Siem Reap police - tourist experience

David posted a comment on my blog post Tourist Police in Siem Reap.

Hello,
we got a problem, my credit card was robbed and we try to write a complain in the tourism office near Angkor. We were there for about 1 hour, they were asking stupid questions about at what time we called the bank, how much money we got in the account, we had to show them the letter from the bank, just to lost time. We say we wanted only the complain form to sent to the bank, but he didn´t give us a copy. After that, they burned the paper in front of us. After that I realised they wanted money from me, and all the questions were only to know how much money I have and so give more money to them. Corruption is even here, in the face of the tourism in Angkor.

Terrible. The policemen should be ashamed of themselves. To think I actually spoke well of them in my earlier post, based on another tourist's experience.

I recently wrote about the corruption in Cambodia and how from the very top, it trickles down to the people.

This report in 2007: Almost 75% of Cambodians have paid a bribe.

And here is my own experience in 2007 Dealing with the Cambodian Police.

Guy builds island with plastic bottles - and lives on it

Amazing Youtube video. It took him 2.5 years to build the island in Mexico. Now if I can only find a spot in Cambodia...

Chinese philanthropist gives away his wealth

Photo: Yang Junopo for The Globe and Mail. Story from theglobeandmail.com:

"With that endowment, Mr. Yu became the first Chinese national to give more than $1-billion to charity, now having contributed almost $1.3-billion in cash and real estate to the Yu Pengnian Foundation...

“If my children are competent, they don’t need my money,” Mr. Yu explained. “If they’re not, leaving them a lot of money is only doing them harm.”

In a society where capitalism is just 30 years old, and charitable giving an even younger concept, Mr. Yu says one of his primary goals in making a show out of giving his money away was to set an example to other rich Chinese. “Everybody has a different view of money. Some do good things with it, some rich people do nothing with it. …My goal is to be a leader, a pioneer who encourages rich people, inside and outside of China, to do something charitable.”

I hope wealthy Cambodians are listening - especially to the part about giving your children lots of money.

Cambodian women athletes

What a great story, from the Christian Science Monitor, by Kounila Keo, Contributor / July 16, 2010:

"Cambodia women are breaking free of social stigmas and disproving myths to succeed in the world of sports.

Vath Chamroeurn, secretary-general of the National Olympic Committee of Cambodia, says that over the past several years women have accounted for 30 percent of the total population of athletes representing Cambodia in international contests. In 2009 alone, Cambodian female athletes won one gold medal, four silvers, and 13 bronzes in the 25th Southeast Asian Games held in Laos. Events included pétanque, tae kwon do, volleyball, weight lifting, and wrestling.

Lack Som Ath, general director of the General Department of Sports at the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, says that Cambodian female athletes participate in as many as 20 sports.

One shining example is Duch Sophorn – Cambodia’s finest player of pétanque (a form of boules), who has won gold, silver, and bronze medals in international competitions over the past 10 years. Her success has inspired many young girls to pursue athletics. But she admits it has come at a price in a society that views athletic-looking women as sterile and unattractive.

“I have developed muscles and [I am] very strong. [If] men don’t like me, I don’t care, as long as I love myself,” says Ms. Sophorn."

Gold found in Cambodia

I was told by a Cambodian friend that there is gold in Cambodia. He says a Chinese company has the license for the gold digging and the government does not want people to know so they are keeping mum about it.

Not quite.

I did a google search and found Singapore's Straits Times reported the news in May. "CAMBODIA said on Monday that Australian firm OZ Minerals had discovered around 8.1 million tonnes of gold on its territory, ahead of a conference intended to draw in mining investment."

From Gold mine may leave people homeless in Cambodia:

"The gold deposit that both [Australian] exploration company OzMinerals and the Cambodian government are excited about lies in the remote Mondulkiri province, 500 km from Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh.

"After 17 years of exploration the government believes this could be the biggest find so far in Cambodia, yielding at least 600,000 ounces of gold. The project is in its infancy and will not be viable as a mine unless OzMinerals can do more small scale drilling and sampling to see if it can yield more than two million ounces of gold.

"The government says the residents have deliberately built their homes on land owned by OzMinerals and will not be compensated, and if they do not move the government will burn their homes or bulldoze them."

I wonder if Oz Minerals had to do the same as BHP Billiton for access to the mines. BHP had allegedly paid "tea money". In April, the Sydney Morning Herald published a report on the scandal.

"In … terms of the minerals exploration agreement with the Cambodian government, which granted BHP Billiton and Mitsubishi the right to explore for bauxite, an amount of $US1 million was formally paid to the Cambodian government in September 2006," BHP wrote.

But BHP did admit "that its own internal investigation - a response to inquiries from the SEC - had uncovered evidence "regarding possible violations of applicable anti-corruption laws involving interactions with government officials."

BHP has paid New York law firm Davis Polk & Wardell to help them. I have a friend from school working in this firm (yes Singaporeans are everywhere). But of course my friend will not give me information. This is why she gets paid the big bucks.

