Oum Dara was once the songwriter, composer and violinist behind some of Cambodian music's most legendary singers like Sinn Sisamouth and Ros Sereysothea. Today, he has little to show for it materially, but happily looks back on his nearly eight decades.
Oum Dara lies on a hard wooden bed in his family's hole-in-the-wall apartment in the capital, listening to the tinny notes of Rob Oun Neng Hery ("That's you, My Dear") playing from his cellphone. It's a song he wrote for the iconic singer Sinn Sisamoth in the 1970s.
"That's you, my dear, who is my fate . . . Please show mercy, and keep it meaningful, until the last day we breathe," Sisamouth croons.
Dara wrote the song for a beautiful woman more than 40 years ago, but that now feels like a past life. The pictures on his wall show the other famous singers he used to work with, including Pen Ron, Ros Sereysothea, and Meas Hok Seng, from when he was a violinist, music composer and lyricist during the Kingdom's Sangkum period, commonly known as the Golden Age.
"My life at that time was almost perfect," Dara says. "I could enjoy doing what I was passionate about while earning big money, enough for me to have a big house and a modern Kawasaki, while many people recognised me outside. But, now, they are all gone."
Born in 1940 in Koh Sotin district in Kampong Cham province, Dara was the son of a customs official and first learned to play violin at the age of 14 from a forest ranger named Keo Vokrat. His father later hired a French violin tutor to come to his house. After a stint as an elementary school teacher, he took up the violin professionally, just as the popular music scene was beginning to flourish.
During the early '60s, Dara moved to the capital to play for National Radio of Cambodia, and became well known when in 1966 he was asked to compose the music for Lolok Nhy Chmol ("A Couple of Doves"), sung by Meas Hok Seng. Within a few years, Dara was not only writing music but the lyrics as well, and his songs are still listened to today across generations.
The stories in them, typically of love gone wrong, are from his own experiences, like Os Sangkhem ("Out of Hope"), in which Sinn Sisamouth channels Dara's unrequited love for a female colleague at the National Radio station.
Chhob Srolanh Oun Tov ("Please Stop Loving Me"), sung by Ros Sereysothea, describes his sadness when his first wife asked him for a divorce in 1973 because, he says, of his focus on his career and not on her.
"My own experience and the story of people I know add colour to the song and music," Dara says.
When the Khmer Rouge came into power in 1975, Dara was forced out of Phnom Penh to Kandal, and was treated as one of the "new people" – the corrupted urban elite who had strayed from the Khmer Rouge's peasant ideal.
He was alone and did not bring anything with him – and certainly not a violin. However, unlike many Cambodian artists who were killed by Khmer Rouge cadres because of their professions, Dara was able to escape the killing, starvation and even hard labour thanks to his musical skill.
"A Khmer Rouge cadre recognised me, and asked me to join their troupe as a violinist," he said. "I was ordered to play songs about communism and revolution, especially in front of the diplomats from China. I did not like it at all, but this job helped me survive, and I even had enough to eat since I always got to eat with the cadre."
After the fall of the Pol Pot regime, Dara moved from one job to another and spent a short time living at a refugee camp along the Thai border, before resuming his career as a musical instructor and composer for the Ministry of Information.
But he never recovered professionally from the destruction of the Khmer Rouge and today he is living in poverty. All that is left of his career is a violin and a cache of unreleased songs. A traffic accident 10 years ago immobilised the legendary violinist and impaired his ability to play the violin.
Dara's wife, Sam Vanna, 60, says her husband's humility, and lack of sociability, prevented him from moving up the ranks of society.
"Unlike many artists, he is not a boot-licker," Vanna says. "He would not write a song that promotes or praises anyone, or copies other's works. I am angry with him sometimes for that, but I am also proud of him."
Oum Tharath, Dara's younger daughter and a successful mixed martial arts fighter, said she is disappointed that she could not carry on her father's legacy.
"Despite our hard life, I am proud of having a father who is a famous musician who created masterpieces and originality," Tharoth said. "As a child, I also wanted to learn to play violin, but I am not keen on it, and more into sport."
