Dried clams made through some steps, tt is, on the other hand, generally believed to have an impact on people‘s health. Faithful eaters disapprove of this impact.

How Dried Clams are Made

Trucks loading clams normally arrive in Phnom Penh at around three o’clock early in the morning nearby 7 Makara market located in Tuol Kok district. As soon as it stops, dried clam sellers have to rush to the scene to buy some kilos each to make dried clams for the upcoming morning. After taken from the truck, clams are poured into freshwater, so they open their shells. After two hours soaked in water, sellers stir by hand to clean the shell and place them in bamboo baskets to rinse off water for fifteen minutes till the shells become a little bit dry.

In her 45, Bin Ya, a clam vendor living in Beong Kak II village, Tuol Kork district, says she has had this business for years, and made some good profit from selling them.

“I put them in the freshwater for those clams to spit mud out from shells,” she says. Before putting those clams on the flat zinc of the cart, she puts the washed clams in boiling water for three minutes till they are half-cooked, and she mixes them with salt, seasoning, sugar, chilly, and minced garlic. Rinsing them in sunlight will complete the cooking process.

Selling along Public Road

A haze of traffic and people swirl around 55-year-old Sam Chet who is sitting under sunlight on a small broken chair at the corner of Neak Vann pagoda along the Russian Boulevard. She has been earning a living by selling clams since the early 1990s.
Asked how hard it is to keep the dried clams clean on the cart while pushing her cart loaded with the food along the dusty road, Sam Chet says that she is used to it. “When I first sold them in the 1990s, other sellers laid them on the ground, so now it is actually more hygienic to have them laid on a cart with a zinc panel below. “It is normal to sell clams along the road… If you go to provinces, you will see clams on the ground,” Chet says.

Health Issue

Some Cambodians think that dried clams have a good taste. They, however, have a negative impact of health. A doctor from Peraing Referral hospital in Preyveng province, says that sold clams are not very clean and still mixed with dirt or dust.
“They are taken from the mud under the river. Even though sellers soak them in clean water for the clams to spit the mud out before boiling, it does not mean all the mud leaves the shell,” says Dr. Seng Chantha, adding that there appear to be kinds of worms in the food.

The medical doctor also recommends that Cambodians should think more of their health before indulging themselves in such a kind of food. “They should not eat those types of food at all… They are boiled for a few minutes and then put on a plate. Who can guarantee if they still consist of some bacteria? They can have a diarrhea or a pain in the stomach,” he adds.
Sry Theany, another 23-year-old student of medical science expresses her feeling toward the hygiene of making dried clams. She says she does not eat them because they consist of invisible bacteria, and people should be more informed before eating. “I ate dried clams before, but not now because I experienced a sheer pain due to worms inside clams,” she says. “They are taken out of mud from the river bottom, so they cannot be unhealthy food unless they are 100% cooked.”

Many fans of dried clams forget about experts’ words on dried clams, and cannot refrain from eating them once they see them. Keo Somaly, 23 years old, has eaten them since she was young. “I heard people saying about having a diarrhea from eating dried clams. I have had a diarrhea a few times, but that is worth it.” She says her favourite way of eating dried clams is eating them with a tamarind sauce with chili.

Another regular dried clam eater knows the bad impact of the food, but he still eats them. Reun Srib, 20, a student of Institute of Technology says, “I know what might go wrong with my health, but that is worth it.The taste cannot be resisted.”

By Tha Piseth & Keo Kounila
(Looking for photos)

Read more.

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I have ever guarrenteed a friend from a middle east country three times at the International airport in Cambodia. He wanted to enter the country but was stopped by the airport officials who frowned at his presence in Cambodia. All these people could tell was that he looked like a terrorist and went on that I had to be careful. Okay, you can call anybody a terrorist based on their countries? In this case, he’s from Iran, and he is just a short white boy with this gentle look.

The vexation happened again after I landed at the airport from Malaysia. Generally, when we return, we need to come to the big hall and join in one of the queues. My friend who came with me went first in the queue. Then, it was my turn, yet while I was sorting out the entrance machine, this old guy came to me and verbally insulted me, saying ,”You’re Cambodian, but why did you come along this line?” I was kind of dumbfounded at his stupid words. I just ignored it and went on to get my luggage. The lattest harrassment occurred at the same spot like last time. This time, because my thumb print on the entrance computer screen didn’t work, he repeatedly told me to clean the thumb screen of the computer. I didn’t get his meaning at first because of his seemingly unclear words. After several tries, I could get out that entrance machine. I finally could check into my country, but the man repeated his remarks about my not understanding (ignorance) and ….and I wonder, why the fuck these officials made a fuss about this. I only thought that most of these people have a pack mentality that nobody is better than them but foreigners. On that same day, one of the airport officials, while I was walking past him, asked me which country I travelled to. I told him that I just came back from Germany where I stayed for 2 weeks. A smile was turned into a disappointed face or almost a frown. What was wrong? He eventually said, “Oh, I supposed it was 2 years.”