If my Cambodian friend is right, Oz Minerals is not the only company that has found gold in Cambodia. So have the Chinese. He says the Chinese have sent the gold for tests to ascertain its quality. My friend is unhappy because of course he'd prefer if the gold stayed in Cambodian hands.

Mondulkiri is remote and relatively unexplored, so has much mining potential. The people there are dirt poor, and because the area is so remote, they are often neglected. Most children don't go to school and small children go into the small holes in the quarries looking for minerals (much like the children chimney sweeps in Europe a century or two ago). A friend who visited told me the locals get paid US$5 a kg of zircons. US$5. Do you know how hard it is to find a kilogramme of stones?

I was also told the volcano lake of Mondulkiri has been sold to a foreign company to build a casino. This information was from a foreigner working there but I have been unable to confirm this as there are no news reports. I really hope it is not true because I think that would be a mistake.

Mondukiri is not like Las Vegas, a desert with no natural attractions, so a casino city is the only draw. Building a casino will attract only one sort of tourists at the expense of many other tourists who'd like to see the natural beauty of Cambodia.

As for Oz Minerals, it too, is not without scandal.

Cambodian beauty shop

Cambodia's beauty shops range from the very simple, hole-in-the-wall kind, to more upmarket salons found in supermarket malls such as Lucky and in the main streets. In Phnom Penh, for instance, "London" and "Singapore" are well-known. A common joke is if anyone was going to London or Singapore that weekend.

For me though, I always go with my Khmer friends to the ones in a market, simply because it is cheaper - US$1 for a hairwash and $1 for a hair cut. I also like the service. The best hairwashes are done by the ladyboys because they are strong and passionate about their job. You can find them working at stalls in the Old Market.

My friends and I favour a small beauty shop in psar dum krolyiang (Krolyiang Tree Market) here in Siem Reap. It is a local market and not centrally located so tourists do not go there.

Here is the shop. You can see the ceiling is padded with cardboard boxes. I asked why and it is to keep the place cool since the shop, like all the others, has a tin roof. In front there is a plastic sheet to keep the rain off. The sheet is all green and mouldy.

The tiny fan. It looks like a toy fan. See the re-used cardboard boxes?

The shop is lit with a few fluorescent tubes. 

All simply connected.

These are the sockets. Could be disastrous if something goes wrong with the electrical wiring, I guess, since the shop is just a wooden shack. But they are careful as no one here has insurance.

Tin sheets make up one wall.

And wood the other. (Here the hairdresser is giving my friend a head massage).

Manicure. Also US$1.

Where we put our slippers, next to the hanging sachets of shampoo and creams. When I first arrived in Cambodia, I was dismayed to learn poor people had to buy sachets of shampoo for 500riels (US$0.125) each, for a tiny amount. They do not buy the bottles that we buy because these cost a few dollars. Many Cambodians do not have a few dollars to spend at one go, since many live hand-to-mouth. They make the sachets last a few days. As you know, usually when you buy in bulk, you save money cos the unit price ($/ml in this case) goes down. So buying in small quantities is another way the poor pays more. 

I was dismayed because I had just arrived from Singapore where magazines routinely give out free sachets of beauty products as samples. Some of those free sachets were bigger than what the Cambodians have to pay for. 

This is one of life's irony - the richer you are, and the more you can afford it, the more freebies you get. Just think of all those movie stars and what they get free. 

Where celebrities get free goodies because companies want to be associated with them, the middle-classes are given freebies as advertising. The hope is that we will spend our disposable incomes after trying out the products. 

As for the poor, since they have no disposable income, companies are not interested in enticing them - so no free stuff. 

The products, in a glass cabinet. Mostly cheap, unknown, brands from China or Thailand. But Dove (see the deodorant?) and Revlon (hair colour) are big here in Cambodia. Revlon, especially, has been marketing itself aggressively in this country. I am told MAC, which I used when I was working in Singapore, costs only US$3 here. Of course it is fake, from Thailand. But the Dove and Revlon are the genuine article.  

The rinse. Most market stall beauty shops are so tiny, there is no space to get a full length chair to stretch out. You always need to bend your knees. Here is my Cambodian friend getting her hair rinsed after the shampoo. There is no running water, no pipes, and no tap. So how to rinse?

With this! A giant 60 litre pail filled with water. The hairdresser scoops the water and pours it over your hair. (Yes, no warm rinses either. Only cold water). I thought it was great. Saves a lot of water this way. The water is bought from peddlers who go around the market (distilled water is cheap in this country - just $1 for 20 litres and one day I will show you why).

I have to point out the beauty shops in the Old Market in heart of Siem Reap do have pipes and therefore running water. Not all Cambodian beauty shops are as basic as this.

I know many friends who balk at the idea of getting their hair washed in this way, but I've never had any problems (no itchiness I mean).  Try it, the next time you're in Cambodia!

