Estate, has pegged Borey Sieng Nam as the future administrative capital of Siem Reap.

"I could see a lot of the government departments moving down there," he said. "It's not too far from town. The office space there would suit organisations that don't rely on walk-in customers."

As the population of Siem Reap grows, so does the pressure to expand the town boundaries. But the expansion prospects of Siem Reap are limited by geographical factors.

"The constraint on developing Siem Reap is it's squeezed between the agricultural park on the north side and the lake and the floodplain on the south," Coleman explained.

"So it can really only expand east to west. Borey Sieng Nam was started with the thinking being that it was the most likely area for the town's expansion."

Lim Sophy said that while the global economic turbulence might affect the value of Borey Sieng Nam properties, he thinks the district will still ultimately be successful. Even if it takes a long time for businesses to run effectively, they will be very well placed as Siem Reap grows, he said.

Khun Chea, at Cambodia Angkor Real Estate, said that Borey Sieng Nam is filling up with multi-use properties that could be used for a combination of office space, shop front and living space, similar to buildings on Sivutha Boulevard.

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