tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12900815970294284602024-03-20T05:03:27.774-07:00Cambodia, News and ViewsStanscambo includes previously published articles from Bayon Pearnik, a local expat oriented magazine, plus additional posts as I get the urge. I've lived in Cambodia for ten years and consider it my home. I hope you find this blog interesting and edifying. WelcomeStan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-23899798804105258192014-05-30T20:10:00.000-07:002014-05-30T20:10:26.669-07:00Thailand Again<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Once again the military has taken
over the country, the 12th time since constitutional monarchy was established
around 80 years ago. At first, they only declared martial law but when they
brought the contesting parties together and couldn’t forge a compromise, they
made it complete. Of course, compromise would’ve meant a legitimately elected
government ceding power to a movement seeking its ouster; not something a
legitimate government is supposed to do.</div>
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I am constantly struck by how much
in lockstep expats associated with Thailand are on the subject of politics in
that country. They echo the words and thoughts of the anti-government, yellow
shirt protesters who don’t believe the reds have the right or are smart enough
to govern. That makes it possible for them to discount the fact that Taksin
Shinawatra or his aligned governments have won every election since 2001 by
comfortable margins and that he was the first Thai leader to win an outright
majority in parliament.</div>
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He paid for the vote is their
answer. If you point out that paying for votes is a long Thai tradition, they
say, well he’s rich so he could pay more for the votes. If you point out that
he provided free health care to the villagers, they say the program is a
disaster, the people hate it. If you bring up the development money he provided
for the villages, they say, it was all stolen by corrupt leaders. The royalists
are no slouches in the wealth department, if the rural poor only vote that way
for the cash, why couldn’t the yellows come up with the money to match
Taksin’s?</div>
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If you bring up the red shirt
protests which an unelected government cleared out with the deaths of more than
90 people and a thousand injured they say, Taksin paid the demonstrators to be
there. It had nothing to do, in their minds, with the fact that three
legitimate governments that represented their interests were deposed, one of
them on the flimsiest pretexts – a red shirt leader was booted out for a
conflict of interest: he earned $50 for hosting a cooking show. They say the
reds are apolitical, they only vote because they’re paid to do so. </div>
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Before Yingluck was deposed,
partly on account of her failed rice purchasing scheme, the first thing
defenders of the yellows said, Look, the farmers are marching against her
because they haven’t been paid for their rice. Does that mean they would vote
for the opposition? The royalists who hate them? Like Democrats who dislike
Obama would vote for a Repug? The yellows prevented enough people from voting
last February to invalidate the ballot, because they knew Yingluck would win in
spite of her disastrous rice scheme. </div>
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An article in the Cambodia Daily
on Monday, May 26 said, … the scheme (rice buying) was meant to cement rural
support for Yingluck. Two things are amiss about that statement. One, she
didn’t need to cement rural support, she was going to win easily. Two, many
governments subsidize farmers, the US and EU being some of the worst in that
department. And in the case of Thailand, why not? While the country has advanced
tremendously in the past decades, the peasantry hasn’t hardly seen any of it.
Before Taksin they were left to their own devices. </div>
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When the royalists protest, the
military takes over and puts them in power. When the reds do the same, they’re
murdered. But they’re not political, we’re told, just peasants collecting their
stipend for voting red or demonstrating, besides they’re not smart enough to
wield power. An opinion piece in the Cambodia Daily, Thursday, May 29, by a
typical SE Asia expat is entitled, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Military Coup in Thailand Holds Promise of Democracy</i>. My God, Orwell back
from the dead! </div>
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You see, what the generals will do
is ‘reform the system’ and then democracy will be safe again. While they’re at
it they’ll have to make it safe from the majority, otherwise the cycle will
just start over. The reds are not going to take this sitting down. They’re not
going to go back to their villages, be content in their poverty and thank the
generals for usurping another government they elected. </div>
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There <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">has</i> been a tiny little change in the elitists attitude since Taksin
first won on a populist platform. This is represented by a quote from another
article in the paper. A 30-year-old coup-supporter businessman is quoted
saying, When people are sick they need medicine. It might be a bitter pill, but
we need to swallow it. Medicine for the sick: A bitter pill. That has been my
impression of the yellows right along: they hate the idea of their government
helping the poor. It drives them crazy. I saw that attitude when I lived in
Thailand more than 20 years ago, no matter how rich the society was becoming,
the common people were treated like trash. The Repugs in the US are similar,
anything that helps the poor is just buying votes. Tax breaks for billionaires
is altruism, food stamps for the poor is coddling them. Being hungry will make
them strong and self-reliant.</div>
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The Yellows don’t want to buy
votes with populist programs the way Taksin did but they may have to if they
ever want to actually win another election. </div>
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Taksin as a person is just plain
reprehensible, there’s no way to defend him on principle. But if you say to a
defender of the elite, Yes but he was the first Thai politician to ever do
anything for the poor, they say, Maybe, but he never cared about them, he only
bought their votes to increase his own power. That may be true, I can’t say,
but he was a lowly cop on a beat at one time, so it’s not hard to imagine he
might retain some feeling for the common people no matter what else you think
about him or how awful he is on all personal matters.</div>
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He is so divisive, for the sake of
the nation and the people he represents, he really should steer totally clear
of any future involvement in Thai politics. Nonetheless, even if he were deep
in his grave before the next time the reds win an election, the royalists would
blame their defeat on him buying votes from six feet underground.</div>
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Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-7640841394862360382014-03-02T16:10:00.000-08:002014-03-02T16:10:19.241-08:00Ergonomics 101<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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My dictionary defines ergonomics
as the study of how equipment and furniture can be arranged in order that
people can do work and other activities more efficiently and comfortably.</div>
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On that score Cambodia fails
miserably, but that doesn’t matter much to the Khmer since they can sit
cross-legged on a hard surface all day without even noticing they’re
uncomfortable. Not so myself, I’m the canary in the comfort zone, not only
because geezers need and like to be comfortable more than the young, pliable
and adaptable, but also because my back always hurts from the heavy challenges
I put it through in my younger days. There were times I couldn’t sit, stand or
walk without the potential of excruciating pain if I wasn’t extremely careful
of my movements: it’s not like that now, but still the pain is always there in
the background.</div>
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Most of us here in Cambo can put
up with discomfort since nothing is supposed to work just right here anyway and
considering that living is cheap we don’t expect cushiness to be part of our
everyday experience. </div>
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But if I’m at a bar or restaurant
and the furniture is so poorly designed for comfort that my back is hurting,
well, I’m not going to be able to hang around very long. That doesn’t matter so
much in a restaurant since people don’t ordinarily spend much time eating, but
in a bar where you might find yourself lingering for hours over multiple brews,
comfort becomes important. As I say, some people hardly notice, still, if
you’re the owner of a drinking or eating establishment, do you really want your
customers to be uncomfortable? Most times there’s no difference in cost, you
just need to know what to look for.</div>
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It’s not just the likes of
Cambodia with dysfunctional furniture, sometimes I’ll be back in the states and
I see furniture so poorly designed for comfort it’s a truly punishing
experience. Sometimes designers will go through flights of fantasy in creating
really beautiful, unique chairs that’re almost impossible to sit in. </div>
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‘Form follows function’ is a
phrase coined by architect Louis Sullivan, who was mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright
back in the early part of the 20<sup>th</sup> century. It’s an extremely simple
concept but a lot of designers still haven’t gotten the message. You know, if
you’re designing a chair, your first task is to make it comfortable, after
that, knock yourself out, do any crazy thing you want. For instance, last time
I was in Siem Reap some years ago I stopped in at the FCC – Foreign
Correspondent’s Club. In the outdoor seating area they had these beautiful, sleek,
ultramodern easy chairs which were amongst the most uncomfortable chairs I’ve
ever tried to sit in. The seat was so long, if you tried to sit all the way
back, you felt like a kid with your legs sticking straight out; also the back
of the chair was so short it offered no support whatever. You had to sit all
the way forward and pretend there was no back.</div>
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Chairs are the most difficult pieces
of furniture to design because they require angles, rather than rectangles. Most
of the padded wicker chairs one finds in Cambodia have seats that are flat,
that is, parallel to the ground. When you sit back in one of those your bum
immediately slides forward. If the seat is angled backwards, even just a
centimeter or two your bum has a bit of an anchor. If possible when sitting in
a chair with a flat seat I’ll move the cushion forward and fold up the front to
raise my legs up and lower my bum, making it far more comfortable. At least
wicker easy chairs and sofas are generally at the proper height, that is, when
you sit down your feet rest comfortably on the floor. Dangling feet is a no-no,
it cuts off circulation to your legs and in my case causes back pain in a few
minutes. Some are designed with rounded tops and arm rests. They look great but
are a serious detriment to comfort. Arm rests need to be flat, otherwise all
the weight of your arm is resting on a bone rather than soft tissue. Also, the
flat armrest allows you to place a cup or glass on it.</div>
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Most wooden chairs and many wicker
ones are way too high, especially considering how short the locals are.
However, Cambodians are so accustomed to chairs built too high, they’re not
comfortable in those cheap plastic chairs which are the correct dimensions so
they’ll stack them up so they can have their legs dangle. To each his own. Once
again Khmer are so used to being uncomfortable, they don’t even know the
difference. Hard wood seats need to be scooped out for your butt, otherwise all
your weight is resting on your pelvic bones, rather than on soft bum tissue,
but that requires a lot of work and talent compared to leaving them flat.
Adding a cushion solves that problem, but that might exacerbate the height
problem. If the chair is intended for sitting upright then the seat is okay
flat.</div>
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Bars are one of my favorite topics,
which is not surprising considering how much time I spend in them. Therefore
it’s especially frustrating to see how almost all of them are poorly designed
here. The first, biggest mistake is height: 95% are too tall. There probably
isn’t a bar in the entire US of A that’s as tall as the average here in
Cambodia. If you don’t actually take the time to research proper height, then
the natural tendency is to make it too high. This is similar to the first time
you try to juggle: you always want to throw the ball forward rather than
straight up. It’s an automatic response.</div>
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‘Belly up to the bar’ is an old
saying. On that basis the bar should come up to the center of the average
person’s belly, which means when that person is standing up leaning against the
bar they can comfortably rest their arms on it. However, since most bar patrons
are men, designing for the average man is probably right. On the other hand, when
you also consider the average Cambodian is short and women also go to bars,
it’s best to err a bit on the short side. Yes, tall men will be at a
disadvantage, but you can’t please everybody and besides they’re always at a
disadvantage and are used to it. Taking all that into account, the maximum
height of a bar should be 110 cm or a bit more than 43 inches. Anything more
makes no sense whatever and yet I’ve been to bars taller than my chin where
Cambodian staff couldn’t even see over them.</div>
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The other glaring fault with the
typical bar here is the lack of a proper overhang or the ability use a proper
one because of the configuration of the footrest and stool. When you push your
bar stool all the way in you should be able to rest your arms on the bar
without leaning forward. By the third or fourth drink you (I) need something to
lean on. The overhang should therefore be at least 30 cm or 1 foot; similar to what
you have sitting at a dinner table. Otherwise to put your elbows on the bar you
either have to sit on the edge of your chair and forego the comfort of the chair
back or strain your back leaning forward. Yet most bars in Cambo have almost no
overhang at all. It’s supposed to be a bar top not a counter top. </div>
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Sometimes the problem is that the
footrest sticks out too far and/or the stool is slanted backwards preventing
the chair from going all the way forward. Rails solve that problem or you can
design a footrest similar to an overhang. Either way those are key calculations
required for a bar to be comfortable. Some bars here have no footrest at all. Take
a look at the contortions people go through with their legs when there’re
standing up at a bar with no place to rest one of their feet. </div>
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The only way to partially
compensate for lack of an overhang is to have stools with arm rests, but they
take up more space at the bar. Which brings up the subject of proper stool
design. The cross members that give the stool strength and stability also need
to be placed at a level which allows you to comfortably rest your feet; that
is, without being so low it leaves your legs dangling or so high it forces your
knees up around your chin. Taking a clue from those cheap plastic chairs, the cross
member should be 16 to 17 inches or 40 to 42 cm below the seat. Khmer chair
builders place them without any thought to where feet need to rest. It should
be possible to tell the wood or wicker shop where you want the cross members to
be - you’re paying for them after all - but sometimes they’ll just ignore you
and put them where they’re used to putting them; which is exactly my experience.
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If you also want your bar to work
efficiently for staff there needs to be an underhang or cutaway at the back,
essentially a shelf at a lower level where drinks can be conveniently mixed.
Having local staff who are almost uniformly short mixing drinks on top of a
tall bar or trying to use a lower shelf without a cutaway by bending over and
contorting their bodies does not lend to efficiency. Khmers will never
complain, but it’s a small matter to do it right.</div>
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Finally on the topic of bars,
there are often serious disconnects in the way the rooms are designed. There
are several establishments in Kampot which call themselves bar/restaurants but
when you walk by you see a room full of restaurant tables with a very small bar
at the back of the room just big enough for 4 or 5 seats with punters showing
their back to the street. With my tired old eyes I can’t tell who’s there so I
won’t go into a bar like that unless I know who’s there beforehand, otherwise I
may walk in and find that I really don’t want to hang out with the people there.
I’d probably still buy a beer to avoid an embarrassing U-turn, but then I have
to sit around bored trying to drink it fast. If you sit at a table you’re
looking for privacy, if you sit at a bar you’re looking to be sociable. If you
call yourself a bar then the bar itself needs to be the full length of the room
so that passersby can see who’s there. Tiny little bars as adjuncts to
restaurants can’t achieve critical mass of boozy energy and are generally
patronized only by close friends. The tap is best at the front so potential customers
can see what you’re serving and so staff can see who’s entering the bar when
they’re pouring mugs.</div>
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The problem arises from most
shophouses being 4 meters wide which means if you have a full length bar and
leave yourself a little space to maneuver behind it, there’s not enough room
for full-size tables on the opposite wall. Essentially, you can’t do justice to
both at the same time. </div>
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Most bar patrons are men and we
tend to piss more often then women so a bar owner saves a lot of trouble by
including a urinal, especially if it’s in a separate space from the toilet. Here
in Cambo that’s easy as you can just hang it from a wall without its own room.
Flush toilets, especially the cheap ones sold in Cambodia, don’t hold up well
after being flushed 100 times or more per day and there’s hardly anything less
fun than fixing a dysfunctional toilet which might be full of old shit or piss.
Besides you offer better service; nobody wants to hang around standing in line
waiting to pee.</div>
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I’m also a great fan of industrial
ceiling fans. One ceiling fan moves the equivalent amount of air of 4 or 5 wall
fans and does it with far more comfort. Except when it’s on high power it
provides a gentle breeze with a lot less noise than wall fans. And it’s
important to note that fans are not just for cooling: with the amount of
cigarette smoking that goes on here in Cambo it’s essential to keep air moving.</div>
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Ultimately, ambiance trumps comfort.
The better the atmosphere - lighting, music, vibrations - the less important
the ergonomics become. But that begs the question, Why punish your loyal customers
with discomfort?</div>
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One final note on bars. Many are
equipped with wicker stools. They’re cheap and they look good but they can
occasionally be dangerous. They’re handmade and not always consistently fabricated
and they also sometimes loosen up. About 5 years ago I came close to a serious
injury from one. I was leaning over backwards, as I often do, when the stool,
which was seriously unbalanced toward the rear, sent me hurtling to the floor. I
knew I couldn’t let the back of my head hit the hard tiled floor so I turned as
fast as I could and bounced my nose, which was sore for more than a week, off
the floor instead. I could’ve easily gotten a concussion or worse if I’d let my
skull do the bouncing. </div>
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A friend who used it later
remarked right off that it was unbalanced. I wanted the stool to be retired
immediately and was almost ready to totally trash it so it couldn’t be used
again, but the owner just blew off the danger and left it in place. For a lousy
$25 dollars, the cost of a new stool, he’s taking an unnecessary chance with
his patron’s safety, in this case could even mean death. There is, however, a
silver lining to this particular story since my nose, which had been pointing
to the left from a much earlier break is now facing straight ahead. It’s not
all that straight itself, but at least it’s pointing in the right direction.</div>
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Finally a note about ergonomics
and computers. Most people nowadays have laptops, notebooks, ipads or such.
They’re very convenient but are impossible to use ergonomically without a
proper computer desk and auxiliary keyboard and maybe monitor. If the laptop monitor
is at the proper height so that you’re looking at it straight ahead rather than
looking down, then the keyboard is going to be too high and possibly cause
carpal tunnel problems in your wrists. Conversely, if the keyboard is at the
right height, then you’ll be looking down at the monitor. If you’re young
and/or you don’t use it too long at a time, all that won’t matter much, you can
get away with poor ergonomics. Otherwise do yourself a favor and buy a computer
table, and while you’re at it a back-saving well-designed desk chair:
Ergonomics means comfort <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i>
efficiency.</div>
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Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-11244363588966742492014-02-05T19:31:00.000-08:002014-02-05T19:31:52.054-08:00An Old Car is Like a Wife<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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I get attached to cars and since
I’ve never had the wherewithal to own a new one, they’ve always been old and
cranky. They’ve always had their share of dings, marks, rattles and quirks, but
I’ve never cared much about outward impressions. As long as their hearts and
moving parts are in reasonable or fixable state, I just carry on. If it’s a
Toyota, like my ’88 Camry, you kinda feel like it’s a pretty solid machine
that’s worth putting money into and maintaining. Wherever you go and especially
in Cambodia, the most popular cars will be easiest to keep running just because
of spare parts and dependability, but that doesn’t exempt you from a myriad of bewildering
and mysterious problems, more of which I’ve encountered with my car than any
one human being ought to have. Just like women, bewildering and mysterious.</div>
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But better than buying a KIA
Sportage. I’ve known two guys who bought them. The first had fuel injector
problems which could only be solved with four new injectors at $450 a pop. When
a second friend bought one I hesitated to break his heart with the sordid tale
of the first Sportage debacle. I only broke the story after he recounted how he
couldn’t leave town with his because of certain disaster if it was driven very
far. </div>
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For this comparison I’m not
suggesting your wife, or cohabitating girlfriend, is equivalent to an old
beater car (though she might well be) but rather the kind of hell she regularly
puts you through just because of the nature of the beast. In this case the more
beautiful and snazzy they are the more likely they are to give you the most
shit. (To be fair, it’s not like we don’t also put them through some trying
times, but they’ve got to make their own analogies.)</div>
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You wouldn’t dump your wife every
time she asks you for a new bangle or bead, or breaks down in tears for
unfathomable reasons or freaks out for (what seems to you) trivialities so why
begrudge taking care of such a handy device as your car just because the bugger
needs new brakes or an alternator or a battery or a new headlight switch once
in a while. Even when it eats up three right front CV joints in six years and only
18,000 miles - twice happening on the road – you just grin and bear it. However,
I wasn’t so smiley when it stranded me 40 kilometers from Kampot without the
money to pay for the repair. When the mechanic who I managed to locate, with
some difficulty, found out I could only pay half of the $65 repair job, he put
me on lowest priority and made me wait from mid-morning till nearly 5 pm before
he returned to finish the job. It turned out okay for him since I made up the
shortfall with everything of value I was carrying with me: a rim and good
quality tire, jumper cables, set of wrenches and a jack. As I discovered later
when I went to replace the tire and rim, they alone were worth about $50. </div>
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But that was truly an
excruciatingly, mortifyingly embarrassing episode. It happened on a bypass
where a new bridge was under construction, so everybody on Highway 3 had a
chance to see the morose barang struggling to smile and be nonchalant as they
filed slowly by. The only saving grace, other than the mere magical fact that
the mechanic actually did the job not knowing what he’d receive in return, was that
a giant overloaded truck, which had even been elongated by two meters, but
which only had a single rear axle, got stuck in the soft bypass road surface
trying to climb back up to the highway. It was a sight to behold and took hours
of unloading his cargo before he could get the thing unstuck. </div>
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Now I wouldn’t travel without a
spare C-note or two in my pocket except in direst emergency. To top it off, I
was forced to drive home at night which is a terrifying experience on
Cambodia’s highways. You’ve got pedestrians, bicycles without lights, slow
moving carts, diesel farm tractors and such which you can’t see until you get
real close – at least I can’t with my tired old eyes – combined with giant
trucks which blind you with their high-powered headlights. Besides, I gave the
mechanic every riel I had so went the last 10 kilometers with the gas warning
light on and (I’m convinced) made it up to my driveway on leftover fumes and
angelic intervention.</div>
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The second time the CV joint went
out on the road was a piece of cake in comparison, not that any breakdown on the
road could ever be pleasant. I broke down in a small town and found a mechanic
who had worked for the UN for 14 years and spoke good English. Not only that,
but there was a hammock out back overlooking a small river to wait out the repair
time. </div>
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If you’re planning a road trip
with your old beater, you thank your lucky stars when it breaks down just
before you leave, rather than on the road. In similar vein wouldn’t you rather
be berated, yelled and screamed at at home, rather than have the old lady barge
in while you’re having a peaceful beer with friends at your favorite suds depot
and start screaming insults there? </div>
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Dealing with Khmer mechanics is
also a lot like dealing with Khmer wives or partners. If that’s your situation,
you’ll understand when I tell you about replacing my master window switch.
Power windows are a great convenience but a big problem when they stop working,
especially if they stop working when the window is stuck in the down position
in rainy season. Having spent a lot of years as a mechanic, though of the
untrained shade-tree type, you get to see which parts break down the easiest
and where the vehicles are most vulnerable. The master window switch is one of
them, especially here in the tropics where constant heat and humidity play havoc
with electronics. It would work fine for a week or two and then just get locked
into place. Sometimes it would start working again after a day or two. Other
times I’d have to go to my Kampot mechanic and he’d take it apart, clean it up
and it would work again… but only temporarily. </div>
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At first my Phnom Penh mechanic (they
are definitely not available in Kampot) said a used one cost $50, but he
couldn’t find one since they were prone to problems, so I asked about a new one;
at $280 that was out of the question. Later he located one that was used in America
but new to Cambodia at $80. It’s from a ’91 and the wiring’s a little
different, he says, but he’s the primo electrical man so no problem. Fine, I
say, it has to be done. I go to pick it up, the driver’s window now has an
automatic switch, which is very convenient, actually, but when I closed the
door the automatic shoulder seat belt – a feature of American cars – doesn’t
work. (The majority of cars in Cambo were brought here used from America when
they were about 10 years old.) Without it you only have the waist belt, which
really isn’t enough if you actually want to be safe, so I ask why it doesn’t
work. You didn’t tell me to do it, he replies. WTF? It worked when I brought it
there, but according to his logic I was supposed to remind him to hook up
everything that worked previously just like it did before. Khmers will say
anything that comes to their minds when they don’t have a proper answer. The
switch has been okay with minor problems except nobody else but him understands
the wiring so when my Kampot mechanic looked at it, he was completely
befuddled… so shit out of luck if anything does go wrong with it.</div>
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Then there’s the headlight switch.
You know, you’re riding merrily along and totally without warning your
headlights go off. The brights continued to work, but it’s not a great idea to
blind vehicles coming your way. Then it’d work for a few days and same thing
would happen. Mechanic takes the steering column apart, cleans up the switch
and it works for a while. Finally, after doing that twice and the problem still
reoccurring, I asked how much for a new used one, new ones again being
prohibitively expensive. $28? For that little why am I messing around trying to
make the old one work? However, it wasn’t that long before the ‘new’ old one
started acting like the ‘old’ old one. I had the new one cleaned up recently and
now it seems to be working.</div>
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The humidity here corrodes
electrical parts with abandon. Now the thing to remember about the headlight
switch is that it’s always hot, that is, it has power going to it whether or
not the key is in the on position. Which means if there’s a short somewhere in
the switch it’ll drain your battery. In my case it used to take only two days
without driving it to kill the battery and I took to unhooking the battery
after every time I drove the car… a real bore.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, this is nothing new since the lovable
rattletrap has not started when it was supposed to at least a hundred times in
the six years I’ve owned it and maybe a lot more… I lost count a long time ago.
At this point I always carry a set of jumper cables and battery charger with
me, just in case. Actually, I should also have an extension cord in the event
the nearest plug is not close or people nearby don’t have one. It wasn’t always
the switch that was the culprit, just in the last couple years I’ve replaced
everything having to do with the starting and charging systems. It’s got
140,000 miles – 220,000 kilos – so you have to expect things to break down, though
this car has really tested my patience. </div>
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I asked a friend who has an
identical Camry about his. Very dependable, he says, in four years it’s started
every time he turned the key. I was incredulous. He did have to do a few things
to it, he said, so I thought I could do a ‘gotcha’ with CV joints. First he
said 6 or 7 but then thought about it and said 4. So my 3 in 6 years is not so
bad after all. One of the other things he had to do was replace the engine for
$400, so, old cars, like wives, you just gotta deal with them. </div>
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I’ve heard guys say they bought an
old jalopy, drove it for two years never having put a penny into it and then
dumped it when it broke down. That’s never, even remotely, been my experience.
For me they always need something, at least partly because I’ve spent enough
time with cars to know when things are not working right and partly because I
always want to correct the problem, which in some ways is easy here since it
costs so little in labor to repair them. Unfortunately, low cost also implies
low talent, even if highly intuitive, and the absence of diagnostic equipment
so that many mechanics here are no more than shade-tree types like myself.</div>
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This is represented by a
persistent problem I’ve had. From the start it has had the shakes at idle and
especially stopped in gear. It’s not a big fault, just really uncomfortable. I’ve
taken the problem to three mechanics. All three started with timing, no problem
there. Then the air intake was cleaned out and the plugs and wires replaced. No
change. While the PP mechanic was doing other stuff he noticed that the transmission
made a strong clunking sound when put into gear and suggested maybe I needed a
new one at $240. He even assured me that that would correct the shaking
problem. I didn’t really believe him but it was a time when I had money in the
bank and since I knew that wouldn’t last it seemed a good time to do it rather
than wait until it broke down with me broke also. Being a Toyota it’s entirely
possible that it might have kept going long after I was in my grave even with
the clunking sound, but I didn’t want to take the chance. Of course, it made no
difference whatever to the shaking. </div>
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I think it has to do with the
valves, though nobody seems to have a compression gauge, let alone a computer
to do diagnostics and taking it apart to check would cost some money.
Meanwhile, after all the peripheral work that’s been done, it runs really
strong once it’s out of idle range. Hit the gas and it flies. And it’s really
comfortable on trips and the upholstery is perfect and original - not that fake
leather - and a pleasure to relax in, so I’m in it for the duration, it’ll
probably last as long as I do. Believe me I haven’t begun to exhaust detailing
its troubles, but I have run out of space in this article.</div>
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So whatever it needs, I’ll do my
best to placate it. Trading it in for another old beater could be courting
disaster, at least I know what I’ve got and what to expect. Relationships are
always a hassle, whether it’s a car or a wife; no matter how compatible you
are, you’re going to have a lot of learning to do. And valuable learning at
that. All you wives, wives-in-waiting and girlfriends out there, I hope you
don’t take offense, I don’t mean to belittle your contribution to our
personality development. Having done the husband thing three times myself I can
attest to its importance regardless of the torture it sometimes put me through.
Though my most difficult ex is still giving me shit 40 years since we parted –
we have a kid to connect us - whenever her fickle sanity dissipates, which
fortunately, at least towards me, isn’t very often, I begrudgingly have to
admit she also taught me the most.</div>
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In some ways it’s easier to go
without a wife than a car: once you’ve gotten used to having wheels, you feel deprived
without them, even when you don’t use the car that often, whereas you can take
or leave being a husband. On the other hand, it’s a lot easier to get rid of a
car than a wife, it’s just a machine which can easily, if expensively, be
replaced. But regarding a wife, if you ever cared about her, your parting will
be extremely difficult, so until then it’s, Yes dear from now on I promise to
pick up my socks from the floor and be more considerate of your often
inscrutable feelings and listen to your nagging without going apoplectic with
frustration and turning to the evil drink for solace.</div>
Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-28752879946522562352014-01-06T01:27:00.000-08:002014-01-06T01:30:27.506-08:00Backwater<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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An isolated inlet of still water
in a moving river. Lots of activity nearby but very calm in the backwater; thus
I was a bit surprised when a friend referred to Kampot as such. He’s an artist
and finds a lot more interesting subjects to draw in Phnom Penh. And truth is Kampot
isn’t on the way to anywhere, excepting only Bokor Park, so there’s a kernel of
truth in that description. </div>
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And being ‘nowhere’ has its
advantages; for one, traffic, tension and high costs don’t bear down on you as they
do in the capital and it isn’t overrun with tourists as in Siem Reap or
Sihanoukville… some of my long-time Cambodia friends are positively repelled by
touristy places. </div>
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That makes it a lot easier to
create a community feeling; as opposed to the tourist magnets where faces are
changing every day and the local expats are a small part of the total feel of
the place. Backwaters also let you get closer to what’s happening and know most
of the long –term residents. They also are great incubators of gossip, but you
can’t have everything.</div>
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Our little burg is nonetheless changing
fast and so there’s the inevitable debate about growth and what the influx of
new residents and additional tourists is going to do to the town. Fortunately,
we’re so small to begin with it’ll take a long time before traffic reaches a
point of feeling oppressive; what’s more, it’s possible to live on the edge of
town, you know, in the proximity of rice paddies and lotus ponds, and still go
anywhere in less than ten minutes on bicycle. The many new people are also
bringing a wider choice of restaurants, bars, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>entertainment – live music, etc – and things
to do. David, aka Climbodia, is doing rock climbing tours – we’ve got those
limestone karsts all around – and Anne is doing paddle boarding tours; for
herself and another enthusiast she’s planning a fundraising trip from Siem Reap
to Phnom Penh, so you know she’s serious.</div>
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There’s an old saying that goes:
If you find the perfect place don’t stay because it’ll no longer be perfect. Many
people who come either want to stay or have plans to return later. Regardless,
it’s a great place for my needs and I’ll stay as long as the changes stay
within reason. Maybe even longer while lamenting how great things used to be. Meanwhile,
all told, our newcomers tend to fit right in.</div>
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One thing you see here is expats
working service jobs for not much more than local wages… how’s $7.50 for a
5-hour bartender shift sound? I haven’t worked for that little since 1960. Most
people doing that have other resources and are using the work as a supplement
and/or just to be there meeting people and/or to have something to do to
justify hanging around. One factor that makes that more acceptable is the cost
of housing. I know lots of people living in new one-room apartments that rent
for $40 per month – and that’s the Barang price. In one single-story row of
seven units there are 6 expats. The apartments aren’t spacious, just a
kitchenette, bath and a room big enough for a double bed, desk, chair and a few
odds and ends, but still would rent for upwards of $1000 in New York, London or
Hong Kong. There are other apartments being built that are much nicer that rent
for about double the cheapies.</div>
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The above has been made possible
by Cambodia’s open-door visa policy. Anywhere else in the region you’d need
legitimate paperwork or money in the bank to stay, which would exclude a large
portion of the expats here, including myself. We still contribute a lot, even
if not enough for the likes of uppity Thailand. That also gives Cambo a
younger, livelier, more interesting set of expats.</div>
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This year saw the second annual
river clean up day in which hundreds of school kids riding in locally offered
fishing boats go up and down the river picking up random trash. They expected
200 kids, but 600 showed up. This year they dispensed with the music and free
food of last year – too much work – and concentrated on the trash pickup. You
still see lots of their T-shirts around. More recently, an expat fundraiser was
held with the theme of traffic safety in which $1600 was raised; I was duly
impressed. The event included a roast pig, with dinner costing only $3.50, an
auction, backgammon tournament, trivia quiz and a DJ spinning tunes later on.