Dara, meanwhile, said he has lived a life of happiness, and if there is another to come he would like to be born a musician again.
"I want the next generations of Cambodians to strongly promote music, like how people do in developed countries," Dara said. "It is one of the things that make life enjoyable."read more →
Across the street from Wat Botum earlier this week, musicians Julien Poulson, Jean-Luc Jousse and Hollie Lewis were lounging by the pool at the guesthouse Villa Grange, the headquarters for the Phnom Penh portion of the inaugural Folk Art Blues Fest Cambodia. An electric guitar sat next to veteran French rock 'n' roller Jousse, who since the early 1980s has been playing blues, psychedelia and punk-oriented rock 'n' roll for the many incarnations of the group The Kleps. Founded as The Psychedelic Kleps, they have played under the name the Klepstones, Kleps Revisited, the Justesse Social Kleps as a folk duet and The New York Kleps.
"And now, the Phnom Penh Kleps", Jousse jokes.
Jousse, who has worked as a tour manager, sound engineer and even driver for some legendary rock acts like Guitar Wolf, the Fleshtones and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, is in Phnom Penh for the nascent Folk Art & Blues Fest, which is really more of a travelling revue of psychedelic, garage and folk art acts over the next five days. It was organised by Poulson, one of the founders of Cambodian Space Project, as a musical spinoff of the Kampot Readers and Writers Festival.
"The [Kampot Readers and Writers] Festival has always had a very strong musical program, to the point where a crescendo of critics were saying it's too much music in the second year," Poulson said. "We probably need to separate these things a little bit along the way. So this time it's a very small thing and it's not in a fixed place – It's rolling across Cambodia like an oldtimey revue."
Those of you imagining acts reminiscent of BB King or Mississippi John Hurt may be disappointed. The "blues and folk" moniker is meant more in spirit, as the roots of each act's brand of rock 'n' roll. "Let's be broad about our definitions, in the way that Louis Armstrong once said ‘All music is folk music. I ain't never heard no horse sing a song'," Poulson said.
The festivities begin tonight at Villa Grange, where five bands will be playing. Among those are local legends Cambodian Space Project and juggernauts The Kleps.
Electro-psychedelic British band Frankie Teardrop Dead, Australian folk band the Justin Frew Trio and enigmatic Saigon-based duo OPNAIRDRGMKT will also hit the stage.
On Friday, musicians will be at the guesthouse all day, playing acoustic singer-songwriter sessions led by local troubadour Scoddy Bywater before the revue hits the road southwest to Kampot.
There, the lineups change slightly for two nights of shows, and there will also be art workshops in the day, including from Borneo-born woodcut printmaker Rico Leong and with the all-women's Srey School of Rock and its Sou Sou Band. The tour heads up the coast for a gig in Otres near Sihanoukville before a whittled-down version of the revue will then make its way to Siem Reap for a Tuesday gig.
On top of getting to play in good company and have some fun, the festival is a chance to build the network of musicians living abroad with connections to Cambodia.
"These are people who are likeminded or want to volunteer or bring skills and talent to make something happen," Poulson said. "We've all seen over the last 10 years a very big opportunity in Cambodia for creative industry. And not just a community but real opportunities – making things locally and building international distribution."
The Folk Art & Blues Festbegins tonight at Villa Grange at 7pm. Tickets for Friday are $7 at the door for foreigners and $3 for Cambodians, plus a free drink. Singer-songwriter sessions begin at 2pm and last until 8pm Friday. For a full schedule, including in Kampot, Otres and Siem Reap, visit the Facebook page Folk Art & Blues Fest Cambodia.read more →
They're kept in metal bowls, plastic buckets and in jars, and often found on the side, or even at the centre, of Khmer dishes. Sometimes they are vegetables, other times fruits, and even fish, crabs or ants.
Whether the tradition is imported or homegrown, one thing is certain: pickled foods are everywhere in Cambodia.