Paedophile's rubbish dump scam

Khmer440 is a funny online forum. I used to read it while living in Phnom Penh but found it less relevant to Siem Reap so stopped after relocating in 2007. Recently a friend, a fan of the site, told me last year Khmer440 forumners were already onto the British paedophile David Fletcher.

Indeed they were. You can read the thread here.

I find Khmer440 funny because of the spats between the different bar owners and the expats who frequent the different establishments. It's also instructive because some of these guys have been in Phnom Penh for a long time and know the ins-and-outs. And the gossip is always good entertainment. I am glad I live in Siem Reap though. Siem Reap just seems less...complicated.

Anyway, I was reading the thread and found this bit interesting. From ryan_asia:

Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 3:46 pm Post subject:
I was visiting Phnom Penh around two and a half years ago and stayed at the guesthouse next to DF's (David Fletcher's) bar. I saw the fliers on his tables about helping the people at the dump. Back then I was stupid and thought anybody could help save the world. I asked David what I could do to help and he replied that the people needed rubber boots.

I asked him how many were needed and what the cost was. He needed 100 pairs and said they cost $3.00 each. Thankfully I didn't have $300 on me at the time. The next day I asked a Khmer lady working were I stayed next door if she could go hunt them down for me. I didn't want to go myself and get ripped off with Barang pricing.

I gave her $300 and asked her to see if she couldn't get them for less as I was buying a large quantity. I assumed that was the end of that money but she came back with the boots and gave me back $150. Incredible honesty given what she was getting paid for a salary.

Read the whole post here. Thanks for sharing ryan_asia.

Many times at Phnom Penh's riverside my friends and I would get accosted by some Khmer man with flyers trying to convince us to pay to visit the dump. I think it was US$15 for food and the trip there. The pushy man would even harass us in the restaurant, so I'm sure he gets a commission (why else try so hard?). Often the man would ignore me, only giving the fliers to my white friends. Of course I always advised friends against signing up for the trip, believing it to be a scam (turns out I was right - how shocking).

Fletcher is now behind bars. He was arrested in Bangkok after fleeing Cambodia because of an expose in UK's Sunday Mirror.

Anyway the point of this post: Tourists to Cambodia who would like to help please do not participate in the work of some random "charitable" organisation you encounter, no matter how persuasive it seems. You need to find out more.

One of the strategies Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It, recommends is this:

"Aid agencies should increasingly be concentrated in the most difficult environments, accept more risk. Ordinary citizens should not support poorly informed [may I add, and intentionally corrupt ones] vociferous lobbies whose efforts are counterproductive and severely constrain what the Aid agencies can do."

Tuk Tuk Politics

I dislike many of Cambodia's tuk tuk drivers. I once read in a forum some guy defending them as "mostly decent guys trying to earn a living." In my experience most of them are crooks.

I say this having personally taken many tuk tuks (those hired by other people), negotiated on behalf of visiting friends, even employed wives of tuk tuk drivers (no more). I have encountered dozens of them in my 4 years in Cambodia and have grown to dislike them.

Today I learnt I am not alone, which is what prompted this blog post. Wandering Mama had this to say about Cambodia's tuk tuk drivers:

"In a word: Obnoxious. The smarmy guys outside our hotel in Phnom Penh gave us sob-stories while plying us with business cards and trying to exhort promises that we would call only them....The thing is if you tell them to go scratch or get pissy they love it. They want you to get mad. Then they lay it on thick and talk shit to their buddies about you in Khmer, laughing about getting the foreigner riled. And riled you get. Following one such exchange with a driver today, WPapa and I got into one of those classic on-the-street yelling matches (Why the F are we here, this was your idea…”) We were sweating, dragging kids along a busy street without a sidewalk, headed nowhere, all keyed up by the damn drivers."

This was in Phnom Penh and I've been told the tuk tuks there are much more aggressive than in Siem Reap. Oh the stories I have heard.

This one, by a French expat friend. It was late, after midnight, when she tried to get a tuk tuk to take her home, a distance that was literally 200 metres away (yes, I would have walked too - but it was late). The guy wanted US$3, for a trip that would cost US$1 at most. Ok, it was late, so she offered US$2. But he wouldn't budge. Fed up, she decided to call a taxi, which would have been cheaper (meter starts at $1 and the 200 m would amount to less than US$2 for an air-conditioned, smooth ride).

The tuk tuk driver started swearing at her and yelling "fucking Chinese taxi company". My friend was perplexed, as we all are - this guy who was sleeping in his tuk tuk would rather continue sleeping than earn an easy US$2. So why even bother to get up to talk to my friend?

Those of you living in the US or Singapore or some other rich country may be thinking, "Come on, it's only an extra buck." It is. But for many of us expats, it's become a matter of principle.

My American friend, a woman, tells me she would rather walk a mile to find another tuk tuk than to use the one that pissed her off by trying to gouge her from the words "tuk tuk madam".

It's like what my partner Alan says: We are happy to be generous, but don't anticipate our generosity.