It was held on the first floor (second floor American) patio at Moon River
Guest House, south of town on the river, a perfect spot for fifty or so people
to gather. All had a great time and more events will come regularly – I’ll attend
for sure.</div>
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The new ‘old’ market – who knows
what to call it now? – has now rented all of its outside stalls and quite a few
vendors have opted to extend their shops into the inner space, the owner offering
a discount, wisely deciding they weren’t going to go at the full price. It’s
got a mix of shops oriented towards locals, expats and travelers and it’s
really enlivened the area. In other news of local Khmer exploits, a night
market has opened on the main durian traffic circle replete with a food court, ring-toss
games, kids’ carnival rides and the ubiquitous clothes shops. Once again
‘progress’.</div>
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Ecran, our ‘art house’ cinema has
moved to a better location just opposite the new old market close to the river.
In addition to showing a very wide range of international films, cult classics and
all time favorites like Taxi Driver in the upstairs theater, Stephane has
opened a handmade Chinese noodle and dumpling shop on the ground floor. It’s
great stuff and draws in enough patrons to insure enough income to help keep
the theater afloat financially. I go at least twice a week but sometimes
attendance is very sparse. Twice weekly showings of The Killing Fields brings
in the traveler crowds and also helps pay the rent. </div>
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It’s a great gift for the
community and for the variety of films shown is better than anything one might
find in the states, at least anywhere I’ve been. I know most people today
prefer watching films on their smart phones or tablets or small TV screens or
big TV screens but if it isn’t on a theater-sized screen – Ecran’s is 4 meters wide
– I’m not interested. I can’t even barely make out what’s happening on a small
screen and besides the idea is to be immersed in the action, not watch a movie
as a distraction or time-killer. The other cool thing about the theater for me
is all films are subtitled in English, including the English ones. Considering
the state of my geezer ears and the way so much dialog in American films is
incomprehensibly mumbled, subtitles tremendously enhance the experience.</div>
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High season is here and we now
have live music 7 nights a week, though the big events are at Bodhi Villa on
Fridays and Naga House on Saturdays. Both are river resorts not far from town
and both bring crowds of upwards of 50 people who are drawn from the traveler
crowd as well as expats who go to meet up with friends. Live music starts early
and goes until around 11pm or midnight when they switch to DJs and rock all
night. </div>
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Friday night has been a long
tradition at Bodhi, but unfortunately the space is inadequate to the task; too
small and poorly laid out. Sometimes there are so many people on the dance floor
there’s no room to dance. For my taste it’s also way too loud, but I’m a fogey
so that’s understandable. It’s somewhat paradoxical but the worse your ears get
the more that loud sounds become uncomfortable bordering on insufferable; without
earplugs impossible. I especially can’t stand it when the treble is turned up…
I feel like a power drill is boring into my skull. Naga House has a much larger
and more usable space with extensive use of very thick slabs of wood for the
bar and tables, it’s beautifully done. </div>
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Unfortunately, the canned music in
both places is rarely to my taste – techno-house type tunes leave me lifeless
and limp, they are too technically based, repetitive and devoid of feeling or
warmth or even proper rhythm for dancing that includes any sensuality. Of
course once again, being an old fart, you might guess my tastes don’t jive with
the younger crowd... too bad because dancing is great exercise and I still love
it. Madi Bar on the river in town also has a disco following live music on Thursday
nights. Cheit, a young Khmer fellow who also owns Naga House, alternates music
I can dance to with the awful stuff. </div>
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My problem is getting to be that
there’s too much happening at night to stay up so late and drink so much so
often. I’m having too much fun. I try to stay home two nights a week, but usually
it’s a lost cause.</div>
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My favorite watering hole, where I
can’t help going almost every night is O Neil’s on the river. I have lots of
bar-owner friends who I like to stop and visit, but gravity invariably pulls me
towards Neil’s. For one thing, it’s got the best ambiance around. He started
off building a thatched shed roof between two buildings. It was an immediate
success, only dampened by the buckets of water that managed to find its way in during
every rainfall. It took five tries at bolstering the roof’s rain-shedding capabilities
before it actually worked. It also was extremely vulnerable to small-time thieves
who took beer and soft drinks but left the expensive spirits. He took an
embarrassing number of hits before he was able to make it thief-proof. </div>
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By then it was time to move to a
real building. He took all the décor, including the thatched roof with him,
maintaining the bar’s cozy island-like setting. That also made it acoustically
superior, enhanced by 15 speakers – three $50 sets and six extra tweeters – that
surround the room. Most of his music is geezer-pleasing blues and rock from the
60s to the 80s.</div>
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The move also made it possible to
double the length of the bar, which, by the way, is decorated with coins from
around the world - one of the favorites is a triangular coin from the Cook
Islands.</div>
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The lighting is superior to most
bars because the bar itself is lit up with spots, while everything else is
subdued. The walls are covered with concert shots and posters and intimate
photos of all your favorite old artists. Finally, while the ergonomics are far
from perfect, it’s still more comfortable, taken as a whole, than almost all
other bars in town, which doesn’t say much for ergonomics in Cambodia. </div>
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I feel a bit odd at times about
by-passing my other friends’ bars so often but you gotta go where your feet
take you, so I have little choice. With new places opening every month, it’s
getting worse, there just are not enough days in the week.</div>
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Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-87309585776339075632013-12-01T00:20:00.000-08:002013-12-01T00:20:48.654-08:00Some Like it Cold<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
After being so long in the
tropics, you just naturally feel superior about enjoying our endless summer,
but I was reminded back in the states that a lot of people can’t take the heat.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
But first a final note on beer available
back in Oregon and a sort-of apology for my first beer article. I forgot to
mention a beer I tried named Swill. On the label it says, Beer guy, don’t take
yourself so seriously. It was a lager flavored with citrus and, well, I have to
tell you it lived up to its name, at least to my taste. I wouldn’t buy it
again, but I’m sure there are a lot of people like myself who have to try it at
least once, so I expect they’ll do alright. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Thinking back on my first article
on beer titled, They Don’t Like Good Beer, I have to admit that was pretty
arrogant of me. A friend characterized my attitude as harsh or maybe brutal was
how he put it. I did try to make clear that there’s no accounting for taste and
everybody is different. I mean, you can’t help it if you like swill. It’s just
one of those things. Moreover, being a geezer means I have special privileges and
can get away with saying and doing things not allowed for you young’uns. We old
farts have lots of space to be as ornery, opinionated and cantankerous as we
wish. Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, lets move on.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
The night before I left Oregon the
temperature got down to 40ºF – -4ºC – quite cool for October 9. Except for a
few days in mid-September when it was hot and a few more near the end of my
trip when it was just warm enough to be friendly, I felt chilled most the time.
Still, for a lot of people cold is far preferred over hot. A friend, who said
her body temperature was naturally high, told me she got positively ill when
the temperature reached up into the 80s – above 27ºC. I told her she could only
visit Cambodia at night in December and January. When it got above 90F – 32C – almost
everybody was complaining... while I could finally relax. At least I didn’t
feel cold. Becoming old and decrepit is also a factor, it just gets harder to
deal with the cold as you age; hot is simply a lot easier for us. If it’s
really baking you can hit the hammock and make yourself a breeze. Other people
here have to have their air-con but still prefer here to coldness. Personally, I
don’t care about the heat, I continue on as I would otherwise; I won’t
purposely choose to ride my bike or take a walk in the hot mid-day sun, but I
also won’t think twice if it needs to be.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Before I go on I need to put in a
plug for Fahrenheit, though I know it’s a totally lost cause – only the US and
four other small countries around the Caribbean still use it. In all respects
other than ambient temperature, the metric system is the only way to go. Sadly,
in doing research for this article I was disabused of a notion about Fahrenheit
that I’d maintained all my life. Until Wikipedia straightened me out, I was
convinced that old man Fahrenheit, who lived in southern Germany, measured the
temperature at his home for 5 years and placed the lowest temperature at zero (-18ºC)
and the highest at one hundred (38C). It sounded totally plausible but turned
out to be completely wrong. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit was
Dutch. He placed 0º at the freezing point of brine and 100º was body
temperature. After some minor fiddling around to match up freezing at 32º and
boiling at 212º, body temperature turned out to be 98.6º F. I still think in
inches, etc., but only because I’m used to it, not because it makes sense, but
I think Fahrenheit is a better scale for everyday temperatures. Zero to 100
makes more sense than -18 to +38 and being a bigger scale allows for more
accuracy. 28C could be 81, 82, or 83F since temperatures are rarely quoted in
decimals. And if you say 70sF you know it’s cool to warm; whereas if you say
20sC you’d be talking about cool to hot. You’d have to qualify it by saying low
20s, etc. At any rate, here’s a simple conversion: 28C is 82F, 35C is 95F. And
don’t mind me if I can’t help thinking in Fahrenheit, I’m just set in my ways.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Back on track, I can’t imagine
anyone actually saying they like it hot, especially hot and humid. That
includes everyone who’s here to escape the cold. We accept it and deal with it
but it isn’t something we love. There may be one exception. Some years ago in
Portland I was selling recycled metal at a scrap yard on a hot summer day over
90. One of the funky guys working there was wearing a padded vest so I couldn’t
resist asking him why. He said he had a back problem and the only time it
didn’t hurt was when he kept it hot. Otherwise, it’s really just a trade-off.
I’ll accept the unpleasant hot so I don’t have to deal with the jittery,
shivery cold. Besides, the times when it’s almost insufferably torrid here with
sweat running out of every pore when you’re not even moving are balanced by the
times when it’s a perfect balmy 80 or 82 degrees or so. Add a coolish breeze
coming off the river here in Kampot and, well it just doesn’t get any better.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Portland’s climate also has its
good points. It doesn’t freeze very often, so you rarely have to bundle up.
Summer’s great with only a few really hot days and hardly any rain and except
for those few hot days it feels fresh, bright and clean. For that you have to
deal with six months of cool, dark, cloudy, misty, rainy, cabin-fever winter. In
a cold climate, you generally keep your house cool to minimize the contrast to
the outside and to save money and energy. As a result you (I) almost always feel
a little chilled and edgy, without being able to fully relax. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
In my earlier days I sought out
the cold. At 18 I left my family in LA (we had just moved there a year or so
earlier from Ohio) and migrated to New York. It seemed that the only thing people
in California could talk about was how great it was to live in a warm climate,
as if that was the only valid reason for choosing a place to live. It felt so
vacuous and intellectually stultifying, especially when added to being in pastel
fifteen-suburbs-in-search-of-a-city Los Angeles. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Cold is challenging, it’s brisk,
fresh and energizing and if you’re prepared for it, no big deal. I spent years
working outdoors in Portland. Even if it’s only 5 to 10C (40 to 50F) you don’t
feel it if you’re working and staying active. On this last trip I was out on a
day when a big storm came through. It was blustery, sideways-rainy and cold;
altogether miserable is the only way to describe it. But also no big deal, if that’s
what you’re into. Most people would hide away indoors on such a day, but I also
saw people out riding bikes. I walked about 100 meters in the heavy (for
Portland) rain and barely felt wet compared to being out in a Kampot downpour
for about 5 seconds. At the Oregon coast, those stormy days carry a real punch:
it rains a lot more and the winds routinely get up to 70mph – 110kph. It’s
great fun…but only for a short time until you are thoroughly soaked and
chilled.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Cold, perforce brings innovation
and requires energy. There are lots of homeless people in LA where it’s almost
always warm and quite a few in Portland where it’s uncomfortable for much of
the year but not really cold, but in Saskatoon or Fairbanks, where the
temperature easily gets down to -40 (F and C meet at -40) there is no such
thing as being homeless, at least not in the winter. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
In a cold climate, you must have
heat, survival depends on it. In a hot climate you don’t have to have
air-conditioning: You’ll certainly be uncomfortable, but you can live without
it. You don’t even need four walls, just a roof for the rain and sun and
something to keep the wind from howling through.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
The following story illustrates
the attitudes of some, possibly many rural Cambodians and maybe countryside
people in other tropical countries. A do-gooder type set up a little factory in
a small village with the idea of providing steady employment and paying the
villagers well. He trained them in the work and was going to improve their
lives. Everything went well in the beginning, he paid their first salaries, he
was proud of himself. But the next day nobody showed up for work. When asked
why they didn’t go to work they said that he paid so well, they had enough
money to last for a while and that they’d return when they ran out of money. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
I’m not sure where I remember that
story from; it could well be a myth, but it does reflect an attitude that’s
possible in a tropical place where life is naturally easy. Easy in the sense
that it doesn’t take a lot to survive, not that rural people don’t have it hard
in many other ways. The number of rural Cambodians who spend long hours working
in garment factories belies the truth of that story to some extent, but it’s
still a plausible scenario. There are, of course, lots of hardworking
Cambodians, including many who out in the hot sun, but it’s still somehow
easier than it would be to do the same work in freezing conditions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
In contrast, here’s a story from
my time living in a hippie commune in southern Oregon. We lived in the mountains
in homemade houses. It’s rarely very cold there because it’s relatively close
to the Pacific Ocean so has a marine climate. As a result, many houses were not
very tightly constructed, you know, plenty of air spaces through the siding and
of course no insulation. One fellow spent a lot of time bragging about how
great it was to have fresh air coming through to the inside. Besides, he would
say, if it’s a little cool inside you can always hang out by the wood stove. Then
one of those rare frigid air systems from the interior came barreling through with
temperatures of 15F (-9C) and pushing the marine air out to the ocean. You
never saw anybody work so diligently and speedily plugging all those fresh air
holes… even though the frigid air was only going to last a few days. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Cold demands action while hot is
conducive to inaction. Cold puts you on your toes while hot sets you flat on
your back or in that idyllic hammock. Cold sets your teeth on edge and numbs
your toes, heat brings sweat to your eyes and nose and clothes. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
When I finally left New York for
good, after bouncing back and forth between there and LA for ten years, I set
off for northern California where the hippie commune, back-to-the-land movement
was centered, besides I had friends there. I soon discovered that it was too
expensive and close to the big city to allow for a truly self-reliant country
lifestyle, so I moved further north and away from the city in stages till I
landed in southern Oregon. Each stage was an improvement but still not enough
for me; I wanted something colder, hardier and more remote where urban
influences had less sway and masses of people couldn’t descend on you and hang
out forever because the climate was so mild. You can’t lollygag when it’s really
cold, you’ve got to get with the program.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
From Oregon I made about a dozen
exploratory forays out to the cold interior Pacific Northwest, mostly on my
thumb. Probably half to two-thirds of the 70,000 miles of hitching I did from
1968 to 1980 was for the purpose of finding that perfect cold-country place. I
was out in all weather, including in very cold places, and without money since
I was a bona fide penniless hippie and that was the only way I could go. For
all that, I never found my frigid fantasy homesite and was fated to live in
cool, rainy Oregon for the next 22 years. As it happens, it was the perfect
place for me for a lot of reasons and another lesson in going with the flow,
which is not so easy when you’re young and trying to make your place in the
world. What you really want may not be what you cosmically need and the more
you fight against reality the less likely you are to find happiness. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
And now for twelve years I’ve been
here in forever sweaty Cambodia where the temperature rarely goes below 20C –
68F. There’s a time for everything, but I sure hope that doesn’t include
returning to the ‘cold’, even if it’s only ‘cool’ Oregon. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
My latest book, A Hitchhiker’s
Tao, is based on my extensive thumbing experience and a large part is focused
on my cold quest. It’s available only as an ebook and most easily purchased
from smashwords.com… Look for Stan Kahn.</div>
Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-10559500269030016732013-11-01T01:49:00.000-07:002013-11-01T01:49:48.784-07:00<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Back to Sweatland and More</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
What a welcome relief it was to
step off the plane in Phnom Penh, after spending five weeks in a naturally cool
place that was even cooler than normal and SWEAT. Oozing out all over, it was. The
cold wasn’t all that bad, or wouldn’t be if one actually liked it, but in my
waning years, not my cup of tea. That however is a story for another article…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
First Portland, whose slogan
lately, cooked up by a longtime, old-line record store is, Keep Portland Weird.
It’s all over town in bumper stickers, etc. For instance, many bus riders say
thank you to the driver as they exit. Weird huh? I might’ve chosen another
word, like quirky or eccentric or unusual or trippy or odd or peculiar, but it
wasn’t my idea so weird will have to do. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Certainly, if I had to live
anywhere in the US, it would have to be Stumptown, so named because when the
city was first developed in the 1850s the giant conifer trees that blanketed
the area were easy enough to cut down (relatively speaking) but the huge stumps
leftover were much more difficult to uproot so were left in the ground to
naturally erode away, a process which took decades.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
In the five years I was gone, two
important streets were renamed. One for Caesar Chavez, fighter for farmworkers’
rights and the other for Rosa Parks, who famously refused to move to the back
of a segregated bus in Alabama in the 1960’s. Portland never had the racial
problems of many American cities for two basic reasons. One is that its
minority population has always been so low – lowest proportion of any major
American city, now about 20% – that white people never saw blacks as a threat.
Even thirty years ago when the city had a definable ghetto there was always a
large proportion of whites living there. Today, it’s been so upgraded and gentrified
and peppered with cool, hip new shops and restaurants, it hardly qualifies as a
ghetto, though there still are African-Americans living there. Secondly,
there’s always been a sector of the population that’s fiercely progressive,
liberal, integrationist. Height of ironies, they invaded the ghetto to the
point where minorities can hardly afford to live there anymore. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Being in Oregon also makes a
difference. It was the first state to decriminalize marijuana in 1973. Assisted
suicide was approved by the voters about 15 years ago… the only place in the
world outside of Switzerland to enable it, though I believe some other
countries are now coming on line. Oregon’s entire coast up to the vegetation
line is public - compared to most of America where coastal property owners can
build fences up to the high tide line – and there are 600 access points in 300
miles of coastline. In California, which has a spectacular coastline, you can
sometimes drive 50 miles before finding a place to access it. Some years ago a
group of Californians bought a remote oceanside Oregon property with the
intention of bringing in boats loaded with weed. Unfortunately (for them and
their plans) they had no idea about how things worked in Oregon so they built
fences out to the high water line. Too bad… it looked highly suspicious to the
locals and they got busted with the first shipment.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Portland doesn’t look all that
different from the average mid-sized American city with some exceptions. It
looks better than most because it’s so well taken care of which includes large
areas of preserved older housing; it has all kinds of light rail trains and
streetcars roaming around its vibrant central city; there’s lots of street
sculpture strewn around and it’s growing in density where most American cities
its size are spreading far and wide in typical suburban sprawl. It’s metro population
is about 1.7 million, around the same size as Phnom Penh. It covers two or
three times the area of PP but only half the area of other American cities of
equivalent population. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Dense or otherwise, after my week
on public transportation hobnobbing with the (un)usual characters, I spent a
lot of time driving. Having wheels is very convenient, but other than a leisurely
drive on a bucolic country highway, driving is a giant bore and hassle and mental
frazzler. At least in the US it makes more sense: stay in your lane, keep a
safe distance, watch for brake lights and you can zone out with your mind on
some other planet. At first, when a car would come up to an intersection with
me driving along a larger road I’d get a Cambo-based reflex half expecting the
other car to dart in front of me. It took a few days to get that out of my
system. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Traffic was horrendous at peak
hours, partly because Portlanders have absolutely refused to allow any new
freeways to be built or roads expanded and over the years car lanes have been
reduced while bike lanes have increased. It’s what I call the ‘Let them stew’
theory of traffic management. If you make it hard enough for drivers, a lot of
them will switch to alternatives; meanwhile you haven’t spent a ton of money
and used a lot of valuable land to increase roadways.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Needless to say driving there is not
at all like in Cambo where you have people on all manner of vehicles coming at
you from all directions and nobody has actually stopped at a stop sign since
the birth of the country, though some will actually look and others even slow
down. In my car here I feel like a big fish with lots of little fish swarming
around me and I try mightily to not be distracted because in a split second of letting
my eyes wander some teenage kid will cut right in front with centimeters to
spare and you know: KABOOM. Another big difference is that hardly anybody gets
bent out of shape here for driving transgressions… even if you crash a red
light and force others to stop for you. Try some of those tricks anywhere in
the States, and even in Oregon and you’ve potentially got a livid road-rager to
deal with.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Another of Oregon’s unique traits
is its landmark land use law, passed in 1973 and still the only one of its kind
in the country. It required that every city have a line drawn around it – an
urban growth boundary - encompassing the already urbanized area. Until a city’s
population grows to the point where additional land needs to be included inside
the line it is nearly impossible to build urban type developments outside of
it. It took 25 years of growth before the Portland metro area needed to expand
the line and that boundary is now so clear you know immediately when you’ve
crossed it. Urban to rural, like night into day. That saves valuable farmland
and makes cities more efficient. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
The contrast to Cambodia is stark;
here you can build anything anywhere… as long as you don’t discomfort a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bong tum</i> – big man – in the process.
That’s what happened at Martini Pub’s second location. Martini’s is a longtime
local nightclub institution which has a large outdoor setting. A VIP living nearby
didn’t like the noise and they were forced to move. The only restriction here is
how close you can build to a public road. One of the reasons why we expats like
living here is the lack of rules and restrictions, still, it’s not a great idea,
for instance, to have noisy factories juxtaposed next to where people live.
Included in the need for change is the way large factories are being built in
the countryside in the middle of nowhere. Nevertheless, it seems like zoning
and land use laws for Cambodia are far in the future. I believe there are building
codes of some sort for Phnom Penh, but most people don’t bother to get permits
so it wouldn’t matter much. A couple years back it was noted that less than
half of builders got permits, though most of the larger projects were
permitted.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
America is the land of giant
refrigerators and the immense supermarkets used to stock them. Shopping in one
of those double-football-field sized stores is so distasteful, disagreeable,
even demoralizing, you can’t help but want to stock up to avoid having to go
back too soon. I tried to avoid them, but when it was necessary, I’d spend half
an hour wandering around in abject frustration trying to find what I was
looking for. I’ve never taken kindly to supermarkets. When I first starting
getting high, you couldn’t coax me to go into one if you tried all day. Rather,
you’d have to drag me in kicking and screaming. Just being in the parking lot
gave me the willies. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
And why does anyone need a
thousand different breakfast cereals to choose from? Here in Cambodia we get
whatever the wholesalers can pick up cheap and that means a constantly changing
stock and since it includes products from a wide array of countries – New
Zealand, Argentina, Germany, France and Egypt as well as the US – we actually
have a greater choice; in particular when it comes to GMO free ones.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
The one exception I’ll make to the
choice thing is beer, there can never be too many available. As it happened the
local store nearest where I stayed in a middle class part of town, which
originally sold mostly food is now mostly beer and wine. They have a mind-boggling
variety of brews so I was curious (and wanted to know for this article) about
the number and asked the clerk how many different beers they sold. ‘Too many to
count’, he responded at first so I pressed him, ‘500?’. ‘Oh no’, he says, ‘We
have more than 500 domestic beers and maybe 1000 imports’. It was harvest time
so they had at least a dozen pumpkin flavored beers and others spiced with cinnamon,
nutmeg, etc. I spent way too much money drinking quality brews knowing I’d be
returning to the land of dearth of choices. Upon returning, however, it seems
like our low-cost beers are pretty good in comparison to America’s and with
brewpubs and microbreweries opening up, we may yet become a beer-lover’s
paradise, though maybe not in my lifetime.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
One of the best events I enjoyed
while in Portland was the swiftlet bird show in Swift Park. It is named for a
small corner of a park surrounding an elementary school in Portland and
provides a great bird show. Starting about thirty years ago vast numbers of
swiftlets – very small birds who spend almost all their time in the air - have
turned the school’s big chimney into a stopping-off point in their migration
from the Pacific Northwest to Central and South America. They roost by clinging
to the inside of the chimney.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
The school sits in a hilly part of
town so in the process of making a flat place for the building and surrounding
playing fields there’s a steep hillside in back of the school which, when
you’re sitting there, places you at about eyelevel with the top of the chimney.
Every afternoon starting at the end of August and lasting for about 5 or 6
weeks, somewhere between 5000 and 30,000 birds start gathering there an hour or
so before nightfall in a swirling mass that looks like a funnel cloud. Meanwhile
at least a thousand people bringing blankets and picnic food gather to watch
the show. If it starts to get cold before the end of the migration and the time
when the school can fire up the furnace, the kids just wear extra clothes and tough
it out for the duration.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
As part of the show there’s often
a falcon or hawk or two who show up, causing much temporary dispersion and
consternation to the swifts, as they pick off a little bird for supper. That,
as you can imagine, really gets the crowd exercised. There’re plenty of swifts to
go around, they’re in no danger whatever. The climax of the show is when they
begin diving en masse into the chimney right about sunset. Wow, what a show.</div>
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As it happens swifts are no
strangers to Kampot, though of course a completely different breed. Ours are called
German’s swifts and are closely related to Edible-nest swifts which inhabit
other parts of southeast Asia. All over town and out in the nearby countryside
are specially constructed 3 to 4 story bird houses. They sometimes dress them
up a bit with fake windows or porches. They play a continuous loop of bird
sounds to lure the swiftlets, only changing the songs a bit around sunset. A
friend who lived near one was driven half crazy by the unending chirping… he
was a bit too sensitive. </div>
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Their nests are small
semi-circular cups which they attach to the inside wall and are made up
exclusively of their hardened saliva. For some strange reason they are prized
by the Chinese who will pay $35 to $100 for a bowl of soup made out of them. Wholesale
they bring somewhere between $2000 and $8000 per kilo, depending on the quality
and color, and thus the reason why bird’s nest producers can afford to build
multistory structures to house them. They are sprouting all over town. It’s one
of our biggest industries.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
I had a great time back in the
States, especially after 5 years away, and really enjoyed seeing the kids and
grandkids and friends of a lifetime. I also enjoyed seeing Portland changing
and progressing, but 5 weeks seemed too long. Three would be plenty. I wouldn’t
mind going back, but certainly not for at least a couple of years. </div>
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Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-4095362859408388332013-10-08T21:56:00.002-07:002013-10-08T21:56:36.382-07:00Back in the US of A<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .1in;">
Well they finally let me out, after
five years in Cambodia interrupted by only one night in Ha Tien, Vietnam, the
closest border town to Kampot, I’m experiencing the other world, the outside
world; in this case: The Indispensable Country, The Exceptional Country, you
know the one that gets to make up its own rules and show off its superior
weaponry whenever it feels it might be compromised strategically or
economically, which seems to happen with regularity. At any rate I’m back in the
belly of the beast. It may no longer be my home, but having spent the first
fifty years of my life there, it’s something that I’ll never to be able to
shake off, besides the US having a lot of good points, in spite of everything.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: .1in;">
Meanwhile, I’ve been totally
relaxed and complacent in the funky laid-back little Eden of Kampot, to the
effect that I’ve had no need or desire to go anywhere else. But I came into a
little money from sale of a small piece of land and figured it was now or never
since the land money wasn’t going to last all that long under any circumstances
and I hadn’t seen my kids and grandkids and lifetime friends for what felt like
a long time. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: .1in;">
Bought my ticket in June
for an early September flight from Phnom Penh to Portland, Oregon. The cheapest
flight was on Korean Air - $1,230 – but it would’ve cost $250 more if I’d flown
two weeks earlier in August. The trip – Phnom Penh to Seoul to Seattle to
Portland – included a 12 hour layover in Seoul but I’ve got a friend there and
the visa is free and it’s a relatively cheap ride into downtown Seoul - $4.50 -
so I had to check it out and wander around town a bit.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: .1in;">
I’d been there for a short
time back in 1993. I’d spent the whole of ’92 traveling in Asia and didn’t want
to go back home and was running out of money so I was expecting that work
teaching English would save me from the dreaded return to America. I’d met lots
of teachers on my travels and had pumped them for information with the
conclusion that Taiwan and Korea were my best bets for work considering they
paid $25 per hour as opposed to teaching in Bangkok which started at a measly
$4 per hour. Japan was also a possibility, but it just seemed like a strange
place to want to live. The Japanese I met traveling were cool enough but all
were also ultimate quirky.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: .1in;">
So I’m off to the Taiwan
embassy since a visa in advance was required then and applied for a two-month
visa, the longest term available. Went in for my interview and the fellow said,
“Why you want two months? Taiwan small country, nothing to see.” How do you
reply to that? He had sized me up and assumed, correctly, that was intending to
work illegally, and refused a visa.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: .1in;">
Okay, plan B is Korea, so
I’m off, in January, to Seoul. Found a cheap place to stay in a kind of guest
house where the rooms were heated from under the floor and there were shared
kitchen facilities but they were outdoors, so hardly convenient when the
temperature went down to 12<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">°</span></span>F – minus 13<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">°</span></span>C. Getting around on the subways was easy but finding a
destination was a real bear: Buildings are numbered by whole block (all four
sides) but there are no numbers on the buildings themselves, besides very few
people spoke English back then. Finally found a school to apply to; couldn’t
miss the big sign on the front of the building. The headmaster sized me up and
assumed, correctly, that I didn’t know what I was talking about – I had had no
experience - and asked me to come back the next day with a lesson plan. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: .1in;">
Lesson plan? Well, I knew
what the two words meant separately as well as put together, but to actually do
one? I was clearly and totally out of my element, besides, I’d spent many hours
trying to find thermal underwear to ward off the chill, to no avail whatever. I
did get a chance to ride the train down to Pusan at the tip of the peninsula.