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While watching the film, I suddenly thought about death. Why was life in war just a matter of seconds? With no hint, I began to panic and paced around my bedroom. Letting go a good cry, all the flashbacks came to the moment. I remember specific things I did when I was 7 till 22. They were about my activities at school, such as sitting down and imagining my future. When I was 12, I thought how cool it would be to become 16 years old. But when I was 16 years old, I didn’t feel awed by the age. Sadness, happiness, disappointment, distress and whatever positive or negative feelings I have encountered, make me more vulnerable to thoughts of death in the future. I have constantly told myself again and again that I will not be able to hold on to hope that before death, I will have achieved spectacular things. Trying not to sound ridiculous, that night I finally came to a conclusion. Only ‘immortality’ will keep my feelings alive. In many Chinese movies, the greedy kings forced people to make immortal medicine for them, so they could enjoy life much longer. For me, I only want to enjoy work, fun and feelings (good or bad).

A friend on Facebook suggests that I forget about the certain destination and concentrate more on the journey I am taking. I certainly couldn’t bring myself to this reality: life but taxes is certain. Panicking got me further; my heart started to beat noisily in my head; time to me passes so quickly nowadays. So, I thought that 40/50 years to go to come will be very short. I have had many things in mind, countless good memories, lots of experiences with my life, impeccable love from my parents. How can one accept less than a much longer life? I shamelessly want immortality to see the whole world. If I could, I would make every life, especially my parents’ intact of death and aging.

I could only sit down and grieve over this. My friends have kept telling me that perhaps I have jumped from adolescence to adulthood, which might explain this unpleasant and scary phenomenon. For sure, I’ll graduate this summer (July). I had never feared death, at least psychically, except this one time. I was a chicken, trapped in this cage. My destiny has been set: I’ll have my end some day.

With this blog post standing visibly online as a piece of a personal history, maybe in 50 or 60 years, it’ll remind everyone of me. But will I still feel myself existing. I dread not feeling anything like pain or suffering, not to mention happiness and laughter. I wish there’s a utopia at the end that will wait for me. I don’t have a faith that God exists. I am a Buddhist or an atheist in a way. Clinging to this hopeless dream, I’d rather not focus too much on the destination. The end will be the end.

KK

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Under the sunshine while many modern vehicles such Lexus, Camery, and motors of the latest design are driven on the streets, a Cambodian traditional two-wheel vehicle dragged by two oxen, moves slowly in a speed of walking. Out of date, it may be seen, along with the presence of modern technology, let alone the ox-cart used as transportation for business.

Chean Cheily, 21 years old from Kompong Chhnang province, forcing his white oxen with a whip, is riding through the city centre with his ox-cart overloaded with pottery and crafts made of clay.

http://www.parish-without-borders.net/cditt/cambodia/dailylife/2007/graphics/cart2.jpg

Such a normal scene of ox cart used for business can be seen sometimes overloaded with pottery or accessories. His ox-cart stops many times while calling for any prospective customer. His fragile products are laid on a thick layer of yellow straw on the cart to avoid cracks or break.

Ox-carts still carry its popularity till today. In the past, it was the sold transport to carry Cambodians and goods from place to place. Selling pottery products on the ox-cart like Chheily, was historically conducted in the ancient period, and especially from those native in Kompong Chhnang, famous for making craft products made of clay. [Kompong Chhnang means the port or place of pot.]

Some of Kompong Chhnang boys normally spend their time during the dry reason riding their ox-carts to crowded places of Cambodia to sell pottery such as water pots, vases, cookers, pans, and other souvenir stuff – all are made of clay. Whenever their products sell out, they will immediately come back to their home province.

Chheily is a seasonal seller on his ox-cart. He normally works on rice fields in rainy reason and starts selling on the cart in dry reason. [Each season lasts for six months.]

Now struggling far away from his hometown and spending four days and nights selling his clay products in Phnom Penh, Chheily says he has been on his selling mission twice to Phnom Penh and once in northwest Siem Reap.

