Sports in Cambodia

When I walk through a market here, I sometimes find a Cambodian quietly sidling up beside me to measure themselves against my shoulder. Their friends are usually found having a friendly giggle a few yards away. Cambodia is a nation of small people which makes volleyball, a sport for tall people, a very strange choice of national sport.

The best volleyball court in the world; literally on the riverbank of the Mekong in Kompong Cham. That's my knee that you can see as I'm sit on the wall above drinking a beer. 

At about 5pm every day throughout the country, men will finish work and gather for a game of volleyball. Probably due to a reliance on manual labour, the impressive athleticism of Cambodians allows them to be springing upwards to spike the ball better than Tom Cruise in Top Gun. It's pretty serious stuff, especially as there is always at least $5 riding on the outcome. Unfortunately, Cambodia does still get whacked when they play internationals against giants.

People rise with the sun to get their exercise in before it hots up. So at 6am you will find people playing another favourite sport - kick a shuttle-cock type thing about - better described in this video I took. Some of them are ridiculously talented, letting it go over their heads, and kicking it from behind their head through arms raised above their heads to another person. I felt very privileged to be asked to join once, then felt very ashamed as I disproved a widespread Cambodian belief that foreigners are always better at everything.

A great thing about Cambodia is that exercise often takes place in the streets or pavements. Walking down the road can involve dodging flying shuttlecocks as a security guard and friend, or a mother and daughter, or a husband and wife are playing badminton (without a net). It reminds of playing 'kerbie' (throwing a ball from one side of the road to hit off the kerb on the other side) when I was young.

6am on a Sunday morning at the riverside

Being Asia, ping pong is a big favourite and ping pong halls are full most days. Apart from the one that I go to with friends, which is usually empty and obviously not a place for serious players. Ping pong seems to bring out the best of the Cambodian array of shrieks and yelps that they enjoy using to show whatever emotion they're having (usually disagreement, disapproval, disgust etc). I've also never know ping pong to be as sweaty as it is in ping pong. One of the guys I play with (Paul!) is like a (lawn) tennis player and actually changes his shirt between games.

Whilst volleyball is the sport most played by men, badminton by women and couples etc, the one that is the most watched and revered is Cambodian boxing (pradal serey, which translates as free fighting) which they will tell you pre-dates Thai boxing. When it is on, the cafes with TVs are packed full of men watching and betting. At one of the halls near the Olympic Stadium we watched some junior and club matches, which included one guy taking a dive for some cash. It was quite hilarious. He was flat out on the canvas in a star shape and then as soon as the ref counted ten, he jumped up smiling and fresh, hopped over the ropes and jogged past a guy who gave him an envelope on his way to get changed. This fight we filmed was a bit more real as you can tell by the way one of the guys move towards the other after they've taken a tumble.

The six-aside pitch, with top notch astroturf, where I play on a Saturday or Sunday.  It's in the city but down some little lanes and alleys so that you feel that you are in the middle of the countryside. They very patiently put up with my moaning about them never coming back (trow mao kroway - must come back - is my favourite phrase).

Thankfully for me, football has arrived here and I usually play every week with a group of Cambodians who I met through work. Two hours in the sun usually drains me of all liquid that my body had and requires me to drink ten coconuts in an effort to rehydrate. And having a 7:30am kick off for a game of 11s was a bit of a shock to the system. At first, due to the size difference, I felt like a Dad playing with twelve year-olds so to prevent me from accidentally hurting them, I sometimes join them in playing barefoot. It's definitely one way to feel a bit Cambodian - from the feet up.

Gordon

A view of home from afar

Claire and I were back home for a few weeks, and when I got back to Cambodia (Claire's still home), there were a few people who said that they had seen our Facebook photos and were so surprised how beautiful Scotland was. And I felt like saying that those weren't even the best bits!

Best bit no. 1: Beautiful beaches - clear blue water; pure white sands; nobody in sight. 

When I was home, I noticed the huge media focus on the referendum on Scottish independence that will be held on 18th Sept 2014. Since we have an international audience (the Google analytics tells us so), I'll give a quick overview or watch the start of this you-tube video. The King of Scotland became the King of England & Wales in 1603 but Scotland and England & Wales kept their separate governments and parliaments until 1707, when the governments and parliaments joined (Scotland has since got a devolved parliament again), and now we have the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The arguments for either side have been rehearsed for years: Scotland benefits economically from being part of the UK; Scotland could be richer if it had control of its oil and not tied to an economy built around London. Scotland has a greater voice and influence as part of the UK; Scotland has unique interests and opinions that are neglected as part of  the UK.

Best bit no.2: The Callanish stones (& other historical stuff) - we even have our own Stonehenge - again with nobody there!