This was apparent on the north side of Kandal Market, where The Post recently found Pech Srey selling fresh limes and their pickled and preserved equivalent, Ngom Nov. Decidedly unappetising in appearance, and sold by her at 30,000 riel ($7.50) for a vat of 170, the brown and shrivelled limes are first dried in the sun for one to two days, before being boiled in sugar and salt water, and then further preserved in water for three to four months. They can end up in chicken or duck soup, in sauces with grilled fish, or be turned into drinks, Srey says.
And true enough, a nearby drink vendor was squeezing a pickled lime into a bag of ice, pouring in some fresh lime juice, soda water and a tablespoon or two of sugar, and for 2,000 riel, or about 50 cents, the result was a refreshing and astringent beverage.
But going from stall to stall, The Post soon found itself in a pickle trying to delve deeper into the history and place within Khmer cuisine of preserving foods in vinegar or brine. Pickles and similarly preserved foods are as integral to Khmer food as prahok, vendors said, but the back story, and the reasons for their popularity, remained unclear.
So The Post called on the expertise of Cambodian master chef and Thalias Director Luu Meng.
According to Meng, the local pickle paradigm has French and Chinese influences – particularly from the Teochew people who made contact with Cambodia centuries ago.
"In Guangdong, one of the areas is Teochew, and they pickle a lot of things because they are fisherman families, so when they go out they need to get their food and stock it up . . . either they put it in preserve or they do it pickled," he says, noting that typically fish and meat would be preserved in salt.
Meng notes a difference between pa'ap or palak brai foods, which are preserved through salting or fermentation, as opposed to chhrua, or pickled food. In some cases, they are combined, for instance with turnips preserved in salt and then pickled to improve the flavour – or chrua chai tov in Khmer.
Similarly, prahok or kdam brai (salted crab) can also straddle the two techniques.
Cambodian pickling, Meng says, always starts with sugar, salt and vinegar. MSG is common in market and street pickles, and herbs and spices are added according to individual recipes.
"You need to have the balance between the caramel and lemony [flavours], and of course other seasonings," he said.
In the spirit of showing rather than telling, Meng guided The Post through the Boeung Keng Kang and Toul Tompoung markets to meet some of the longest-running pickle vendors in town.
On the north side of BKK market at #17 Street 380 is a hole-in-the-wall shop identifiable by a glass case outside filled with fruits and marked "888" in red.
"This is the oldest pickle shop of BKK market," Meng said, though it specialises in what he calls a "modern" pickling trend – assorted fruits pickled with chili and garlic eaten as a snack. Also for sale is cut fresh fruit, which can in turn be dipped into a pickled chili, garlic and prahok sauce. Prices are about $3 per kilo of whichever fruit one fancies, from pickled tamarind to grapes to pineapple.
Owner Suos "Mom" Vanna says she has had her shop for 13 years and sells about 300 kilograms each day.
Meng says this kind of pickled fruit snack has been a growing trend for at least 20 years, and has especially taken off in the past decade.
"Mostly the young [and] the pregnant ladies eat these," he says, in part because it's considered a home-remedy to morning sickness. "They share it with people and it's become trendier".
For the "traditional" pickle, Meng takes The Post through the narrow pathways of Toul Tompoung Market. He's recognised by the odd passerby, happily surprised to see the well-known entrepreneur in such a setting. At the end of the butcher's row, Meng finds Men Thida, who has been selling pickles since she was 12 years old, before she took the business over from her mother.
Here, she sells Khmer-style pickled cucumbers. She also has a choice between pickled mangoes and half-ripe papayas, each flavoured with rice water, brown palm sugar and vinegar, with bean sprouts and lotus roots. She also has Chinese cabbage and other leafy greens, though Meng notes these are done in the Chinese style. For that, he recommends an old lady in O'Russey Market.
Luu Meng talks pickles in the market:
In Cambodian cuisine, Meng notes, pickles can serve as an appetiser, digestif or as a side dish.