It’s smaller, prettier, warmer and much preferred but it’s even harder to find
work there. Korea back then was impressively formal: half the men on the train
were wearing suits and ties… just for the ride. So after 10 days in the hermit
nation – most homogeneous country on earth – I’m back to Bangkok. Called a
number of an English school, said I needed work. Lady at the other end of the
phone said great, I need a teacher, come tomorrow at 10am. No questions were
asked but at a paltry $4 per hour they didn’t have a lot of options. Over the
next 10 months I earned as much as $8 per hour, which still afforded a life of
penury; however, that experience was just enough to give me the confidence when
I returned eight years later to know I could find work.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: .1in;">
At any rate, I found my way
to central Seoul easily enough. The Airport express ends at Seoul Station, a
nine level complexity accommodating all manner of transportation options. With
the help of a local who saw I was completely flummoxed and a tourist map, which
somehow disintegrated within an hour of use (not a great selling point for
tourists) I found my way out and in the right direction for a little walk to my
friend’s place not far from the transit hub. Hung out with her a bit, wandered
around the nearby park for about an hour and headed back to the airport. Made
my way back to Seoul Station and found a subway to Incheon, which happens to be
the name of the airport. Except that Incheon is 15 miles across the water from
the airport Incheon and way too far to swim, especially for someone who can
barely make 15 meters before he begins to sink. Fortunately, I’d left myself
plenty of time to get there so had no need to get stressed out.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: .1in;">
The place is wired, with
the highest penetration of broadband anywhere. At least 2/3rds of the people on
the train were playing with their smartphones. (In fact, they shouldn’t be
called telephones, because they really are small computers, which also can be
used to make phone calls.) The center city is crisscrossed with giant
boulevards, but in between are these personable, interesting little alleys. The
Korean people have a distinctive look, very unlike the nearby ethnic groups. As
I understand it, they are a combination of yellow and red races. As the reds
were being pushed out of Asia by the ever expanding yellows and across the land
bridge through the Bering Strait into the Americas, a remnant was left in
Korea. It’s a very interesting place, certainly worth a 12 hour visit. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: .1in;">
Okay, now I have a 6 hour
layover in Seattle. Across from me in the waiting area a oldtimer a little
further down the line than yours truly sits down and says to the middle-aged
African guy (he was speaking his native language) who was sporting a kid’s
backpack and telephone, “Don’t get old, it’s not worth it, it’s only trouble”.
The African guy was either ignoring him or didn’t understand or hear him, but I
couldn’t help responding that I was also old and didn’t think it was all that
bad. He then recounted how his body was falling apart, everything was going
wrong, he was spending a fortune trying to stay alive, he didn’t have any
family and thought it might be time to die. I agreed, saying, if life is all
pain and problems, then might as well move on. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: .1in;">
He then went on to tell his
story. He was fine until a year before when his kidneys and lots of other
internal organs started failing… except he’d weighed 380 pounds – 175 kilos –
even though he was only my height, 5’6” – about 168cm. Seems he’d had a stomach
bypass fifteen years earlier. That allows you to eat as much as you want
without gaining weight, since everything just passes through without being
digested. He said he ate 90 pills a day, mostly supplements to make up for
getting nothing from the food he ate. What got to me was the idea that he could
think all was okay while being grossly overweight and eating mountains of pills
everyday. The fact that he made it to 74 under those conditions is quite
amazing. When you’re obese everything you do puts extra strain on your body,
all of your joints and organs have a lot of extra work to do. Fat people in
wheelchairs and electric scooters who can no longer get around on their own two
feet is a common sight in America. Not everyone is fat, but the typical
mountain of lard is nearly ubiquitous. (If you’re one of the lardasses referred
to, forgive me, I mean no harm, everybody has their challenges, yours is just a
lot more visible.)</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: .1in;">
So then I asked him how he
felt about his life. He said that he’d had a full and rewarding life, had
accomplished a lot and been very successful in business. All the more reason to
wrap it up, I responded, knowing you hadn’t missed out or been insufficient or
lacking in this life. If you’re going to go out, I suggested, do it with a
smile; if you’re going to hang around, might as well try to make the best of
it. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: .1in;">
My mother tried to make it
clear as her end was in view that she didn’t want heroic measures taken to keep
her alive, she’d even made a video to that effect; still, when the time came,
the doctors were unaware of her wishes and spent tens of thousands of dollars
in the last couple of days in a futile and wasted effort. At the same time,
millions of people die every year from lack of health insurance. Futility and
Waste, along with Inequality and Unfairness, the hallmarks of America.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: .1in;">
When I first get to
Portland, it usually takes a few days to get some wheels together. In the
meantime, I ride the buses and trains. I actually like public transportation;
you are relieved of the stress of driving and get to witness a cross-section of
America in your fellow passengers. The problem is that it takes god-awful long
to go anywhere and you’ve got a curfew since transit is rare at night. So I
have to have a car if I’m going to accomplish anything. The buses are full of
characters; a couple of times early on I’d be waiting for a bus and I’d see a
guy chattering away to himself a few feet away. A couple minutes later he’d
stop by to talk. The first guy led off with how he had high blood pressure, but
he really like salt, he wasn’t going to give up his salt. Well, why don’t you
try using just a little, I suggested. He then pulled a package of sliced salami
out of his pocket. Salami, as we know is half fat. What’s your cholesterol, I
asked. Two hundred is average, he says, while his is 260. Wait… a… second… 200
is not average, it’s the limit of relative safety. Anything over that is asking
for trouble.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: .1in;">
Americans are hardly the
only people who eat unconsciously, but the attitude here epitomizes
self-destructive eating habits. A very large part of that is marketing. The
root of all evil hews much closer to marketing than money itself. That is
exemplified by a study done some time ago in which 3- to 5-year-old children
were given McDonald’s burgers in a company wrapper and a plain wrapper. They were
also give fries in the two wrappers. Three quarters thought the offerings in
the corporate wrappers tasted better. Children are being taught to like trash.
The children were also given baby carrots in both wrappers, which McDonalds
doesn’t serve, to the same results. What if equal time on the airwaves was
given to advertising veggies and a healthy diet? Clearly a far healthier
population would result.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: .1in;">
An hour after I arrived on
September 5, Portland was hit with a cold, windy, sideways rain. The weather report
said there was a 1% chance of that happening on that day and just a week later
it was 90<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">°</span></span>
to 95<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">°</span></span>
F<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>- 32 to 35<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">°</span></span> C. Whenever it gets down
to the mid 60s – around 18 C – I go for the thermals, and still feel cold. In
fact, it isn’t that bad, I could manage if I needed to, but I’m sure glad I
don’t need to, I much prefer it hot to cold. (Besides, it’s still summer!) It’s
especially disconcerting and dismaying therefore to go from a perfect 84<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">°</span></span>
outside into a freezing (relatively speaking) bus. And that’s besides the fact
that air-con costs money. Of course, part of the reason for setting the air-con
down so low is the number of fat people riding the bus… all that extra
insulation, you know.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: .1in;">
September 21</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: .1in;">
<i>This is already a bit
dated, more soon...</i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: .1in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-indent: .1in;">
<i>Cambostan</i></div>
Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-14754235442956624982013-08-28T02:08:00.000-07:002013-08-28T02:08:02.916-07:00Election 2013 Cambodia<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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According to Cambodia’s National
Election Commission the ruling Cambodia People’s Party of Hun Sen has remained
in power but with a reduced majority. They took 68 seats in the 123 seat
legislature with almost 50% of the vote, the opposition Cambodia National
Rescue Party wound up with 55 seats from 45% of the vote. However, the
opposition insists it won 63 seats with a bare majority in the legislature and
the controversy will take some time to resolve. There is a continuing big brouhaha
over inadequacies in the vote register, which at least in part may be a result
of most of government paperwork in Cambodia being done by hand. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Regardless of any irregularities
that turn up I believe a narrow win for the CPP just about reflects the will of
the people, though that has to be seen in the prism of the opposition suffering
some built-in disadvantages. For one, legislators are chosen by proportional
representation but within each province, not the country as a whole. The
problem there is that the allocation of seats for each province has not changed
since 1993 in spite of very large migrations to the cities where people are
more likely to vote for the opposition. Secondly, there are nine rural
provinces with small populations that receive a single seat each. They tend to
vote for the CPP, but with only one seat up for grabs, even a small majority
gets the single seat. Finally, changing registration is a difficult process so
that many urban migrants remain registered in their home towns and have to
return there to vote. As urbanites, they tend to vote for the opposition but
since it’s a big and costly hassle for many poor people, many do not make the
trip. Having the election date on the 28<sup>th</sup> of the month also
might’ve compounded the problem since many Cambodians get paid on the first and
would not have the money to travel home at the end of the month. The latter
probably accounts for part of the lowered turnout from the past. This year
turnout was 69% as opposed to nearly 90% ten years ago and about 80% five years
ago. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
The prime minister, in his first
post-election speech, in contrast to threats of instability, chaos and civil
war if the opposition won, counseled calm and comity and the desire for a
peaceful resolution of election disputes. He reverted to his old ways shortly
after. A couple months back he asserted that if the opposition won they would
tear down all the schools, clinics and other public buildings with his name on
them (tear them down before changing their names?) </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
He seemed to be running scared and
for good reason considering the recent Malaysian election in which the ruling
party, in power for 57 years since independence, lost the popular vote and only
remained in office because of voting districts skewed towards rural voters. Though
it may be unethical, immoral and unfair there’s nothing illegal about that. The
US Senate is a good case in point since every state gets two senators
regardless of population so that Wyoming with about 600,000 people gets the
same representation as California with nearly 40 million. The bias towards
rural districts is a big part of the reason that Malaysia’s ruling party was
able to retain power and the same is true in Japan and a lot of other places.
So once again, though unfair allocation of seats may be an example of
inadequacies in the democratic process, it’s no less democratic. It depends on
how a country chooses to design its voting system.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
So even while the controversy
rages on, it’s hard to imagine the opposition logistically overcoming the loss
of all nine single seat provinces and the built in bias against fast growing
urban areas. And regardless of widespread voting irregularities in which many
voters’ names did not appear on the voter lists or voters having gone to the
polls to discover that someone else had already voted in their name, it’s
almost inconceivable that the ultimate outcome of the vote will change. It
ain’t gonna happen. It’s akin to the election of George Bush in 2000 by a 5 to
4 vote of the Supreme Court in spite of the fact that Al Gore received a larger
national vote overall and clear evidence of fraud, chicanery, voter suppression
and bumbling on the part of election officials in Florida, the state that took
G Bush over the top. Though the actual vote tally in Florida was very close and
even open to interpretation, it was absolutely clear to all impartial observers
(without going into tired old details) as well as the biased Supreme Court,
that the will of Florida’s voters was to elect Al Gore. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Same is true here in Cambodia. No
matter how many individual cases of irregularities are turned up by the
National Electoral Commission (which is essentially controlled by the CPP) they
are not going to change the final outcome, or lead to a revote. It ain’t gonna
happen. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Nonetheless, this year’s vote is
historic and game changing and a rude wake-up call to the Prime Minister. No
longer does the CPP have the two thirds majority that would allow it to change
the constitution at will and no longer can Hun Sen blithely assume that he will
remain PM as long as he chooses as opposed to as long as the electorate chooses
him. He’s spoken about planning to stay in office for another 20 years and has
been grooming his sons to take over from him. Not so certain anymore. Now, if
he does wish to remain in office, he’s got to seriously consider the people in
his decision-making. He’s been predicting civil war if the opposition wins. In
the past he conjured up the specter of civil war if the Khmer Rough tribunal
expanded its prosecutions. That totally baffles me: Cambodia is a very peaceful
country, there’s absolutely no taste for armed conflict amongst the people. The
same is true of America: When the Supreme Court chose G Bush they knew no
matter how disgusted or angry a large segment of the population might be,
there’d be no armed conflict.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreover, with a personal bodyguard of 10,000
men, and control of the armed services, the PM could take the government by
force any time he wished, there’d be no contest whatever. Nothing can challenge
his dominance. No amount of demonstrating on the part of the opposition or
claims of fraud is going to move him out of his position. And if he did stage a
government takeover, there would be economic chaos as the result of
international sanctions and opprobrium. His greatest accomplishment, a strong,
stable, growing economy, would be in shambles.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
And yet he seems to crave
legitimacy, else how to interpret his bowing to international pressure and pardoning
Sam Rainsy just before the election? And in the latest shift of tone, he has
agreed to allow an independent inquiry into vote irregularities that would
include the opposition and NGOs and the UN as observers, something he strongly
resisted previously. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
If I could vote, I’d find it very
difficult to choose between the two. On the one hand you have a relatively
benign strongman who’s done a lot for the country in regards to stability and
growth, but who’s been around way too long. Anyone in office for 28 years as he
has been becomes full of themselves and starts to believe they are invincible
and infallible. They start to say and do things which they couldn’t if they
felt threatened with losing power at the ballot box. Being in office that long
also inevitably brings endemic corruption, even if it’s not the financial kind.
As the opposition points out there are 200 under secretaries and deputy
secretaries of state - a great patronage boondoggle - and hundreds of official
advisors. Cambodia has 2000 generals in its armed forces, compared to 500 in
the US military with 2000 times the budget. Patronage makes great friends and
allies for the government, but it’s generally an unmitigated waste.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Alternatively, you have a fresh
face that could begin to tackle corruption and be more responsive to the public
but who also is a hot-headed bigot. Here is an example of his extremism; when
campaigning amongst people displaced by the filling and eventual development of
a large lake near the heart of Phnom Penh, he called the officials who approved
it criminals and said they should go to jail for their actions. Personally, I
think the filling of that lake was one of the worst decisions ever made by the
CPP government, a crime against livability and good planning, but a newly
elected leader can’t put people from previous governments in prison for making
decisions they don’t like. And a reasonable person can’t even threaten to do
that.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Furthermore, the good things he
has said about reforming the government have been completely overshadowed in my
mind by his racist anti-Vietnamese rhetoric. He’s even gone as far as demanding
that Angkor Wat be taken back from the Vietnamese. Here’s how he arrived at
that astounding deduction. Sok Kong, richest man in Cambodia, owner of the
largest chain of gas stations and a lot more, has the concession to collect
admission fees and do maintenance at the temples. He has lived in Cambodia for
decades, but he is of Vietnamese descent, which evidently makes him an object
of hatred and derision, not to mention idiotic rhetoric. Rainsy regularly uses
a derogatory term for the Vietnamese who make up about 5% of Cambodia’s
population and as far as I can tell after 12 years here, cause no trouble
whatever, at least no more than any other ethnic group living here.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Here’s one example of the result
of such racist rhetoric: The people who trashed two police cars in Phnom Penh
because they were angry about not finding their names in the vote register also
attacked and beat unconscious a man they thought was Vietnamese; turned out he
wasn’t. In another incident a fifty-year-old man of Vietnamese descent, who was
born in Cambodia, has lived his whole life here and holds a Cambodian ID card,
was prevented from voting by a crowd spewing hatred.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Now those are small incidents so
maybe there’s no cause for alarm, nonetheless, racially based violence is the
last thing this country needs. It’s totally uncalled for and unnecessary and
wouldn’t happen at all if the fires of prejudice were not stoked by Sam Rainsy.
Khmer hold longstanding grudges towards their large and powerful neighbors - Thailand
and Vietnam - on both sides, but have no problem relating to those people on an
individual basis. They dislike them in theory, but relate easily as human
beings. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
On a personal level, Rainsy wants
to tighten up on immigration, which might, as he goes after the Vietnamese, spill
over into restrictions on people like myself. If they enacted rules similar to
Thailand or Philippines, I couldn’t live here since I don’t have sufficient
income.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Based on his personal vote count, Sam
Rainsy at one time demanded that Hun Sen stand down and promised mass
demonstrations if he didn’t. Once again, the likelihood of the PM vacating his
post is down around absolute zero, but if Rainsy should persist in his threats
of large protests, there well could be violence and bloodshed. The latest word
suggests he is backing down from his threats of large protests and that the
people who would be out there on the streets are shying away from participating
based on the real possibility of violence. The Cambodian police are not averse
to using force to break up unwanted demonstrations, but thankfully, fatalities to
date have been extremely rare. Hopefully reason and commonsense will prevail
and Sam Rainsy will stop fighting a losing battle and accept an important role
as leader of the opposition. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Latest news before posting this:
The government is massing tanks, armored personal carriers and other military
equipment in the outskirts of Phnom Penh ‘to protect the country’ in case of
widespread demonstrations threatened by the opposition. The CNRP has been
wrangling with the CPP over a committee investigating election irregularities.
The CPP is allowing some level of investigation but not enough to satisfy the
opposition. Meanwhile, large numbers of garment workers opted to stay home right
after the elections, rather than return to work, in fear of violence and chaos,
but are slowly returning to their jobs. While events are still unfolding, there
can be no doubt who will run the country for the next 5 years.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
All told, I’m happy about the
preliminary results which keep the CPP in control but give a lot more power to
the opposition CNRP. In order for the legislature to conduct business there
needs to be a 2/3 quorum, which the CPP no longer has, so Rainsy will have some
leverage in enacting legislation he cares about and the PM will have to learn
to compromise. Legislation reforming the National Electoral Commission to make
it fairer and more representative would certainly be high on Sam Rainsy’s
priority list and that would greatly enhance his chances in the next election
in 2018. Hopefully before then he will tone down his bigotry or maybe another
untainted leader will appear to lead the opposition.</div>
Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-16032736788567961982013-08-09T17:32:00.000-07:002013-08-09T17:32:49.517-07:00Beersalot<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
After finishing my article about local
beers in the June issue of Bayon I realized there was lots more beer tasting to
do since I hadn’t touched on the dark beers and stouts. And since I made such a
point of the superior quality of bottles over cans, I also thought I ought to
see if I could taste the difference.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
One thing I realized in the
process of writing the last beer article was that downing a brew is different
than drinking for the purpose of critiquing it. While some beers will impress
you right off, whether positively or negatively, in most cases you don’t have
clear thoughts about what you’re drinking unless you’re concentrating on
thinking about describing it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Further, I thought I should try to
be a little more scientific about the tasting and rating by setting up a blind
taste experiment. Three of us participated, two blind tasting, the third did
the pouring so knew what he was drinking. The blind tasting is important
because we all have prejudices which affect our choices. That is similar to how
people in medical experiments who receive placebos think they’re getting
better. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
The first experiment was with five
stouts; ABC, Black Panther, City Black, Guinness and Angkor Extra Stout. The
last two were in bottles, the rest in cans. Black Panther and City are cheap
beers in the $.50 retail category, the other three cost over twice that amount.
All are 8% beers except for Guinness which is 6.5%. There are actually quite a
few varieties of Guinness circulating in both cans and bottles - awhile back I
came across a can that was only 4.5% alcohol which seemed very strange to me.
At any rate, I only saw the 6.5% bottle when I went out buying so that’s what
we tasted.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
As it turns out, somewhat to my
surprise, all three of us were in substantial agreement with only minor
differences. We all placed ABC and City in the top two spots with ABC rated
highest by two of us and City by the third. I wrote ‘bright and bubbly’ for
ABC, my pick for first, ‘good but lighter than (ABC) for City my second choice.
The other blind taster wrote ‘nutty, alcohol taste, full body, hoppy, lingering
after taste’ for ABC. For City he wrote, ‘not impressed, caramel notes, sour,
sweetish; but in the end after tasting all five he picked City as his first
choice. All three of us placed Guinness at number 4, practically a shock
considering its worldwide popularity. I wrote, ‘not great, a little bitter’.
The other blind taster sniffed all five glasses before tasting any and
correctly picked out Guinness by its smell. He wrote, ‘nutty, semi-heavy,
fruity, not much aftertaste’. Myself and the pourer placed Angkor at number 3
and Black Panther at number 5. My fellow blind taster placed them just
opposite. For Angkor (which I imagined I would choose as number 1 before the tasting
began) I wrote ‘thin but good taste’, the other blind taster put ‘soapy, light,
bitter, not much after taste’. For BP I wrote subtle, thin, not much to it. The
other wrote ‘sour, light body, (thin). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
After touting City lager in the
last beer article, it was quite gratifying to see City Black rate so highly in
the blind test. I had my doubts, considering how cheap and obscure City beer is
and how quite a few people have trashed it, but at least in this case my taste
buds came through. They are two different beers so one doesn’t necessarily
carry over to the other, but still…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
As for non-stout dark beers there are
only two that are produced regionally: Kingdom Dark and Lao Dark. Both are
lagers, Kingdom is 5%, Lao is 6.5%. The tasting came after drinking the five
stouts, which meant I was already climbing way up the tipsy scale. The pourer
had shorted himself on quantity – not sure why – so the remaining two of us
drank about two mugs worth of stout – equivalent in alcohol content to three
average beers – in a relatively short time. That might have been a mistake. The
drunker you get the less discerning your palette – at a certain point you
wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the worst beer and the best. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
First to come up was Kingdom,
which I correctly identified, though of course I didn’t know that till later.
It’s got that expensive-ingredient craft-beer taste, which I like, besides I’m
very familiar with it. I wrote ‘bright, light, sweet’. My fellow blind taster
wrote ‘sweet bubble gum, light weight body, slight caramel, bright in mouth’.
For Lao he wrote, ‘first (choice) at first sip, light, heavier body than
(Kingdom)’, (after further tasting) he wrote ‘still number 1’. I wrote
‘thicker’. The other two guys chose Lao over Kingdom, I preferred the later. In
hindsight, just for comparison’s sake, I should’ve picked up a bottle of an
expensive imported dark like Leffe. I’ve drunk Leffe a few times and it never
impressed me as worth several times the cost of a cheap beer, but, as remarked
above, you don’t really know a beer until you drink it for the purpose of
describing and rating it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
My greatest disappointment
regarding beers in Cambo is the dearth of dark beers and the total absence of
ales, not to mention bitters, porters and other oddball varieties. I’m not sure
why it’s so easy to produce stouts and seemingly insurmountable to brew ales,
but I can’t wait for the day that some brave local brewmaster takes on that
task. In fact, we do have an unusual homebrew here in Kampot: Angus at Café
Espresso is brewing an 8% alcohol ginger beer. It’s not always consistent, but
still ranges from good to excellent. Back in my commune days one of the guys
put together a few kegs of homebrew. You buy a ready-made can of malted barley
flavored with hops with yeast included, toss in an equal amount of sugar, fill
the keg with water and keep warm and in a few days you have green beer ready to
bottle. It was excellent. However, there were times when we couldn’t wait to
let it age properly and guzzled it down green. Wow was it bad tasting, but it
sure got you blasted when it didn’t also make you barf it all back up. At one
point he flavored his beer with local indigenous herbs. It tasted great and I
wonder why nobody has thought of producing herbal flavored beer commercially.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
The next day I set up an
experiment involving three sets of bottles/cans to see if we could discern the
difference. That involved Angkor, Heineken and Cambodia. First up was Angkor,
which I thought sure was Heineken. I also got the bottle/can thing wrong. My
fellow blind taster got the bottle/can difference correctly and described
Angkor bottle as ‘full body, smooth, balanced, and the can as tinny, bright,
sour. As for Heineken, which I thought was Angkor, I couldn’t even guess regarding
the bottle/can difference. Once again the other blind taster got it correctly.
For the can he wrote, ‘tingly tongue, sweetish, heavy for a lager’. For the
bottle he wrote, ‘skunky, non-descript’. He was right on about the skunky smell,
though I doubt if I would’ve noticed without him mentioning it. Still, anyone
who’s ever been within a mile of a skunk that’s let loose knows that smell
intimately. If you happen to be in close proximity when it does its thing, you
have to throw your clothes away because there’s nothing you can do to get the
stink out. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
The third set was Cambodia, or was
supposed to be. Somehow between the time I dropped off the beers to be sampled the
day before at the friend’s place and tasting time the next day the Cambo can
had mysteriously disappeared. Well not so mysteriously, it obviously had been
mistakenly imbibed. So what was the poor pourer to do after searching in the
fridge high and low? He decided on double blind testing us by pouring a
Ganzberg in place of the Cambo can. By then I’d gotten everything wrong –
though of course I didn’t know it yet – and continued my losing streak by
mistaking the Cambo bottle for a can. The other taster got the bottle thing
wrong, his first mistake. Neither of us caught the Ganzberg substitution. Most
surprisingly, both the other guys chose Angkor first for taste and Ganzberg
second. I was totally flustered by then and couldn’t even choose which beer I
liked best. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Compared to the first day when
everything, or almost everything, was consistent and clear and we were in substantial
agreement, the second tasting day was largely confused and out of sorts,
although I’m obviously saying that because I simply was useless at telling the bottle/can
difference. The other blind taster got everything right except for the double
blind substitution, which nobody could be expected to get. If there actually had
been a choice between Cambo bottle and can he might have also gotten that
right. There’s a good reason why good quality beers are always put in bottles,
not cans, in spite of the extra cost, but I sure couldn’t tell by tasting. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Aluminum reacts with food compared
to glass which doesn’t so there must be a subtle difference. In fact I should buy
bottles instead of cans out of principle because, regarding food, I never cook
out of aluminum pots and am very reluctant to eat cheap, down-home local fare
because the food sits in aluminum pots all day. My aversion is helped by the
knowledge that they use massive amounts of salt, sugar and MSG, though, except
for that, it usually doesn’t taste all that bad. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
The blind tasting was edifying and
fun and I’ll have to do it again sometime, meanwhile a couple of comments on
Kingdom, still my favorite local beer. Whatever financial problems they
might’ve been experiencing (if any) have been mitigated somewhat by Brunty
ciders leasing one of their bottling lines. For at least a year they’ve got an
extra income stream. If Brunty’s is successful, they’ll set up their own plant.