Most of the time, the argument predictably focusses on economics. However, economists don't have a great record of predicting three years in advance never mind decades or centuries, which is what we're talking about here. The vote on independence isn't about the next five or ten years, it's about the next two or three hundred years.

This is why I find it strange that people are so concerned about the process of change if independence happens. It's like basing a decision on where to live for 30 years on whether you can be bothered spending one week packing and unpacking and trying to figure out where everything will go. Anyway, it is this uncertainty surrounding what changes might be needed and the numerous things that would have to be sorted out, that campaigners and the media (most of the media covered stories opposing independence) are focussing on.

Best bit no.3: The stillness of snow - not enough to stop you doing anything or freezing, but enough to go sledging, make things look pretty and create an amazing quiet as the snow muffles all sounds.

In Cambodia, the general election will happen on 28th July and the ruling party has also been using the uncertainty about what would happen if they lost as a campaigning tactic. The Prime Minister warned that the country could descend back into war if they lost (not a threat, just a prediction). Cambodians have said that this is very powerful given that change in 1970 led to civil war, change in '75 led to the Khmer Rouge, and change in '79 led to more civil war and refugee camps. Things are a lot better now so you could understand any reluctance to "gamble" on change.

Another tactic here is the politicisation of the civil service. This basically means that to get a job as a civil servant at any level - teacher, policeman, doctor - you have to join the ruling party and then pay party membership fees. Then at elections, you are expected to be out there campaigning with your t-shirt and cap giving out gifts (traditional scarves, money) to people in your community.

Best bit no.4: Men in kilts - even ugly Scots feel that they could give Brad Pitt a run for his money when they've got a kilt on

This hardly makes it a level playing field. The British tradition of a completely neutral civil service with separation of party and government has certainly not found favour here. Nor is it always found in the UK. I noticed many media reports quote a "Treasury spokesperson", which gives the impression of it being a civil servant from that department and thus neutral. In this one, a "Treasury spokesperson" presents as fact that Scotland would be better off in the Union. The truth is that the spokesperson is probably a politically appointed Special Adviser to the Treasury Minister who is a member of a party opposes Scottish independence.

Anyway, as a Scot in Cambodia I'm not allowed to vote in the election here and if we're still here at the time of the referendum in Scotland, I'm not sure that it would be right to vote given I've not lived there for what will be 6 years. Anyway, that was my answer when a mischievous German guy asked me how I would vote when I was standing next to the UK ambassador here.

Best bit no.5: The green - a wise man once told me that if it wasn't for the rain, you wouldn't get the green. 

I will leave you with one more pic. This was the view from our bed and breakfast when Claire went to Skye before Harris (beach pic above) and Lewis (Callanish Stones). Despite the negativity of those who say Scotland is too rubbish to go it alone or those who say we're rubbish because we're not alone, it's not a bad place really.

Gordon

Kings of Karaoke

In Scotland, friends meet and go to the pub. In Cambodia, they go to karaoke. They absolutely love it and it is pretty certain that a group of Cambodians out for the night, will end up at a karaoke club.  Food and drinks, then karaoke and drinks.

VSO Cambodia staff, plus Claire and me in Venise Karaoke Club. You get your own private room,  dance floor,  song organiser and bar girls (optional...)

Like pubs, karaoke clubs come in all shapes and sizes. Just like the spartan old man's boozer that has lonesome individuals in it from lunchtime, you may see a guy belting out a song in the middle of the day in what is nothing more than a shop with rows of chairs facing a TV.

Then you get the flashier karaoke clubs that tempt those with money. These will have huge Johnnie Walker and Chivas Regal advertising outside, and beautiful young girls inside. These are things that money buys at karaoke.

The Rock Karaoke Club - one of the biggest and flashiest - where we debuted

It is not quite karaoke on the bus, as people do not sing with a microphone, but to help entertain you on your six hour bus trip to wherever, they will play pop songs that are operatic in length and story. These songs may last 20 minutes or so and have different chapters that usually follow a story of a love triangle or quadrangle.

Singing can also extend to meetings. Some of the more important meetings/events that I go to may begin with the national anthem. Most of the time, you just stand rigid, hands at your sides and staring forwards as the tape recording plays, but one time at a school (no electricity), one boy led off the singing swiftly accompanied by other children and parents. I stood at the front facing them moving my lips inaudibly.

However, there are some songs that I have learnt. My favourite is 'ch'nam own dop-pram-moie' (I'm 16 years old) which talks about how a girl at 16 is as sweet and beautiful as can be. I've been assured the actual meaning isn't as bad as it sounds.

The Cambodian Space Project - current band rocking Phnom Penh playing some Cambodian rock with a Khmer female lead vocalist

The most famous singers, Sin Sisamuth and Ros Sereysothea were killed during the Khmer Rouge era but still remain hugely popular, even amongst young people, helped by recordings of them on You Tube. New pop stars with fancier hair cuts are becoming famous and indeed Cambodian music is going global with Dengue Fever - an American band whose original songs are inspired by 1960s Cambodian pop/rock and have a Cambodian lead singer.