(Perhaps you think it is a matter of principle for the tuk tuk driver too - "US$3 or nothing for me to wake up from my sleep and drive 200m". Fair enough, but then don't get pissy if the potential customer choses otherwise).

This is why I only use and recommend tuk tuk drivers who are known to me - Phoen in Siem Reap and Sophal in Phnom Penh. These 2 men I have known for 3 years. And the reason I continued to hire Phoen and Sophal after the first chance meeting with them is because they were honest and decent. Cambodia is like Bali to me in this regard - so many crooks that when you meet a decent person, you just want to reward him for his honesty. Completely screwed up I know, but this is how I often think and act - giving an extra tip for "honesty".

Anyway, this post is about tuk tuk driver politics.

I just learned this about Siem Reap - when a guesthouse sends a tuk tuk driver to pick you up at the airport, the guesthouse DOES NOT PAY the tuk tuk driver. The drivers do it for free, because they hope you will then employ them for your 3 day tour to Angkor Wat.

I think this is dishonest and disgusting - come on, guesthouse owners, your customer is paying you for the guesthouse (in my friend's case, 7 nights!), why can't you pay your tuk tuk driver a couple of bucks for providing this service to your customer? (If any guesthouse owner pays his/her tuk tuk drivers for this service instead of asking them to suck it up, let me know - I will recommend your establishment to my friends).

It makes me mad because customers are deceived and limits their choice of tuk tuk (if they know the truth and are decent people).

Let me explain.

My friends, a couple, who were staying at a Singapore-owned guesthouse had this happen to them. They had no idea the tuk tuk driver who got them at the airport was not paid, so they only gave him a US$1 tip. Meanwhile, because the guy had gone to get them for free, he was mightily displeased to learn from the couple that they may be going with Phoen to Angkor Wat.

Of course, he did not dare say anything to me. What happened was Kagna's friend, another tuk tuk driver, had dropped by the Bloom shop in the hopes of the couple using his tuk tuk (Kagna had mentioned to them I had friends visiting). That started the dispute. Tuk tuk 1 told tuk tuk 2 off, saying "hands off - since I picked them up at the airport, they are my customers".

When my friends and I found out tuk tuk 1 was not paid by the guesthouse, of course we felt bad for him. My friends decided they could either pay him for the airport trip ($5) or use his tuk tuk to go to Angkor (he wanted US$15 even though it is just $10-$12 nowadays because it is low season). They decided to go to Angkor with him for just one day.

It was easy money for him, as we spent a lot of time at the temples taking photos, so only did the main three. If you ride a motorbike in Cambodia, you will know the petrol costs less than a litre for this distance, so about a dollar (the tuk tuk is basically a carriage pulled by a motorbike). If he owns his tuk tuk as this guy did, U$$14 was profit (ok, maybe $12 or $13 if you minus maintenance costs).

This is why there are so many motodops and tuk tuk drivers in Cambodia - it is very profitable business. Chhun Hy used to bug me all the time to lend him money to buy a motorbike because he wanted to be a motodop in his free time because he knew how much money he could earn.

So don't pay any attention to the drivers when tell you the price of petrol has gone up, they have to pay for petrol for your 200-meter, $2, ride etc etc. In fact the price of petrol has come down from a high of almost $1.25 a litre (I think it was 2008?).

Still, not the end of the politicking.

The couple was staying for a week and during Angkor Wat day, tuk tuk 1 kept bugging my friends about their itinerary because he wanted them to continue to employ him for the rest of their stay. Apart from not guarding our things, resulting in the loss of a reflector (for photography), tuk tuk 1 lied to tuk tuk 2 (Kagna's friend) and said the couple had gone home the next day, warding off competition in this way.

Finally, on the last day, I had arranged for Phoen to go to the guesthouse at 5:30am to pick up the couple, as they wanted to watch sunrise on the way to the airport (you can see a very beautiful, striking, large and low orange ball on the horizon).

When Phoen arrived, the security guard at the guesthouse (it was so early that only the guard was around) told him the couple had already left. Phoen was calling me - at 5:30am!! - in a panic. I was really grumpy, since I had gone to bed at 2am. I told him to just wait for my friends. My friends and I don't lie, I told Pheon. If we say we will do something, we will do it.

My friends did appear, of course. Later, Phoen told me he was angry with the "niak eeum" ("night watchman") for lying to him. He says it is because the niak eeum and tuk tuk 1 (the designated guesthouse tuk tuk) are friends, so in cahoots.

Because there are more and more tuk tuk drivers in Siem Reap (I can't find any information on the numbers), it is very competitive. It is low season to boot, so many of the tuk tuks are struggling. Kagna's friend for instance, has a newborn. To save money, he has sent his wife and child to his hometown in the countryside where his family can look after them, while he continues to work in Siem Reap.

