Jing’s Birthday

Yesterday afternoon I went to Takhmao which is about 5 kilometers outside Phnom Penh. I went with four friends to my friend Jing's birthday party.

We didn't know where her house is because we never went there before. So we rang her on the mobile to ask the way. She told us, "So, ok, turn right and then you will see a bridge," and we turned right and we saw the bridge, and she said, "Cross the bridge and turn right again and then go straight and on the left you'll see a corner and turn that corner and you will see me."

And so we crossed the bridge and turned right and turned left and we saw the corner but we didn't see Jing. So we phoned her again and she said, "Where did you turn?" And we told her we turned at Wat Projumpti and she said, "No you went the wrong way, it's not Wat Projumpti but another pagoda which is, um, I don't know, it's on the right, not on the left, and you'll see a road where you turn right, not left." By then it was already dark and we were scared to go back and we had already come a long way from the main road.

And so we told Jing to let us talk to her friend instead and we talked to her friend, and we finally found her big house. Jing is my friend Fu's ex-girlfriend. They broke up one year ago. The party was really big, and there were five or six tables. When we arrived everyone said hi, even some people that we don't know, and when Jing and Fu saw each other they were shy. Fu is my friend and Jing is my girlfriend's friend. Jing introduced us to her parents and her grandparents and her relatives, and we said “cheum riep sueh” with two hands together and Jing found us a place to sit.

First, we gave her the presents and Jing was very happy. And then some of Jing's friends came and sat with us and we got a big surprise because one of these guys was a good friend of ours that we play football with. His name is Vatana and he really likes joking, he's a very cheeky boy. With Vatana there were five of us, so we had a good table with lots of friends. We said Happy Birthday to Jing, and Jing said to us, "My party is not really happy," and I knew what she meant because she broke up with Fu, but she still misses Fu, and she hasn’t had a boyfriend for more than two months since then. And Fu never got a new girlfriend since Jing, though he's a really handsome guy.

After the meal Jing's parents brought out the birthday cake. The cake looked really nice and I asked where she got this cake. Her friend told me it came from the Cambodiana Hotel, so I think it was very expensive. It was chocolate and I ate all of what she gave me. And then my girlfriend gave me some of her cake too. I had just started to eat it when the party finished and everyone started to say goodbye. So I had to go with them. I still had my cake but I didn't get to eat it all.

05:43 PM ICT Permalink |

The Coining

Last Wednesday I felt terrible. I felt so dizzy and I had a high fever. I couldn't even sleep at night. So I went to my family’s home at Pochentong, out near Phnom Penh airport, about 12 km from Phnom Penh. I had to ask my father to look after me because I want someone to “coin” me.

My father went to buy the medicine. The medicine works faster when we use the coin as well. He told my little sister to do the coin. She knows how to do it although she's only fifteen. The coin can be a coin from any country, like Thai baht. Most of the coins we have at my home are Chinese coins, and we keep them just to do the coining. When I was a little kid my mother (she's in America now) used to give me a coining every time I was sick. When I was a kid I didn't like coining, even though I was so sick, because it hurts. But I always felt better after the coin and after sleeping.

This is how you do the coining: To do it you need to rub Tiger Balm on the skin first. You can use kerosene but Tiger Balm is better. Tiger Balm is hot and makes the red marks come off easier, and it stops the coin from hurting so much. Then you just get the coin and you scrape the coin on the skin. You don't have to scrape too hard, except if the person is very sick then you need to rub harder. Me, I don't cry when my sister does the coining on me, but my brother Sokhun, even though he's bigger than me, used to cry when he was coined as a kid. And even now he still cries. So Sokhun doesn't like to have the coining. I used to cry when my mother did it when I was a kid, but I don't cry when my sister does it now.