So far, they say they’re doing well. I tried a strawberry; it was good but had
an unpleasant aftertaste. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
One complaint/suggestion I have
for Kingdom has to do with the graphic arts on the bottle. The artwork, the
animal drawings, are very nicely done but so indistinct I can’t tell what animal
it is without my glasses on, and then still not easily. Considering most beers
are consumed at night and many of those in dimly lit venues, that’s surely a
deficiency. Sharp and clear is what is what all marketing and product design
needs to be. Ditto for the writing on the back. The font is so small I can’t
possibly read it without glasses even in bright light, though I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">can</i> read a newspaper under those
conditions, though not easily.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cambostan</i></div>
Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-54146604165756423012013-07-23T02:15:00.000-07:002013-07-23T02:15:50.630-07:00Plants in the Pot, My Kampot Garden.I've finally got it together to post some pictures of my garden, one of the reasons I love my tropical small-town home. At last count I had 175 different varieties growing on a small 15 meter x 30 meter (50 ft x 100 ft.) piece of land. I love getting my hands in the dirt and making new plants so I sell duplicates of ones that are more valuable or interesting. Pictures don't always do them justice, but here they are nonetheless.<br />
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<br />Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-13491903598159392502013-06-05T18:07:00.000-07:002013-06-05T18:07:18.683-07:00They Don't Like Good Beer<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
It Amazes me that most of the
people I know in Cambodia prefer cheap, average to awful beer to the good
stuff. But first, before you start feeling insulted because I may begin to lambaste
your taste in beer, let me state very clearly that, 1) I’m a highly opinionated
person, so take that into account, besides how else can you be a critic? and 2)
As the French would say, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">chacon a son
gout</i>, (I hope I got that right, it’s been more than 50 years since I took
French in college) which loosely translated means, There’s no accounting for
taste. No matter how atrocious your taste in beer may be, you not only have a
right to your opinion, but your taste buds may actually signal a swooning
adoration for what, in my opinion, or even the wider opinion, is swill. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
I’m certainly no expert in brewing
aside from spending a lot of time in Oregon, one of the hot spots of
microbreweries in the states, and having a long and enduring relationship with
the suds. There aren’t many days that go by without me downing at least a
couple of beers. In fact, the only time I won’t imbibe is the night after a
blowout when I can’t bring myself to drink even one. It’s not even that I drink
all that much, six or seven beers over a long night is about my maximum, not a
lot by a serious drinker’s standards. In fact, I’ve saved tons of money over
the years just because my intake is so limited. I do like spirits and other
alcoholic beverages occasionally, but 90% to 95% of the time I’m after a cold,
thirst-quenching beer. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
We will certainly disagree on the
quality of different beers but the one thing we (me and all you dedicated beer
drinkers out there) can agree on that beer is the elixir of life, or one of the
most important ones at least. It opens up our happiness centers, smoothes out
the hard edges in our daily grinds, breaks down our inhibitions and allows us
to relax and have fun. Even if we are not plagued with daily grinds as such, it
still gives life an ease and pleasantness that’s difficult to achieve
otherwise. The world is nuts, whatever it takes to surf through the big waves
is good enough. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Admittedly, all that happy, happy
has its drawbacks. There’s only so many good times allocated to us before the
happy, happy turns into total washout. It’s so much fun, you don’t know how to
stop. That’s the way it is here in Cambodia… the bar culture is so much a part
of the scene, and it’s so cheap, and all your friends are also out there having
a good time, and… well, ‘nuff said.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Still, the quality of the suds has
to make a difference to people spending hours and hours in imbibing mode, thus I’m
baffled by the widespread indifference bordering on disdain on the part of many
friends towards Kingdom beer, the only widely distributed craft beer in
Cambodia. It’s far from the greatest of craft beers and equally far from the
worst, coming up somewhere in the middle I would guess compared to the range of
Oregon beers, which still makes it pretty good. Before I go any further, let me
say I have no financial or other personal interest in Kingdom beer other than
the desire to see it prosper so it stays available, so I can drink it whenever
I can afford it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
What exactly are the complaints? One
friend called it too hoppy. For me that’s the point. I like a rich, full-bodied
hoppy flavor. Another, along the same line said, Yes, it’s got lots of flavor,
but I don’t like it. A bar owner friend said, Nobody buys it, why pay $2.50 for
a Kingdom when you can get a Beer Lao for half the price? (I can’t believe he
chose Lao to make that comparison, more on that later.) Indeed, why drive a
Lexus when a Corolla will get you there just the same for a quarter the price
and maybe more on topic, why drink Johnny Walker Blue when Red will get you
where you want to be at a small fraction of the cost? On the other hand, it
makes total sense to drink down-market if you haven’t got the dough. But we’ve
carried it too far, we’re so deep into a cheap canned beer culture we can’t
deal with quality beer. However, cheap beer is also one of Cambodia’s strong
points; you can have a good time every night without pissing away your life
savings. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
The dislike of Kingdom has gotten
so strong it is widely rumored to be going out of business. They definitely
were disappointed at the beer’s reception and were forced to make corrections
in their business plan but I doubt if they’re about to fold. First they lowered
the price of a case of bottles to $20 from $26, which definitely makes it
easier for me to buy it. They also went into the cheap beer competition by
producing Kingdom Gold in cans and pricing it about the same as the big three -
Anchor, Angkor, Cambodia. They’ve recently set up a tent on a main street in
Kampot to promote Gold, which doesn’t look much like they’re going out of
business. The Gold is a lager and is competitive in quality and taste to the
big mass produced beers – I like it better than those, though Cambo is hard to
beat. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Another friend said, Sure it
tastes good, but it’s not a beer you can drink all night. He actually had a
point, though he didn’t realize it. That’s what I do, start with Kingdom then
switch to cheaper beer, though that’s mostly because I don’t want to spend the
extra money. However, I certainly wouldn’t do that in Oregon: I’m there so
infrequently, the cost be damned, I’d never switch to Pabst or Miller from
drinking quality beers unless I was in the direst of straits.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Well, what is it that makes
Kingdom cost $20 per case as opposed to the mass produced beers that cost half
as much, and the off brands which cost as little as $7.00 per case? In addition
to the extra cost of putting beer in a glass bottle – in the case of Kingdom a
custom bottle – as opposed to an aluminum can, there are only two basic factors
that account for cost. Quality beer is the direct result of more expensive ingredients
and the extra care taken in the brewing process. That doesn’t necessarily mean
it’ll taste better, only that it has the potential to taste better. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
The other valid reason for not
drinking Kingdom exclusively is it’s a lot more fattening. Based on American-sized
12 ounce containers – about 350ml – an average cheap beer has about 140
calories; light beers contain about 100 calories; craft beers about 250
calories. So my friend, who can easily down 10 beers a night would be getting a
full day’s calories just from beer if he only drank Kingdom, compared to 2/3 of
his necessary daily intake from cheaper beers. Craft beers have more calories
because they use richer, higher quality ingredients, like the difference
between ice milk and ice cream. And they generally taste better because they
use, for instance, more expensive malt and more than one type of better quality
hops. An award winning Oregon craft beer uses a blend of five different
varieties of hops; that’s not something you will find in a cheap beer.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
The friend who accepted that
Kingdom has more flavor but still didn’t like it is able to down Anchor draft
without grimacing. Until recently, I could barely drink it and started looking
for more expensive and less ecological alternatives. The quality seems very
erratic; recently, it actually tasted good a few times, but then descended back
into its normal bitter awfulness. It is advertised as smooth because there isn’t
much to it, though it’s not the fact that it’s a pilsner, since Kingdom in bottles
also has a pilsner along with a dark lager. I tend to think it wasn’t my taste
buds playing tricks on me, but rather that they accidentally, mistakenly produced
a better tasting beer, then realized they’d better get back to their regular
awful taste so as not to confuse their customers. Anchor in cans is not that
bad, though if faced with a choice between Anchor and Angkor, I’ll choose
Angkor about 2/3 of the time, it’s got more to it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
I felt Cambo was better from the
first taste, and thankfully the two bars I most patronize both have it on
draft. Cambodia is sweet and light without a hint of harshness or bitterness. A
friend who doesn’t like it called it too sweet, but sweet’s the opposite of
bitter so that’s what makes it good. Cambo recently won third place in a
category of 4% to 5% lagers in a beer tasting competition in London. I wasn’t
surprised as it’s exceptional for a cheap beer. What did surprise me was that
Tiger came in second place, which required that I buy one to include in this
essay. I’ve drunk a few Tiger’s over the years but somehow it never impressed
me as being worth the extra cost, but after drinking one for the purpose of
describing it I’d have to say it’s pretty good and more flavorful than average.
It’s clearly higher quality, but probably not enough for me to choose it above
Cambo, for instance. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then there’s the
environmental aspect. Draft is easily the least damaging to the planet, at
least in Cambodia, since the kegs can be reused practically indefinitely, so
I’ll nearly always go for draft first. But it does have its negatives since it
has to be kept cold once it’s tapped and there’s a need for gas to bring it out
of the keg. It’s also less consistent than cans or bottles depending on how
long it takes to finish the keg – after three or four days the quality
plummets. Cans are next on the environmental scale since aluminum is valuable
and easily recyclable. But beer in cans simply cannot taste as good as in bottles
or properly handled kegs. Nobody producing a quality beer would ever put it in
cans, but that’s a problem here in Cambodia since the empty bottles aren’t
recyclable, nobody wants them. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Not saying many of the bottles
couldn’t be designed to be washed and reused. Except for Kingdom, the bottles
used by Angkor and Cambodia and other local breweries are all standard and
interchangeable. However, they’d need to be purposely designed for washing
since that requires a thicker glass than disposable bottles. Reusable bottles
last an average of twenty washes, and if the energy necessary for the process
were renewable then their ecological footprint would be about the same as
draft, with better consistency and quality. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
While we’re at it a discussion of
other locally available beers is in order. My bar owner friend who thoroughly
dislikes Kingdom and has Cambo on draft, sometimes prefers Klang, which I find
astounding, sort of the outer limit of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">chacon
a son gout, </i>since I find it harsh, heavy, bitter and it leaves an
unfriendly aftertaste. I don’t want to use up my entire repertoire of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>negative adjectives on it or the list would
be a lot longer. Klang which means strong in Khmer originally had a big 7% on
its can but that caused a problem for some in power – I’m not sure why since
the stouts are all at 8%. As a result they lowered the content to 6% and ceased
to make a big deal of it. Even if I thought it tasted good I’d try to avoid it
since I’d drink it just as fast as the 5 percenters, but it’d get me drunker sooner
and send me home that much earlier. It’s super cheap, that much I can say for
it - lately as little as $7 case. While we’re on the topic of nasty brews,
Zorok, from Vietnam and Special deserve mention. Once I’ve paid for and opened
a beer I’m going to drink it as a matter of principle, but man is it difficult
with those two; both taste like weak dishwater with Special especially grotesque.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
I recently tried a can of Phnom
Penh beer; it was actually kind of bright and tasty, nothing like the cruddy suds
that I remember from the last time – I’d actually buy it again. There’s a new
beer called Ganzberg, which bills itself as German style. It’s good quality
with a subtle, gentle taste, but not as flavorful as some of the others
available. Beck’s is available at a reasonable price in a few places. It’s a
good example of a hearty, strong tasting brew without a hint of bitterness,
definitely worth the small extra cost.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
I recently came across City beer.
It’s available in only one place that I know of in Kampot. It’s brewed in
Kampong Chhnang, though I had to get a Khmer friend to translate for me since
there’s no info as to its genesis in English. It’s super cheap at $7.50 per
case and is my favorite local beer aside from Kingdom bottles. After me going
on about equating good beer with expensive ingredients you might rightly
question how I could like one of the cheapest beers available. And I still
wonder myself, but as often as I drink it, thinking maybe I’m missing something,
it still comes out as one of the best; it’s light, bright, sparkly and full of
flavor. It doesn’t have the quality of Cambo, but I like it better. And besides
it’s cheap, which, when balanced out, makes it a bit easier for me to justify
spending all that extra on Kingdom.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
As I was touting City amongst
friends at the bar, one fellow scoffed and said the motodops think it’s so bad
they won’t touch it. Now this fellow often prefers Beer Lao to Cambo draft, so
I retorted by saying, I’ve drunk lots of Lao over the years but I’ve never,
ever thought, Gee, I’d like a Beer Lao tonight, it just never occurs to me.
Just to make sure it was indeed as I remembered it I bought a can and yes, it
was thick, syrupy, bitter and seriously lacking in bubblies. So <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">chacon a son gout</i> to you too buddy!</div>
<br />Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-22832752451859672022013-04-30T18:39:00.000-07:002013-04-30T18:39:46.741-07:00September in April<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
It’s been September in April in
Kampot. In the week or so centering around Khmer New Year we had close to 12
inches – 30cm – of rain with two very heavy deluges and the rest of the time it
was dark and cloudy with lighter rainfalls almost every day. That is exactly
what you’d expect in September, our heaviest month which in fact receives an
average of 12 inches of precipitation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
This is my eleventh April in
Cambodia and I’ve never seen anything like it. At least 3 or 4 of those years
saw no precipitation whatever, not a drop. They were characterized by a
relentless overbearing heat. In the five years I’ve lived in Kampot my cistern,
which collects rainwater from the roof, has gone completely dry twice. This year
it never got down to half. Climate Change anyone?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Just before the first torrent we
had temperatures in the high 90s – 36-37C – which is very rare for Kampot since
we are close to the sea and its moderating effects. Since warmer air holds more
moisture, it follows that rainfall will increase with rising temperatures. At
some point the use of the term global warming morphed into climate change, and
it’s a bit more accurate since, for instance, climate change actually is
bringing unusually cold wintry weather to places like the UK. Still, there have
now been 336 consecutive months in which global temperature has exceeded the
twentieth century average. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Almost all climate change
predictions have underestimated the pace of change. That is partly because of the
impacts of feedback loops. For instance, when ice, which reflects sunlight melts,
leaving much darker blue sea or rock, more heat is absorbed. Each measure of
melting then accelerates the loss of additional ice. While there’s no way to
definitively attribute individual climate events to man’s impact on the
climate, erratic or unusual weather is exactly what the models predict. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Nonetheless, Cambodia is doing its
part to make things worse. But first, around the beginning of April there were
news reports of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>serious power outages in
the capital. Why is that, the national electric company was asked, when the
Kamchey dam near Kampot is now finished and working? When there’s water behind
the dam it can provide almost half of Phnom Penh’s total demand, which is 400
megawatts (but growing at 20 to 25% per year). Unfortunately, in April, the
time its power is needed most, there’s (usually) no water so the dam was
working at only 10% of capacity. A few days later, representatives of the dam
said they’d found a way to conserve water, so could send more juice the
capital’s way. Mysteriously, right after that our water pressure went limp. No
water at all for a couple hours a day. So water pressure is back with the heavy
rain and I expect there’s a lot more water to pass through the generators at
the dam.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
If it hadn’t started raining,
Cambodia’s first coal-fired plant which is due online in June or July, would’ve
taken up the slack. At 700 megawatts, it can supply nearly twice the capital’s
demand. The nice thing about coal is that it’s relatively cheap, but that’s its
only saving grace. Under the best conditions it’ll produce large amounts of
CO2. Being built by the Chinese it’ll also almost certainly spew lots of other
more immediately toxic gases and particulates into the air. Modern coal plants
can be relatively clean on matters other than CO2, but it’s hard to imagine the
Chinese builders giving a damn about Cambodia’s air quality, considering
China’s own air is among the worst in the world. Air pollution controls make a
plant cost a lot more, so it’s extremely unlikely to happen, especially with
Cambodia in such a subservient position.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Most new power projects in Cambo,
both hydro and coal, are structured as BOT or build, operate, transfer. The
developer finances and builds the plant, operates it for 30 or 40 years and
then turns it over to the government. Cambodia, in its haste for power and
development at any cost, has accepted whatever terms the Chinese – they’re
almost all Chinese – have offered. This usually includes penalties for <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i></b>
using power. In other words, if there’s a surplus of power, the government pays
anyway. And that’s understandable, nobody’s going to put up hundreds of
millions of dollars without some guarantee of payback. Still that could
potentially be a very big problem in the future.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Is this exceptionally wet April a
harbinger of extreme rainfall later in the season? Impossible to say, but it’s
remarkable nonetheless. It could turn hot and dry next week, normal for this
time of year, but if it is a portent of things to come we could be in for some
serious flooding. As mentioned previously, right at a natural bottleneck in the
river, across from the government buildings at the southern end of town,
there’s been extensive landfilling, making the river even smaller there.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Being an estuary, thus essentially
part of the sea, the water level reflects the tides more than anything else.
The exception being in case of very heavy rainfall bringing water down from the
mountains combined with a storm surge and high tide that brings large amounts
of water in from the sea. In that case, that bottleneck will serve to flood
large areas of the city. I’m not looking forward to it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
In other Kampot news the riverside
walk is being extended south to the old port, Cambodia’s first port. There are
sometimes large fishing boats docked there but mostly it’s for small boats. A
wood boardwalk about 1.2 meters wide is being built there, I assume to provide
a place for the small fishing boats to dock in the early morning when they
return from the sea. There isn’t a lot of development there at present but a
lot of property has changed hands and a one hectare lot just south of the
government buildings has been cleared – they cut down lots of healthy trees but
did leave one sugar palm – so I expect a substantial development is in
progress.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
At the other end of town river
road is in the process of being widened and paved, I believe all the way to the
road the leads to dam, about 11 kilometers. That work has involved felling lots
of nice old trees which beautifully graced the road, sometimes making a leafy
green canopy. That was my favorite bike ride, but no more, it’ll just be a wide
busy highway you use to get somewhere, not someplace to take your time and
enjoy on a bicycle.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
I know progress is inevitable and
important and that road had to be done eventually since it was a disaster for
anything larger than a motorbike, but I’m still personally disappointed at the
loss of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>green and tranquility. The one
aspect I do have to take exception to is that they’re widening it more than
needs to be. That extra capacity won’t be needed at least for the next decade
or so, so the trees could’ve remained a little longer, but Cambodian officials
love their pavement so they had to go.</div>
Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-87656370764926684312013-04-06T17:37:00.000-07:002013-04-06T17:37:35.160-07:00Cheeky Thieves<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
First a correction from last
month’s article. I caught some heavy flack because of my erroneous history of
the old market. I was first told the market was built in 1904. That sounded way
too early and considering where the info came from that date seemed suspect. Guy
and his wife, both in their sixties, owned a bar called Bonkers. The bar wasn’t
all that successful and they both in succession drank themselves to death, so
you see what I mean. Later when I read that it was built in the early sixties,
I ran with it. However, our amateur historian kinda snarled at me as he searched
out the net and found a aerial picture of Kampot from the thirties which
clearly shows the market. Still, hard as he tried, he couldn’t find a
definitive date for its opening or a time or reason for its abandonment. I
expect it’ll all be clear when our new museum is open. There must be some
locals who know about it. Will keep you posted.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Around the middle of February my
house on the edge of Kampot was broken into… while I was sleeping. The window
in the kitchen as well as those on the sides of the house have traditional wood
shutters and, at least until recently, six vertical metal bars and one cross-piece.
With such defenses, you tend to feel quite safe and secure, but as it turns
out, those metal barriers aren’t much of a deterrent to wily, dedicated thieves.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
It was about 3am and I heard a
clunking sound. The time between 3am and 4am is the least active part of the
day. You can be out and about and if you’re a thief, and possibly high on yama,
you’ve got the streets to yourself. I’m a very light sleeper, partly from needing
to wake up and trudge off to the bathroom to pee at least a couple of times
every night, which comes from a combination of drinking beer every night and
nearing geezerhood. Even without the need to relieve myself, I rarely sleep
more than 2 hours continuously. All that considered, I easily heard the sound
of the wood shutter in the kitchen being pried open. I made it a bit easier on
the goniffs by not latching the top of the shutters, mostly from being lazy. (In
fact, for a long time I left them open at night just to keep the air flowing.)
The additional sound might’ve jarred me awake instead of remaining mostly
asleep. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
After prying open the wood shutters,
they used what must’ve been a quite substantial crowbar to leverage one of the vertical
metal bars out of the relatively flimsy wood casing it was set into. That too
wasn’t soundless. Once the bar was out of the casing, they – there had to be at
least two of them – bent it out of the way so one of them could squeeze
through. It had to be a kid or a runt because it’s only 20cm – 8 inches –
between the bars. And it had to be at least two because it took quite an effort
for me to bend the bar back into place. The little bastard who slipped through
the bars was definitely not strong enough.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
At any rate, while that was all
happening I’m thinking to myself, in a three-quarters dream state, wondering what
I could use to throw at intruders or what I could otherwise do to fend them off,
in case that was what was actually happening. As I was pondering that weighty
question, they were rifling through my stuff in the living room. My bedroom is
quite small and I’ve been lazy about getting shelving so I just toss the
clothes I expect to wear in the near future on top of the spare bed in the
living room. They managed to nick my $30 Nokia and find $10 in a pocket of the
pants I’d worn the night before. It was near payday and I’d just borrowed the
tenner to help get me through. Right after payday they might’ve gotten a couple
hundred dollars. They didn’t take my computer because it’s a desktop, so it
wouldn’t be easy to make a quick getaway hauling a lunky one of those around.
They didn’t take my alto sax, because they probably wouldn’t have the slightest
idea what to do with it or how valuable it actually is, and they didn’t grab my
precious $55 Sony short wave radio, undoubtedly thinking it’s just a copy that
goes for about $5 new.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
After a similar break-in happened
to a neighbor several months back (though in that case entry through the
kitchen was much easier) my landlady urged me to keep the door between the
kitchen and rest of the house latched at night. But, as mentioned before, I
have to wake up to piss often during the night and that would’ve meant hassling
with the door every time, so my laziness and casualness triumphed. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Even though my house was built in
2001 and is made of concrete, it maintains the Khmer style of treating the
kitchen/bath area as a separate add-on, so while the main part of the house has
a high concrete ceiling, the kitchen has a lower, metal shed roof. At any rate,
the kitchen is somewhat isolated from the rest of the house so the sound of the
shutters being pried open was somewhat subdued. The same would not have been
true if the door between the kitchen add-on and the remainder of the house was closed
and latched since that’s a lot closer to my bed and I definitely would’ve fully
woken up with the sound of that being broken through.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
It must’ve been cosmic
intervention that kept me from fully waking up, since I’ve been known to
challenge ne’er-do-well’s in that context, but I would’ve been naked and had
access to nothing to defend myself with and what could I do, half asleep,
against a couple guys, each wielding a big crowbar or knife, or what have you.
It’s possible my blood-curdling lion’s roar might’ve sent them scurrying away,
but I also could’ve taken a chance of getting seriously injured.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Well, I showed the landlady the
damage and she said she’d bring somebody by the next day to reinforce the metal
bars by adding four cross pieces. Tomorrow never came but I hated to complain
since the house is perfect for me and I’ve been there for 5 1/2 years in which
she hasn’t raised the rent and we generally get on very well. So I let it slide
thinking the thieves weren’t likely to return, especially since they got so
little the first time. Like her I was being trusting and lackadaisical instead
of serious about security. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Tomorrow, in fact, did come about
3 weeks later, except it wasn’t for improved security, but a second break-in.
This time, fortunately, I was in Phnom Penh indulging in a three night marathon
of drink and debauchery. The only reason why the latter is relevant, is that
when I arrived home, the landlady was there to show me the damage. They came
through the same compromised kitchen window and then broke through the wood
door between the kitchen and living area, which I’d gotten into the habit of
latching. They probably were the same guys. The real question is whether they
had cased the place and knew I was away or thought they could invade a second
time while I was sleeping. The second time I would’ve been a bit more prepared
since I followed a friend’s advice and I now keep something substantial near my
bed to swing at possible intruders. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
The second time they got nothing.
They hung around, opened a couple beers which they didn’t finish and made some
noise which the next door neighbor heard, but didn’t notify the police of because
she thought it was me. I never make noise at night be she wouldn’t necessarily
know that.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
The landlady was ready to bring in
the workmen right then to reinforce the metal bars, but I absolutely refused
since I was thoroughly drained from overdoing Phnom Penh and the drive back and
it was past my nap time, so I said tomorrow and hit the sack for a fitful
hour’s sleep.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
When I awoke the landlady and a
couple of police and others were out front so I dressed and went out to greet
the commotion. As it turned out, the cops weren’t there because of the break-in
but to hand me a document and have me sign off on a copy that I’d received it. But
I refused since it was all in Khmer and I asked how I could sign something I
couldn’t read. “Maybe it says I’m a bad man and must go to jail”. They got the
message and left the document without getting my signature. More on the meaning
of that after I finish the security aspect.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Since I’d refused to have the
window reinforcing work done that day, I was left with a house that the thieves
could practically walk right into, so I had to do something to protect myself
for that one night. It was very unlikely that they’d return so soon, but I
couldn’t take the chance so I put a heavy object in front of the flimsy wood
door so they couldn’t walk right through it and then dumped a big basket of
empty aluminum cans at the door so they’d make an ungodly racket trying to get
into the living room, a noise which I couldn’t possibly sleep through. It sure
was a hassle going through my makeshift barricade to pee three times that
night, but I had no choice.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Well, the metal barriers on the
windows did get reinforced with four extra cross members welded into place and
the light duty wood door between the kitchen and living space has been replaced
with a strong, practically impenetrable steel one. At this point nothing short
of a blowtorch or wrecking crew is going to gain access into my house and no
way I wouldn’t know when that was happening. Still it is a bit disconcerting to
think how bold our thieves are becoming to hit the same house in such a short
timespan. Of course, it could’ve been a different set of thieves, but I doubt
it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
As for the document in Khmer that
I didn’t sign, turns out it’s a notice to all those who are working in Cambo as
well as those who hire non-citizens that they need to have work permits which,
I later learned, cost $100 per year, with an extra $50 for expediting the
process. The Phnom Penh immigration police are here to check us out and make
sure we follow the rules. They are asking for back fees up to seven years, so a
lot of money. They also told Bokor Mt. Lodge, located on the river in Kampot,
they wanted them to add a 10% tax on room rates and 12% on restaurant meals.
Hassle is coming to Cambo. If we have to start getting permits and paying
taxes, that’s justifiable and maybe unavoidable – nobody could think it was
always going to be so easy to live here - but backdating for up to seven years
is pure robbery. The story is still unfolding but deadline looms so expect an
update in the next issue.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
In other news the second annual I
Love Kampot River event was held this month. Various estimates gave the number
of children attending at 600 to 1200. They sent out about 30 boats filled with
kids who spent a couple hours picking up garbage along the river banks and they
brought back about a hundred large sacks worth. They taught the kids a song
about protecting the environment in which all sang together and all in all they
had a good time and learned good civics lessons. Certainly most will not be as
likely to casually toss their garbage around. And it’s great to see expats
taking an interest in the community and volunteering for good deeds.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
<br /></div>
Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-13741443361035942962013-03-21T19:35:00.001-07:002013-03-21T19:35:44.548-07:00Kampot Update<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
The old market, a fine bit of
architecture, was built in the late sixties but was gutted by fire just a
couple years after it was completed and lay abandoned until recently. The above
was published in my March Bayon Pearnik article. I caught some heavy flack
because my history of the old market was way off. I was first told the market
was built in 1904. That sounded way too early and considering where the info
came from that date seemed suspect. It came<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>from a Brit and his wife, who were both in their sixties. They owned a
bar called Bonkers; it wasn’t all that successful and they both in succession
drank themselves to death, so you see what I mean. Later when I read that it
was built in the early sixties, I ran with it. However, our amateur historian
kinda snarled at me as he searched out the net and found a aerial picture of
Kampot from the thirties which clearly shows the market. Still, hard as he
tried, he couldn’t find a definitive date for its opening or a time or reason
for its abandonment. I expect/hope it’ll all be clear when our new museum is
open. There must be some locals who know about it. Will keep you posted.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Cambodia’s troubles kept it derelict
for a long time until rehabilitation began about a year ago. It is now filling
up, though mostly on the outside, none of the inner stalls have been rented yet.
And in a curious juxtaposition, it’s bringing Khmer owned and oriented
businesses to the riverfront. Until the market opened nearly all the businesses
on the river were western owned or catered to westerners. In contrast, most of
the new shops are clothing stores typical of everywhere in the city, but
there’s also a tailor, a fancy “Mans Hairdresser” shop, tour/travel agents and
a mini-mart. I expected more of the souvenir, specialty traveler clothing type
to inhabit the market, but no, at least not yet.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
At the front of the market facing
the river are two restaurants that provide a study in contrasts. One is western
styled with a thatched roof covering part of the large space, very nice plantings
and a pleasant ambiance. The other is a Khmer style fast food place
specializing in deep fried snacks, including chicken feet and meatballs and
assorted other foods on a stick. The atmosphere is strictly bare-bones,
cheap-plastic-chairs and -stools. It’s open only for late afternoon and early
evening snacks and does a booming business though rent is high and margins are
low so it remains to be seen how successful it will be.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
There are lots of people around,
the place is hopping, with new guest houses, restaurants and bars opening up
regularly. I don’t mind having all those tourists around, especially knowing it’ll
quiet down considerably in a couple months. There’s also been some very fine
restorations of historic buildings. Kampot is a very old town, the country’s
first port, and it’s old district is relatively well preserved. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
The former governor’s mansion at
the south end of the river promenade is being converted to a museum which they
plan to make free. They’ve removed the air-conditioners to save in maintenance
costs. Doing that has allowed them to open up and aerate the building: it’s
looking good. Just a bit further south the riverfront park has been extended
another 200 meters almost to the Aquatic Sports Center. I wouldn’t be surprised
if they intend to extend it even further. That area is largely undeveloped but
the way things are going, I expect it won’t stay that way long, especially with
a new park on the river. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The government has been going all out laying
asphalt on nearly all the city’s thoroughfares. They evidently think westerners
will be impressed by lots of nice pavement. They’ve improved all the park
strips and traffic circles, so what else is there? There’s no real park the way
we think of them in the west, but Cambodians don’t seem to grasp the concept of
large natural green spaces with miniforests, ponds, grassy areas, picnic
tables, and sports fields and courts. As a result, all they know about
improving the city is to lay more pavement. In my neighborhood, just north of
new bridge road, they’re going all out paving in concrete. I guess since it
requires no special equipment – as asphalt does - only lots of labor which is
cheap, it’s easier to do it that way.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
As a measure of where Kampot is
going, as well as Cambodia as a whole, I’ll recount my land experience. I
purchased a 3000 meter plot 3 kilometers from town in 2008 in the last throes
of the late property boom for $4.60 per square meter - $14,000. In between the
time the contract was signed, but before the hard title was ready about 6 weeks
later, the owners were offered $20,000. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Within a year or so, I decided the
country gentleman/farmer life was not for me. At the age of 67 I couldn’t stand
having my mind constantly boggled by house construction and maintenance,
working the land and hiring local help; it was more than I could bear. However,
by then the market had crashed and the land was barely worth $2/meter - $6000,
so I was forced to wait to try to sell it. In the beginning of 2011, I offered
it at $9000 and found a buyer, who as it turned out, couldn’t finish the
payments. Last year I had two different people who really wanted it at $12,000
but didn’t have the money. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
This year I offered it at $5/meter
and still no buyer: everybody agreed that it was a nice piece of land and the
price was fair but buying land is not like buying a cheap cellphone, it has to
be the right person. About a month ago a real estate guy who I’d talked to 2 years
before called and asked if the land was still available and what I wanted for
it: I said $15,000 - $5/meter. He showed it to friends (who didn’t know I had
land for sale) and said I wanted $6/meter! The longer I wait the more it’s
worth, pretty soon it’ll be $50/meter. Well, probably not. Anyway, I’d just as
soon sell it now at its current price before the next crash. It might not
happen for a couple years, but I’d rather not take the chance. Meanwhile, it’s
looking up for Kampot and Cambo.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
On a sad and disturbing note, a
naked young French tourist washed up on the river about a kilometer from the
guest house she was staying in. By various accounts the police have a suspect
or suspects, but we all hope the got the real culprit(s) and not just fingered
the first bad guy who came along in order to have a quick resolution to the
case. While that type of thing can happen anywhere and Cambo is far safer for
us than a lot of other places in the world, it’s no less heart-rending and a
cause for concern. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Overload and Disconnect: About
three years ago Highway 3 between Kampot and Sre Ambel, where it connects to
Highway 4, was an excellent road, but once the reconstruction of route 3
between Phnom Penh and Kampot was finished, it became an alternate route for
big trucks heading from the capital to Sihanoukville. As a consequence, until
recent patching was done, it had become a shambles. It’s 20 kilometers farther
going via Kampot, but evidently, considering the tolls on Highway 4, it must
still be cheaper.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
The reconstruction of route 3, as
all the national roads that I’m aware of, was done with a layer of bitumen tar
between two layers of gravel. The lower layer of gravel is rolled and packed
down, the tar is added on top then a second layer of gravel is just tossed on
top with the action of vehicles running over it creating a road surface. That
works fine for a road used by light vehicles, though even there, potholes will
develop quickly. As long as they are patched as soon as they appear the road
can last quite a long time. That type of surface is used because it’s a lot
cheaper than higher-quality asphalt pavement. If you’re driving on route 3
you’ll notice that the pavement on the bridges is asphalt, making a much
smoother ride than the rest of the roadway which is bitumen. I’m not sure why
that is, but it’s standard practice.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
It’s a completely different story
when overloaded trucks, especially giant ones, use the road. In that case,
within a few months large sections of the surface are trashed. Cambodian truck drivers
have an obsession with getting as much as they can on their rig, regularly
loading 10 tons of material on a truck designed for 2 tons. Just recently in my
neighborhood one such truck packed high with 50 kilo sacks of salt backed over
a newly installed concrete drainage pipe buried under 10 or 15 cm of dirt and caved
it right in. To tell you the truth I didn’t feel all that sorry for the trucker
as I watched him as he was emptying most of the load so he could get the truck
back on the road, and then, of course, having to reload the whole thing. I also
wouldn’t sympathize all that much with him when his rig breaks down from
overloading… though I guess even stupid and/or inconsiderate people deserve
sympathy sometimes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Overloading trucks actually
doesn’t save all that much money when you factor in expensive repairs, highway
breakdowns - which cost a lot more to fix - and the extra fuel needed to carry
an excessive load. Probably the worst offenders are the rock trucks used in
construction. The owners regularly raise up the sides 20 or 30 cm and then pile
the rock as high as they can. They are so heavy they can barely do 40 kph at
full throttle with the engine screaming. What’s more, some of the trucks that
ply our roads are so large to begin with, even before their capacity has been
expanded, that they would be too heavy to be allowed on American roads, so obviously
pure disaster for roads here made of a thin layer of bitumen. However, even the
new roads constructed of more durable asphalt are breaking up after only a year
or so.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
With no firm regulations and no enforcement
of weight limits, the authorities will probably spend as much money repairing
roads as building them. The only completely legitimate way to enforce weight
limits would be by installing truck scales, not very likely here in the near
future. On the other hand, it isn’t that hard to determine the weight of some
materials, like a cubic meter of rock, and then measure the truck’s capacity to
determine how much weight it’s carrying. The biggest trucks aren’t necessarily
the worst offenders since it’s weight per axle that counts. Some of those,
which are never seen in America, have triple rear axles and double<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>front steering axles. Along with the rock
trucks, there are lots of giant stake bed trucks, with only single rear axles, loaded
to the top with heavy materials. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
The big truck problem is
compounded in Kampot by the location of the access road to the new bridge - finished
in 2010 - passing by the main entry to the public market. Public markets are
notoriously congested so having lots of miscellaneous, extraneous traffic
including giant trucks with their belching fumes, noisy engines and driver’s
tendency to excessive horn blowing, doesn’t do much for the neighborhood’s ambiance
or safety and is really not the way you design a city. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
I have a degree in urban studies
and have spent extensive mental energy mulling over planning concepts all my
life so the problem was obvious to me from the start, but in this case the
disconnect is so clear that several people with no such background have
mentioned that problem to me. The planners faced a serious, though not
intractable, dilemma since there was no easy alternative; that is, there was no
other street they could’ve used that didn’t require purchasing expensive urban
land. Except for the need to purchase almost 200 meters of right-of-way the
street one block north would’ve been perfect since it’s largely fronted by
industrial uses, which since they already tend to be noisy and polluting, mesh
perfectly with highways. When developing greenfields, essentially blank slates,
planners are free to design at will, but when dealing with the city ‘as built’,
they are seriously constrained. In this case neither the bridge nor the market
are going to be moved to accommodate good planning.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Ultimately, the only answer in this
situation would be a bypass road or in the distant future a freeway. You never
want through traffic, especially when that includes large trucks, going through
a town or congested area. Until recently there was so little traffic in
Cambodia that that didn’t matter much. Besides, the country was lucky to have
any decent roads let alone modern limited-access highways.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
One change likely to make a
difference soon is the completion of the Phnom Penh – Sihanoukville rail line.