"For Western people you eat your grilled pork or lamb chops with salad, we eat it with pickles," he said, sitting down for a plate of grilled chicken and rice with a side of pickles.
They also transcend class boundaries, Thida says, with more thrifty construction or garment workers making pickles a main course with rice, while the wealthier tend to have them as a garnish.
"We eat them every day, no matter if you are rich or poor," she says.read more →
In Shaun Rein's The War for China's Wallet, the author offers a roadmap for navigating relationships with China, both for foreign countries and international companies. He recently spoke with The Post's Hor Kimsay to discuss the potential benefits and pitfalls of Cambodia's increasingly friendly relationship with the regional giant. What is the main message in The War for China's Wallet? As China supplants America as the world's economic growth engine, countries and companies can benefit if they understand how to navigate China's political system and understand the wants of Chinese consumers. Companies that get it right can make billions of dollars – China, for example, has already eclipsed America as the largest market for fried chicken chain KFC. It has become the largest market outside of the US for Starbucks and Nike and is the main driver for those companies' growth.
However, the ability to generate profits has some downside. Countries and companies alike cannot cross China politically and must do the Communist Party's bidding or else run into trouble. For example, the Chinese government punished the hotel chain Marriott by blocking its Chinese-language website and apps in China for a week, costing them millions of dollars, because Marriott had promulgated a survey that listed Taiwan as a separate country, enraging Chinese consumers and government mandarins alike.
In the book, you define three categories for a country's relationship with China: Hot Partner, Warm Partner and Cold Partner. What is the difference between these groupings? Many American foreign policy analysts criticise China for not having true allies in the American-Canadian sense. One day China is taking photo-ops with leaders from neighbouring countries, the next day lashing out at them for crossing them politically and thus say that China is failing in its foreign policy aims.
I view it differently – I don't think China is trying to forge alliances; instead, it is looking to use economic carrots and sticks to convince countries to either do its political bidding (a Hot Partner country like Hungary, Ethiopia or Cambodia) or to punish countries that cross it politically (a Cold Partner country like India or the Philippines and the Aquino administration). It knows it can never be truly close with any country in the long-term, so instead it tries to dole out low-interest loans and infrastructure investments to countries to make them open to China's political aims in the short term. Meanwhile, countries that cross China politically, as South Korea did by installing Thaad missiles, get punished. China blocked Chinese tour groups from visiting South Korea last April, causing a 40 percent drop in annual tourist visits and crippling the South Korean economy.
If Cambodia is a ‘hot partner' with China, what does this mean for Cambodia's economy and development? And what does China gain from the relationship? Cambodia's [Prime Minister] Hun Sen has been quite savvy in his dealings with China over the past decade. He has supported China's views on the South China Sea during summits of Asean. Having a supportive country in Asean like Cambodia is to counter criticism of China's policies by countries like Vietnam or the Philippines, and causes China to look to invest more in infrastructure development in Cambodia and to give it low-interest loans.
Moreover, the Chinese government uses its control of the state-owned media to tout the historical landmarks in Cambodia like Angkor Wat. Right now, Cambodia is one of the top destinations Chinese tourists want to visit. I am very bullish on Cambodia's ability to attract Chinese tourists to its landmarks and high rollers to its casinos. This is all gained by being a friend of China in the "hot partner" category.
One of the problems of becoming a "hot partner" country is that these countries often become too dependent on China economically and start to lose political independence. China's economy is so large that if a country gets punished for crossing China politically, then it will have a real impact, as in the South Korean case.
On the one hand, it is good to get close to China politically, as nations will reap economic benefits, but it comes at a cost of losing political independence so countries should try to be close to China but also distance itself at times, as the United Kingdom or France has done, so that they are not viewed as lackeys of the Chinese government.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.read more →
Construction began yesterday on a $10 million factory in Kampong Speu province to process fresh fruit for international export, a first for Cambodia, though Agriculture Ministry officials could not confirm it would meet international standards yesterday.