Anyway, the idea is to scrape the coin on the skin to make a red mark. I was dizzy and had a headache, so my sister rubbed the coin on my back and on my chest. If you have stomach ache, the coin is on the side, just above the hip-bone. If you have a cough, you get the coin on the throat, but not too hard, and for a sore neck, on the back of the neck, and so on, each one a different place.

After the coining I felt so relaxed and tired, and I slept for two hours. Then I woke up and had some food to eat, and watched TV for a while and went back to bed. Then when I got up the next morning I feel ok, not sick any more. This is my family's traditional Cambodian treatment for when we are sick.

06:39 PM ICT Permalink |

A Night at Orange Club

Two nights ago my friend Bros called me to go out with him because he just came back from a wedding with his sister. At first I thought I didn't want to go, but I decided to go because I didn't have anything to do. When I met him I saw another girl who was his sister's friend. Then we had four people. I didn't have money, and Bros didn't have money too, so his sister said she would pay for everyone. But we still didn't have much money so we didn't want to go to anywhere expensive.

First we went to the Spark disco and we saw too many cars parked out in the front. We still got in, but inside there is no place to sit or stand, even dance. So we left Spark and drove around thinking where to go. Bros's sister wanted to go to the U2 disco, but I thought U2 was too far away. And Bros's sister and her friend are very beautiful so I thought it might cause problems. So I just told her to go to Orange Club. It's cheaper and smaller, and not so far away. And she says: “Ooooo-Kaaaay.”

When we arrived we saw many cars and bikes, but they still have a couple of tables free, so we decided to party at Orange Club. Bros's sister asked me what I would like to drink. I just looked at Bros, and Bros looked at me, because both of us didn't have any money. And we just said, "Up to you!" But she said, "We don't know what you like!" So I ordered two cocktails, one each for me and Bros. The girls had Coca-Cola. The cocktails costs two dollars, and the Coke costs one dollar. We thought those cocktails might be enough to make us merry.

Then the girls wanted to dance. We said "Later," but they still wanted to dance, so the two girls just danced together while me and Bros watched. Bros told me this was the first time that he saw his sister dance. Then we go up and danced with them, but I couldn't dance a lot because I was tired, it was already twelve o'clock.

There was a group of boys looking at the girls, looking like they wanted to flirt with Bros's sister and her friend. They looked like they come from the countryside. They asked the two girls, "What is your phone number” and “Where do you come from?" While we were sitting I asked some questions to Bros's sister, like "Does she like this place?" And she said, "So-so. It's new, and I’ve never seen it before. It looks foreigner style." And she says that it's too bad it don't have a live band like at Spark or U2, which are the big clubs in Phnom Penh.

Then we finished the cocktails and she ordered us draft beer, and I danced with Bros and his sister and his sister's friend. The two girls were very good dancers, and everyone looked at us because we were two ugly guys dancing with two beautiful girls.

02:26 PM ICT Permalink |

Visit to the Waterfall

On the second day of Khmer New Year my friends and I (and my friends' friends) went to the waterfall called Jabok (though I'm not sure how to write the name in English). To get there you have to go the same way as Kirirom, on the road to Sihanoukville. But Jabok is about two kilometers further than Kirirom.

We took two cars, one small and one big, to Jabok. Then some of us walked and some hired bikes because the way to the waterfall is not good for cars. Sometimes even the bicycle cannot go because the stones in the path are too big. There is a very nice view at Jabok because they have a high waterfall, even though in this weather there's not much water, but it still looked good. We could not swim because there was not much water, but we went under the little waterfall. The water was very cold and we were very happy.

All of us got in the water and splashed and had fun. Then we rested for a while for lunch. And the lunch was very good because we were very tired. There was some fish, some chicken, and my friend's niece brought some prohok. She's the same age like me, but I don't know her name and I didn't ask. In Cambodia if a boy asks for a girl's name it might mean he loves her, and I didn’t want anyone to think I loved her.

