Culture vulture

After nearly ten years working the arts, and being lucky enough to see some form of great performance at least once a week for the last seven years at Horsecross, I wondered how I'd get on with a reduced dose of culture in my life moving here. I wasn't expecting that there would be nothing cultural to do here, far from it, but I knew that I wouldn't have as much or as easy access to it. Sitting at my desk at the Concert Hall I would regularly be able to listen in on rehearsals or walk a few steps and pop my head into the auditorium to see what was going on onstage. Knowing some of the great music and theatre performances I've missed since leaving Horsecross has made me a little homesick so I've really enjoyed the cultural fixes I've had here in Phnom Penh.

Unsurprisingly, the Khmer arts had a rough time of it during the Pol Pot regime. Artists were killed, along with other intellectuals, and there was no place for the arts, unless you count propaganda songs. After the overthrow of the regime the arts slowly, slowly began to come back to life with the handful of survivors who remembered the traditional dance, music, arts and crafts.

A few weeks ago we went to Sovanna Phum Theatre to watch one of their shows. Sovanna Phum have resurrected traditional music, dance and shadow puppetry. While there was sadly no shadow puppets in the performance we saw (next time!), there was drumming - all the musicians looked like they were having a ball -  dance, and the monkeys. Who were hilarious ...

This last pic shows me trying to play the Sralay - the guy to the right is the musician and he was really kind, letting me have a go. It's a bit like an oboe but you play with the reed actually in your mouth and it's perpendicular, not horizotal. Hard to explain, even harder to play. AND you need to be able to do circular breathing to play it! Fascinating to try.

Another night we went to the circus! A tent had been specially built and acrobats from Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos came to the city for three nights to perform.

never a good sign when there are
more performers than spectators

me and the circus tent

The show was meant to start at 5pm but when we got there at 4.50pm, to make sure that we got good seats, only about 20 people were there - in a 1000 seat tent... We waited till after 6pm and still nothing had started. We also wanted to go the opening of an arts festival that happened to be on the same night. Our City Festival is ten days of mostly contemporary visual art and architecture. I'd been helping them with press, and giving my two cents worth about design, so was invited to the private opening at the beautiful UNESCO building.

UNESCO building

So, we decided to scoot over to the opening, hear the speeches, watch the dance performance, look at the art, scoff some brownies and a glass of wine and then head back to the circus for just after 7pm.

We still saw over an hour of circus action - some of it amazing, others less so, but all in all a great night for $3!

amazing feat - firing an arrow from a bow into a balloon using your feet while doing a handstand! (Cambodia)

clowns from Laos

aerial silk acrobatics from Cambodia

the finale, complete with hula hoops covered in tinsel. Love it!

The next night we went to see Khmer Arts Ensemble, which was part of Our City Festival. The Ensemble are a Khmer traditional dance group who only perform in Cambodia every now and then. As this was part of the Festival the tickets were free and there was a bus to take us out to Takhmao (in Kandal province - one more province ticked off!). Their outdoor theatre is absolutely stunning - this is the backdrop

photo from Vinh Dao taken from Our City Festival Facebook page

We weren't allowed to take photos of the performance but I've borrowed some from the Festival's facebook page (all photos by Vinh Dao). All the dancing was done to live music and, while there wasn't a lot of jaw dropping 'how do they DO that?' moves, it was quite beautiful. 

The really unbelievable thing was the hand movements, or more specifically, the back bend of the hands. Hopefully you can get an idea of them from this photo. I can't even force my hand into these shapes, never mind do it while dancing!

And so, we hopped back on the bus and on to our other event of the night. And talk about one extreme to the next.

We went to a fundraiser for Tiny Toones. The website explains properly what TT do but basically street kids can go every day, for free, learn break dancing, hip hop, English, Khmer, computing and maths. These are some of the most disadvantaged, marginalised kids who don't really have great prospects in life - many will be begging or scavenging to help what family they have. Lots will take drugs. TT really does prove the power of the arts in transforming people's lives.

And so for the extremes. We went from a very sedate, beautiful structured evening to a hip hop night in a dark, smoky (yup, those rules haven't quite reached here) pub. It's very strange seeing eight year old kids in a pub...

We didn't see their whole show but did manage to see the older TT members do their final show (video above). They had a space about 3m square to dance in - very impressive!

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It's taken a while to write this and since then we've been to more cultural goings ons. And like buses, they all seem to come along at once!  On Friday we saw Tiny Toones again, this time dancing with a French company called Racines Carrées. It was another free show (loving the free stuff!) and absolutely brilliant. Gordon said at the end that he thought it was the best dance thing he'd ever seen. There were no pictures allowed and I'm not even going to begin to try and describe it - suffice to say, smart, impressive, funny and great hip hop dancing. And there was a tuk tuk on stage. Excellent stuff.