Toll Holdings, an Australian company that has the concession to run the operation,
has run a test train over the track and for some time has run a train to the
Kampot Cement plant which is about halfway from the capital to Kampot. Bulk
cargo is always cheaper and less damaging to the environment to transport via
rail compared to road, so hopefully most heavy freight now busting up our
highways will switch to rail. Also hopefully, they won’t wait long to start
passenger service. The tracks are built for 80 kph trains and it’s only 150
kilometers from PP to KP so even with several stops it shouldn’t take more than
2/12 or 3 hours to make the run. Won’t that be great.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Also, bus services have improved
immensely since I first started making the trip 6 years ago. Back then the trip
took six hours or more, considering the condition of the roads, the extra
distance of going through Kep (at the time the southern leg of highway 3 was
almost impossible for large buses to negotiate) the road from the highway to
Kep was a 15 kph dirt road, and the bridge 10 k’s east of Kampot was under
construction. Now there are two big-bus lines going direct which cuts the trip
down to 3 1/2 hours, and two ‘luxury’ minibus lines offering a very fast and
comfortable ride. Still, nothing compares with a train ride where you can
easily get out of your seat and walk around. Trains are also far superior
scenically since the tracks go through the countryside as opposed to buses
passing by lots of trashy roadside buildings, not to mention, here in Cambodia,
honest-to-goodness roadside trash.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-39689148910761665362013-02-01T17:57:00.000-08:002013-02-01T17:57:04.660-08:00Blackjack Scams in Phnom Penh<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
There’s been a long running thread
on a popular Cambodia forum about Filipino blackjack scammers. Well, it isn’t
just Filipinos and it’s been happening for a long time. The following is the
write-up of my experience with blackjack scams back in 1992 during my first
overseas trip, with updates and background added. I covered 8 Asian countries
in one year and started in Thailand.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
My first day in Chiang Mai,
Thailand's second city, I stopped to rest and peruse on one of my exploratory
walks and Rudy approaches. When traveling, one of the things I most like to do
to get the feel of a new place is pound the pavement: I walk endlessly. This
makes you available for a lot of potential happenings. Rudy starts with, You
Italian? ...America, what a coincidence, I was born in Hawaii. He’s 63, was
raised in Indonesia, but his story, background, is confusing and hard to
figure. After a few minutes of light conversation he asks if I have any
important engagements otherwise he’ll take me to meet his nephew, have a few
drinks. He also has a young niece I’d like to meet. The way he sweet-talked the
young girl in the shared taxi on the way to the nephew’s, I thought his story
of having nineteen kids with six wives might actually be true. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
The sweet young thing I’d like to
meet makes a cameo appearance, says hello and disappears. Rico, his nephew, who
looks to be in his mid-thirties, has a nice house in a residential part of the
city. He's conversant in English and we spend maybe 20 minutes talking about
recycling, the work I’d just left, amongst other general topics. Then after our
perfunctory bit of small talking he explains he’s a pit boss for a chain of
casinos, but to make a little side money he’s looking for a partner to learn
his program for winning at blackjack. If I can do it he’ll stake me and I’ll
get a 25% cut. He says there are lots of Japanese and Chinese high rollers who
practically enjoy losing their money. He assures me I can make $25,000 in one
sitting and he’s persistent about showing me how it works, in spite of my repeated
attempts to decline the invite. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Rico’s dealing; in the real game that
I’m training for, the guy that likes to lose his money bankrolls the dealer. I’m
sitting across from Rico playing against the house. Rico gives me hand signals
or shows me the cards… if you don’t get it on the first show, touch your
eyebrow. He likes the way I shuffle, I talk about playing blackjack as a
teenager (I almost always lost). Yes, he thinks I can learn his program and
explains that he can’t use an oriental, they would be suspect, whereas I would
make a perfect cover. He says he tried a black American guy once but he got
greedy and demanded an unfair 50%. I don’t know Rico, this is kind of sudden,
I’ll have to get back to you. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Meanwhile I’m visualizing my
throat being cut by one of those Japanese or Chinese patsies who love to lose
their money should they become apprised of what’s happening. Rico then repeats
a story about his wife being in the hospital and he’s in dire need of $3000 to
get her out. He goes on to say that there’s a guy in town who has $5000 to
lose, he can set up a game for that afternoon and we can make it a practice
run. Rico, I’ll have to think about it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Rudy tried mightily, but unsuccessfully,
to get me to go with Rico’s scam, meanwhile there is somewhere else he really
wants to take me and it turns out to be a working class brothel. He says the
girls are between 15 and 19 and while Asians do tend to look young in European
eyes a couple of them looked decidedly younger. At one point in our
conversation over beers at the knocking shop he kisses his cross, explaining he’s
a Catholic, and a short time later he’s telling me that the owner gives him
first crack at the virgins, but says he’s not interested and jokes about them
being too small. (Fascinating, isn’t it, how people can profess their faith one
minute and then almost instantly become the antithesis of piety?)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
It was my first brothel experience
- being very drunk it was hard to resist - but set the tone, with very few
succeeding ones, of it clearly and definitely not being my bag. He made the
whole brothel thing sound so commonplace – with me being totally new to prevailing
attitudes towards the Asian sex scene – I asked him if he thought it would be okay
for his own daughters to be prostitutes. Oh no, they don’t have to, he replied.
As I was leaving he asked me for 100 baht ($4), said he was broke… big talker,
small time beggar. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Eight months later I was in the
Philippines in Bagio, a sweet little town in the mountains north of Manila. When
I arrived it was overcast and rainy, and being at 5000 feet - 1700 meters - I
got chilled and that, compounded by my trying to travel too far too fast, thus
stressing my system out, got me a serious cold and I spent several days
recovering. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
As I began to perk up I took a
little walk and Robert pulls up to begin a conversation. He seems like a decent
guy and I haven’t had the opportunity to relate much so I agree to sit down for
a cup of coffee. He’s traveled some around Southeast Asia and says one of his
sisters is about to go to the US to study. She and his mother would both like
to meet me, talk and ask questions about America. On the way we meet up with a
cousin and head for his house. He offers me a cup of tea and I spot some
medicine - a bottle of J & B - and offer myself a shot. No sign of sister
or mother. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
After a few minutes of small talk
he tells me that he works in a casino and he’s looking for a partner to win
some money in a private blackjack game. Seems like there are lots of Japanese
and other gamblers who like to lose their money and I can make $2000 in an
afternoon. Haven’t I heard this one before? I try to head him off but he
insists on seeing if I can learn his method. His hand signals for showing me
the cards were almost identical to the ones used by Rico back in Thailand. He
had the same rap about me being a good cover, that he couldn’t use an Oriental,
the sucker would suspect, and even the same story about working with a black
American guy who got greedy and demanded 50% instead of 25%. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
He too had a female relative -
this time a sister - who needed medical attention that very day and a loser who
could be called over to part with his money in two hours. He was persistent in
spite of my refusals so I told him about Rico back in Thailand, that he offered
me $25,000 in a sitting, that I still wasn’t interested, that I didn’t feel well
and had to go. But you haven’t met my sister. Maybe another time, I responded.
He then asked me for 100 pesos ($4) to help towards the sister’s (20,000 peso)
operation. Fortunately I only had 50 pesos showing (I usually kept most bigger
bills in a secret pocket I had sewn into my pants) and figured that wasn’t an
unreasonable price to pay for a cup of tea and a shot of J & B. The cousin
accompanied me out and offered to sell me a $2 fake gold ring for $200 - to
raise money for the operation, of course. Sorry pal, but I only have barely
enough money to travel with. Then he tried for an $80 loan with the ring as
collateral. Sorry. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
The similarity of the two scams
was uncanny. I mentioned my experience to a traveler friend who then related a
story of an Australian guy he’d met who’d actually gone for a similar scam only
to discover there was more collusion working against him than with him. Besides,
knowing the cards doesn’t stop them from sometimes going against you; assuming
that is, that they were dealt honestly. He narrowly escaped being taken for a
bundle of money – they’d escorted him to an ATM, but he’d successfully made a
run for it - and had to leave town quick. I kept wondering if there was a book in
print with a chapter that described in utmost detail how to bilk an
unsuspecting tourist in a blackjack money scam. Did my ‘friends’, 1500 miles
apart, in two different countries, read it and study it to the point where they
could repeat it almost verbatim? A year later back in Manila while hanging out
watching the passing throng, a young guy came by. He introduced himself,
started small talk and soon seemed eager, too eager, to have me meet his
family. This isn’t one of those blackjack scams is it? I asked him. He left
without a goodbye. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
One reason I nearly always lost
playing blackjack with friends as a teenager was that some were adept at
cheating. That experience permanently soured me from a taste for gambling.
After that discovery I ceased to gamble my cigarette money (25 cents a pack in
the mid-fifties – same as Cambo today) and let the losers bum fags off me. Even
if there was no cheating involved, I wasn’t happy about being broke and having
to beg smokes from the others. Five or six years later, in 1961, I stopped at a
casino in Las Vegas on a cross country trip and lost a dollar, maybe two in a
one-arm bandit. It was a full 43 years later, while visiting mom in the fogey
home, that I next entered a casino. Twice a month they’d fill up the minibus
with anyone who wanted to go to the Indian casino and gave us all a $10 credit
to start us off. I’d quickly lose that and maybe another ten of my own money
before I stopped. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
Unlike in 1960 when you had to
drop your coin in the slot and then pull down a large lever to get the lemons
to roll, which at least took several seconds, now you have your prepaid card
inserted and press a button and presto, in a matter of 2 seconds you’ve lost
your money. Well, it is possible to win, but the longer you play, the less
likely winning becomes since the house has to have its cut, else how could they
pay for those grand palaces they build? All the above is just to say that I’m
not a gambler and absolutely not a scammer and wouldn’t go for the blackjack
scam under any circumstances, even if I believed it was a money-maker. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
However, it was fascinating to
watch the casino scene for an hour or so, since, on my own accord, casinos are
the last place you’ll ever find me: my interest is less than nil. I was amazed
watching a woman playing two slot machines at the same time, I guess she didn’t
want to wait one second for the play to finish so needed two machines to keep
her occupied. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
We were there in the daytime and I
appreciated the fact that casinos in Minnesota aren’t allowed to serve
alcoholic beverages. Alcohol is the grease that helps losers part with their
money. They start drinking to relax and ease tension, then when they start
losing bad, it gives them the courage to go-for-broke to try to win back their
losses. My brother, who spent a few years in Reno, told me an anecdote about
ultimate losers who, after maxing out their credit or debit cards would go to
an appliance store – some are open all night – and purchase a TV or whatever
(you can still use a card for purchases after you can no longer get cash out of
it) and then take it nearby to a pawn shop and off it for 25 or 50 cents on the
dollar. You know, last chance to win it all back, except by then the guy is
already desperate, which means he takes excessive chances, which then makes
winning almost impossible.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
I did something very unkind while
wheeling mom around (she could walk but not too far). We stopped to watch the
action at a high-stakes blackjack table – minimum bet $25 – off the walkway
behind a waist high partition. The table was full, the dealer had a 5 showing.
For those of you unfamiliar with blackjack, that means he has to take a hit and
since most cards are high numbers chances are good he has a high card underneath
and will go over 21 and lose. All the players on the table had stayed in after
seeing the dealer’s dicey card. One had an ace showing, another, a young gal,
had doubled down with two picture cards. She had a big stack of chips on the bet;
at least several hundred if not thousands of dollars at stake. When it came to
the dealer showing his cards, he had a very small number underneath. He then
started turning cards up and when he’d gotten to five, the maximum, he had 21
points, meaning everybody had lost. When I saw the sad look on his face,
indicating he actually felt sorry for the table of big losers, I broke out into
one of my 90 decibel guffaws, I couldn’t help myself. You could’ve heard me
halfway across the casino. The gal who’d lost bad gave me the evil eye, but
hell, easy come easy go, right? You don’t gamble unless you don’t mind losing,
right?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
They call it gaming now, not
gambling. You know, it’s a game, just for fun, same as playing Monopoly or
Scrabble. I could see it as entertainment if it didn’t cost so much and wreck
so many lives and families. In fact, I love a friendly poker game with a maximum
25 or 50 cent bet. Drink and smoke, laugh and joke for half the night and watch
the cards unfold. Can’t lose enough to make a difference, can’t win enough to
care, just a lot of fun.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cambostan</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 8.5pt;">
<br /></div>
Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-35823310597774091572013-01-01T16:19:00.000-08:002013-01-01T16:19:39.697-08:00Cambodia Under Fire<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Cambodia, which held the rotating
chair of Asean in 2012, hosted international fora in November which President
Obama attended, but even though he and Hun Sen held a one-on-one meeting and
stood next to each other for group photos, no picture of the PM was posted on
the White House web site and there were no smiles between the two, Obama
maintaining a cool distance. This was meant to show America’s displeasure at
many of the things happening in Cambodia. The Asean meetings also came after
both the European Parliament and Australian Senate called Cambodia to account
for the direction it’s been taking regarding human rights and fair elections.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The PM’s response was that they were
misinformed and the media was exaggerating. That, of course, is what a lot of
politicians would say under fire, and while there has clearly been some serious
backsliding on Cambodia’s part, I agree that some of the complaints do seem to
be out of proportion to reality. Nonetheless, since Cambodia gets a substantial
part – 10%/$300 million - of its annual budget from the international
community, it would behoove the PM to take the complaints more seriously.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The complainants are asking that
the country hold free and fair elections, that an independent election commission
be appointed, that political prisoners be released, that Sam Rainsy, now in
self-imposed exile to avoid a long prison term, be allowed to take part in the
upcoming national election and that the country put an end to land grabbing and
displacement.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Independent election commissions
are an obvious starting-point for honest elections. It’s too bad that’s not the
way things are done in the US. In 2000, Republican Katherine Harris of Florida was
both Secretary of State, the office that runs elections, and GW Bush’s campaign
manager. She did everything in her power to skew the vote in Bush’s favor. An
clean election would have easily made Gore the winner. Similarly, four years
later Ohio Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell simultaneously ran
the Ohio election and Bush’s campaign there. He used every dirty trick in the
book to throw the election to Bush. So yes it’d be great if Cambodia had an
independent electoral commission, but the US is hardly one to complain until it
gets its own house in order.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Independence of the electoral
commission is far preferred but what’s important is the outcome; that is, a
free and fair election. I’ve now lived in Cambodia for 11 years and been around
for four, maybe five national elections. I don’t remember one declared not free
and fair by international observers, so I’m not sure where that complaint is
coming from. There have been minor problems but nothing that would’ve countered
the wide lead the PM’s Cambodian People’s Party had in every election, at least
in the last 11 years. The CPP has consistently received a minimum 55% of the
vote. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Elections in Cambodia are held on
two levels. The national parliament and the communes, of which there are about
1700 that cover the entire country, both urban and rural. Phnom Penh, for
instance, has about 90 communes. Almost all of the communes are run by the CPP
as a result of efficient gerrymandering. In case you’re not aware of the
genesis of that term, the word is a combination of Gerry, the name of a governor
of Massachusetts in the early 19<sup>th</sup> century and a salamander, since
the electoral districts Gerry designed to favor his own party looked like
salamanders. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The CPP also has overwhelming control
of the parliament for that reason and a divided opposition – for a long time there
were two opposition parties - which makes it easier for the ruling party to
keep control. A similar situation exists in the UK: The party with the most
seats in parliament almost never has a majority of the vote… Margaret Thatcher
never got past about 40% of the vote. Still, even with some level of
intimidation, a partisan electoral commission and control of most of the media
by the ruling party, the opposition received about 45% of the vote in the last
election and, at least as far as I remember, it was deemed free and fair by
international observers. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The government’s case against Sam
Rainsy revolves around two factors. As part of a campaign ploy he pulled up
temporary border posts which the government and Vietnam were using to try to
demarcate the border between the two; thus destroying public property. As part
of that action he accused the PM of selling out Cambodia, essentially treason. For
that he received an 11 year sentence. That was way out of line in a Western
perspective, but accusing the PM of treason was beyond the pale in a Cambodian
context. In fact, the PM and his party are regularly criticized by the
opposition. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Sam Rainsy has never come close
to challenging the PM in the polls and personally I’m happy about that. In
general he’s a bit more conservative on social issues and rails against
corruption. On the latter, he might be better than the CPP on tackling that
issue, but that’s hard to say since Cambodia is hopelessly corrupt, scoring 157
out of 174 countries on Transparency International’s corruption perception
index, and so probably everybody is in the game. On the former, I’m personally
not fond of conservatism in any form. The real problem I have with him is that
his strongest campaign rhetoric involves stoking antagonism against the one million
or so ethnic Vietnamese living here, regularly using a derogatory term for them.
Pulling up the border posts was part of that push against the Viets.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
After all the terrible changes
that Cambodia has gone through the last thing it needs is ethnic strife. In
general terms, the Khmer are largely distrustful and disdainful of the
Vietnamese in spite of them driving Pol Pot out of power and saving possibly
hundreds of thousands of lives in the process. At the same time, on a personal
level they have no problem getting along with the Vietnamese, making friends
and just being the pleasant, easy going people that they are. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
While ethnic tension and violence
and even insurrection can be found in many of the surrounding countries, there
is absolutely none of that in Cambodia. The country has about 500,000 Muslims,
but there isn’t the barest hint that they are the least bit dissatisfied with
their lives here. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Cambodia is the easily the most
welcoming of foreigners in the region and maybe the world. Anybody from
anywhere in the world who can make their way to Cambodia can stay as long as
they like and if they wish, open a business with no interference from the
government (baksheesh excluded) or need of a local partner. Moreover, in a poll
last year, 78% said they thought their country was going in the right
direction: By any standard that is an amazing number. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The 400,000 people who’ve been
displaced over the past 10 years by urban development, dam building and rural
land concessions probably aren’t so happy about the country’s direction, but
overall Cambodia is growing economically at a good clip, with new construction
everywhere including impressive infrastructure improvements and a lot of
people’s lives are being enhanced. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
A lot of urban development in Phnom
Penh has been happening on filled-in lakes and wetlands and on formerly public
park spaces, all of which I consider a terrible mistake, almost a crime against
the people. Nevertheless, I don’t doubt that the government honestly sees that
development as a plus for the city. There’s unfortunately very little
transparency in how those projects are planned or who the land is sold off to,
and precious little citizen input. For a country that’s relatively new to
democracy, that’s discouraging but not surprising. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
There are a lot of dams being
built to supply electricity that is currently sorely inadequate, with blackouts
now happening on a daily basis in the capital. A large majority of power now
consumed in Cambodia comes from neighbors Vietnam and Thailand. Hydropower has
a great many advantages over burning fossil fuels, which the country is also
pursuing in the form of new coal plants in Sihanoukville. Hydropower does have
a great drawback here in that little can be produced in dry season when it’s
hottest and thus when it’s needed most. It also is displacing large numbers of
people and in some cases is or will be causing serious damage to the country’s
fisheries – Cambodians get 80% of their protein from fish. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Most of those drawbacks could be
ameliorated by building dams mostly in the mountains and possibly making them
smaller. Most river fish are found in slow moving flatland rivers, very few in
fast moving mountain streams, so, for instance, the Kamchey dam in the
mountains near Kampot will have little impact on local fisheries. There also
are few people who need to be relocated from mountainous areas. Nonetheless, a
lot of countries have in the past and/or are still in the present making the
same (what I consider to be) mistakes, so, once again, it’s difficult to fault
the government in that regard. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Some 10% of Cambodia’s total land
mass has been leased to local and foreign companies for industrial
agro-plantations and giant tourist projects. Concessions have been granted in
national parks and wildlife preserves as well as degraded forest land. In many
if not most cases that has involved displacement of local villagers. While most
people being displaced receive some type of compensation, much of it is
inadequate. Considering how endemic corruption is here, it seems likely many
public officials involved in the granting of concessions are filling their
pockets, still, as in the above, I don’t doubt they also believe it’s good for
the country. In a few years time Cambodia will be producing a lot of rubber,
sugar cane, acacia and palm oil from the many plantations now under development.
I would have done it differently, distributing land to thousands of villagers
instead of a few large corporations, as better for the country in the long run.
And for sure, I would never trash national parks and wildlife refuges with
plantations. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
In almost all of the above cases,
people affected have demonstrated and protested to varying degrees of success.
The government is not keen on the above stemming in part from a protest that
went violent back in 2002 with disastrous consequences for the country. In that
event a rumor, that was later learned to be unfounded, circulated that a
popular young Thai soap actress had claimed Angkor Wat belonged to Thailand and
made other disparaging remarks about Khmer people. What started as a protest
mostly involving college students resulted in the torching of several Thai
owned businesses as well as the Thai embassy. In the latter case the Thai
ambassador had to flee over a wall to save himself. The government was forced
to pay damages of about $30 million and offer profuse apologies. While many
Thai companies have important stakes in the economy, and Thailand was funding
Cambodian roads near the border at the time of the riots, it’s true that many
Thais look down on the Khmer. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
After that embarrassing event the
government has tried to put a lid on protests and demonstrations with varying
degrees of success. In spite of their efforts at suppression, protests are a
regular occurrence as are work actions by unionized garment workers. It is not
that different in America where people wishing to demonstrate at political
party conventions or international meetings are shunted off to ‘free speech
zones’ which often wind up to be paved areas surrounded by chain-link fences under
freeways and far from the venues, thus far from where anybody can see them or
hear of their grievances. In other cases, peaceful protesters have been pepper
sprayed just for the fun of it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finally, one of the international community’s demands
is the freeing of political prisoners. Last October Mam Sonando, 72-year-old
owner of one of the few independent radio stations and frequent government
critic was given a 20 year sentence on fabricated charges: supposedly he tried
to organize 400 village families, who were protesting the loss of their land to
a concession, to secede from Cambodia and form their own nation. Fortunately
the local foreign language press – we have two English language dailies here -
and international broadcasters like the BBC, which has an FM outlet in Phnom
Penh, have been left to do their work unhindered. Also last fall about 20
people protesting the loss of their land in an urban development were given 2
year sentences, but then were released a month or so later. Locking up
dissident voices is a very worrying trend; maybe they are trying to emulate
China, their great friend and benefactor where lots of people are routinely put
away for simple political advocacy. Still, the most political prisoners anybody
can come up with in Cambodia is 13. Even one is too much, but compare that with
Burma where even after all the thousands of prisoners who’ve been released,
there are still, by various estimates between 125 and 1000 political prisoners who
remain behind bars.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The Western media usually
categorize the PM as a strongman, sometimes a dictator. A dictator he is not as
they maintain control through violence, incarceration and murder of opponents.
The strongman appellation is fair. Some years ago he decided that betting on sports
was bad for the country and literally within two days, hundreds of legal
betting parlors were shut down and thousands lost their jobs. Also a while ago,
a property owner wanted to develop a large lot in a valuable and central
location that was occupied by an NGO serving homeless kids. Though not part of
any legal requirement, he offered to build a new facility for the NGO outside
the city’s central core, but the facility, which has a lot of powerful friends,
objected saying they needed to be where the kids were. The PM intervened on the
NGOs side and the property owner had to eat his development plans.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Cambodia is hardly a model
democracy, but in spite of some serious backsliding and worrying developments,
it’s still in pretty good shape. The country’s development plans, which are
causing much displacement and misery, and which I personally find very
troubling, are well within conventional development models; in other words,
heartily approved by the business/financial community. While the international political
community needs to keep up the human rights pressure, Cambodia’s situation needs
to be kept in perspective.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-49375729045024958632012-12-06T17:27:00.000-08:002012-12-06T17:27:46.610-08:00Bokor Update and Chugging Away
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Cambodians have a bad habit of
leaving their vehicle engines running for no apparent or valid reason….</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
But first a Bokor update.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Rumors have been swirling around
Kampot that the casino at Bokor is about to close. It wouldn’t make much sense to
do that now with high season nearly upon us, but a cursory observation would
indicate that closing might well be in the offing, or at least that it wouldn’t
be hard to understand why. I went up with a couple of friends at the beginning
of November; one wanted to stop in the casino. It was a Wednesday afternoon at
2 pm and there were about ten cars in the 300 car parking lot. Inside, staff
outnumbered gamblers about 10 to 1. Out of 6 fancy automated roulette tables my
friend was the only player. When we passed by on our way home at about 4 pm
there were three tour buses and a few more cars, but still nowhere near enough
to sustain such a big operation. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
One of the guys was up at Bokor
last April at New Year’s just after the casino was opened for business. The
popular parts of the plateau were crowded with people but the casino was deserted.