South Korea's Hyundai Corporation Group broke ground on the 3-hectare factory in Phnom Srouch district yesterday, in the hopes that it would enable Cambodian fruits to be shipped abroad without first being sent to Vietnam or Thailand, as is currently common practice.
The factory is set to open in September and will process 1,700 tonnes of fruit in its first year of operation, according to Hyundai representative Lee Changhoon.
"First of all, we will start from mangoes," Changhoon said, adding that the company hoped to eventually process 50,000 tonnes of fruit annually, including coconut, durian, and mangosteen.
"Our market is not only Korea. Hyundai has 44 branches in worldwide, that is the strong network for export our high quality food of Cambodia," he wrote in an email yesterday.
Hyundai Corporation inked a deal with local mango producer Mao Legacy Co Ltd in November 2016, and the two companies combined have about 2,400 hectares of mango farms in Kampong Speu, but there has never been a sanitary and phytosanitary processing plant to enable international exports.
"It is not easy work, however we are getting support from Korean government and Cambodia government, [and] we are sure that we can comply to Sanitary and Phytosanitary [standards]" Changhoon said.
Hean Vahan, director general of the general directorate of agriculture at the Ministry of Agriculture, was less sure yesterday. He attended the factory's groundbreaking ceremony, but said that he could not comment on the SPS certifications because the company had not sent the ministry its master plan.
"I was just invited to join for the opening of construction, but I haven't seen any details of the construction or its capacity," he said yesterday. "I have no idea whether it will comply with the SPS procedure or not."
In Chayvan, president of the Kampong Speu Mango Association, was optimistic that the plant would be a boon for the province's fruit farmers.
"We have been waiting for this for years," he said yesterday. "Our mangoes will have more value when we can reach the market directly."read more →
What started as an idea to better coordinate pick-up soccer games has become an award-winning application, and now the five Cambodian university students who developed it are set to fly to Singapore and meet with high-powered tech executives.
The GoSoccer application was declared the winner of the SmartStart competition in Phnom Penh yesterday morning, earning the app's creators the contest's top prize: an all-expenses-paid trip to meet with representatives of technology giants Facebook, Google and Microsoft in their Singapore offices.
According to Sengkhun Lim, one of GoSoccer's founders, he and his friends created the app to help users find like-minded soccer players and reserve spaces to play in Phnom Penh.
"We came up with the idea for finding matches to play, and then decided to include bookings for fields, too," Lim said, adding that GoSoccer's profits would hopefully come from the field-booking aspect of the application. While they have not yet officially launched the app, the five co-developers plan to charge a 5 percent commission on each field booking and sell membership packages to field operators.
The SmartStart contest was sponsored by mobile operator Smart Axiata, which gave five teams of young developers $4,000 each six months ago to further develop their ideas. The five teams pitched their products to a panel of five judges in Phnom Penh yesterday morning, with GoSoccer coming out on top.
Smart has kept open the possibility of additional funding for the app in the future, though GoSoccer's developers seemed more interested in the trip to Singapore than in any additional financing.
"Right now, we're not thinking about money, we're just excited to learn from these companies [in Singapore] and use the knowledge to help us scale our platform," said team member Ratanak Hang.
"Singapore is a high-tech country, and we can learn a lot from them," added Sovann Lyhour, another GoSoccer developer and a computer science major at Zaman University in Phnom Penh. "We look forward to visiting these big companies and allowing them to inspire us to work even harder on our own projects."
Other ideas pitched at the final round of the contest included Ligo, a mobile platform for learning basic Khmer language and etiquette; Prestige Gift, a gift-wrapping and delivery service; Spare, a digital platform for renting available office and conference space; and Propey, a digital wedding planning service.read more →
The General Department of Taxation (GDT) collected $1.93 billion in tax revenue last year, a 30 percent increase over 2016 and well above the government's own projections, according to the department's director, Kong Vibol.
Following the GDT's annual meeting in Phnom Penh yesterday, Vibol told reporters that the government expected to collect $1.71 billion, but reforms to the tax collection agency had resulted in the higher haul.