However, international influences are arriving, none more so than K-Pop (Korean Pop) with Gangnam Style never failing to fill a dance floor. But it is fair to say that they are only just arriving. Despite their love of karaoke and 60s rock, Elvis Presley is not only dead in Cambodia, he was never even alive. Mention The Beatles and blank faces respond. But before long, I bet you that there will be a Cambodian Elvis impersonator though. Or at least a lanky Scottish one that happens to be in Cambodia.

Gordon

No more 50 shades of grey; kill the Lexus

I want to take a key and score the whole side of a Lexus. And not just one; I want to scratch all of them. This is what Cambodia has done to me.

You don't want to be shy about it do you?

Usually, I have an ability to see shades of grey in everything; something I inwardly dislike about myself sometimes. Rather than this being a result of deep consideration, I fear it is a coward's way of avoiding saying what I believe. 

There are friends who seem to know what is right or wrong - they can see the black and white clearly despite the shades of grey. I'm sometimes jealous of them for this although I know that it can mean that you are quick to judge or unable to ever change your mind.

In Cambodia, I have found myself losing the grey and seeing the black. Black Lexus cars.

I don't want to be racist - I want to do the same to white Lexus (plural - Lexi?)  too.

One of the first things I noticed in Cambodia was that there were three types of vehicles that people owned: bicycles, motos and huge 4x4 cars. There were very few small or medium sized cars. If you had enough money for a car, then you had enough money for a massively expensive one.

These cars symbolise the grabbing of a country's wealth by a small minority of people. All of the gem stones have been mined, the forests cleared and the land sold and the most visible sign of benefit from all of this are the huge 4x4 cars owned by a few. I see a Lexus and I am repulsed.

Before Toyota Lexus sue me, I feel the same about Range Rovers which are becoming the new desire as Lexi (plural Lexus...) are too ubiquitous now. 

In the UK, I did not care if a person had a huge, expensive car. I was not impressed, neither was I repulsed. But in Cambodia, I find that I am. This could be a little righteous indignation (I'm here to help your country folk and you're wasting money on a flash car), but I think it comes from knowing that some people's wealth has come at the cost of others.

I'm not talking about an unequal spreading of wealth, but people getting rich because others have lost their land, their farm or their forest where they collect food. The fact that they can't even drive the damn things seems to make it even worse! But, unsurprisingly, I have found some grey that means I can avoid taking my key to the sides of Lexus.

I would much rather do what this kid is doing - just with better aim

If your whole family of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins etc numbered 20 in 1975 and only 2 in 1979, what would you do to protect your family? You would feel that you have a debt to your ancestors and a responsibility to those who are left to keep the family safe. You could quite easily feel that you would do everything you could to make sure that you had enough wealth and power to protect your family or send them away if civil war erupted again. And I guess that means having a Lexus.

Gordon

Key to Cambodian development? Google.

By the end of this blog, I bet 6 beers you that you will be able to read and write Khmer script.

This is the Khmer alphabet and the sounds of each letter.

VSO is all about sustainable development. Volunteers are meant to go to a developing country, share their skills and build the capacity of people living there, so that when the volunteer leaves, the volunteer is no longer needed anyway. Teach a man to fish rather than give him a fish type philosophy.

When I first arrived, one of the first things to hit me was that the NGO I work at (NEP) could not produce reports in English to a high enough standard for big, international organisations like UNICEF and the World Bank to respect them. Avid fans of this blog may remember a post about how important English is in Cambodia.

My winning 'sustainable' idea is to arrange for a pool of volunteers based anywhere in the world who could do some serious editing to reports. This could be ex-VSO volunteers, UN volunteers or even just folk who want to do a little good.

I shared this idea with somebody else who was a bit sceptical of it as it was not aimed directly at up-skilling Cambodians here and the ongoing need for volunteers was unsustainable. Her suggestion was intensive training for one or two key members of staff. The flaw is of course that when the staff leave, the NGO is back at square one.

After being pushed, I declared that the only truly sustainable way possible within the near future would be to get Google to have Khmer-English translation available on Google Translate.

Now Google Translate is obviously not perfect but I had already thought that if people could translate things into Khmer, then a whole world of knowledge could be opened up. One of the things that I have realised is that you cannot expect people to become knowledgeable when they cannot read the books or websites that hold the knowledge. As an English speaker, every book in the world is translated into my language. For Khmer speakers, there has probably been a handful. English is king on the internet too.

I began to think how I could get to Google, and then one of my friends began working for them. It was surely a sign. But a bigger one was an article a few months ago that said Google would include Khmer in it's Google Translate service  in 2013. Then on April 18th 2013, I sent this message to a colleague: ខ្ញុំស្រឡាញ់ Google.