Then the NEXT night (which is actually last night as I type) we finally got to see the Battambang circus school, Phare Ponleu Selpak (which means, the brightness of art). They're another organisation that is using the arts for social good, helping young people out of poverty by training them to become professional artists and performers. They've got a temporary website here as their other one had been hacked (even this temporary one is one of the best websites I've seen in Cambodia...) I think the Cambodian performers we saw at the circus (in the big circus tent) were all from PPS.

The show was about a girl called Sokha who survived the Khmer Rouge regime, escaped to the refugee camps (I presume) moved abroad but then came back to Cambodia to help other survivors. Or this is what I took from it as there was no talking. It seems strange to say this about a circus, but it was one of the most moving things I've seen. Simple facial gestures, body movements and symbolic actions conveyed so much and I really found myself welling up at points. 

he's balancing on a board on a metal tube. With two people standing on his shoulders!

that's five men being held up by one...

The girl who played Sokha, and frankly the star of the show for me, was also the girl that we saw shooting the arrow into a ballon, with her feet, while balancing on her hands, at the circus night above. She did the same trick in this show but it was so much more impressive. The segment showed her falling asleep after she had left Cambodia and then the, really rather scary, Khmer Rouge invading her dreams and giving her nightmares. She then proceeded to 'dance' with the dream Khmer Rouge soldier, finally overcoming her dark dreams (symbolised by a balloon draped in dark material) by shooting them with an arrow. From her feet. While balancing on her hands. As you do.

She's sort of upside down here - face down into the ground,  body curved up and over
 then with the guy balancing on her hips!

beautiful acro-balancing

shooting a balloon while doing a handstand. I never quite managed that one in the playground at school...

It was impressively acrobatic, the live music and live painting (!) were brilliant and the acting was also top notch. Another fantastic night out.

So, I'm really pleased to say that I'm managing to get my cultural fixes here in the Penh. What's been great (and this is not meant to sound patronising) is the best things I've seen are the Cambodian arts. The Western arts I've seen here have been lacking. We went to one classical recital by a European trio which left me a bit cold (and not just because of the extreme air conditioning) and heard a European jazz duo which was frankly terrible (and cold - what is it with excessive air-conditioning!). There's a European jazz group who I really liked, even if the lead singer was doing his best to be Jamie Cullum, however, they perform in a bar on the Riverside which is full of old, generally fat, white men dining and drinking with young, generally beautiful, tiny Cambodian girls/women which is all a bit depressing. I'm a big fan of Khmer arts and looking forward to exploring it more. I'd love to give some of it a go so I'm off to start bending my fingers backward. If you hear squeals of pain, you know what it is!

Birthday fun at the Olympic Stadium

Sam and Gilly are two volunteers who are based in Kratie. They are the couple who've inspired our competition to see who can visit the most provinces (Gordon is currently in the lead after his work trip to Siem Reap).

A few weekend's ago it was Sam's birthday and and we were invited to the celebrations here in the big smoke! It started with drinks and snacks at the VSO office (ok, that was actually to welcome the new volunteers who had just arrived but it couldn't have been timed better), then headed out for dinner on the Friday (pics of the fantastic ectoplasm cake plus Sam's take on his birthday weekend here). Saturday afternoon Sam and Gilly were off to the Olympic Stadium and invited us to join them for some fun at the pool.

Gordon is a massive fan of the Stadium and has been wanting to swim there for ages. We went a few weeks ago after work, finally determined to take a dip. Sadly the pool was closed. We did get a chance to see the Cambodian Olympic team in training. There were just swimming laps so it wasn't particularly inspiring to watch however there were two guys there who must be potential (or previous?) Paralympians. One had no legs and one had half of one leg. And they were the fastest in the pool! Now that was inspiring.

Anyway, this was the day for swimming. But first we decided to watch Sam throw himself off the 10 metre diving board and take some pics. And then I took some more pics. Rather a lot more. I'd forgotten how much fun my DSLR is (thanks dad) and took one or two more than necessary thanks to the joy of burst mode!

Sam at the top of the 10m diving board

cowabunga!

You have to look pretty closely to find Sam in this photo. Fluke capture!
(I know this doesn't fit on the page but I had to make it big enough that you could see it)

There were loads of young Khmer guys jumping off the 10m board so I ended up taking quite a lot of pictures of them too...

Some of the jumps were jaw-dropping and squeal inducing (on my part, not theirs). After spending so much time taking photos I only ended up swimming for a short time - and 50 metre pools are knackering so after three lengths I was happily done (I haven't been swimming properly since I came here - that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!)

The swimming pool - where there wasn't much swimming action from Gordon or I

Slightly later in the evening - after swimming - with the sun starting to set

There were some young kids in the pool who decided they wanted their photo taken too

not quite as impressive

After the pool we went to watch the sunset in the main part of the Stadium

Samean and Gilly

aerobics... 

 aerobics...

and more aerobics! Plus lots of people walking or running along the steps/seats
 (the swimming pool is just behind this bit)

our next subjects muscling in on the photo action early

We met some more photogenic kids who we persuaded to have their photos taken...