Anyway, we had some nice prohok but I didn't feel full because I didn't eat much. All my friends ate too fast and there wasn’t much left for me! But I wasn't upset or angry, because it's just fun, and I know my friends are always like that when we go to the countryside. Like my friend Riya; when we went to the Bati River one time, the way he tried to get more chicken than anyone else is to get a chicken and put into his underwear and run away, and even though we caught him we couldn't eat the chicken after he did that. That time he got almost one whole chicken. And now we always say to him; “Riya, don't do like Bati River!”

After lunch we just walked around the place because it was our first time at Jabok. It's a nice waterfall and a good place to go with family and friends, because it's not too far from Phnom Penh, just the same as Kirirom.

05:18 PM ICT Permalink |

Khmer New Year

On the first day of the Khmer New Year holiday my friends and I went to Bakhaing. It is on the other bank of the river from Phnom Penh, so we had to go over the Japanese Bridge. And on the way I saw an accident. It was very bad.

I’ll tell you what happened. One white car drove on the right side, but a black car came from the other side and was driving very fast, (that fast car was a Lexus), and there was one red motorbike with three people riding on it. The white car tried to get away from the fast black Lexus car, and the red motorbike fell off the road because the white car hit him and he lost control. I felt very sorry for them because the white car didn't try to stop and look after them, it just drove on.

But the problem is; the black Lexus car was gone and the white Corolla tried to escape. I tried to follow that white car, along with my friends on two other motorbikes. We didn't plan to stop them, we just wanted to see what will happen. And also the white car drove in the same direction as we did. And I saw a guy wearing a guard uniform. He had a gun, and he rode his motorbike in front of that car and wanted that car to stop. But that car just kept driving. And that guard guy, he followed for almost five minutes, riding alongside that car and slapping his gun and saying something. Then the car opened a window and somebody gave him some money, and that guard guy just rode away. And then that white car just turned around and went back to Phnom Penh, but not to look after those three people on the red motorbike.

Me, I think this accident was too much about corruption. Because, when we saw that guard follow that car, we thought; it's okay, this story will have a good ending. But then we saw it just ended with money, I think it's very bad. One of my friends, Por, was afraid to drive back home, because he saw this with his own eyes.

After we arrived at Bakhaing we ordered some food and some beer. There were so many people at Bakhaing, because it was the Khmer New Year holiday. While we were waiting for the food to come we played cards. Some of my friends pitied the three guys on the red motorbike, and some of them were just joking like they don't care. Then I got a call from my friend Reya. He was going to come back from Kompong Cham on the same road as Bakhaing, and he just needed to find out where we were. Then we told him, we are here, making a party, and he was very happy because he don't have to go to Phnom Penh to find us.

04:17 PM ICT Permalink |

My Brother-in-Law’s New House

One afternoon last week my brother-in-law called me to go to a party at his house. I didn't know about this at all because no one told me about this. He said, "This is my party that I make up for our whole family so you have to come as soon as you can." So I had to go. But I took some friends so I could have someone for sure to talk with.

The party was to celebrate the new house my brother-in-law has built in a village on the edge of Phnom Penh. It was a big party. There were about 40 people - and a baby cow. The people were my family and my brother-in-law's family. The baby cow was barbequed.

In my family there was my father, my three brothers, my sister, and my brother-in-law. And there was also my brother-in-law's family; his mother, his brother, and his mother's step-husband, who is the guy that my brother-in-law doesn't like. I don't know why he doesn't like his step-father. Also there were three Nigerian guys, who rent a house from my sister and my brother-in-law.

I talked with one of the Nigerians. His job is teaching English in Vietnam, and he comes here to get his visa. His English is the best of the three. My friends said he looked like Tierry Henry, the French football player for Arsenal. I told him he looked like Tierry Henry and he laughed. The other two told me they came to Cambodia to find a Cambodian team to play football with.