You too can now understand what my message said. Simply copy and paste the message that I sent into Google Translate choosing Khmer into English.

Expect the next blog to be written in Khmer...

Gordon

PS, because Google Translate is not perfect, NEP will still need editors for maybe 2 reports a year so not much work at all. I want to trial this before I go in April 2014 as I think it could make a huge difference to shaping education policy in Cambodia. Email me: gordonconochie@yahoo.co.uk if you think you could help.

Cooking Khmer

Christmas 2011, my wonderful sister, smart cookie that she is, gave me a crisp $50 note with the instruction to spend it on a Khmer cooking course she'd found for us to do in Phnom Penh. 16 months later, almost to the day, Gordon and I finally did the course today.

me in Phnom Penh with the same $50 note,
just slightly less crisp as it has been folded up for over a year!

We had a great day, going to the market to buy all the food with our teacher, Sawn, and then making:
- vegetable spring rolls
- fish amok
- banana flower salad
- mango and sticky rice

cooking stations at the ready

It was a great day and I would highly recommend it for anyone visiting, but I'm actually glad that we waited to do it after being in Cambodia for a while (13 months now). It was lovely to chat to our teacher about the food and learn more Khmer names for things knowing what we know now about Cambodia and its food. It's also fun to make Khmer people laugh with some of the Khmer sayings we have learned.

ingredients ready for making the amok 'kroeung' or paste:
lemongrass, kaffir lime, galangal, turmeric, chilli, shallot and garlic in the small basket
dried then chopped into a paste chilli in the small bowl
chilli and kaffir lime leave finely chopped for decoration

the kroeung after being pounded up 

learning to make the banana leaf bowl to hold the amok

finished bowl 

the finished fish amok after being steamed, with extra coconut cream on top

banana flower

Peeling the dark leaves off the flower to
get to the tender yellow leaves inside

I had to add both of these so you can see how much
taller he is than nearly every Khmer person

banana leaf salad

There are two menus to choose from for the cookery course and our final dish of the day was the reason we ended up choosing 'menu 1' - mango and sticky rice.

In the picture above you can see all the parts that go into this dish. Top left is the sticky rice, top middle  is palm sugar caramel (palm sugar, salt, lime and coconut milk) and top right is the palm sugar caramel mixed with freshly grated coconut. On the plates is the mango - Sawn said to make it into whatever design we wanted. I can't remember who started the animal idea but Gordon went with an elephant and I ended up with a crocodile, as my suggested tiger just wasn't looking anything like a tiger!

finished designs - crocodile with clouds and elephant with ???

transport in Cambodia 1 - the moto

A few weeks ago Gordon and I learned to ride a moto. In about 30 minutes. Turns out driving a moto is as easy as everyone says it is - in a straight line and on concrete anyway.

Adam, our teacher, looks on as Gordon manoeuvres round a 'corner'

For some further practice we went out to my colleague Soklaing's house, about 20km from the city. We joined the new volunteers who had recently arrived in country for their moto training. We didn't do the moto training when we arrived as we knew we wouldn't have motos for our placements in Phnom Penh. However, we'd recently thought it would be fun to learn as it would mean we could hire motos when we went to visit some of the provinces.

I forgot to take my camera out with me when we went out on our big 1.5 hour drive that let us practice on different road surfaces and in traffic etc so I don't have many pictures (and obviously I wouldn't have taken my hands off the handlebars when I was driving!!). So here's what I did take. All three of them!

parked up at Soklaing's beautiful house

teacher Adam, Marissa, teacher Peter, host Soklaing, Rolly and Kent
plus the feast that Soklaing's family prepared for us

my trusty steed for the day - a Honda Dream Excess
(I think the Excess means it's a step up from the bog standard Honda Dream)

Motos are definitely the transport option of choice for the majority of Cambodians, and the model of choice is generally the Honda Dream. And it's no wonder - they're indestructible! They're inexpensive to run, will take all grades of fuel, parts are cheap and plentiful and they're a doddle to drive. You only need one hand to drive it, leaving the other free to hold on to a small, often sleeping, child (complete with their IV drip) or whatever other cargo you're transporting that day. It's not uncommon to see four people on a bike. Who needs a car when you have a Dream?

Sadly, I don't have a picture with four people (plus) on the moto. Will try harder.

What's the collective term for motos? A madness of motos? 

Chicken coop needing moved? No problem

Drive through boggy mud (see behind) carrying snacks for 30 plus bucket etc for doing a hand-washing demo?
Easy. Although, obviously, that was a Cambodian driving, not a Barang (foreigner).

Trailer plus cargo plus people? Pile it on!

delivering ice - what a light load this Dream is getting