And as the sun set over the Stadium we headed off our separate ways... Sam and Gilly for birthday steaks and Gordon and I for fantastic pizza with Ken and Samean. Happy days. 

With these Rocher you're really spoiling us!

Gordon pipped me to the post a bit with his earlier blog about his job here - I'd been planning one about what I've been up to work wise for the past few weeks. Great minds think alike (and before you ask, no, we don't discuss what goes up on the blog. And, yes, it would make sense if we did.) However mine is still not going to tell you a lot about what I do - mine's more post-work socialising with my colleagues.

Here's a picture of my desk (the messy one on the left) - these are the only pictures I've taken of the VSO office as I've been more likely to take pictures of one of the many fun things we've done as a team.

and the view further into the office upstairs

And this is the upstairs bit outside at the office.
The white marks you can see against the green roof are giant raindrops

I'm really lucky to work with such a great bunch of people. I really feel at home in the team and every week that goes past I feel like I get a bit closer to another team member.

Karaoke
A few months ago Sokchea was leaving the VSO finance team. For her leaving party she decided we should go and do karaoke. Karaoke here normally involves men singing, young girls in short skirts serving beer and then possibly some paid-for sex afterwards. There are quite a few karaoke bars near the VSO office - small shack style affairs where the singing ranges from painful to downright appalling (partly to do with the Cambodian fondness for having everything amped to the max). However, for this night out we were off to the Rock! A giant, fancy and more expensive KTV (karaoke bar).

Now, let me confess. I wasn't really looking forward to this. I love karaoke in the UK but I can't read Khmer and, at that time, I couldn't recognise any Khmer songs. Also, I wasn't sure how sleazy it was going to be. Gordon was just recovering from his bout of dengue fever so I invited him along, secretly planning that he was our ticket out of there should we need to scarper early.

Our own private room, complete with scarily empty dance floor 

the singing begins! That's Sokchea in the blue. And looking at the camera is Sochea. Yup, their names are that similar - and they both work in the finance office! Confused me for a while...

Needless to say, we shouldn't have worried. While there were beer girls in our private room it didn't feel sleazy. And it was one of the best nights out we'd had in a long time. The choice of songs was impressive, both in Khmer and English. After the first few songs Vantha, the Country Director, got up on the dance floor and that was everyone on it for the rest of the night.

a picture of the dancing - even better is the video of it below!

Olympics
Another fun work outing was for our Olympic PDD (personal development day, that's actually only ever half a day).

Gordon and I had been following the Olympics as best we could. Sadly, our local  Chinese TV station had a penchant for ladies football, ping pong and basketball with the occasional glimpse of synchronised swimming. We did have luck the night that good old Andy hammered Federer - the TV was showing the match and, with that on mute and the commentary on the BBC through the internet, we had our own little Olympic atmosphere in the flat. To feel a little more involved I'd organised a sweepie in the office which basically gave me freedom to chat about the Olympics at every break, to anyone who would listen. Then Dawn, our programme support manager, had the bright idea to do a team building PDD in honour of the Olympics. And so we decided to take part in that famous Olympic sport - ten pin bowling.

the office gang (minus a few who had to leave early)

Hardly anyone in the office had been bowling before. Therefore I was quietly confident that I at least wouldn't humiliate myself. How wrong could I be...

Nearly everyone picked it up within the first few throws of the ball and were soon getting strikes galore. I hit NOTHING in my first few attempts. Ah well. There's nothing like a little humiliation to bond a team together.

l-r Chamroeun, Kamonn, Reth and me.
Reth won silver in the individual competition while our team also came in second

Ambassadors, royalty and a Scottish MC
I do actually do some work in the office. I recently took a break from my day job, writing up the research looking at the motivation of health workers in Cambodia, when I was asked to organise the launch of our new country strategy.

It's amazing how late everything is organised here. The first I heard about the launch event was two weeks before - when I was asked to organise it. That was everything: deciding who to invite, finding all their contact details, designing and printing the invitation, finding a venue, planning training on networking etc. We were holding this event jointly with the British Embassy so we also had to coordinate with them, checking wording of invitations, backdrops (see the blue thing in the pic below).

My partner in crime for all this was Pisit, our office manager, who's an absolute star. The only slightly scary thing was that his wife was pregnant and due to pop any day. The day of the event was actually her due date. I was only partly joking when I repeatedly told him that he had to tell her to cross her legs.

Me and Pisit

Somehow, with only ten days notice, we managed to get 40+ guests to come along including ambassadors, government ministers, country representatives from some of the big development agencies, a guy from Coca Cola, and a Princess!

the uber glam and super friendly Princess Soma Norodom

I was asked the day before if I would MC the event - here's me in action. And before anyone asks yes, I did speak slowly. Yes, really slowly. And I had lots of compliments on my MC skills (it still makes me think that I should have been rapping whenever I hear or write MC)

The only disappointment of the evening was that, with more Ambassadors there than you could shake a stick at, there wasn't a Ferrero Rocher in sight. Ah the hardships of life in the Penh.