Khmers are not allowed to gamble - though simple bribes to doormen or
pretending to be Philippino will often get them in - so it’s technically
dependent on expats or tourists. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Their disappointment with casino
traffic is probably why they instituted a fee for entering the park; 10,000r
for a passenger car. What’s more they are vigilant about checking whether
you’ve paid once to get up top. When they first opened it was free, now they’re
scrounging for whatever nickels and dimes they can scare up. One of the guys
spent some time talking to a land salesman at the scale model. They’re asking
$227,000 for a 600 square meter building lot, $454,000 for 1300 square meters –
nearly $400 per meter. We’re talking real money here. Of course they say sales
are good, but I have my doubts. Nonetheless, new access roads are being carved
into the scrub trees all over the plateau.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The giant restaurant building seating
at least 300 people that sits almost right on top of the waterfall has been
outfitted with tables and chairs, but wasn’t open yet. Wouldn’t have mattered
much, on that Wednesday afternoon in November there weren’t 100 visitors, maybe
not even 50, roaming around the whole plateau.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
One other curious note is that
while a lot of work has taken place on rebuilding the old hotel - almost all
the walls had been replastered, for instance - there was no work taking place
when we were there, though it was a weekday and no holiday that I could think
of. Another indicator that things aren’t going as well as expected?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
I can’t say I wish them luck,
because I’d rather they go broke, but that’s just my take on what a national
park should be. With all the millions being spent, there’s not been anything
spent on building trails through the mostly intact beautiful old forests or
maintaining and signing the ones that already exist. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Once again – fourth time now –
the ocean was obscured from view by the nasty weather up there. Maybe it’s just
my bad luck. One friend had seen the ocean and he’d only been there once
before. At home that evening, there was a string of lightning strikes in town,
one of which took out the power and then caused it to go on and off for about
three hours. The darkness was convenient for seeing the lightning up on the
hill. For about 30 minutes it was nearly continuous, for another hour it was
flashing several times a minute. Another not very great selling point for
buying land up there.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
*****</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Chugging Away. As I was out and
about in Phnom Penh some time ago I walked by a big SUV idling away at a noodle
shop while its owner was having a leisurely bowl. I am making an assumption
there, maybe he had popped in for a minute just as I was walking by, but
leaving vehicles running, sometimes for relatively long times is very common in
Cambodia. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
That bad habit is not just
unnecessary but positively harmful for the environment. There’s only one
legitimate reason to keep a vehicle running for more than 20 or 30 seconds when
it’s not going somewhere: that is, if its electrical system has a problem and
it won’t start next time you turn the key. If the battery is weak or the
starter isn’t functioning properly then it makes sense to keep it chugging away
until you need to be moving again. If all relevant systems are in good shape
then starting an already warm vehicle results in virtually no wear on the
machinery. In a frigid place the engine will get more wear in the first few
seconds after starting, until the oil warms up and gets distributed, then it
would in hours of use. In the tropics even that type of wear is negligible. In
the above mentioned case, it was a nearly new luxury car so it’s very unlikely
to have had a starting problem.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Meanwhile, it’s a total waste of
fuel and results in air and sound pollution. It also adds to global warming and
even warming of the immediate surroundings. Walk by a car with its engine
running and even on the hottest day it’ll feel even hotter to be near. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
As I remember it was owned by
someone connected to the government. Many of those people get free petrol: 50
liters a month for the higher mucky-mucks; 20 for lesser factotums. That would
have made it easier to discount the cost of fuel, though anyone who can afford
$100,000+ for a new Lexus or Land Rover wouldn’t be worried about the cost of
running it. At any rate lots of owners of old jalopy trucks who obviously don’t
have money to burn do the same and they, unfortunately, make a lot more
pollution. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Evidently the cost of petrol here
is so low, even at $1.25 per liter – about $4.70 per US gallon – that the
expense of running the engine needlessly does not enter the equation. This
‘cheap’ gas is headed the way of the dodo bird, what with car ownership and
other fossil fuel uses growing very fast in a context of the world’s finite
resources. In the two behemoth developing nations, China and India, which
together house 40% of world population, and a lot of other countries - even including
Cambodia - fossil energy consumption is expanding at a torrid rate. No matter
how many new sources are found, we are going to run out. When the crunch comes
and prices skyrocket – visualize $5 per liter – those giant vehicles that crowd
Phnom Penh’s streets will be nearly useless. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Vietnam and Thailand and quite a
few other countries in the region and around the world, heavily subsidize
petrol as a benefit to their people. It makes their industry more competitive and
many citizen’s lives a bit easier but it’s a very dangerous practice since it’s
nearly impossible to take that benefit away once people have gotten used to it.
When gas prices rise substantially those governments find themselves in
untenable situations. Indonesia, for instance, now spends 20% of its budget on
fuel subsidies instead of that money being available for the country’s many
pressing problems. In Jordan, as I’m penning this, there are riots over the
government’s plan to end fuel subsidies. A few months ago it was Nigeria which
was going through turmoil over the end of cheap fuel. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Besides, a large part of the subsidies
go to the middle class and rich who really don’t need help with fuel costs.
Many people in that situation drive more – using more fuel, making more
pollution, etc. - than they would otherwise because it’s so cheap. Governments
have fallen after trying to increase prices to world levels. Cambodia also
spends a lot on fuel subsidies but since they only go to the favored few in the
government, that cost may be sustainable for a while longer. It makes sense for
governments to subsidize food, for instance, since people aren’t going to eat
more just because it’s cheaper, unless they’ve been hungry in the past, and
that’s not a problem. Health care, education; of course, no better way to spend
money than on a healthy, educated population. But fuel, a big mistake.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
In a similar vein, last hot
season, during one of our regular power outages, a friend spotted the family
next door pouring out of their apartment and into their black SUV to take
advantage of the air-conditioner. Some spendy chillin’ that; running a 6-liter
V-8 to keep a handful of people cool. The patriarch was a military man so he
too probably was on the free-fuel dole. (I know a guy back in the states who
does something similar though on a much smaller scale. He won’t get into his
car on a hot day until he’s had it running long enough to let the air-con chill
it down. How long could it take for the air-conditioner in a new mid-level car
to get the temperature down to a comfortable level? 20 seconds? There isn’t a
lot of fuel, pollution or cost involved, but still waste is waste.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
It’s important to note that the
car was black. A couple issues back this mag had an aerial picture of the
parking lot at the PM’s office building on Russian Boulevard. It looked like a
sea of big black SUVs. There’s a movement afoot in America to ban black cars (freaky,
extremist, eco-radicals, no doubt) which sounds at first to be a bit wacky, but
consider; it costs more to air-con a black car than a white one. It’s no secret
that black absorbs heat: put your hand on a white car in the sun and it feels
hot; try to do same on a black car and you’ll burn your hand. Luxury cars are
well insulated but that doesn’t change the fact that some of that heat gets
through and so it still costs more to air-con than a white car. Just going from
white to black adds 2% to fuel cost.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
There are many variables in
calculating the cost of vehicle air con so it’s hard to pinpoint a firm number.
Among the variables is car speed, outside temperature and color. If you’ve got
the windows open at highway speeds, wind drag cancels out some of the savings
from not using the air-con. At slow in-town speeds there’s not much air drag.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here are few factoids: Air-con adds on average
10 to 15% to the cost of operating the vehicle. It costs the same to air-condition
an average size car as it does to keep it going at 35mph – about 55kph. Using
air-con in very small vehicles, like a 1300cc Tico for instance, increases cost
by about 50%. A study of German cars showed they used between 2.75 liters and
4.25 liters more fuel per 100 kilometers of travel. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
I try to avoid air-conditioning
because I simply don’t like it but there are times when it is important. When I
first started teaching in Phnom Penh in 2001 I worked at Norton U. where the
classrooms were not yet air-conditioned. It was hell trying to talk over street
noise – car horns, screaming kids, weddings, etc. - and several large fans
blasting away at high speed. Air-con is the only reasonable alternative in that
situation. I also get tired of keeping the windows open when I’m driving down
the highway with all the noise and wind, so I turn it on here and there.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
I understand that some people
can’t deal with the heat, but with the planet hotting up it’d be good to try to
get used to it. On the other hand, the planet’s gonna fry anyway, so why
bother, just turn up the air-con.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-13661152365801154832012-10-31T21:41:00.002-07:002012-10-31T21:41:49.767-07:00Pull Tabs and Alcohol Advertising<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Just before Cambodia beer made
its recent debut, the government declared that all alcohol advertising should be
banned, to improve road safety among other things. They quickly realized that
that would be impractical and amount to a drastic change since beer posters and
banners are ubiquitous and seemingly are just about the only decoration the
typical local Khmer restaurant or bar has available. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
But at least they figured they could
prohibit those pull tab beer promotions, except that Cambodia beer had just
come online with one and, well, since they had no warning of the change it
didn’t seem right to stop them. So okay, that’ll be the last pull tab
promotion. Now several months later the pull tab ban has been forgotten and all
three major beer brands are competing with those same promotions. I personally
have a strong distaste for them for two reasons; they’re not likely to be
recycled and they’re a bloody nuisance.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
As to the former, while it’s true
that they are very small, when you’re talking about hundreds of millions of
them, it starts to add up. Regarding the nuisance part, while thinking about
this month’s topic I saw a bar girl cut her finger on one. Okay, a good point
to make but hostesses can be ditzy so not necessarily a strong argument against
pull tabs. Then a few days later as I was formulating this article in my mind,
I cut my own finger. Yes, I am approaching geezerhood and I have been getting
clumsy of late – reaching for things which fly out in all directions instead of
being held in my normally firm grip – but still, is it really a good idea to
have millions of sharp little objects floating around the environment? The tab which
bit me was being crunched up so I could put it back into a can and recycle it.
I used to put them back in while there was still beer in the can – otherwise
they often don’t get recycled – but they would sometimes come back out into my
mug, so I gave up on that one.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Pull tabs were banned in Oregon
in the early seventies so the nasty little buggers are deep in my
consciousness. Digression: I realize I mention Oregon a lot in these articles,
but it is a special place: Oregon is to the US as Cambodia is to southeast
Asia; a small, friendly, easy going, low key place to live or visit. Now I
understand that few readers of this article have any interest at all in going
to America, but if you do, skip New York, Florida and California, the big three
tourist magnets, and head to Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, you’ll be very
pleasantly surprised. If you have to do the big three, at least make a little time
to get off the beaten path.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
One of the great things about
Oregon is its 100% public coastline; there are no private beaches and no
private land within the riparian zone; it’s the only state that I’m aware of
where that is true. One of things people most like to do on the coast is walk
the beaches. Before the ban people were getting their feet cut up by pull tabs
strewn around the sand and that was the impetus behind their prohibition. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Personally, I find it hard to
imagine how pull tab prizes would encourage people to drink, only possibly
change their brand. It’s also debatable exactly how much advertising of alcohol
affects the total amount consumed. Alcohol has been around as long as Western
civilization: I never tire of pointing out that Jesus’ first miracle involved
changing water into wine. Supplies were depleted at the wedding at Cana at
least partly because of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus’ presence,
since a lot of extra guests came to see Him… He figured it was important to let
the celebration continue. To let the good times keep rolling. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
I don’t think my own intake is
affected by advertising, though it’s hard to say what deep, deep subliminal
messages were planted in my brain from an early age. I certainly find it difficult
to go a day without at least a couple of beers; the only exception being if
I’ve got a raging hangover from the night before. Alcohol is a great mellower,
relaxer, easer of tension and obliterator of inhibitions. It’s also been shown
to be benign healthwise when done in moderation. Studies have shown that people
who have two drinks a day live longer than total teetotalers. No need to
mention that serious souses don’t live all that long.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
This brings up another ‘big’
question. Does the moderate imbiber live longer in spite of drink or because of
it? Is that moderate amount of alcohol still a negative for your body but its evils
counterweighted by the good it does to your mental attitude? In a perfect world
where everybody is high and happy on life, would there no longer be a market
for alcohol? Would people no longer need an escape? Would drinking become
history?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Clearly, no need to worry about
that now, the insanity and inanity of life demands palliative care – at least
it does for me and most of you out there reading this. What would be good to
know is the impact of advertising on individual consumption and the total number
of imbibers. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The subject of banning alcohol
advertising in Cambodia was brought up again at the beginning of October in a
conference organized by the Ministry of Information, National Road Safety
Committee and World Health Organization. An official from the Ministry of
Public Works and Transport who attended was quoted as saying that “…traffic
accidents, injuries and fatalities can be prevented through… control over
alcohol advertisements promoting drinking.” They no longer seek to ban all
advertising but want to include ‘don’t drive drunk’ messages on labels and
prohibit all audio and text on TV beer ads. Another person interviewed for the
article said reducing drunk driving is more a changing of attitudes towards it
and better enforcement, which I tend to agree with.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Nevertheless, advertising has to
have an effect: when a young malleable mind sees posters or TV ads showing
happy smiling beer drinkers with beautiful girls (or boys) at their elbows, it
has to make an impression. When my son was a teenager he referred to drinking
as ‘romantic’. That’s exactly the image that alcohol purveyors seek to implant.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
On the topic of the impact of
advertising, let me refer again to a study done on young children a few years
back. Three- to five-year-old kids were given a MacDonald’s hamburger in a Mac
wrapper and an identical one in a plain wrapper. They did the same for fries
and baby carrots, which MacDonald’s doesn’t sell. In every case, by a wide
margin, the kids said the food in the Mac wrapper tasted better. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
So the next time you have a
hankering for a Big Mac, think about it, are you craving it because you’re
hungry and it tastes good, or because you subconsciously expect it to make you
happy? Or help you find the girl or boy of your dreams? Contentment?
Enlightenment? Considering what goes into them – lettuce soaked in a chemical
bath to keep it looking fresh far longer than it ought to – and how they’re
made, taste is probably not your true motivator. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
I’m quite certain ads have no
effect on my alcohol habit, or whether I drive under the influence, but there
are a lot of impressionable people out there and it’s not hard to imagine that
a lot of them are encouraged to drink through advertising; we’re all looking
for a good time, no? What’s more, though a couple of beers a day may be
perfectly okay, we all know how easy it is to go overboard. Even many of us who
don’t get flat out, laying-in-the-gutter drunk, still have a tendency to find
it hard to stop at the benign 2-drink level. Let’s face it, every time you wake
up weak, woozy, headachy from an over-the-top bout with alcohol the night
before, you have tortured your body, put it through the ringer. Sure it was
great for your head - you had a jolly old time - but it was equally bad for
your body.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
There are many aspects that have
given alcohol its well-deserved bad rep. The accidents, the slobbering, puking,
drunkenness, the craziness, the violence, the diseases, the addiction are all
undeniably points of negativity and danger. Americans thought it was so evil back
in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century they banned it. Conservative Christians,
Hindus and Muslims are all down on boozin’. (I’m convinced the reason why Arabs
in particular and Muslims in general are so contentious, quick to anger and
prone to indulge in fundamentalism is the prohibition of alcohol, sex and drugs
along with the heavy consumption of strong coffee. Under that regimen, I’d be
freaking mad too.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
On the above basis, I think all
adverts should be banned. People could easily find it without marketing if
they’re into it, but there’s no good reason for encouraging people to drink
more than they otherwise would. There’s also no good reason to allow
advertising to romanticize it by drawing alluring but ultimately false
impressions of drinking that makes it seem so acceptable and benign without also
insuring that people understand the reality, the dark side.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
My other major complaint with
alcohol ads in Cambodia simply has to do with esthetics. It totally uglifies
the country to have ubiquitous beer posters marring the countryside and city
entertainment districts. At one point I thought of taking a nighttime picture
of Street 136, but then when I looked I realized all you would see was lighted
beer signs. Tacky, trashy, ugly as sin is what comes to mind. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Instead of interesting, artistic,
catchy logos individually designed and created for each bar, you have a line of
beer signs all in similar colors since all three main brews are very close in the
impression they give. And what do the bar owners get for trashing the visual
scene? They get a free sign in which the top half is beer ad and in the other
half the Khmer name is much larger than the English; by law the Khmer is
supposed to be three times the size of the English. When making your own sign
you can fudge on that requirement. The part that means anything to the bar’s
promotion comes down to about a third of the sign’s area. For that they save a
big $50; the cost of a sign without the beer ad top. They pay tens of thousands
of dollars to create a really nice looking bar and then allow it to be totally tackified
to save a lousy fifty bucks. But maybe people don’t realize how cheap they are;
well now you know.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
I can see, for instance, a bar
having a small lighted sign saying which beer it has on tap, but coasters, bar
mats, umbrellas, posters, banners, large lighted signs and more? I can
understand why local funky Khmer establishments would think a free sign is a
great thing because they work on a really small margin and besides have no idea
how hideous their beer-poster décor looks. They have no clue of how tasteless
it is to cover the surface of all your walls with beer ads. But a westerner?
C’mon man, ambiance, style, individuality and taste are important.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
All that ranting aside, if you’re
one of the many bar-owner friends of mine who’ve succumbed to the lure of a
free sign, forgive me for being so indelicate. I realize it’s not always that
easy to be different, to buck the trend since most people are doing it. Please
don’t take it personally, it’s just part of venting my loathing of advertising
in general. Money isn’t the root of all evil, advertising is. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
While I can’t imagine that beer
advertising will ever be completely banned in Cambodia, esthetically it would
be a wonderful gift for Phnom Penh and the whole country.</div>
Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-33429167606104852332012-10-02T20:31:00.000-07:002012-10-02T20:31:04.072-07:00China Says Jump; Cambodia Asks, How High? <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Two months after the last Asean –
Association of Southeast Asian Nations – meeting, Cambodia is still catching
flak for torpedoing a joint statement that would have referenced the territorial
dispute in the South China Sea between China and the Philippines and Vietnam;
Malaysia and Brunei also have competing claims but they’ve maintained a lower
profile. Vietnam and the Philippines wanted the closing statement to ask all
parties to adhere to a code of conduct and abide by basic rules of the sea. It
was the first time in the Association’s 45 year history that no closing communiqué
was agreed upon.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Since Cambodia holds the rotating
chair this year it did its damnedest to prevent any language not approved by
Beijing. At one point it went so far as to cut off the microphone of the
Philippine representative to prevent him from speaking. In response to
Philippine complaints which were still being voiced long after the meeting, the
Cambodian ambassador to that country wrote a scathing article accusing the
Philippines of ‘dirty politics’ and saying it was trying to sabotage the
meeting by injecting outside matters into it. That prompted the Philippine
government to summon the ambassador for a dressing down – to register its own
complaint at the Cambodian ambassador’s decidedly undiplomatic tone. The
ambassador never showed up. With great surprise and raised eyebrows all around,
Cambodia declared a few days later that he didn’t show because he’d already
been reassigned. In typical Cambodian fashion the easiest way to deal with the
situation was to avoid it with a tall tale nobody would ever believe. At least,
in Cambodian reality, the confrontation was avoided by a little diplomatic
sleight-of-hand.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
It’s not hard to understand Cambodia’s
extreme deference to China’s political needs as it’s the country’s foremost
donor and financier. Think roads, railroads, bridges, dams, irrigation; the
money keeps poring in. The dams are generally BOT, or build, operate for a long
period and then transfer to the government. The rest are concessionary loans;
that is, loans at lower than market interest, though considering how flush
China is, the interest rates are higher than they need to be or should be.
Nonetheless, there’s a lot of money flowing in and it’s made a clear difference
in Cambodia’s development. The latest tranche, announced September 4, amounted
to $523 million, five hundred of which is loans for unspecified infrastructure
projects, a cool $23 mil grant for the PM to use at his discretion. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Sin Serey, Cambodia’s ambassador
to Singapore, in response to an opinion piece in Thai newspaper The Nation
accusing Cambo of being too closely aligned with China is quoted as saying,
“Cambodia, a country with great civilization and culture for thousands of
years, is not a Banana Republic. Cambodia has not been and will never be
kowtowing to any country.” Of course not! However, according to Prime Minister
Wen Jaibao, China will ‘closely coordinate’ with Cambo on the upcoming Asean
meeting in November. But hey, that’s not kowtowing, only coordinating. He also
thanked Cambodia for helping China maintain friendly relations with the Asean
countries. Cambodia insists (paraphrasing from the same article) it’s not
taking sides but actually taking a principled stand in urging members to settle
their differences with China bilaterally, exactly China’s position. Well, now,
if you were a 900 pound gorilla would you want to take on a pack of hungry hyenas
one at a time or all together?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The dispute centers around
China’s claim to the entire South China Sea encompassing about 2 million square
kilometers, including areas that are very close, within figurative spitting
distance, to the other countries but far from China, more than 2000 kilometers
from the nearest mainland Chinese territory. Proximity doesn’t always infer
right of ownership, but it’s a strong determining factor nonetheless. China’s
claim goes back to the fifties when it drew a line around the South China Sea
and said this is ours based on historical precedents. This would be akin to
Mexico claiming California based on historical ownership while ignoring current
US possession of more than 150 years. Or Spain claiming the same because they
were there first, or why not go all the way back to Native Americans making the
same claim?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
There are three areas of concern
regarding potential Chinese ownership of the whole South China Sea: first is
possession of natural resources, supposedly there’s a lot of oil under the sea;
two is fishing rights, in a very densely populated part of the world, of utmost
importance; three, and most worrying for the international community is sea
transport; about half of all oil shipments in the world and a commensurate
amount of other trade passes through the South China Sea. It wasn’t till the
seventies during China’s Cultural Revolution that serious claims were made in
the area. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The current dispute with Japan
over the Senkaku Islands – Daioyu in Chinese - in the East China sea is also instructive.
Japan took over control of the uninhabited islands in 1895 when nobody was
there and no other claims of sovereignty existed. It wasn’t until 1971, 76
years after Japan first took over, that China made its first claim or mentioned
them at all. What is Japan supposed to do? take a deep bow and say, We’re sorry
we’ve occupied your islands for more than a century, if it hurts your feelings
we’ll pack up tomorrow. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Recent Chinese aggressiveness
stems from three factors; a longtime inferiority complex and resulting quest
for revenge regarding perceived past wrongs done to them, a desire on the part
of the government to stoke the fires of nationalism to help it maintain control
and divert people’s attention from the deficiencies of autocratic government,
and a heady power that comes from their newfound economic prowess and wealth. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Chinese are still furious about
the way they were humiliated by the British more than 160 years ago in the
Opium Wars. They are rightly proud of their long history and rich culture but
still don’t grasp how their xenophobia, feeling of superiority and aloofness back
then kept them from changing and adapting to the modern world and thus made
them vulnerable to relatively very small forces from the outside. Japan too
made them feel small and inadequate in its easy takeover of parts of the
country and the ruthless way Chinese people were treated. Now that they are
borderline rich and powerful, they feel the need for revenge. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Still Japan is an important
trading partner, to the tune of $350 billion annually, and investor and employer
of many Chinese so it would seem to behoove China to minimize conflict with
Japan. Recent news articles have implicated China in organizing the anti-Japan
protests, which have turned violent and caused many Japanese to reconsider
their commitment to China, all the while the state media counsel calm and
non-violence. In Qingdao on September 15, rioters/looters spent more than four
hours causing $30 million damage to a Japanese-Chinese joint venture
supermarket. If they were Tibetans, Uighers or Falun Gong practitioners peacefully
demonstrating they’d have their heads bashed in and taken to jail in a wink and
a nod, but somehow the police in one of China’s largest cities stood helpless for
4 hours while a large supermarket was being ransacked.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Do they expect to humiliate Japan
by forcing them to abandon the islands and still expect that country to
maintain its massive industrial presence there? Maybe they feel so rich and
powerful they can forego that economic relationship in spite of the great loss
to both economies. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Let me relate an incident from my
own experience while living in China in the mid-nineties. For three days Chinese
TV news headlined a story about a few shipping containers from a recycler in
New York that were sold as recycled scrap paper but actually were garbage. The
question, continually repeated by news anchors in an insulted and angry tone
was, Why is America sending us its garbage? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Having spent quite a few years in
a cooperative recycling business in Portland I can offer a little background.
Scrap paper is almost worthless. We received a token $5 per ton for it and the
brokers received their shipping costs but not much more. We recycled it in
spite of the loss because we believed in the cause. It all went to China where
their low cost of labor allowed them to pick through it to pull out the more
valuable stuff before recycling the rest for low quality uses. Because it was
mixed paper people often mistook it for garbage, or would carelessly toss
garbage in with it. Knowing the waste paper business and the probable lackadaisical
attitude towards recycling in New York at the time, it wouldn’t be surprising
if some or even a lot of garbage got mixed with the paper. It also wouldn’t be
surprising if an unscrupulous outfit purposely misrepresenting their garbage as
paper to save the cost of disposal and receive money for their ‘paper’. So a
few containers worth a few hundred dollars sent by a private company became
America Sending China its Garbage as an outrage and humiliation. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
My Chinese wife, who I brought to
America a year or so later, was amazed to see Made in China everywhere. So at
the same time the Chinese media was casting America in the most derogatory
terms as a means of stoking nationalism, it was making bundles of money while
taking over the American market. I haven’t been back to China in 16 years but
everything I hear tells me nothing really has changed. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
For 16 years and more the US has
been complaining about China’s manipulation of its currency to make their goods
artificially cost less and for the same length of time China has promised to
change and proceeded with very small adjustments just barely enough to temporarily
appease the US and its other trading partners but not enough to change the
reality on the ground. During that time it has amassed $3 trillion worth of
foreign reserves, mostly in US dollars. This all came about because of
capitalism’s love of doing business with a state which maintains firm control
of its workers; forbidding unions or protests or any kind of dissention from
the party line. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
China for its part has taken the
ball and run with it. With a combination of smarts and hard work in addition to
currency and market manipulation and repression of workers, it has become too
powerful not to want to flex its muscles and take what it considers its
rightful place in the world, with threats of force if necessary. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
China is now a communist country
in name only. When I lived there my wife was a teacher in a minority kids’
boarding school. The teachers, administrators, students and maintenance staff
all lived at the school in a gated complex. Health care and all social benefits
were enjoyed by all. The maintenance staff lived in quite mean circumstances
compared to the headmaster, but nothing like the gulf between the two levels
today. At one point I met an important fellow who I was told had a lot of
money. He rode a bicycle like everyone else because he didn’t want to flaunt
his wealth. That’s communism. All that is finished, people are now on their
own; the grave to cradle safety net - the Iron Rice Bowl - has been shredded. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Today, China much more closely
fits the description of fascism. Quoting from my dictionary. “Fascism is a set
of right-wing political beliefs that includes strong control of society and the
economy by the state, a powerful role for the armed forces, and the stopping of
political opposition.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
China has perfected the
philosophy: The state controls everything important, all opposition is
repressed, leaders live like royalty while the peasantry are exploited and
oppressed for the benefit of the nation. Nationalism fits perfectly into the
fascist mindset.. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Consider the plight of China’s
hundreds of millions of migrant workers. They work excessive hours for low
wages, are segregated from and looked down upon by their fellow urbanites, they
receive no benefits in the cities they live in, including not having the right
to send their children to school, let alone healthcare or any other social
services. They’ve worked hard to make China rich without receiving any of the
benefits that are their due and certainly would be forthcoming in a true
communist state. Illegal immigrants in America have more rights and receive
more benefits than Chinese migrant workers in their own country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The question is why act the bully
and turn your whole neighborhood into a conflict zone using a flimsy, if not
specious, historical argument for a bunch of small uninhabited islands? China
is a great country: Even if there are natural resources there, why play the ruffian
and antagonize everyone around you? The answer is twofold: autocratic leaders
need to feed the fires of nationalism to maintain their power, and they are
basically clueless. Just as most Chinese people blindly follow the party line,
the leadership is prone to take stands which almost everyone else in the world
considers ridiculous. Their vendetta against the Dalai Lama is a case in point.
He is very widely, if not universally, recognized outside of China as a wise
and great spirit, an advocate for peace, yet to China he’s pure evil and every
time he goes to visit another country China lodges a protest and threatens
vague repercussions. To the rest of the world their attitude towards the Dalai
Lama makes them a laughingstock. They are either so far out of touch they are
oblivious or maybe they do understand the absurdity of their positions but
don’t care because they cravenly feel the need to use him as a nationalistic
focus, a foil to help maintain their power. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
China has money to burn and knows
how to use it to make friends with countries like Cambodia. Recognizing how
important China is to Cambodia’s development plans, Cambodia will do all in its
power to protect China’s interests, even against the wishes and interests of
its neighbors. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-63780812482014340692012-09-12T02:41:00.000-07:002012-09-12T02:41:51.659-07:00Kampot Chronicles August 2012<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Kampot Chronicles - August 2012</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
A friend, who I’ve known
practically since I first came to Cambodia almost ten years ago, stopped by in
Kampot, first time for him in several years: his observation; This town is
really boutiquey. Being as he’d just spent several months in Koh Kong, just
about anything would seem boutiquey… but still… the little Pot has definitely
become a destination for travelers and expats, indicated by the number of shops
selling trinkets, tourist clothes and Kampot pepper that’ve cropped up in the
past year or so. Kampot pepper now has a geographic designation, which means
the name cannot be used elsewhere and has considerably raised demand for it. We’re
also Cambodia’s center of sea salt production, so salt and pepper town.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Kampot is nothing compared to the
tourist/expat Mecca’s of Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and Sihanoukville, but it’s also
far from the foreigner deserts of all the other small towns in Cambo. A friend,
who’s lived in Battambang - Cambodia’s second largest city - for quite a long
time came to visit last year; he was amazed at the number of white faces ambling
around town. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
There are advantages of a little
boutiqueiness. While I’m perfectly comfortable in local restaurants and bars
outfitted with plastic chairs, fold-up metal tables, glaring bright white
florescent lights and décor consisting exclusively of beer posters and
pennants, there is some comfort in surroundings created with the Westerner in
mind. For one, in place of a TV blasting out Khmer karaoke songs or cartoons or
soap-opera-dramas dubbed in Khmer, you get to hear those old familiar songs and
musical styles. While I’m capable of handling an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">el cheapo</i> cup of bitter, low quality coffee embellished with a super-sweet,
pseudo-milk dairy creamer, a real cup of quality java is a positive treat. Kampot
now has two, soon-to-be three, coffee shops in the western tradition.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
It takes a minimum of
expat/travelers to support those types of venues. I don’t have any problem
seeing lots of backpackers around as do some of my friends who get nervous and
tetchy in their presence (actually, seeing people wheeling suitcases around rough
third world streets and sidewalks looks a lot stranger to me) and I do
appreciate that there’re enough of them around to enable a variety of
businesses to sprout.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
It wasn’t that long ago that I
had a couple or three bars to go to and had some days off in between. I’d get
my entertainment kicks in the capital and return for an R and R in Kampot. Now,
what with all that’s happening around town, I have to force myself to take a
night or two off.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
For one there’s the Tuesday night
trivia quiz at Blissful Guest House. The quiz consists of a picture round where
you need to name people or places - one time it was boobs - followed by two
general questions rounds - quick, What’s the coldest capital city in the world?
Ulan Bator, Mongolia. How many languages does BBC broadcast in? 27. What
century was the main temple at Angkor Wat built? 12th. Finally there’s a music
round where you have to identify both song and artist from the first five or
ten seconds of the track. Since my team is a bunch of geriatrics, we pretty
much fall down on almost anything recorded past the seventies and eighties, so
we have to do very good on the general questions before the music round or we’re
sunk. After bringing up the rear for a couple of weeks, and not winning for
about two months, we’ve won twice in a row as of this writing. Prize is a
3-liter tower of beer. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Then there’s live music. It’s the
August mini-high season and there are 5 nights a week of scheduled music. A lot
of the same guys are involved but there’s a different mix on almost every
occasion. Since I play conga drums I can sit in almost any night. There are
also special events; the Greenhouse had a Saturday night 2 band party with more
than 50 people attending. One friend, being too drunk to drive home, rented a
room at 2am, another found himself crashed out on the tiny sand beach in the
morning. A great time was had by all.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The Greenhouse is the
reincarnation of the former Snow’s bar which sat on the river in Phnom Penh for
quite a long time. It was carefully dismantled, hauled down here and
reassembled in a beautiful spot on Kampot’s river about 7 kilometers from town.