My friend Bros liked the beer that my brother-in-law bought for the party. The beer is called Oktinger or something like that and it's German. My friends said, "When we have a party we'd like to have this beer!" My friends talked to some of the people from my village. One of the guys from my village is a champion drinker, and my friend Bros wanted to make a competition with him, but that guy never minded him because Bros was a bit drunk.

My brother-in-law made this house for his mother. It has one bedroom, one living room, two bathrooms (one outside and one inside), and a big yard. Land in this village costs about $4,500, and I guess it cost about $10,000 to build the house. My brother-in-law has three houses; the one he lives in, the one he rents to the Nigerians, and now this one for his mother. He's a policeman, and also works as a bodyguard, and as an agent for people who want to buy and sell property.

We drove back home about six o'clock. My friends said they really liked this party.

03:44 PM ICT Permalink |

Srey Nou’s Wedding

On Sunday last week I went to Srey Nou's wedding. She's a friend from my English school. She told me about the wedding almost one month ago, but I thought she was just kidding. Then she brought me the wedding invitation three days before, so it was really surprising.

She invited almost everyone in my English class, even my teacher. The wedding was at Mondia Center, at around five in the afternoon. I got there at 5:30. I had a nice shirt and nice trousers, but no nice shoes, just flip-flops. So I felt a bit embarrassed, because everyone else had shoes. When I got there I didn't know anyone, so I waited downstairs and telephoned Srey Nou's younger sister, Srey Ta, and asked for someone to come and bring me. So, Srey Ta came down and got me. When I saw her I almost didn't recognize her because of her makeup and her dress; she looked so beautiful. Not just beautiful, but very beautiful.

The party was very big and looked very expensive. There were maybe more than a thousand guests, and a band playing live music (they looked very professional), and lots of food for every table, and things to drink like Black Label whiskey, Tiger beer, Coke, and water.

At seven o'clock we had the cake cutting. Srey Nou and her husband walked round the room and everyone stood up and we all made a long line and threw flowers over them to show how much they love one another. Srey Nou looked kind of shy, because she's so young, maybe only 17 or 18. Her husband is about 30. He's a teacher at the University. This is the first time getting married for both of them. At the end of the party we had singing and traditional Khmer dancing. Many people came to join the dancing and there was a very pretty singer. And then I came back home. I haven't seen Srey Nou at school since then.

12:38 PM ICT Permalink |

Classic Bar

Last week I went with many friends of mine to Classic Bar. It’s located in Street 19 behind the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh. People call it a gay bar because they have a gay show, but anyway they still have girls too, and those girls are so beautiful. Most of people that go there are Cambodians.

We went there at 10 o’clock and they didn’t have any show yet, but they had a singer on stage. Me and my friends were sitting and waiting and had a bottle of Angkor Beer for each of us. At 10:30 the D.J. played disco music for everyone to dance and then at 11 o’clock they started the show.

The first show was the Sexy Show. A man and a woman came on the stage and started to kiss. They kissed here and there and here. The girl was wearing just a krama across her breasts and a short skirt. And the man was wearing jeans and no shirt. Then my friend Ti said he wanted to ask the boss of the bar if he could be that man on the stage. My friends seem didn’t want to close their eyes - and I didn’t either. Everyone around the stage was shouting to that man on the man stage to do this to and do that. And at the end of this show the D.J. said: “They are students from Sex University and they practice to be professional.” This really made the people in the bar laugh.

The next show was the guy show. Their show was wonderful and had the dancing of five Countries. They had five dancers for each country: Cambodia, Thailand, China, Vietnam, and India. They just tried to make us laugh, the one who made us laugh most was the Cambodian dancer who was dressed as an Apsara and was very fat.

After the show the Vietnamese dancer came and sat with us because he is uncle of my friends Koch. When we left there at midnight the street looked dark and seemed very dangerous, so we rode very fast home.

10:32 AM ICT Permalink |

Chinese New Year Spirits

During the Chinese New Year festival last month they had a big parade one day in Phnom Penh. They started the parade at Orussey Market, at about 8:30 in the morning, and then it went all around the city till the people got tired.