I would like to help Kagna's friend, but I can't help everyone. In this case, helping him would be at Phoen's expense. I'll try to spilt customers between them. This is why I often think of a tuk tuk cooperative. All customers go through a single point of contact and the business is divided between the drivers and the profits are shared. Of course there will be some who will prefer being independent, but that's fine. It's to help those who can't make it on their own, like Phoen, cos he doesn't speak English.

Russians re-incarnated in Cambodia!

The other day Kagna was reading Angkor Thom magazine, a bestseller in Cambodia. I had written a "review" of one of the issues last June where I described the stories published. I see things have not changed...

This story features a pair of albino brothers. Here is Angkor Thom's version: The brothers are reincarnated white people (!!!)

The monk was the first discovered reincarnated white person in that neighbourhood. The story is that he was a Russian who died in Cambodia and then re-incarnated in Cambodia (or some rubbish like that).

The extended family - all brown skinned except the boy. So how do you explain the way he looks? How do you explain a brown-skinned mother giving birth to a white-skinned boy?

He was re-incarnated of course.

In a way I don't blame the rural people. How could they have any idea about albinism (a congenital disorder in which persons have an absence of pigment in the skin, hair and eyes because of a defect in an enzyme that is responsible for producing melanin). You would try to explain the situation somehow and a Russian plane crashing into the village and the Russians being re-incarnated, bursting out in their next life, as a whitish Khmer, would be one way...

But really, the publishers of Angkor Thom should know better - and I suspect they do. They just publish such nonsense in order to sell their rag. The thing is, Kagna actually believes the story, even after I explained about albinos to her and how they are found all over the world.

Here is a photo of an albino boy taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albinism. I explained how I knew an albino boy in primary school in Singapore and he had to keep out of the sun because lack of pigmentation makes people more susceptible to sunburn and skin cancers. The sun also hurt the boy's eyes.

Kagna said this was not the case in the Khmer-white boys, they can play in the sun and have no problems with their eyesight. Therefore, they are not albinos, but re-incarnated white people. Q.E.D.

Sigh.

I wish Angkor Thom would be more responsible and make use of its wide reach to teach people things instead of writing rubbish. They could use their influence to really educate the population, teach them things about nature and the world. Albinism is fascinating in itself. Why not write about this?

Then again, even supposedly educated USA has rags that talk about women giving birth to three headed monsters and this:

The Alien is a favourite story

So he was wheeled out again for Obama.

Sigh.

Wanted: Cambodian student in Singapore

I just received this email from a teacher friend in Singapore:

Diana,
how have u been?
btw, do u happen to know any cambodian youths who are studying in singapore currently?
I am trying to get some of them to do some sharing with my teams on language and cross cultural issues..

regds
Ann Tat

I don't know any Khmers studying in Singapore but if you do, please send Ann Tat an email at anntat@yahoo.com 

Thanks everyone!

Update on Bloom the social enterprise

(Bloom duffel bags - all ready for shipment!)

I keep saying I do not write about Bloom enough. I know many people follow our story. They have emailed me to say they'd like to hear more about my experiences setting up a social enterprise and whether and how successful it can be.

I was reminded of this recently after I posted this on my Facebook: Diana Saw: "Yes! deleted about a 100 "friends"-- people i can't even recognise from their photos and others who don't matter to me. hope this way i can see the updates of only real friends."

[I usually do housekeeping on Facebook because I don't want so many friends. After a while it gets hard to keep track of everyone. When I see these people with 1000's of friends I just want to laugh. Who are you kidding? You're obviously just using them for marketing and (self) promotional purposes.]

Most people said "Phew, glad to still be on your list." But then I got this response from a Facebook friend, John.

"Diana, There's very little reason for me to still be able to see this, but I'm glad I can. I fell in love with Cambodia, Bloom products and then the business a couple years ago on my first visit. I hope to spend a lot more time in country in coming years. Bloom is in inspiration about how to do business the right way there. Next time you have to weed the list, maybe there's another way to keep people like me informed about the Bloom story while still tracking your close friends here. Thanks again."

It was a good reminder. This was my response:

Diana Saw: hey john! that's a really good point. thanks so much for reminding me. i went a little berserk early this morning cos my kitten died and wanted to feel like i was doing something useful. i actually have a bloom list of friends--people i know through bloom (those people on my friends list who look like supermodels are not friends i hang out with in real life - i met them all through bloom!). in fact i think 300+ of my friends fall in the bloom category. i have kept them all because i really appreciate their support. the people i deleted are mostly people from my past job, school etc who add me just so. even though we have moved on and don't even send an email to say hi - just "add friend". it's stupid, really. anyway keep in touch and i hope to see you in srok khmer soon! :)

Yes, it has been a very sad couple of weeks for me because a two week old abandoned kitten I found on Sok San road and took care for 2 weeks died. I will write about the experience when I am able to. I can't really right now cos it still breaks my heart.

Anyway, I will try to write more about Bloom. The reality is that I have many interests outside of Bloom. I am curious about Cambodia and interested in my environment here in Siem Reap which is why I blog so much about it. I am also more interested in workers' rights and liberty and justice than in business--and that's the truth.