About 15% of the building had to be replaced. Now the floor is actually level.
The building was improved by removing the low ceiling on the front one third of
the structure thus opening it up to the high vaulted ceiling. It’s a special
place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
While I tremendously appreciate
the live music and have become addicted to quiz night, the greatest improvement
for me personally is Ecran, our new movie theater. There are quite a few things
I can say I miss about living in the states; Portland, Oregon in particular. My
kids and grandkids and lifelong friends, mountains and forests and seashore crisscrossed
with well maintained and marked trails, beautifully preserved architecture and
respect for the past, but what I’ve really been missing is intelligent,
artistic, brain-teaser flicks. Real movies, not car chase, crash and explode,
shoot-em’-ups designed to appeal to teenage boys. Those kind of movies are
slick and crafty and the special effects are spectacular, all right, but after
3 or 5 minutes of brilliantly choreographed car chases (or if it’s a Chinese
movie, flying-through-the-air kung-fu-fighting) I’m bored silly.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Well, in this case, in terms of
my own preferences, we’ve got it all. I’ve been going about twice a week since
it opened a month ago, but almost every movie is one I want to see. The Artist,
the silent movie that won lots of awards, started it off. Then there was Mr.
Nice and Blow, two big-time-drug-dealer movies. 127 hours, the flick about the
guy who gets his arm wedged in between two rocks while out hiking and, after
more than five days stuck there, has to cut it off to survive. The new Woody
Allen; Dangerous Method, the film about the relationship between Jung and
Freud; Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; three music-hero movies; Bob Dylan, Pink
Floyd and The Doors: What more could you ask for? And the set up is perfect:
4-meter screen with an excellent sound system and comfortable seating including
two platforms with cushions and pillows. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
For most of you out there,
probably 95%, having a legitimate cinema is not such a big deal because you’re
probably in the habit of watching the latest flicks on your TV or computer. But
since I don’t do TV - I’ve only cohabited with one for a total of four years
since 1965 - a real theater is my only option. Besides, at 71 my eyes aren’t
the greatest so I miss a lot watching on a small screen. Add the interruptions
and casualness of watching at home and I’m just not interested. I want to be
immersed, I want it to be an experience rather than time-killing entertainment.
To sum up; I’m thrilled, my prayers have been answered, I couldn’t have done it
better.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Then there’s the grass
hut/karaoke bars, the small town equivalent of big city hostess venues, which
I’ve only recently discovered after nearly five years in Kampot. They’re
usually out on the edge of town in a outdoor setting. There’ll be a row of
karaoke rooms rentable for $3 per hour and tables under thatch roofs for just
drinking. Beers range from 3000 riel to a dollar; usually served warm with ice.
Similar to the typical low-cost local restaurant, all the décor is beer posters
with an occasional mobile phone poster thrown in for good measure. Strangely
enough they often display posters for beers they don’t sell. One has posters
for a locally brewed wheat beer! Who ever heard of such a thing? Of course they
don’t carry it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
They’re fine just for drinking but
if you want female companionship there’s a $3 charge for her to sit at your
table, but no extra cost for lady drinks or bar fines for her to leave the
premises. Hardly any speak English, so it’s a bit of a challenge communicating.
Some of the girls are staff, most are floaters. If a venue is busy they make a
few calls and like magic, they’re flooded with staff. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
All in all a big challenge for me
to stay home a couple nights a week.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
There’s been a rush of work
restoring or rebuilding riverfront properties. I mentioned that to a friend who
told me the authorities told property owners to get it together or else. Of
course, I have no idea what the ‘or else’ might entail, but we know how it
works here in our adopted home. In some ways the old derelict buildings gave
the town some character. Boutiquey is okay but not when it completely takes
over the vibe. In any case the renovation is happening and is taking place at
the start of a new property bubble. I’ve heard one riverfront owner asking
$250,000 for a single shophouse. That price might be justifiable on Phnom
Penh’s river, but for Kampot somewhere in the stratosphere in terms of true
value. The only way that property could be worth that much is if you think
someone else will pay even more for it in the future. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
For a simple rule of thumb,
figure a property costing $250 grand needs to be able to garner 1% a month of
that, or $2500, in rent to justify that price. In Kampot, that’s beyond absurd.
The little burg is a special place and growing rapidly, but the most profitable
business in town couldn’t afford half that in rent without it eating up almost
all of its profits. Still, people with money seem to be starry eyed about the
town’s potential and so ridiculous prices are being asked and outsize rents are
being paid. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
For instance, the owner of the
town’s new 8 story hotel set up his kid with a bar on the river. It’s cool,
modern, nicely decorated but at a rent of $550 per month for a space that
doesn’t extent very far back, a pure cash sink. With utilities and two staff,
they’d have to sell close to 60 beers a night to break even, yet in the two
months it’s been open I haven’t seen a total of 50 customers the whole time. Sure
it’s low season, but still it’s quite unimaginable how they’ll make the rent
even in high season, especially with new bars opening regularly and with all
the renovating being done, even more new spaces are being created for competitors.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Competition will also come from
the renovation of the old market which is nearing completion. In addition to
about 80 market stalls which are going for $125 month there’ll be room for
several restaurant stalls. Once again, I don’t see where the business is going
to come from, but I’ve been wrong about these things many times in the past, so
who knows?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
With all the push for tourism and
expats it came as a great surprise when new directional signs - you know the
ones with the giant billboard on top - turned out to be only in Khmer. Even the
one on the way up to Bokor has no English. Those are the only ones in the
country I’ve seen that don’t include English. What could they have been
thinking?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The riverfront walkway renovation
is almost complete with a public toilet, of all things, at the north end near
the new bridge. The only public space yet to be improved is the pond at the
south end of town. It’s 4 or 5 hectares and big enough for boating and other water
fun. Technically it’s no longer a pond: it’s gotten so overgrown lately it’s
more like a wetland. I sure hope the city has sensitive, green recreational
plans for the space but I fear the worst.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Finally, next to the governor’s
mansion at the southern end of town, which I understand is slated to become a
museum, a new elections office has been constructed. It’s been very nicely done
in traditional Cambodian architecture except for two garish semi-circular,
three story columns of ultra modern blue glass. Who would do such a thing?
That’s like putting flashing electric lights on Angkor Wat… Hey, wait… a few
years ago the government <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">did</i> want to
brighten up the temples with colored lights, only (thankfully) to be shot down
by the Angkor Authority… Oh, well.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
My friend, mentioned in the first
paragraph, who only planned to stay for a few days, stayed for more than ten.
It happens a lot, people come expecting to pass quickly through, but then don’t
want to leave.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-4095509582854653262012-08-02T02:50:00.000-07:002012-08-02T02:50:33.582-07:00Down the Drain<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Not long after our last flood
here in Kampot a couple years back, the PM suggested the river be dredged to
prevent a further swamping. (Never mind that that flood was at least partly caused
by a breach in Kamchey dam - which the authorities vehemently denied - which
was then under construction). Unfortunately, the PM’s grasp of geography leaves
a bit to be desired. The river, which is officially called a bay (though I’ve
never seen a bay that was a hundred meters wide and more than 10 kilometers
long) is in fact an estuary. Dredging it can make no difference to the water
level which is based almost entirely on ocean tides with the addition of
occasional storm surges from the ocean and heavy rainfall coming down from the
mountains. When high tide is combined with the latter two there’s a possibility
of flooding. For sure, conditions were ripe for the big flood even without the
breach in the dam.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Just the opposite is true when
the river is narrowed through filling. Constricting the channel cannot help but
exacerbate the flooding problem and that’s exactly what’s been happening. A
couple years back a large area of several hectares, just across the river from
old town, was filled in. Somebody important must have big plans for the area,
though the land sits idle. The river is obviously public space, so filling in
that area was clearly a valuable gift to a mighty mucky-muck. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Dredging did commence last dry
season and quite a lot of sand was removed. As long as the sand is taken from
the center of the river, it shouldn’t cause serious erosion, but it clearly
looked like some was dredged very close to the bank, which is almost certain to
cause problems later on. Much of the sand went to Singapore, some of it was
used to fill in the riverbank. One use is that riverside park is being extended
south about 100 meters... a great idea, but not in terms of flooding. On both
sides of the river there are now strips of very high piles of sand with no
clear purpose that I’m aware of. Dredging and sale of sand was stopped a while
back on the PM’s orders, but the sand remains. Property owners along the river
also are prone to build retaining walls which extend out into the river a bit.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
All of which point to serious
problems down the line. I live about 200 meters from the water. I was fortunate
during the last flood to be out of town, since the water would’ve been up to
the windows in my Camry and essentially trashed it. My landlady was around to raise
up everything in the house that could’ve been damaged. The flood previous to
that one happened before the dam construction began so flooding is a regular
occurrence here. I’m a plant collector and I now have maybe three times as many
plants as I did back then - more than 300 potted plants. In case of flooding where
the water remains for more than a day most will not make it. As a result I’m mired
in the conundrum everyone living in a floodplain faces. I’m very comfortable in
an otherwise ideal situation so I have no desire or intention of moving, but
man, will I be sad when the torrents rush in… but, it can’t happen to me, can
it?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
We had another serious flood
event in February 2010 that had nothing to do with the river. The authorities
were baffled, The river is fine so how could there be a flood? A simple rain gauge
would’ve provided the answer since we had 4 1/2 inches - 12 cm - in less than 2
hours. That is a lot of rain to fall in such a short time and was probably a 5
year, maybe even a 10 year event. (Actually, considering that happened in
February in the middle of dry season, it was probably a 50 or 100 year event…
but that’s not pertinent to the drainage issue.) It’s extremely expensive to
build a system designed to handle an event that might happen only once every
ten years. Nonetheless, since Kampot is somewhat of a showcase city for tourism
the government has lots of money to spend here, so not long after the flood some
streets were being torn up in order for much larger drainage pipes to be
installed. So now we’re more prepared for extreme rainfalls, but there’ll probably
still be considerable flooding in ten year events.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Also, while global warming
skeptics will insist and climate scientists will admit that single events cannot
be attributed to anthropogenic - human caused - climate change, extreme
rainfalls are consistent with climate change models. Warmer air holds more
moisture so when it does come down, it’ll come in greater amounts, so we are
likely to see ever heavier rainfalls. Just recently in early June an
unprecedented 80cm of rain - one year’s worth - fell in a few days on parts of
Kyushu, Japan’s southern island. A good indicator for what the future will hold
climatewise.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Moving over to Phnom Penh, a very
heavy rainfall recently caused severe flooding and prompted many complaints
about the ineffectiveness of the $30 million flood control project for the
riverside area that was funded by the Japanese. (That was the second of three
phases, the first happened around 2004, the third began last January.) That was
reported to be a 92mm - 3 1/2 inch - deluge. That amount of rain in a short
period of time probably happens once every year or two on average. Once again,
as in Kampot, it would be very expensive to design a system capable of handling
that amount of water without flooding, though in fact the flooding situation
was much improved over the past. Previous to the project, floodwaters would
remain very high many hours after the rain had stopped. I remember one time wading
across putrid water above my knees at Streets 13 and 154 at midnight, four
hours after the rain had stopped about 8 pm. It still floods today, but drains
much faster. I wasn’t there for the above event, but I did witness a heavy
rainfall in that area that drained within about 30 minutes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The Japanese project had two
parts. One part involved building much larger drains and laying larger drainage
pipes under the street. Previously there were single drains with a small
reservoir underneath. Today in many locations you’ll see three drainage ports
lined up, and if you could look underneath you’d see a relatively large
reservoir connecting them. Norodom and Street 154 is a good example. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Most of the $30m was spent on
very large underground reservoirs - one is about 260 cubic meters - designed to
store water when the river is very high. When the Tonle Sap reaches above the
sewer outfalls that drain into it they have to be closed off else high river
water would push the sewer water back into the streets. That was by far the
biggest expense, but has no effect whatever when the river is low. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
One change in the Psar Kandal
area that decidedly exacerbated the flooding problem was the paving over of
most of the several hectares of the former T-3 prison site at Streets 13 and
154. When the area was a prison it consisted of a lot of small buildings in a
campus setting where most of the rainwater that fell there was absorbed into
the ground. Now, 90% of the area is impervious surfaces and precipitation goes
directly into the drainage system. In Portland, Oregon (and probably most of
America) that would not be allowed. Anybody who seeks to pave over a large area
there has to include dry wells to absorb rainwater. The well consists of a
stack of three 1-meter-diameter concrete pipes (actually since it’s America
they’re probably 1 yard diameter, which is almost a meter wide). The lowest one
is perforated so that in addition to the well being open at the bottom,
collected rainwater can also seep into the ground through the perforations. The
entire paved area is sculpted for the rainwater to drain into the dry wells.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Portland has a unitary system
where toilet water, gray water (wash water) and rain water are combined and
sent to a sewage treatment plant. Needless to say there’s no need for clean
rainwater to go through an industrial cleansing process, but separating the
systems, in an American context, is a lot more expensive so combined they are.
Still, that being the case, the city is keen to reduce the amount of rainwater
going into the system as much as possible. Thus the dry well requirement. In
addition property owners are given incentives to disconnect their downspouts
from the sewers and process rainwater on site and where natural creeks remain,
rainwater is diverted to them. I’m not sure if dry wells would work in PP since
ground water in rainy season is very close to the surface and rain falls much
faster than it does in Oregon.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Cambodia has a dual system where
toilet water goes to septic tanks connected to every building and the rest -
rain and graywater - goes directly into the drainage system and then dumped
without any processing into the rivers. If you are skeptical of the toilet
water/septic tank connection, think about those ugly old tank trucks you see
around town with their big suction hoses; they’re emptying out full septic
tanks. Graywater isn’t toxic, but it is smelly and ugly, so it really should be
processed before being dumped into the river. Wetlands work well for that
purpose, but there aren’t many (aren’t any) of those around the city anymore. A
swamp was drained to make way for Psar Thmei but I doubt if we can go back to
the former wetland just to process graywater. Too bad some form of graywater
processing wasn’t included in the big Japanese flood control project.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Phnom Penh’s leaders seem to be
doing everything they can to exacerbate the flooding problem. Not
intentionally, of course, though the end result is the same. In the latest
onslaught against the drainage system, the 7 hectares of wetlands on the edge
of Olympic Stadium, which were designed into the complex by famed Cambodian
architect Vann Molyvann to absorb all of the rain falling there, are currently being
filled in. Thus a very large amount of precipitation is being added to the
drainage system and a lot of money will be required to minimize flooding from
that latest crime against the city’s greenery. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The politicians insist that won’t
be a problem, but they’re paid to, prone to, say any inane, ridiculous thing to
justify their latest scheme. And I’m not singling out Cambodia’s leaders, it’s
a failing of politicians everywhere. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
In the North of the city in
Russei Keo district there was serious flooding after the lake where the
unfinished Camko City project was filled in. Public schools had to be closed
for months, people lived with water in their houses for that time. Friends who
worked at Lim Kok Weng U. had to drive through foot deep - 30cm - standing
water for months. That problem was partly mitigated by spending millions on a
pump station and pipes to carry the water further north to a lake that hasn’t
yet been filled in. The problem there is that at the height of rainy season <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">all</i> bodies of water are full, so
transporting the water north can only cause additional flooding there. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The third phase of the Japanese
flood control project, costing close to $50 million, involves laying more than 20
kilometers of large pipes from as far north as O’ressey market and includes
most of the rest of the southern part of the central city - the area within the
map we are all so familiar with - to Boeng Trabek in the south. The government
website now refers to it a retention pond rather than a lake. Nonetheless,
similar to the situation in the north, that lake will naturally fill during the
height of rainy season just from its immediate area so transporting large
volumes of water there will only move flooding from one part of town to another.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Important people are being given
large areas of filled in lakes and wetlands to play with, but the city is left
with the consequences of the flooding that’s the inevitable result. Fortunately
for Cambodia, Japan is coming up with the funds to pay for mitigation efforts, which
have been, in the end result, directly caused by over zealous development.
Those efforts may help but they still won’t stop flooding in heavy rainfall
events. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Stan Kahn</i></div>Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-15791343394260393552012-07-08T02:52:00.000-07:002012-07-08T02:52:44.755-07:00Development is More than Bricks and Mortar<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
A smaller replica of Phnom Penh’s
Independence Monument is under construction in Kep. Similar to the original, as
you might expect, it’s been sited at the center of an intersection. Kep has
appropriate places for a monument that’re not associated with traffic that
would’ve been preferable to placement in a traffic circle, but admittedly,
visually it looks nice to have your view down a street anchored by a statue or
monument. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
At least Kep’s Independence
Monument is on a street that has little traffic so it’ll be easy as a breeze to
not only approach the building but also enter in. That’s in total contrast to
the capital where you’d take your life in your hands if you tried to reach the
monument on foot and if you did manage to make it there in one piece you’re not
permitted to enter the area, but only look from outside. Any kind of peaceful
energy you might feel being near it, or reflection or contemplation you might
achieve from its vibes would be drowned out by traffic noise. Monuments are
supposed to be felt and experienced up close and personal. So what does it mean
to have a monument to ‘Independence’ choked by traffic? Well it doesn’t bode well
for the concept being portrayed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Ironically, that inaccessible
space is counted as part of the 2% of Phnom Penh devoted to ‘parks’. Technically
speaking, I guess you can call that park space, but really, where are the parks
in the capital? Riverside Park? Hun Sen Park? They come a lot closer to what a
park is than Independence Monument, and are heavily used by the people but
still, strips of land that are 80% pavement and the remainder that’s in grass
is off limits? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
There are no places similar to
what we refer to as parks in America or Europe or even other Asian cities. You
know, places for sports with tennis and volleyball courts and football fields;
with picnic benches for outdoor meals and grassy lawns for lounging; with small
ponds and (eventually) small forests of big old trees. A place of respite from
the crowded, noisy and madding city. Most other cities I’ve been to in Asia
have at least some parks. Bangkok is extremely short on park space, probably
worse than Phnom Penh considering its vast population, but at least it has
Lumpini Park. Rangoon, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh all have
large green parks. All Chinese cities have parks though they too devote only a
small percentage of their space to greenery and charge people to enter them,
but at least they have one or two places where people can seek out peace, tranquility
and the sweet smell of greenery.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
What about Olympic Stadium? Also
not a park, though it does have some attributes of them, notably playing fields
for football and other sports. Some years ago when teaching at Norton U. while
pointing out the dearth of public space in the capital I asked where people
could go to play football. Olympic Stadium, some replied. Where else? I asked.
Outside the city was the answer. However, as far as I know there are no parks
outside the city center so they were probably referring to vacant lots
temporarily commandeered for the purpose and as we know vacant lots tend not to
stay that way in a growing urban area.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Worse still, every year or so
space on the periphery of the stadium has been or currently is being converted
to commercial uses. In the latest crime against public space a large area of
wetlands on the eastern and northern borders of the stadium is now being filled
in and developed. The wetlands were placed there to absorb pretty much all the
rain that fell in the entire complex. Now much of that will head straight for
the city’s overloaded drainage system. That area could’ve been developed as a
cool, green, watery park space, it was even big enough to allow for boating.
Instead the city will get more department stores, shophouses, high-rises and
the percentage of the city devoted to park or green space has been further diminished.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Unfortunately, the whittling away
of that space has nowhere reached its end if the wishes of an important
developer are to come to fruition. He was quoted in the Daily saying the area
was ‘too crowded’ to have a stadium/recreation site there and it should be
moved to a location outside the center city. So having the area developed in
high-density commercial and residential uses will make it less crowded?
Obviously not, though we know what he meant to convey; that the area is too
valuable to be used for recreation and sports, activities which merely enhance
the lives of the city’s inhabitants, but don’t allow for making big bucks. And
instead of having a centrally located venue for sporting events, the majority
of people would have to go long distances to participate, which further
increases traffic congestion.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In every case, except the aforementioned park
strips, the city seems hell bent on converting every possible recreation space
to commercial uses. Only a decade or so ago there were several large lakes that
would’ve been ideal recreation sites. Today all are gone. In contrast, in the
American city of Minneapolis, which is a small part of its metropolitan area
and has less than 500,000 people, there are 26 lakes, half dozen of which are
the size of the former Boeng Kak lake and all have public access. Some of the
larger ones have swimming beaches and are enjoyed for windsurfing, kayaking and
rowboating. Back in the sixties before Cambodia’s troubles began Boeng Kak lake
was used for boating - one of the King father’s movies (he made a lot of them) showed
boaters happily enjoying the lake.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Boeng Kak, the last of the city’s
lakes has been filled in. To me, that was practically a crime against humanity
let alone a transgression against the people of Phnom Penh, so I was shocked to
hear a Khmer-American who spent decades in the US approve of filling in the
lake. His reasoning was that it was polluted and ugly and surrounded by
squatters. Why not just clean it up: You don’t abandon your house when it’s
dirty, you clean it up. Another friend checking out an expat blog was equally
surprised to see most people on the blog thinking of the loss of the lake as a
good thing. Unbelievable. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Urban lakes are more than just
great potential recreation sites, they also absorb excess rainwater, cool the
city down and are magnets for development. Think of Central Park in New York.
If you look at an aerial view of upper Manhattan where the park is, it’s clear
that many of the largest (and most valuable) buildings are those facing the
park. In an extremely dense city like New York, there is a great premium to
living near green space and so the land there is much more valuable than land
just a hundred meters away. Back in the 19th century when planners were laying
out Manhattan they looked at the map they had devised which showed the entire
island covered with streets and realized that that was really not good enough
and so placed the park there. That was one of the best decisions ever made for
New York City because it would’ve been intolerably crowded and oppressive
without the park at its center.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Here is an alternative scenario
for the development of BK lake, which in some ways is still possible though it
would no longer benefit the 4000 families who’ve already been displaced.
Instead of filling in the whole lake, they could’ve filled a 100 to 200 meter wide
strip all the way around the lake that would become a park. On the outer edge
of the green strip next to the squatters and others who did own their properties,
there’d be peripheral road. That would’ve left about 3/4 of the lake intact. The
property outside the road facing the park would become very valuable and within
a few years developers would come in and fill it up with higher value
buildings. To sum up: Had that plan been the one pursued, the people living on
the periphery of the lake would’ve been richly compensated for their land and
the change would’ve happened naturally and gradually; brand new better class
neighborhoods would be developed around the lake and the city would have a
great new park and a cleaned up lake for the pleasure of large numbers of
citizens.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
What we got instead was protests,
unrest and widespread dissatisfaction and a lake that’s completely filled in
when the developer had agreed to leave a 10 hectare lake (out of an original
110 hectares) in the center. Where does progress at the lake stand now? Work
started there in the middle of last year but halted in August. The Chinese have
lots of money but the company financing the development evidently is having
second thoughts about pouring billions of dollars into the project. Several
very large projects in PP were halted a few years back when potential buyers
dried up. There just aren’t enough rich local bureaucrats/ politicians and
interested well-heeled foreigners to fill up all the giant middle to upper
class projects planned for the city.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
It’s not good karma to wish bad
luck on others - <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">schadenfreude</i> - but
in this case I’ll take my chances… I hope the CPP senator and his Chinese
partner who cooked up this rotten scheme sink financially like a stone in
quicksand. Meanwhile, as far as filling in the lake is concerned; easy come,
easy go, though admittedly it’ll take a lot more work removing the sand than it
did to put it there. On the other hand, construction sand is in high demand so
they’ll make back a little of their investment by removing and selling it. They’ve
got to at least remove 10 hectares to create the lake that was promised.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
There’s one other very large area
previously designated as park space that’s being developed, the 48 hectares at
the tip of the Chroy Changvar peninsula, which is directly across the river at
Street 178. A fantastic place for a public park is being turned into a hotel/convention
center with lots of other development thrown in. The people will get a nice
riverside promenade out of it, but still, compared to a large park, that’s
nowhere. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Boeng Kak is an empty canvas,
anything is still possible there. Not so with Chroy Changvar peninsula since
very large, multi-story buildings don’t often revert to park space. Still, that
large building takes up only a small part of the total area so all is not lost…
at least in theory. The only factor that can change the likely outcome is the
larger economic picture. I hate to wish for economic problems that would slow
Cambodia’s growth, since the country still desperately needs expansion to bring
large numbers of people out of poverty. However, it can be argued that no
growth at all is sometimes better than a short term boost from destructive
growth which then leaves a long term legacy of ugliness and awfulness. So once
again here’s hoping another giant project designed for the elite but created by
usurping space meant for the enjoyment of all is halted before all is lost.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Finally, regardless of the damage
done or being done, the city should be looking towards the future. A case in
point. Back in the late 1940’s the City of Portland, Oregon had the foresight
to create Forest Park, a ten square mile - 25 square kilometer - forested mountain
ridge that begins only about three miles - five kilometers - from downtown. It
wasn’t much to look at then because most of it had been logged in the previous
few decades. Today, 65 years later, and being Oregon where trees grow fast and
big, it is now beautiful both from a distance and close up when hiking it’s
many miles of forested trails. You can still hear sounds of the city from the
park and see it occasionally where the trees aren’t so thick, but you feel
you’re in another world that could be hundreds of miles from the madding
crowds. Similarly it was great foresight on the part of New York City’s
planners 150 years ago that created Central Park.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
There’ve got to be many very
pretty spots on the outskirts of the city that’re crying out to be made into
park space. The process of identifying and designating potential park sites
needs to happen now before the land becomes too valuable. Getting to the city’s
periphery to enjoy a peaceful picnic in the park might take a lengthy moto or
tuk-tuk ride from the city center but those parks would still be resources that
would be heavily used and deeply appreciated by the citizenry. Is the entire
and recently expanded area of Phnom Penh going to be developed without a
thought to creating additional green space? That’s what it looks like now but
it would be a terrible mistake and an awful legacy for today’s leaders to leave
for posterity. They may have the best interests of the people at heart, but the
reality will be far different.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-68680265277276240472012-06-10T18:56:00.000-07:002012-06-10T18:56:25.299-07:00Camsterdam?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
It’s too bad Cambodia has been
caught up in conservative, mostly US-fueled, drug-war fervor since it’s easily
the most tolerant, laid back society in Asia. It was only 20 years ago, before
UNTAC came in to conduct Cambodia’s first post-KR elections and coincidentally
tell the country it had to crack down on drugs, that you could buy a shopping
bag of ganja at Russian Market in Phnom Penh for about a dollar. In talking to
locals about cannabis who remember the times before prohibition, I’ve heard
comments like, We used to smoke it when we couldn’t afford tobacco, or We used
it to flavor our soup. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Back then I was able to toke up
in almost all the bars I frequented in the capital. The police hardly ever came
out at night and nobody ever seemed to care, though some people were definitely
turned off by the sweet smell of pot smoke. That all changed a few years back
when the police paid a visit to all the bars and told them that the evil weed
would no longer be tolerated. Still, though you can get busted today for pot
possession, though probably not for small amounts, it’s somehow okay to spike
your pizzas with the stuff. We’ve even got our first happy pizza restaurant in
Kampot - Happy Dreamily Pizza. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Use of recreational drugs is best
left to individual choice. Everybody has a right, or should have the right, to
choose their own poison. There’s no way to stop people from doing what they
want in a free country, even just a nominally free place like Cambodia.
Moreover, education works as well or better than prohibition in curtailing drug
use. In a class I taught in a local university some nine years ago I led a
discussion of drugs. The general attitude of the students was that drug dealers
should be executed. They didn’t need threats of prosecution to keep them from
using drugs, they were already fanatically against them, their education and
upbringing was enough.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The only thing you accomplish by
prohibition is to raise prices to very high levels and thus draw in criminal involvement
and the violence that often goes with any trade in contraband. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
In Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia
and Vietnam drug dealers are killed. One of Taksin Shinawatra’s claims to fame
when he first took office was his ordering Thai police to summarily execute
lots of drug dealers and 2500 people were offed in short order. I had a
conversation at that time with a Thai based expat visiting Cambodia. He was all
in favor of that murderous rampage, talking about how bad yaba was, until I
pointed out that without giving people the opportunity to defend themselves it
was likely that at least 5% to 10% of that 2500 were guilty of only minor
crimes or were innocent but had gotten their names on the hit list because
someone in the police department didn’t like them. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
In Singapore possession of as
little as 15 grams of heroin or 200 grams of ganja is a mandatory death
sentence. Not long ago a Singaporean couple returning from a trip to Australia
were drug tested and wound up spending two years in the brink for smoking pot
on their vacation; who knows, it could’ve been only a puff or two. Ganja, being
oil based stays in your system for about 30 days. The hard drugs, on the other
hand, are all water based so shoot up heroin, cocaine or meth on Friday night
and you’re clean Monday morning when you get to work. Today every corporate job
in America requires drug testing and the vast majority of positives are from
pot.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The fundamental problem with state
murder of people for small amounts of drugs is that drug laws are based on
cultural bias and change with the times. It wasn’t that long ago<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>historically speaking - 1920 till 1933 - that
marijuana was legal in America while alcohol was prohibited. There’d never be a
disagreement on the legality of murder, robbery, extortion and such, but it
takes a staggering amount of arrogance and hubris for Singapore and many other
countries to kill someone over marijuana when it’s easily available and
practically legal in other places in the world. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
If you want to drink yourself to
death in Singapore, or merely imbibe till it destroys your family life, you’re
perfectly welcome to it, though it’ll cost a bit since taxes there are really
high. When backers of drug prohibition are asked why alcohol is legal and ganja
is not, though by any scientific, existential, non-emotional standard alcohol
is much worse, they often respond by saying, We already have one bad drug, we
don’t need another. They should be honest and finish their statement by saying;
besides I like a cold beer on a hot afternoon, I like a glass of wine after dinner,
I like a shot of brandy before hitting the sack. If I like it, it’s okay, if I
don’t, you go to jail or get offed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Now that squeaky-clean Singapore
is promoting casino gambling (Have you noticed they don’t call it gambling
anymore, it’s now gaming. You know, it’s just a game, just for fun.) you can
blow your life savings and your family’s future, but that’s okay because it
brings tourism and makes lots of money for the state. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
If you want to stuff your face to
the point where you can barely walk and your life has been shortened by
decades, all assisted by constant TV advertising encouraging you to do just
that, then no problem, knock yourself out, it’s your life, after all. But if
you take one puff of the evil weed, you’re a scourge to society and must pay
dearly for your dastardly, miscreant behavior.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The other point prohibitionists
like to make, which is not born out by the statistics is that a lot more people
will do drugs if they are legal or more easily obtainable. Holland provides the
best example. Fewer young people smoke pot there where it’s virtually legal,
than in America where nearly a million people are languishing in prison over non-violent
marijuana related offenses.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Portugal also provides a good
example since in 2001 all drugs, not just cannabis, were decriminalized.
