As far as ’self-censorship’ is concerned, everybody including me has it. It may be a good or unpleasant thing to have it with us. Living surrounded by different rules and regulations, a person starts to develop self-censorship. A normal process. What about in the editorial/newsroom ? Self-censorship sometimes hinders the prodess of transparency and accuracy of the news. Some netrual people would probably say that self-censorship should be practiced within a particular limit. It depends?

self-censorship will always be with me?

Time flies, and it is now up to my to win my spurs, to prove my worth. Happiness to me now is just a flash in the pan because things start to fall into me non-stop. After my baby sister’s marriage, I have begun to think a lot of what life ahead will be like. There will be a lot of changes occurring to my life. I want none of them now. I want things to stay the same the way they used to be: nice, sweet and orderly.

Who ever thought I would have a brother-in-law living in the same house? How should I behave to other in-laws? What if one day they moved out? Hmm, this is unthinkable at the moment.

sister's engagement (newly-wed)

What else has changed? Relationship and friendship are real matters here. They come and go away invisibly. One day, a person is sweet to you, yet the other day he or she turns too sour for you to put up with. And, I have decided to move on and never look back at the past. Whatever happened happened = Que sera sera.

Even my jobs. I have decided to quit the job I respect the most. Being part of an international team was all I was proud of. I got to learn so much from where I had worked for nearly two years. I am going to miss the work and, yes, the mistakes I envisage I would make if I had to be there forever.

After I had a chit-chat with my professor today, I know that I am a kind of person who likes to go solo when it comes to work. I prefer travelling alone and have no string attached with others. It is both good and bad. It’s good because it demonstrates my strong ability and independence; yet it is bad as it shows my lack of engagement in the team work. The ugly truth is that I am going to work in a team in the foreseeable future. Who ever thinks that I will have the job that I have dreamt of since I was 12 years old? In a response to “What do you want to be in the future?”, at the age of 12, I kept answering, “I want to become a professor.”

Accept the truth, and your future will be beautiful.

This sentence was printed on the back of the T-shirt I spotted while riding my bike back home.  A friend of mine says that it sounds very much like a Buddhist saying. Actually, I have accepted some ugly truth entrenched upon me so far. Will my future be bright and beautiful? I don’t know.

Now it always relies on the present, and I hope we can change on time. Spiritually, this word is very nice, but physically, will the world be bright and beautiful? What I have had in my mind at this moment are: global warming/climate change, the Copenhagen summit and what action all the countries in the world will take to curb an apocalypse or a catastrophe from occurring to the earth. This proverb can apply to many things in life whether it’s spiritual, physical or…. you ill it out yourself, please…

This is a mini-documentary I produced last year for my school. Enjoy.

Cambodia's first-ever movie about gay love, but second movie about homosexual love

Picture by Sok Chanphal

I was sort of amazed when I saw this new graphically designed poster of this first-ever movie about gay love “High School’s Love Story”. Cambodia nowadays seems to be into homosexual love, doesn’t it? Another movie about homosexual lovers hit Cambodia’s film market not long ago in April 2009, drawing thousands of audience. It was entitled “Who am I?” Mrs. Poan Phuong Bopha, the film’s writer,  said that her film was successful beyond what she expected. And I was one of the audience. I like the theme and how she structured the story. However, the producing process and stars ‘ performance, in my opinion, have not improved much. But well, it was really nice to look into a new angle of society, rather than disclose it.

Even in Clogosphere (Cambodian blogosphere), I notice there’s a growing trend of Khmer blogs about gay novels. I see Cambodian kids and youngsters are trying to express themselves through stories they write for others to see and also explain people difficulties of gays together with gays’ positions in society.  Gay novels they write are often sad because the characters, both men, always end up apart. Why? I used to read one American gay novel, which I found quite tasteful . Society apparently condemns gays and lesbians, but they are a minority of people needed to be heard.

For a quick look, go to read some stories by this kid who blogs in Khmer. And, this is a Khmer Gay Novels blog in English.

Certainly, I am going forward to watching “High School’s Love Story”. I don’t really think this is a new issue. Gays and lesbians have always been in Cambodia. I understand why they have been hiding themselves from society. A lot of discrimination is going on everywhere against homosexuals or same-sex lovers. Gays and lesbians should really have their own rights to express themselves in whatever way. Just because they are, like everybody else, human beings.