Much of business is very mundane and uninteresting. Sometimes I can hardly believe I spend my time writing emails to customers who negotiate prices. I am so tired of explaining over and over again why our bags are priced as they are, why they are not as cheap as a factory-made bag. I struggle to keep at these email exchanges when all I want to say "screw it, it's just not worth it. let me refer you to a chinese site that sells cheap and rubbish quality bags".

This part of business is uninteresting at best and unedifying--petty even--at worst.

It is something other friends who have multimillion dollar businesses tell me they dislike too. Possibly it is because my friends are like me, i.e., not real salespeople to begin with. Still, it is something we all recognise and accept has to be done. After all, owners or bosses can delegate many things but, at some point, it falls on the owner/founder/boss to explain why the business is run the way it is (in management speak, it is called "escalation". Staff members are asked to "escalate the problem" to their higher ups, and there is none so high up than the boss).

In Bloom's case, because it is small and I am the only foreigner, it falls on me to deal with things like these. I can hire a professional Khmer manager, I guess, but my intention has always been to help the poorest Khmers, not the middle classes. This is why I have steered clear of hiring managers at Bloom, preferring to hire more sewers, i.e., workers. I like workers; I don't like middle managers quite so much. In my experience workers contribute way more to a business than middle managers.

One solution to this specific problem is to send a template email so I don't have to put in so much effort. But I like responding to enquiries in a personal manner because after all, it is me, a person, dealing with another person.

However, this email from a very good customer in the US shows me there are people who tend to forget about other people when they get caught up in the pursuit of profits. My customer had been talking to a very large online Pet store that is not so Smart:

"They loved the collars leashes but wanted to buy them at a disgustingly low price, plus I paid to ship to them & they have this stupid policy about markdown money if products don't sell through a certain amount every 30 day period. I could go bankrupt just filling their order. I honestly don't understand how anyone can sell to them. I (obviously) graciously declined & told them it is part of my business plan to not only build in a % to each product to give back to charities, but that amazingly enough I needed to have a bit of profit in it as well - to which they replied "Oh, I see. Good Luck" click, hangup. My kids asked me if I was upset because I had put hours into presentations for them - but I said no - I was actually a bit relieved that I avoided getting dragged into a corporate mill that would milk me dry."

My customer is great and these are the people I usually end up doing business with--people who care about others instead of simply lining their own pockets. People like my customer and me want to prove that it is possible to do business in an ethical way, in a way that does not exploit anyone, and in a way that gives back to society. Sadly, many people running large corporations (and even small ones) do not think the same way and operate selfishly.

The other reason I don't blog so much about Bloom is that after almost 4 years, Bloom runs pretty much as a well-oiled machine. The workshop is in Phnom Penh under the hands of a very capable young man, Sina, who not only cuts the ricebags into shape but also oversees production together with another very capable young lady, Kamhut, who also makes the templates. As you can see, we would like our managers to also be hands on and involved in the production of the bags. No one is stuck in an office making decisions that have no relevance to the business.

Meanwhile I live in Siem Reap, a 6 hour bus ride away (I made the move to Siem Reap in Nov 2007). It was always the plan for Bloom to be a workers' cooperative, eventually running on its own without me.

Of course there are issues that crop up now and again. The most costly mistake, apart from Sipha stealing from us, was when we did not write the name of the customer who was awaiting the bags at Bangkok's Le Meridien. EMS (Express Mail Service) Bangkok refused to release the bags to Le Meridien even though the hotel knew who to give the bags to. At the same time, EMS Cambodia refused to accept any responsibility even though they had accepted the forms without the addressee and cleared the parcel. Yes, EMS, you suck.

Finally, after a month of to and fro-ing, the bags arrived back in Phnom Penh and we had to pay for the bags to be re-routed to Holland, at a cost of almost US$300 dollars. Thankfully, the customer was kind enough to share the bill for that. But it was still a costly lesson.

At that time, many friends had asked me to dock the pay of the person responsible for the mistake but, come on, everyone makes mistakes. I know the Khmer staff member responsible felt really bad and even asked to be removed from this responsibility for fear of making the same mistake again.

Anyway, the point is mistakes happen in business, as they do in any other aspect in life. No matter how well you plan things, accidents do happen. The good thing is we did learn something from this and have instituted a new process--forms have always to be double-checked by someone else before they are sent off. A simple enough idea, but one we did not think about until the mistake happened.

Ok that's it for now. It's 10 pm Cambodia time now and I have to take dad to the airport at half past six in the morning by tuktuk. I will make an effort to write more about Bloom, I promise!

Broken chair

I took this photo to show people that nothing is quickly thrown away in Cambodia. Everything is used until it absolutely has got no life left. I contrast this with Singapore, with its throwaway culture. I know people who will throw or give away a pair of shoes once the heels are scruffed. I've even received donations of clothes from Singaporeans - with tags still intact!

Anyway you can see this plastic chair has been sewn together with wire after it broke in places, to extend its life.