Portugal now has some of the lowest percentages of drug use in Europe, when for
instance it once had the highest percentage of heroin users. Today, a smaller
percentage of people in the country have an experience with ganja than those
who’ve used cocaine in America. Ten percent have tried cannabis there compared
to nearly 40% in America.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Around 40 years ago Tricky Dick
Nixon was shown a government report that suggested ganja should be
decriminalized since its effects were essentially benign. Instead he did the
opposite and began America’s War on Drugs. He could clearly see that the
majority of people opposed to the Vietnam war were tokers so he rightly figured
he could use drug laws to suppress the anti-war movement. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
His ‘War’ has done nothing to suppress
drug use, but has served to disrupt and/or destroy millions of people’s lives
and helped to create a massive industrial prison system. Now that many of
America’s prisons are corporate owned, there’s profit to be made from incarcerating
lots of non conformists as well as common criminals.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Changes, though are afoot.
Bolivians have elected a former coca farmer as president, and Latin American
countries as a whole are rethinking the ‘Drug War’ military response to what is
essentially a public health problem. They suffer far more from drug war mania
than the US, the world’s biggest user country. The drug cartels have millions,
even hundreds of millions of dollars at their disposal to bribe and/or threaten
police and public officials. It is an especially difficult situation for
smaller countries but even Mexico, a large middle income country has seen
50,000 drug war related deaths since the current president started his
‘crackdown’ on the drug trade six years ago. The cartels have a gruesome cant;
in the latest example nearly fifty headless, handless, footless bodies - hard
to identify that way - were dumped in a prominent urban place. As a result the Latin’s
feel they have to find a different path.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Changes are also afoot in the US.
Polls in some states are showing majorities in favor of legalizing and
regulating cannabis. When you subtract the cost of apprehending, adjudicating
and incarcerating large numbers of pot users from public budgets and then add
the tax take from legalizing it, it should be a no brainer; still, regressive,
narrow-minded, idiocy dies hard. The movement to decriminalize pot began in
1973 in Oregon, when possession of less than an ounce - 28 grams - was turned
into a violation similar to a traffic ticket with a $50 fine. About 16 states
have since followed suit. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
About the same number now permit
medical marijuana. In Oregon, one of the first states to allow it, the change
was propelled by the experience of a conservative constituent of a conservative
Republican rural state legislator. This woman had suffered for a long time from
glaucoma. She was scheduled for an operation on a Monday, but having heard of
pot’s healing qualities thought it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try. She started
smoking on Friday evening, kept it up all weekend and went into the hospital
for a pre-op checkup on Monday. The doctor looked at her eyes and proclaimed
that they were fine and she needed no operation. After she related her
experience to her state legislator, he became an advocate and the die was cast.
It isn’t a miracle cure for all types of glaucoma, but a couple of joints in
place of an eye operation… also a no brainer.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Just recently - mid-May 2012 - a
New York judge wrote an op-ed in the New York Times urging the state
legislature to legalize medical marijuana. He’d been undergoing chemotherapy
for cancer and try as he might to find a legal drug to combat the nausea and
lack of appetite that goes with chemo treatment, nothing but smoking pot worked.
He broke the law in order to receive proper treatment, this doubtless after
putting lots of people away for marijuana related offenses. Meanwhile the
federal government has classified pot as a class A drug with no medical uses
and Obama’s justice department has been going after medical marijuana
dispensaries, which are legal under state law, with a vengeance. This from a
president who admitted smoking, and inhaling, as a youth… effing hypocrite.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The one good aspect of
prohibiting pot is the healthy distrust of government it engenders. With all the
dire warnings you’ve been taught about the descent into perdition that comes
with the first puff, you’re expecting far more impact than pot delivers. Even
if you don’t like the feeling and have no intention of smoking again, the one
thing you come away from the experience with it is that it’s essentially harmless
and all that you’ve been told about it by the establishment is bullshit and
hype.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
A major lie foisted on the public
by the anti-drug establishment is that smoking pot is dangerous to your health,
equal to tobacco. While smoking anything can cause irritation, coughing and
other respiratory problems, there’s nothing in ganja smoke that can develop
into cancer or other diseases. Back in the 80’s I knew a guy who was doing
marijuana research. They had gathered together a group of guys, gave them as
much pot as they wanted and told them to smoke themselves out. After a couple
of months they became afraid and called off the study because the subjects’
respiratory systems were becoming congested with cannabis tars. Two months
later they were completely clean with no permanent damage. That’s in contrast
to tobacco which permanently scars the small passages, the cilia, in the lungs.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Also, it’s not possible to OD on
pot. According to America’s Drug Enforcement Administration you would have to
smoke about 700 kilos in 15 minutes to OD… even my son who’s a legendary wake
and baker can’t do that. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
What about the hard drugs:
heroin, cocaine, meth? For sure you can OD on them, but that’s partly a result
of prohibition, since you never know the potency of what you’re getting on the
street. All three will make you look wrinkled, washed out and old before your
time if you let them control your life. At the same time you could use all
three and continue to carry on a reasonably normal life if prohibition didn’t
make them so expensive you were required you to steal and rob to get your fix. If
you have a life, feel good about yourself, you can experiment without ever
becoming addicted. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
A relative who’s never been part
of the hip scene asked me why people do heroin. The answer is simple: No matter
how stressed, depressed, unhappy or sick you are in mind and/or body; no matter
that you consider yourself a worthless turd and have no hope for a better
future, when you shoot up you’re on top of the world. Nothing can hurt you or
phase you. Morphine which has one tenth the potency of heroin, is one of the
best medicinal painkillers because no matter how banged up or diseased you are,
with sufficient morphine in your system you can handle any contingency.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
A guy I met traveling related an
experience he’d had with opium, which is one tenth the potency of morphine.
Before he and a friend settled in to smoke in comfortable chairs he’d put an
Eagles tape on his cassette player. Unfortunately, it was on continuous loop so
they wound up having to listen to the whole album 7 or 8 times before either
one could bring himself to rise up and change the tape. The Eagles!! You just
feel sooo mellow and relaxed, nothing can bother you. With all the crazy shit
happening in the world and the grave hardship so many people face in their
daily lives, why not let them enjoy a little escape sometimes? Could it be
worse than alcohol? At least guys wouldn’t be beating their wives around when
on opium. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Cocaine, meth, whatever, nothing
works better or causes less harm to society than education about drugs and
dealing with each of them truthfully and intelligently. Cambodia, however,
pushed by the international community is going at the problem in a harsh and
unforgiving manner. Recently three teenage girls caught with 6 yaba pills
between them were each given two years behind bars. Is that fair, does it make
sense?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Cambodia is a relaxed and
easygoing place, that’s one of the things we expats like most about the place.
Entertainment is one of the country’s best bets for economic growth. Why not
take a ‘happy-pizza’ attitude towards life and let people be themselves, make
their own decisions and choose their own poison. It’s the adult way to do
things. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
I’m 70 years old. Is somebody
going to tell me what’s good for me and what’s bad for me, what I’m supposed to
like and what I’m not supposed to like?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Stan Kahn</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-27014900541604366202012-05-15T03:19:00.001-07:002012-05-15T03:19:54.785-07:00Privitize Cambo - Giving Away the Farm<link href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CUser%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Cambodia
now has its first stock exchange and the country’s political and economic
leaders are all fired up about entering the world of ‘high’ finance. Well,
maybe it’s not that high, but still they are proud of making a beginning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
first stock listed is Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority, two others to follow
are Electricite du Cambodge and Telecom Cambodia. All three are public
utilities. All are reasonably well-run though the telecom company, the only one
that’s not in a monopoly position and thus subject to market forces, is behind
the times and not very competitive. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
capital’s water company is highly regarded amongst developing country public
water systems: it’s well run and efficient. That means it’s well placed for
privatization and public officials are giddy with having such a good candidate
for their new stock market. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">For
the longest time, as far as everybody including the media was concerned the
sell-off of public assets was considered all positive and there was no in-depth
reporting as to the details and possible consequences of the move. However,
anybody who keeps up with these trends in the world knows that privatizing
essential services like water in a low-income country has almost invariably
turned into a disaster. As well, private water companies have also often had a well-deserved
bad reputation in rich countries. Privatization is also high on the agenda of
the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and conservative financial and
political establishments. They hate to see potential profit centers go
unexploited regardless of any possible negative impact on the people served.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">There
are often good rationales for privatization, since, according to prevailing
economic philosophy, publicly owned enterprises are likely to be inefficient,
uneconomic, poorly run and repositories for political patronage. Private
companies, on the other hand are so well run, or so the ideology goes, they do
everything cheaper and better and the people ultimately save money and receive
better service by selling off their public enterprises to the free market. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">You
certainly wouldn’t want a government involved in a competitive market, like
making shoes, for instance, as in Soviet times, because it would never work out
well. However, if you’re dealing with an absolutely essential service which enjoys
a monopoly market position the dynamic is totally different.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
first thing that happens when a public utility turns private is that rates go
up. That is ostensibly to extend and improve service; in reality, in most
cases, private utilities spend the absolute minimum on improvements, especially
if they involve very long paybacks. The only way to keep them honest is to have
strong regulatory systems in place, which, in the case of Cambodia, would
constitute near miraculous intervention.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
purpose of a privately owned water company is to make a profit, everything else
the company does is incidental and secondary to that primary goal. On the other
hand, the mission of a public water utility is to provide clean water at the
lowest possible price. When providing water, the most essential ingredient of
survival, to a population in which many people are living right on the edge of
existence, minimum cost is imperative.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Cochabamba,
Bolivia provides a good example of the perils of privatizing water. As per the
demand of international financial organizations - IMF, World Bank -
Cochabamba’s water system was sold off to a multinational corporation. They
immediately raised the rates to the point where large numbers of the peasantry
could no longer afford water; which resulted in demonstrating and rioting and
in no time at all, the utility was back in public hands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">At
the very same time that the capital’s water company was put in the process of privatization,
a small water provider was privatized in Ratanikkiri Province. Rates nearly
doubled along with vastly improved service, but large numbers of people
affected by the changes resisted and fought them. The government relented and
gave the people a choice, either the old system which provided cheaper but relatively
low quality water for about 12 hours a day, or the new privately owned system
which offered 24 hour, better quality water at the higher rate. A lot of
people, already barely scraping by, chose the cheaper lower quality public service.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">So,
after about a year of hearing about the privatization of Phnom Penh’s water
company, without any details appearing in the media, I wrote to the Cambodia
Daily to ask for better, more in-depth coverage. Maybe the information was
ready to come out anyway because the stocks were about to be sold, but it turns
out that only 15% of the company is being sold so that the municipality will
retain complete control. They expect to gain about $20 million they can use for
improvements and expansion at a much lower cost than borrowing. So, it may not
be such a bad deal for the people after all; still, people don’t invest money
without the expectation of returns. Sometimes returns on investment come as a
result of rising stock values, but chances are that the utility is going to
have to pay dividends so the money will hardly be free and the end result will
have to wait for the passage of time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Cambodia
is actually a poster child for the conservative fixation on privatization and
free markets. There are few import controls, except occasionally when specific
industries are threatened, so Cambodian entrepreneurs are forced to compete.
There are also few restrictions on investment, leaving the economy wide open. As
often as possible provision of public services and development of public spaces
has been left to private investors. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Cambodia
is very well positioned to take advantage of this openness compared to
surrounding nations. The decimation of the country’s industry and commerce in
the Khmer Rouge years took the country all the way down to square one, so it
needs a lot of imports for goods it can’t produce itself. Moreover being a
small country it can’t really compete for investment in industrial scale
operations, though if the ASEAN group ever gets its tariff free zone happening
it won’t matter which country an industrial operation is located in. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Higher
education provides a good example. The Royal University, founded in the fifties
after the country became independent, was Cambodia’s first tertiary institution.
The first private university, Norton U., was established in 1997. In the
ensuing 15 years some 30 or 40 higher institutions have been opened, meanwhile
the Royal U. has remained static, with no investment over the years. It works
fine for the government, people get educated and it doesn’t have to pay for it.
All it has to do is try to regulate the sector and establish standards, which,
in the event, vary wildly. The drawback is the relative high cost of tuition in
private institutions. Many potential students are left out because of the dearth
of subsidized public education. <span> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Recent
privatizations of public space in Phnom Penh also provide a good example of its
pitfalls. In the last few years two large, centrally located pieces of land
were traded away to rich Cambodians with no controls whatever. One was the
former police headquarters at Streets 154 and 51, the other was the old T-3
prison site at Streets 154 and 13. Both sites are large enough, prominent
enough and important enough to have warranted international design
competitions. Both could’ve included large developed areas with quality
buildings as well as substantial public squares and green spaces. What did we
get instead? Most of the former police headquarters is now a public market with
adjoining car park. The building is okay but nothing special - a cheap metal-roofed
structure with a modicum of interesting design - though to its benefit, it does
include a bandstand for music events. However, except for the market stalls fronting
the streets, 80% of the stalls remain empty even after years on the market; it’s
obviously wasted space. The former T-3 prison site is a hodge-podge of car
repair shops, parking lots and buildings that range from non-descript to trashy.
A tremendous opportunity for adding quality urban spaces to the city has been
lost, at least temporarily: there are no structures of any real value at the
T-3 site so a better designed future space is still a possibility.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dam
construction also provides a good example of the trade-offs inherent in
depending on others for financing and construction. Cambodia heaps boatloads of
gratitude on China and Vietnam for their willingness to fill the country with
dams without it having to pay for them, but in the end it may rue the day. Often
hidden in the fine print of the contracts are provisions that require Cambodia
to not only pay a high price for the energy generated, but also a high price
even if the energy’s not needed or produced. That’s leaving aside the environmental
degradation and loss of fisheries that is always a corollary to large dam
construction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">It
makes sense for the dam builders: they’re not going to put hundreds of millions
of dollars into dam construction without guarantees that they’ll get a return
on their investments. However, so many dams are under construction or in the
planning stages in addition to two coal-fired power plants in the works for
Sihanoukville - one is a large 700 megawatts - that the country could soon be
awash with power and require years of increasing demand before the electricity
is needed. For instance, peak power demand in Phnom Penh, which is easily a
large majority of the country’s total demand, is 350 megawatts, whereas the one
S-ville coal plant, by itself, will produce 700 megawatts. Cambodia may well
find itself paying through the nose for power it has no use of.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
other alternative is to become a power supplier to neighboring countries. Electricity
from the controversial Lower Sesan Dam in Stung Treng is intended almost
exclusively for export to Vietnam. It’s one thing to sacrifice one’s own
environment for the sake of needed electricity, but to do so strictly for
export is pure folly, the free market gone wild; though in truth, sacrificing
one’s land for quick bucks is nothing new and happens as easily in America as
it does in developing countries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span> </span><span> </span>Finally,
probably the most discouraging aspect of Cambodia’s give-away-the-farm
mentality is the granting of economic land concessions on a grand scale. Twenty-two
percent of the country’s entire land surface, nearly 4 million hectares, has already
been given away in land and mining concessions and the give-away is continuing
apace. That includes large swaths of national parks and conservation areas.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
largest concession - 315,000 hectares which is equal to 3150 square kilometers
- was granted in 1997 to a ruling party senator. Even with that vast holding,
he still has frequent conflicts with the locals; he can’t stand to let
villagers living within the concession have a few hundred hectares… typical of
the filthy rich. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">That
was before a 2005 law that limited concessions to 10,000 hectares, equivalent
to 100 square kilometers. However, there are ways to get around that
limitation: in one case four adjacent concessions, each nearly 10,000 hectares,
have been granted to four companies owned by the same corporation, a Vietnamese
one at that. Isn’t it ironic that individual foreigners are not allowed to own
small plots of land but immense holdings are granted to foreign corporations?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">A
prominent CPP lawmaker quoted in the Cambodia Daily strongly defended the
practice of granting concessions as important for the country’s development and
said the poor people being displaced should be willing to sacrifice for the
good of the country. It’s easy for a rich lawmaker to speak about the need for
the peasantry to give it all up for their homeland. While many of the villagers
displaced by land concessions are given plots of land elsewhere, they’re often
either poor quality land or in places where they have a hard time earning
money. There will be jobs offered in the rubber, oil palm and sugar plantations
but they’ll be low paid, not very desirable jobs. Nearly every concession
involves displacing local people or the destruction of the forests they depend
on for their livelihood. In some cases, the government discovers years later
that the area has been logged, the grantee has pocketed the profits and then
has failed to develop the land as proposed. They then yank the concession, but
by then the damage has been done.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
plan to convert immense areas of the country into corporate plantations reminds
me of the great inequality that exists in many Latin American countries as a
result of the colonists taking land that was previously held in common and dividing
it up amongst themselves. The result has been that a few percent of the
population descended from the original colonists owns almost all of the land. The
rest are landless peasants. In a sense, Cambodia is being recolonized: large
areas are going from public ownership into corporate ownership.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">It’s
easy to understand the leadership’s eagerness to give away the farm: they get
permit fees and the land is developed without any cost to the government. In my
mind, rather than give 10,000 hectares to a corporation, it’d be far better to
grant 100 hectares each to 100 people, or 10 hectares each to 1000 people and
then provide the training and wherewithal needed to plant the rubber trees,
etc. That way the profits and benefits are spread around to large numbers of
people rather than the profits going to corporations or the wealthy and the
peasantry left with low wage, peon work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">That
of course would require planning, investment and organization, rather than
simply pocketing the commission fees (both overt and under-the-table) and
walking away. Unfortunately, that goes against the prevailing wisdom that
corporations always know best and privatization is the only legitimate way to
develop a country. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">All
in all, the mania for giving away the farm may well bring development to the
country - rubber, oil palm and sugar cane are all likely to be in high demand
in the future - but it’s a very big question whether that growth will benefit
the people at large. It may turn out to be a classic case of the folly of trickle-down
economics where, in the event, a lot of money goes directly to the top, while
only a pittance trickles down to the bottom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
don’t doubt that Cambodia’s public officials are sincere in their beliefs that
they’re doing the right thing for the country, whether or not they are
personally benefiting. There’s also no question that development is desperately
needed, but in their zeal to give away the farm I fear they will also be giving
up a lot more and that all Cambodians, outside of the elite few, will, in the
final tally, be losing out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1290081597029428460.post-83793166880956443912012-04-16T20:53:00.000-07:002012-04-16T20:53:23.365-07:00Bokor is Open Again<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--> <m:smallfrac m:val="off"> <m:dispdef> <m:lmargin m:val="0"> <m:rmargin m:val="0"> <m:defjc m:val="centerGroup"> <m:wrapindent m:val="1440"> <m:intlim m:val="subSup"> <m:narylim m:val="undOvr"> </m:narylim></m:intlim> </m:wrapindent><!--[endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">The following is an intro for people unfamiliar with Cambodia. Bokor hill station was established by the French colonials in the 1920’s as a high elevation escape from the sea level heat in the January to May hot season. It wasn’t all that successful until it was shut down by WWII in 1940. It was then opened again in 1963 only to be closed again as a result of Cambodia’s troubles when it became a sometime battleground. It stood in ruins until recently when Cambodia’s richest man was given the concession to develop it into a billion dollar casino, resort and luxury villa complex. It was and still is an interesting place to visit historically. It’s part of Bokor National Park, but national parks don’t mean much in Cambodia, since most have recently had large chunks of their areas sold off for agri-businesses or resorts.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">After three years of construction, Bokor is finally open again and it’s free too. I’d been there twice previously, once via the old road and then when the new one was under construction. The old road was left over from the sixties with a pavement that hadn’t been maintained since then so it was like very holy Swiss cheese all the way up with small pieces of pavement surrounded by gaping potholes. It was great for an adventurous dirt bike ride, but for the SUV I was in the 30 kilometers to the top was a tedious two hour crawl. On the other hand, esthetically it was a beautiful ride with a narrow right-of-way slicing through the forest. The trees were so close at times they almost made a canopy over the road.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">The second time, about 2 years ago, I went up with my ‘88 Camry. The road was under construction and it was torturous washboard surface for the old beast to manage. After that when people asked to go up I said not until the road is finished. The road is now probably the best quality highway in the country. It’s a wide surface with two thick smooth layers of asphalt in contrast to newly reconstructed national highways which are a thin layer of bitumen sandwiched in between two layers of gravel. Though National Highway 3 hasn’t been finished all that long it’s already deteriorating and needing extensive repairs in some places.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">As for the Bokor road, the right-of-way is far larger than is needed, which is especially problematical in steep terrain. For much of the distance the right-of-way can accommodate an additional two lanes of pavement. The flat area is so wide it required very large road cuts which have eroded so quickly that before the complex was even open for visitors they had already begun repair mode on the brand new road right-of-way by bolstering up the hillsides to protect the pavement from washing away. You can easily see the gaping gash on the mountainside from Kampot. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">They wanted to make the road able to easily accommodate large tour buses and the virtual city they are planning up top, but they could’ve easily done that by widening the road a bit here and there and straightening out some of the difficult curvy spots. They could’ve done that with far less money and maintained the wonderful feeling of passing through leafy green forest, but we know Khmers don’t have much sense of green esthetics and they love vast expanses of pavement so the result is the road passes through a wide and ugly road cut. Curiously, they’ve planted trees on the extra wide level part but not on the hillsides where they’re needed the most to prevent erosion, but at any rate, the road is finished and we can at least go up and check it out.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Not far from the top is a giant Buddha, maybe 10 meters tall, that was under construction at the time we went by. I’m not sure what relevance a giant Buddha has to a massive casino complex, but maybe after you’ve lost your shirt you’re ready to give up all earthly desires and join the monkhood. I fortunately got weaned off any gambling desire as a teenager after playing poker with friends: some were adept at cheating and I’d consistently lose my cigarette money. After that I’d sit back and watch and let the losers bum fags off me.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Across from the Buddha is an abandoned relic, erstwhile kitchen for the workers. It is fronted by roadside snack vendors, the only place you see them, there are none up top. Down the dirt track from the former kitchen are two abandoned houses to peruse. One has an especially interesting wing-shaped design. Along the way are several immense old Agave plants, evidently doing fine on their own for decades without any care or maintenance.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">The first thing to check out up on the plateau is the large scale model of the project. It’s so big a friend I went with took two minutes to walk around it, though admittedly he was taking pictures as he went. Also the building housing the model is twice or three times the size of the model itself and thus mostly sits empty, they might even have a plan for the space. I hope it’s not a bad omen but many of the buildings on the hilly parts of the terrain in the model are listing at steep angles seemingly ready to topple over at any time. For sure they have grand, even grandiose, plans for the area with hundreds of villas and large apartment houses and hotels as well as the casino complex. There’s also the 18-hole golf course and a tram to take people from the lower level golf course up to the casino and developed area. By the time this article is published the casino will have had its soft opening. Just in time for me to change my tack, go up and blow my pension check on the chance to get rich quick. Or maybe not.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">We next headed for Populvul waterfall. The previous time I saw it was on a Khmer holiday. For three years while the road was under construction they only let people up during holidays and the place was jammed. There’s not a lot of watershed upstream of the falls so you’re not likely to see much water except in rainy season. Still, it’s a very large and dramatic falls consisting of flat rocks, sometimes huge, stacked up about eight or ten meters above the lower pool. Water flows through the cracks as well as over the top. All parts are accessible so you’ll see people clambering about on all levels. Downstream is very steep with massive boulders strewn about, some of which have perfectly square corners. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">In a national park in a typical western country there’d be well marked trails that would allow for hiking downstream to see the dramatic creek bed. There are no marked trails that I know of in the park or I expect, any park in Cambodia. The only exception being Kep National Park and those signs were put up by a restaurant owner. The plateau is actually a tiny part of the park. There are places to enter Bokor on foot from the periphery where the forest is largely intact, though any natural area in Cambodia that isn’t watched 24/7 will have been degraded somewhat. One such trail leads to what we locals call the hidden waterfall. The lack of trails means the only way to see it is by hiking up the creek bed. Actually it’s more like clambering over sometimes huge rocks that are very slick and wet in rainy season, the only time you really want to see a waterfall. When it’s raining hard it’d be downright dangerous if not impossible to make it up that way.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">This time on a weekday there were only two Khmers at Populvul. The signage wasn’t in place and it took a while to figure out how to get the 100 meters from the road to the falls. They’ve taken one of the feeder creeks, which didn’t have much water in it, and added large relatively flat rocks to give access to the falls. I’m sure they’ll construct better access because one thing you can’t miss is the very large building under construction no more than 20 meters from the falls. The only use I can imagine for the building is a restaurant or food court. I guess it’s designed to serve about 300 people. That’s the absolute last thing I would develop at the site. Besides where are all the customers going to come from? I just don’t see it. A viewpoint I could understand, but a huge restaurant practically hanging over the falls? </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">On the way back, heading into the heart of the complex we passed by the casino. It’s a large and impressive building tucked into a hollow in the sloping land. Alongside is a 200 or 300 car hillside parking lot. In the back, I assume, are the hotel units. By itself the building is a bit grand in a garish kind of way. It’s a typical casino style building so it’s somewhat overdone and thus a little out of place up on the mountain. Casinos are supposed to look impressive and as an aside reflect the huge amount of money the owners make off people’s weakness. Still, all-in-all, it’s not bad looking. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Next we stopped at the old hotel which is fenced off and being restored. Well, that’s good, at least the developers have a bit of respect for history. Just back of the hotel is the steep 1000 meter drop-off from the plateau to the ocean. Unfortunately, for the third time, as I somehow expected, I wasn’t able to see the water. The plateau itself was mostly in sun, but everything below was shrouded in clouds and mist; you’re looking down into the cloud. You could see the moisture rising up the mountainside and then dissipating as it reached the top. The first time was identical to the above. I’m told the clouds often envelop the plateau as well. The second time it was raining like hell and not even possible to check out the steep mountainside. There are even rare occasions which are cloudless and offer great views of the ocean… I’ve seen pictures so I know it must be true.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Which brings up another point, for a good part of the year the weather is really shitty: wet, windy and uncomfortable. For the rest of it, cloudy, threatening weather is very likely. It’s much cooler up there, a definite plus, but in balance, it’s not a pleasant place to be over the whole year so I wonder how many people will want to buy million dollar mansions up there. The French built it as a hill station to escape the sea level heat in the March to May hot season, but it’ll get very chilly around December and January and constantly pissing down rain in September and October. <span> </span><span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Up on the hillside is the old trashed-out church, which I’m told is now being used as a crash pad for construction workers. When you wander a little further you come to the abandoned king’s house and nearby barracks for his bodyguards. Then there’s the reservoir, old casino and a few other relics to visit. The area is good for a leisurely afternoon’s exploration and interesting from an historical perspective, but I personally wouldn’t go again unless it was to escort others; especially now that my favorite place, the waterfall area , has received such a garish treatment.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">On another note, a community of expats oriented towards civic and environmental activism organized “I love Kampot River” day on March 14 in conjunction with International Clean Rivers Day. They solicited contributions from local businesses and used the money to put on a fun environmental awareness event. This involved bringing hundreds of kids out to clean up the river and a flotilla of tour boats to ferry them to places to do their good deeds. They set up a tent on riverside park a block north of the old bridge, provided t-shirts and food and there was music by the Kampot Playboys at sunset. Damage and/or injury was just barely avoided when one of the tents started blowing over around sunset; a bunch of guys grabbed it just in time before it could cause any problems.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">I did a lot of that type of activity during my time in Portland, Oregon and went to one of their meetings to check out what they were up to. It reminded me of the large amount of organizing work it takes to put on an event of that magnitude. It also indicated the presence of a whole subset of activist type expats who are taking root in the town. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Also, related to road construction, River Road in the center of town is getting a brand new high-quality asphalt pavement. It was only a year or so ago that the original surface, which was solid, but rough, was torn up and replaced with a gravel and bitumen treatment. The old surface could’ve been patched and then lasted a long time, though still been somewhat rough, but that’s okay in that kind of touristy, entertainment-type location because you don’t want people to drive fast to begin with. The bitumen surface started breaking up after only a few months and in only a year had been thoroughly patched twice. Now the new asphalt surface is so smooth, it’s almost hard to believe.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">They sure are bringing in the money to improve Kampot: along with the new pavement, upgrading of riverside park is nearly finished as well as the restoration of the old market, but with Bokor open and the new port under construction and the obvious surge in tourist arrivals, their interest is probably warranted. Too bad it’s so often misguided like the way they emasculated Kampot’s century old trees. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Still, I’ve also got plenty of gripes about the way the US has been developed, and in the end result, Cambodia doesn’t look all that bad in comparison. For instance, Cambodia is in the process of selling off vast tracts of national park and other ‘protected’ areas for corporate plantations. In America, starting in 1946 (and continuing to the present) the US government has sold off 90% of the giant trees of the national forests of the Pacific Northwest. Trees up to 100 meters tall and 800-years-old were chopped down like toothpicks.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">Still, one wishes the Cambo government wasn’t so intent on imitating the worst aspects of western development by selling off so much of the nation’s patrimony. Those resources should’ve been maintained in perpetuity for the common good. The country’s officials believe they’re making the right decisions for the country’s future, but like the filling in of Boeng Kak Lake in Phnom Penh, the end result will eventually be realized to have been a mistake. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;"><i>Stan Kahn <span> </span><span> </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></m:defjc></m:rmargin></m:lmargin></m:dispdef></m:smallfrac>Stan Kahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05977982040037466953noreply@blogger.com0