“I can get more income in Siem Reap which is too far from my hometown. It takes me almost a month to arrive there by ox-cart,” says Chheily, who now can been seen on his ox-cart in Phnom Penh.

Chheily has to drive his cart on the road and stops whenever someone calls him for any purchase. Sometimes, callers just see around the products on the cart and go way without buying anything. He says that he does not mind it ever since he has started selling along Phnom Penh streets.

However, danger from such a lonely journey with his ox-cart does not leave his mind. He does not own a house in the city nor is able to afford a guest-house, let alone rent a hotel. As a mobile seller, he sometimes sleeps alone on the cart in a strange place, and has to get up to check his belongings and products several times a night.

“I’m really scared with this adventure, but luckily I never meet any trouble. I always pray for good spirits to protect me. My friend used to be beaten for money. If we do not give them money, they will break our stuff on the cart,” says Chheily.

“We have to give them money if we want to come back home alive.”

“I do not want to do this kind of business, but I have no choice. I left school in grade 8 in my province,” he says.

Besides the security issues, raining is also the main problem for Chheily trying to sell his products made of clay. He has to cover his cart with a big plastic, sitting and waiting for the rain to go away with a pathetic sight of covering his soaking-wet body with a traditional scarf.

Products which he sells are from whole-sellers in his village who accept deposits. Chheily occasionally earns 20,000 riel per day or nothing at all. He says he gets a commission from any product in between 500 or 1000 riel. And that money almost goes to support his everyday expense, and sometimes leaves none for his family.

Aside from selling products on the streets, he takes them to market but sells in a rather reasonable price accepted by retail sellers. However, it is difficult for him to keep a good relation with those retailers because they can hire trucks and motor-carts to buy similar products.

In the city, ox-cart businesses are banned on small streets as they can block the way, and are usually seen at the outskirt where the traffic is not less hectic. With the ever-changing rule in the city, Chheily says he has to re-consider selling his products in the city, but going on his traditional work is seen as a pride to him.

“It is the hardship I always meet, but I have to bear with difficulties so that I can bring some money back home,” says Chhiely. “I also want to carry on this tradition, because without my ox-cart, I will not be me.”

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It’s a different sort of feeling from the last time, of course. I felt like I could spend the rest of my life at the area. The small flowers of differrent colors could be seen from the field (photos next). I always imagined such a view, and now I could have it. Amazing, wasn’t it? Feldafing is a small little town in which I was told only rich and wealthy Germans (a large number of millionaires and billionaires) are residing. That wasn’t like what many Asians think about how an area for the rich should be. It is quiet, peace and serene, one could never find in metropolitan areas such as Phnom Penh or Bangkok (aren’t they?). Several alumni participants did give words of praise about the area. I was always thinking that I could spend the rest of my life over there.

In Munich (7 days), we went on our schedule by starting with a tour to differrent memorial sites dedicated to various resistance events against the Nazi regime/Adolf Hilter. We met a suvivor of the White Rose resistance group against Hilter. To me, he was just like Chum Mei, Bou Meng, or Vann Nath. It was good to listen to stories told by him as a prisoner of conscience. However, he was more lucky than his Jewish friends of the resistance who were beheaded by the Nazi soldiers. Isn’t it sad? Next days were spent visiting the Munich court, prosecutor, “Dachau” concentration camp. I could go on for hours describing my experience over there…but I never forget to compare what I saw to what there is in Cambodia. All I could say is that Cambodia has a long long way to go. What symbol should I use to emphasize this sentence? None, I think. Maybe you wanna know why I came to Germany this time. I was selected as one of the 23 participants to attend this Khmer Rough Tribunal Fellowship Program that tries to promote justice and reconciliation through capacity building. Of course, I always felt lucky to be chosen considering to less exposure to or experiences with the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.  

Off to Nuremberg now (2 days). Right there, we visited the former court of Nuremberg Trials that prosecuted the former Nazi leaders, one judge association, and at last the documentation centre which I could say is way much bigger and more modern than the Documentation Centre of Cambodia (DC-Cam). I know quite well that the DC-Cam has worked so hard on the Khmer Rouge matters, only to demand more support from differrent key players such as the government and donors.