The funny thing was where I saw the chair.

Here! Outside ABA bank on Sivatha in Siem Reap. You'd think a bank would have enough money to replace a broken chair...

Reporters without Borders' open letter to Singapore Prime Minister

People do not believe me when I tell them "first world" Singapore ranks lower than third world Cambodia in the Press Freedom Index, an annual ranking of countries compiled and published by Reporters without Borders. For 2009, Cambodia ranks 117 and Singapore, 133. It is an improvement for both countries from 2008's ranking, when Cambodia was 126 and Singapore, 144, out of 175 countries. In my blog post last year, I tried to explain Singapore's repression is more subtle than Cambodia's, but no less effective. Unlike Cambodia, you don't get shot in broad daylight in Singapore for expressing dissenting views in the media. Rather, it is the fear of lawsuits and losing lots of money (possibly even made bankrupt in the case of Singaporeans) that silences foreign media and local critics.

Anyway, following is the letter from RSF which explains the state of press freedom in Singapore (original is here).

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong
Prime Minister’s Office
Orchard Road
Istana
Singapore 238823

Paris, 25 March 2010

Dear Prime Minister,

A foreign news organisation has yet again been forced to apologise to you and your father and pay you a large sum of money for publishing an article you did not like. This time it is the New York Times Co. that is a victim of this double punishment because of a compliant judicial system that always rules in favour of you and your family in all the lawsuits you bring against foreign news media.

Before the New York Times Co., you succeeded in punishing the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER), FinanceAsia.com, The Economist, International Herald Tribune and Asian Wall Street Journal for their coverage of the political and economic situation in your country.

Threatened by a trial, the New York Times Co. apologised to you and your father, Lee Kuan Yew, for the article “All in the Family,” written by Philip Bowring and published in the 15 February issue of the International Herald Tribune. As well as an apology, this US media company had to pay 114,000 US dollars in damages.

Your lawyer, Davinder Singh, said Bowring’s article violated an “agreement” between your family and the International Herald Tribune, which was sentenced in 1994 to pay a large sum in damages for an article entitled “The claims about Asian values don’t usually bear scrutiny.”

The now defunct Far Eastern Economic Review agreed last November, after a long legal wrangle, to pay you and your father 290,000 US dollars in damages. Despite a lack of evidence, Singaporean judges ruled in favour of your family both in the original trial and on appeal without a thought for media freedom.

Reporters Without Borders condemns the judicial harassment which you and your father have practiced for years in order to prevent foreign news media from taking too close an interest in how you run your country. It does serious and lasting harm to press freedom in Singapore.

Your government has repeatedly displayed a disturbing inability to tolerate foreign journalists. Last October, for example, Benjamin Bland, a British freelancer who strings for The Economist and The Daily Telegraph, was denied a visa and permission to cover an APEC summit in Singapore. “I was forced to leave Singapore after the government refused to renew my work visa without any explanation,” Bland told Reporters Without Borders.

But the censorship has above all affected local media and local artistic production. In October 2009, for example, the ministry of information, communication and arts upheld a ban on a documentary by Singaporean filmmaker Martyn See about government opponent Said Zahari.

In response to the publication of the Reporters Without Borders 2009 press freedom index, in which Singapore was ranked 133rd out of 175 countries, your law minister, K. Shanmugam, described it as “absurd” and “disconnected from reality.”

Unfortunately, the facts show that we are right.

In the six years since you became prime minister and said you favoured an “open” society, we have seen very few improvements in the situation of free speech.

We therefore think your government should take the following measures as a matter of urgency:

1. Put a stop to the libel actions which you and your relatives have been bringing against Singaporean and foreign media that cover Singaporean developments in an independent manner. As the UN special rapporteur for freedom of expression recently said, the prime minister, his minister and high officials must refrain from suing journalists over their articles and comments.

2. Amend the criminal code so as to abolish prison sentences for press offences.

3. Amend the press law, especially the articles concerning the granting of publication licences. The current restrictions are preventing the emergence of independent media. The film law should also be relaxed.

4. Reform the national security law so as to abolish administrative detention, which allows the authorities to imprison people because of what they think.

5. Reform the Media Development Authority so that it is no longer able to censor and can solely make recommendations about TV programmes and films.

6. Allow government opponents and civil society representatives unrestricted access to the public media.

7. Guarantee the editorial independence of all the media owned by Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) and Media Corporation of Singapore (Mediacorp).

8. Transfer the money that your family has obtained in damages from foreign and Singaporean news media to a support fund for imprisoned journalists that Reporters Without Borders proposes to set up.

We regret that you, the members of your government and your father keep citing the need to guarantee Singapore’s stability as grounds for controlling the media and maintaining its draconian laws. Countries that show the most respect for press freedom, such as Finland and Norway, are peaceful and prosperous democracies. Freedom of expression is not a source of political unrest. Quite the contrary.