"It is a good result for the GDT and for the government, which reflects the efficiency of the reformat of the tax system," he said, referring to the GDT's tax overhaul in 2015.
According to Vibol, income-tax revenue and VAT collections increased by 31 percent, while real estate tax and salary tax increased by 12 percent and 10 percent, respectively.
Anthony Galliano, CEO of Cambodian Investment Management, said yesterday that the increase in revenue could lead to a decrease in the Kingdom's reliance on foreign donors.
"If this performance continues, I expect the Kingdom can substantially fund its annual budget within 3 years with the combination of GDT and customs revenues," he said.
Galliano added that some taxpayers remained concerned regarding the "assertiveness of audits", and said it would be helpful if the GDT would continue to improve its application of tax laws and registration processes.
Clint O'Connell, head of Cambodia Tax Practice for foreign investment advisory and tax firm DFDL Cambodia, called the revenue number "truly remarkable" and credited GDT officials for their reforms to the department.
He also cautioned against predicting self-sufficiency in the annual budget, noting spending increases could accompany gains in tax revenue.
"There are a number of variables that need to be taken into account, such as the growing expectations of Cambodian citizens to see some return on the State revenue that is being collected," O'Connell said.
Customs tax collection also increased last year, up 10.4 percent to $1.9 billion, according to a document dated January 23 from the General Department of Customs and Taxation.read more →
The number of Chinese tourists visiting Cambodia grew by 46 percent last year as China leapfrogged Vietnam to become the top country of origin of visitors to the Kingdom, according the Ministry of Tourism's annual report.
China sent 1.2 million visitors to Cambodia last year, accounting for more than 21 percent of the total 5.6 million international visitors. That put China well ahead of second-place Vietnam's 835,335 visitors, Laos' 502,219 and Thailand's 394,934.
Content image - Phnom Penh Post Click to enlarge. Jenni Reid The total number of tourists visiting Cambodia grew by 11.8 percent, an increase over the 6.1 percent and 7 percent growth rates from 2016 and 2015, respectively. That was largely driven by the boom in Chinese tourists, as the number of Vietnamese tourists – historically the largest group of visitors to Cambodia -- fell by 13 percent compared to 2016.
Ho Vandy, Secretary General of the Cambodia National Tourism Alliance, praised the fact that Chinese tourists were helping grow Cambodia's tourism sector, but also said that the benefits of Chinese visitors were often concentrated in the hands of Chinese companies and business owners.
"The growth of Chinese tourists doesn't mean it will bring [Cambodians] good business and increase profits, because most of the investments are done by Chinese people," he said yesterday. "The government should look at this case to protect the benefits for local businessmen."
Similar concerns were raised by construction agencies earlier this month after the Land Management Ministry announced an increase in the number of new construction projects. Several company representatives said at the time that the money was largely staying with Chinese companies and not trickling down to Cambodian workers.
Last year also saw a big boost in Cambodia's tourist traffic coming from Laos, which increased by more than 36 percent, while then number of tourists from neighboring Thailand decreased by about one percent.
The total share of tourists in Cambodia hailing from Europe and the Americas was similar to 2016, with European visitors accounting for 15.3 percent and the Americas holding steady at 7 percent.
Outbound tourists from Cambodia also increased by 22 percent to 1.75 million, which is a slight increase from the 20 percent growth rate in outgoing visitors in 2016.
Men Phearom, director of the planning department at the Ministry of Tourism, said the government expected to host more than 6 million tourists in 2018.
China, which is the number one source of foreign direct investment in the Kingdom, has cultivated an increasingly cozy relationship with Cambodia in recent years. Following the September arrest of opposition leader Kem Sokha, China expressed support for Cambodia's decision to "protect national security and stability", while the US, EU and Japan all condemned the crackdown.
More recently, a January 11 visit to Phnom Penh by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang resulted in the signing of 19 agreements between the two countries, most of which involved cooperation agreements or Chinese financing for infrastructure projects.read more →