Berlin is a very vibrant city, I dare say. I felt very safe and secure though at the beginning, I didn’t trust the city after a friend got robbed in a hotel lounge. I understand that insecurity is everywhere, but this time it was just different. People I met are very nice, helpful and friendly. It is very difficult and not right to make a generationalization about one nationality, city or country itself. The most interesting for me is the efficient transport. I could never get lost with this ability to speak English and to read the map given for free!! What we did in Germany for nearly a week was visiting memorial sites of the Jews killed in the Nazi regime, psychological (treatment) centres for victims, the ARD broadcast company, and the amazing Jewish museum that hosts great architectures to represent pain, suffering and emotions of the Jews in the Holocaust. There are times I think that Pol Pot did learn and use the techniques Hitler had used during the war: Isolation and Extermination of one’s race. Yet, these two guys went off the wrong way, and slaughtered so many innocent lives. You love your life, but why take others’  if you are bored with yours? There were so many questions popping up in my mind after witnessing places and stories told about legacies of the regime.

Time to stop here. I did see a lot but not enough yet. I’m fascinated by the synergy of the youth and the efforts in bridging the gap between ages in Germany. Ages just don’t matter, do they? They are all equally important to develop their country. The exhibitions about the German history I saw initiated my interest to start one small exhibition about the Khmer Rouge regime, and I hope this will bring together young people with different talents to make this possible. This, too, will show that the young are ready to accept the suffering of the old generation. It is still a dream to be realized, and I’ll see when it will be.

Besides all lessons learnt, I did have some fun:

-touring the whole city and going to different tourist places: Reichstag…

-dancing Tango with a friend

-shopping

Photos will come next.

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I remember he said, “I’m delighted that my story can let everyone inside and outside Cambodia know the darkest year, so that this history chapter will not be repeated.” For Bou Meng, the book is a healing pill or a cure for his trauma that’s been with him ever since he’s released from S-21.

Mr. Huy Vannak who used to work for the DC-Cam, a documentary centre that works on and stores many documents about the Khmer Rouge regime and now works as an anchor for CTN, authors the story of Bou Meng. Something remarkable happened. He said that it’s his very first time to hear Bou Meng said that he’s now “free from the past.” As an audience, I was happy to hear that writing a book can somehow release all negative feelings within Bou Meng, whom I know had carried along many painful memories of the loss of his wife and children.

The book, as Huy Vannak said, is a combination of Bou Meng’s personal life in the regime that’s told in a plain language, a dramatic love story and first encounter with his wife and their honeymoon, historical facts, and cultural background of Cambodia (why did Cambodians who had this great smile kill?). On page 41 in the book, a common phrase mentioned by the Khmer Rouge soldiers goes: “Don’t hide your secrets, and your eyes will be removed.” The Khmer Rouge leaders brainwashed these young soldiers to hate their enemies or treat other people like less than animals, and it’s very easy to kill or harm when hatred happens.

Bou Meng is a man who has lived through four regimes in Cambodia: French colonial time (1863-1953), Sangkum Reastre Niyum (1953-1970s), Lon Nol (1970s-1975) and today’s regime (1979-present). He, like other countryside boy, was mobilized and later purged for his alleged relation with secret police like CIA or KGB.

I can’t wait to read this book! .

Photos by Yourn Sarath

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Using a Weak Password

Avoid simple names or words you can find in a dictionary, even with numbers tacked on the end. Instead, mix upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols. A password should have at least eight characters. One good technique is to insert numbers or symbols in the middle of a word, such as this variant on the word “houses”: hO27usEs!

Leaving Your Full Birth Date in Your Profile

It’s an ideal target for identity thieves, who could use it to obtain more information about you and potentially gain access to your bank or credit card account. If you’ve already entered a birth date, go to your profile page and click on the Info tab, then on Edit Information. Under the Basic Information section, choose to show only the month and day or no birthday at all.

Overlooking Useful Privacy Controls

For almost everything in your Facebook profile, you can limit access to only your friends, friends of friends, or yourself. Restrict access to photos, birth date, religious views, and family information, among other things. You can give only certain people or groups access to items such as photos, or block particular people from seeing them. Consider leaving out contact info, such as phone number and address, since you probably don’t want anyone to have access to that information anyway.

Posting Your Child’s Name in a Caption

Don’t use a child’s name in photo tags or captions. If someone else does, delete it by clicking on Remove Tag. If your child isn’t on Facebook and someone includes his or her name in a caption, ask that person to remove the name

Mentioning That You’ll Be Away From Home

That’s like putting a “no one’s home” sign on your door. Wait until you get home to tell everyone how awesome your vacation was and be vague about the date of any trip.