You have perpetuated your father’s legacy by continuing to harass and intimidate news media. As a result, aside from a few websites specialising in Singapore, no news outlet can publish independent news and information about issues affecting the political situation in your country.

We would be very honoured to be able to meet with you in order to talk about our observations and our proposals for guaranteeing press freedom in Singapore in person.

Respectfully,
Jean-François Julliard
Secretary-General

I love starving artists

So do I - that's why I don't give them any money, lol.
(Spotted in downtown Siem Reap.) 

Happy with Tandem Bike

is quit funny. New addition to Siem Reap. So far I have only seen a Caucasian man with his son riding one. Looks fun.

Praying Mantis

Austin found a praying mantis the other day. 

It's a funny creature. Look at it lifting its "wings", trying to look bigger.

Raaah! stay away!

This is its face. Kindda cute. It's called a praying mantis because of the "prayer-like stance". This was what I found out from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantis. More:

"Mantises are exclusively predatory. Insects form the primary diet, but larger species have been known to prey on small lizards, frogs, birds,snakes, fish and even rodents; they will prey upon any species small enough to successfully capture and devour. Most species of mantis are known to engage in cannibalism...

. 

"The female may start feeding by biting off the male’s head (as with any prey), and if mating had begun, the male’s movements may become even more vigorous in its delivery of sperm. Early researchers thought that because copulatory movement is controlled by ganglion in the abdomen, not the head, removal of the male’s head was a reproductive strategy by females to enhance fertilisation while obtaining sustenance. Later, this behaviour appeared to be an artifact of intrusive laboratory observation. Whether the behaviour in the field is natural, or also the result of distractions caused by the human observer, remains controversial. Mantises are highly visual organisms, and notice any disturbance occurring in the laboratory or field such as bright lights or moving scientists." 

Fascinating. 

More Siem Reap graffiti

Almost 2 years ago I wrote about graffiti art appearing in Siem Reap. This was the first that I noticed. Since then, they have been popping up everywhere. I like the colours and think they brighten up the place. I have been trying to find them all. This one is on Sivatha, near the florist (there is only one).

This one is just opposite Pub Street in the old market area, just round the corner from the U-Care pharmacy.

This is in The Lane, behind Pub Street. It says "Thank You (aur kun) Siem Reap" 

The names are Sopheara (Khmer), Taz and Katherine (not Khmer). I guess this was a Cambodian-Western collaboration. Aw-koon guys/gals ! :)

Then there was this...

some children's drawing on a wall next to this altar, which I found funny, lol.

Vintage Volkswagen Beetle

With Cambodian license plate, that's all. :)

Cambodian and Korean find love in Asia

I really like this Korean show called "Love in Asia". It is about foreigners who marry Koreans and their stories. There are more than 1 million foreigners in Korea, according to the "Love in Asia" website. One memorable episode was about a woman from Moldova (people in Korea all think she is from the Maldives) who married a Korean man and how she and her children live in Korea. Her older son found it difficult because his Korean classmates discriminated against him because he looks different. Things changed after the mother gave a talk about her country in his class one day.

Anyway, on 25 May, KBS World broadcast an episode on a Cambodian woman, Theary (they spelt it "Tieri" on the show) who is married to a Korean man. They have one son. The film crew followed her home to Cambodia - her first trip home after more than 2 years living in South Korea.

(It's nice to see a successful marriage between a Cambodian and a Korean. The Cambodian government had twice banned marriages between Khmer women to South Korean men because of trafficking problems.)

I took the following images off the TV.

The Korean hosts of "Love in Asia"

Theary gave her parents an electric rice cooker. She had to teach them to use it and they were amazed after half and hour, fluffy white rice appeared. Her family's house in Phnom Penh is really basic. No wonder Theary was heartbroken to see her family living in a shack, compared with her home in Korea with amenities.

 The family's hometown is an hour from Phnom Penh and she went there for a visit. Her father is a cook and he made a meal specially for her - including her favourite...a pig skin dish

You can see the slats on the floor board. The floor is made of bamboo and is raised above the ground. This is common of Cambodian houses in the countryside, where the wooden houses are on stilts in case of flooding. Also, the underneath of the house provides shade and shelter for the animals.

The family went home for Khmer New Year, or "choul chnam thmey". I like the way KBS tells the story, so I leave them to do it...

versus 22.8% in South Korea (more - 29.2% - are Christian, in case you are wondering why there are so many Korean missionaries in Cambodia)

It is a giant buddha - I have no idea where it is in Phnom Penh.

Along the way we see people who seem to have white powder on their faces, which is soon explained...

At night, the family goes to the riverside in Phnom Penh to pray. She wishes her father...

And he wishes her and ties red string on her wrist for good luck.

At night, the family goes to a dance party.

Her son, Eunho likes Cambodian hammocks!

But soon it is time to part. This was sad, watching Theary say bye and not knowing when she will be back...

 At the end of the show they asked Theary's about her dreams...

Good luck Theary! Hope to see you in Cambodia again soon!