Roland Eng (Former Minister of Tourism, 5-year Ambassador to US, now Ambassador-at-Large--whatever that means! Comment dit-on, en francais - "Chômeur Deluxe"?), here all young and innocent (but don't be fooled, this is the same jerk - Comment dit-on, en francais? Oui, oui "le connard"! - who dropped me off in the middle of the most violent Washington, DC neighborhood in the middle of the night to let me walk home after a dispute at dinner, probably over the fact that I think he's serving the wrong regime, but it could be over his hairdo, or maybe over the fact that he keeps calling me "Terror Seng" when the name is "Theary Seng", thank you!) The sister and niece are so much nicer... And don't worry--since, he has been able to afford a few nice shirts and sets of cuff links... Hey, Ambassador-at-Large, are you 10 or 12 yrs old here? And Were you on the set of one of Snookie--I mean, King Sihanouk's films, or were these real jungle scenes of the 1980s?
A visit with a hero (beautifully wrapped in silk krama) at her elegant home after being treated to a wonderful lunch at Atmosphere (Phnom Penh, 7 July 2010). Please come out (in your kramas!) on Thursday, July 15 to No. 71 Sothearos Blvd. in support of outspoken SRP parliamentarian and champion of women's rights Madam MU Sochua - when the police come to arrest her.
vs.
Don't want to be accused of discrimination in the posting: multi-millionaire Dear Leader reminding us of his peasant roots in Kampong Speu, 2005 (photo: Reuters).
Morality Police Chief, pleading for penance and a change in her karma in her krama? (Photo: Reuters, Preah Vihear, 2001). One stream of unconscious pleading: "Lord Buddha, I really do believe in democracy, so help me to obtain that level of enlightenment where I can vote my conscience." And another, not-so-unconscious, more fervent pleading: "Also, Lord Buddha, please let Bong Sen not have another girlfriend, as I do not want to commit another sin."
Brother No. 1 Pol Pot (aka Saloth Sar) in his red-white checkered krama (Hell, undated)
The 4 Musketeers, aka The ECCC Gang of 4, aka Brothers No. 2, No. 3, No. 4 and the Sister styling in their kramas soon to join their Eldest Brother No. 1 above (Sacravatoon of UNG Bun Heang, Aug. 2010)
The King and Queen (then Prince/Princess) in a new set of kramas, strolling in the Island of Peace (Oh look, how cute!). (Hmmm... where was I then? Oh yeah, a 2-yr old in the arms of my mom ducking shelling and bombings in Phnom Penh...)
This is how I imagine KI Media Heng Soy's grandmother to look like and her saying: This krama is as old as I am; I wear it with pride. By the way, khmuoy Sen, time for you to go and let khmuoy Rainsy right the wrongs of our homeland. (Photo: CARE Phil Borges)
A young laborer, her deep thoughts wrapped up in Stung Meanchey poverty and this checkered krama (maybe a long lost niece of KI Media Heng Soy?): Development, progress, democracy, peace - where are they for me? Do I not count? (Photo: internet)
Photo by Emerson professor Lauren Shaw (of Chai's grandma; she reminded me of my great-grandmother who died of broken heart later that night of early 1978 upon seeing us taken away by the KR to be killed -- but it was only 5-6 months shackled imprisonment, phew!).
US Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli - one of the many US ambassadors in Phnom Penh this July 2010 to celebrate 60 years of "friendship" between the 2 countries... a friendship which has defoliated most of Cambodia of house and home, left craters of swimming pools, set the stage for genocide in radicalizing normal Cambodian peasants into hardcore Khmer Rouge cadres, backed up a superstitious sycophantic Lon Nol in a 1970 coup, treated Cambodians like ants which can be crushed and bombed into oblivion in a Menu of breakfast, lunch, dinner campaign, and now the backing of another sycophantic megalomania of moral reparation...?
How manykramasdo you own ?!
Kenyan lawyer and UN Special Representative of Secretary General on Human Rights to Cambodia Yash Ghai failed to win over our Dear Leader even with this nice gesture of the classic krama (Photo: AFP)
The Flute Player Arn Chorn Pond makes beautiful music with it (above); with Phloeun and CLA friends (below)
Uses of the krama as explained in a poem by comedian Prom Manh on Radio Free Asia.
The krama is a second skin to Theary Seng, here with survivor who lost his wife to the Khmer Rouge at CSD public forum on Justice & Reconciliation in Rattanakiri, March 2008.
Cheating! Not exactly a krama (but beautiful Cambodian silk in Cambodian patterns) Kep, 2008
Where in the world is your krama?
Your photo in your favorite krama here . . .
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Vietnamization: Military Occupation - Present 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
Francois Ponchaud, a French Jesuit who had diligently chronicled the destructiveness of the Khmer Rouge in his book "Cambodia: Year Zero," maintained that the Vietnamese were conducting a [ ... ]