Letting Search Engines Find You

To help prevent strangers from accessing your page, go to the Search section of Facebook’s privacy controls and select Only Friends for Facebook search results. Be sure the box for public search results isn’t checked.

Permitting Youngsters to Use Facebook Unsupervised

Facebook limits its members to ages 13 and over, but children younger than that do use it. If you have a young child or teenager on Facebook, the best way to provide oversight is to become one of their online friends. Use your e-mail address as the contact for their account so that you receive their notifications and monitor their activities. “What they think is nothing can actually be pretty serious,” says Charles Pavelites, a supervisory special agent at the Internet Crime Complaint Center. For example, a child who posts the comment “Mom will be home soon, I need to do the dishes” every day at the same time is revealing too much about the parents’ regular comings and goings

Copyrighted 2009, Consumers Union of U.S., Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Regarding to the KR regime, there have been very many questions posed about how Saloth Sar aka Pol Pot came into power, and how this guy could stir up the whole country between 1975-1979. It was not less known about his intention and motivation, though. Many books about the regime and people involved have been written up for the next generation to read on. As for me, I have now had nearly 20 books about the Khmer Rouge to read. Feel free to contact me and borrow the book. (Return is a must .)

One of the urgent issues to ponder about is how the Khmer Rouge leaders could indoctrinate and brainwash hundreds of thousands of people to be so cruel to city dwellers, torture and kill them. These young people were incited to hate the new people or city people… No doubt that young people are very easy to persuade to do anything against their conscience. Hundreds of the Khmer Rouge soldiers who entered the Phnom Penh city in April 17, 1975 were these young boys dressed in dark green, moving house-to-house. Four to five hours after they arrived, they started to mobilize around the city and told people to march toward the countryside, according to a recalling of a Cambodian survivor whom I talked to a week ago.

I had this fruitful talk with the fellowship program trainers. We went around topics such as the documentary called “S-21, the killing machine”, and “Enemies of the People”. In the latter, two perpetrators confessed their horrible crimes, killing people and drinking human gall bladders. Thirty years ago, they were of course young men who loyally followed Angkar (what the Khmer Rouge wanted to be addressed as.) Why were they so brutal? What was in their mind before and after they killed? I was overwhelmed about the situation, and was furious at those who killed blindly. Yet, my trainer gave me a food for thought. For young people, when they are isolated from their parents and relatives, from their communities, they start to feel detached with new people. Even more, Pol Pot incited them all to look over each other’s soldier (mistrust and paranoid). Their emotional attachment and personal communication were completely cut off. Therefore, they (tried to) felt numb while killing. They could not feel your pain considering survival of the fittest or “most cruel”. Most of the KR soldiers were children and young people. Children especially are like a blank sheet of paper which when a drop of black ink drops on, absorbs and does not wash away. Likewise, it was very easy for Pol Pot to indoctrinate these young to commit terrible crimes against humanity.

I was asking myself the same question. If I were an uneducated 12 or 13 year-old countryboy, if I were mobilized to other parts of the country, leaving my parents and relatives behind, and taught not to trust anyone but report on him or her about their mistakes, would I be able to resist death threat imposed upon me by Angkar? Would I dare to kill myself but spare hundreds of life in front of me? These children were taught to feel like a robot, and that was automatic to go on like that. I watched a 25-minute documentary about this Cambodian former child soldier who admitted to (getting involved in) killing people. It was a terrible inhumane mistake Pol Pot and his gang ever committed: killing people (to death) and kill people (alive).

I am not saying that those who were young and killed lives should not be held accountable. I am not sure if I would be different if I were in their shoes. Crimes are to be prosecuted of course; however, the ECCC has been so selective in their choices to try only the senior leaders or “most responsible” ones. For former child or young Khmer Rouge soldiers, there should be a legal system that spares them only partly because they were too young to resist. The most responsible people were educated but good-for-nothing like the former Khmer Rouge leaders

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I felt completely delighted to have written this story about male trafficking, which in a way raised awareness among people who only believed that trafficking and suffering only happened to girls and children. Men, too, suffer in that matter. Cambodia Calling also posted the link of this GlobalPost article about female sex tourism in an African country like Senegal. Desperate, poor, and unemployed, young males are drawn to prostitution for survival.  Is it a new story?

As desperate as Cambodia, females and males are easy to fall prey to this sort of job for just another day.

As quoted in Cambodia Calling:

Sex between two consenting adults does not always mean no one is hurt. Just ask Pape from Senegal who said: “Once I find a good job, I will get my dignity back. But for now, I’m a prostitute.”

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