Before they started, the people who are going to be entered by the spirits go to a special place to prepare. No-one else is allowed to go in there. When they come out, they are the spirits. They believe that fifteen days after Chinese New Year the Chinese spirits have to go back to Paradise. Before they go, they enter into some people and go all round the city bringing good luck.

There are many different spirits. There’s a General, who is an old man with a long beard. There’s a Tiger and a Monkey, and a woman (I don’t know who she is), and many more, too. One of them made me laugh. He’s a little kid spirit (really he’s a man, but the spirit is a little kid), and he sucks candy like a kid, and takes it out of his mouth and offers it to people. The name of that spirit is Kuk Ma Pich, which means Diamond Child.

Sometimes their eyes roll back in their heads and you can only see the whites of the eyeballs. All the time they ask for wine. If they don’t get wine they get angry. They keep saying, “Give me wine, give me wine!” The rest of the time they talk in Chinese.

Some of them cut their tongues until the blood comes out. Then they kiss yellow paper with Chinese writing and give it to people. The people put these papers in their shops and houses to bring good luck for the rest of the year.

I started the day very early to get these photos. I waited maybe two hours at the place where they were preparing for the spirits. Then when they came out, they ran very fast behind a man who carried a black flag.

06:53 PM ICT Permalink |

Sihanoukville Adventure

At about half past three we left Kirirom for Sihanoukville. The way to Sihanoukville is so long, it’s about 230 km, so we had to stop a few times for our engines to get cool. Also we stopped at a village to buy some more petrol because we knew that we wouldn’t see any more villages after this point. The villagers where we bought the petrol seemed so friendly to us.

We arrived in Sihanoukville at about 7 pm. We had dinner at a local market because it’s cheaper. After that we tried to find a guesthouse but at every place we went to there were no rooms, so we went to the beach to sit and sleep overnight.

About ten o’clock that night we finished all the beer that we brought with us. Some of my friends were still hungry so we rode back to the town to get some more food. It’s really nice at night in Sihanoukville and we really do like to ride there a lot. When we came back to the beach there were just a few people left.

I was trying to sleep but really couldn’t because my friends were very noisy. My friends and I like the smell of the sea at night and we were very happy to look and talk about the stars, and also about girls. Then we saw a group of girls walking along the beach and my friend Ti said, “Hey girls where are you going at night? Would you like to hang out with us?” And those girls just walked straight to us, and that made us really surprised. But unfortunately they were not girls; they were lady boys! So we didn’t know what to do and they hung around us until almost 1 am. It was really hard for me to sleep then, even though I was very tired. Those lady boys seemed to want us. Most of us were really bored with them but my friends Hok and Por wanted to hang out with them. Finally I fell to sleep and I didn’t know what was happening.

Next morning I asked them, “What happened last night?” and they just told me nothing. They seemed so secretive to me, so it’s really hard to tell if anything happened. At about 7:30 am we went to have breakfast at the same market and then went on the Ream Beach. I had never gone to Ream Beach before and I never knew it was that nice.

09:55 AM ICT Permalink |

Long Trip

On the second day of the Chinese New Year holiday last month I went with nine friends of mine for a rendezvous at Kirirom National Park. This was the second time we went there, but this trip was longer than last time because we also went on to Sihanoukville afterwards.

At about 8:30 in the morning all of us met at my friend Chiroth’s house in Phnom Penh and then we went to Kirirom. We took five motorbikes and each bike had two people. All the bikes that we had are only 125cc. We arrived at Kirirom at about 10:00 that morning. On the way up to Kirirom Mountain there were so many people that had come from Phnom Penh. At Kirirom they have little covered stands where you can sit and rest or eat. When we arrived there were only two places free and the price was very expensive. We sat there for about a half hour after we had our lunch.

There was another group, maybe a family, that came to sit next to us. And in that group there were two girls who were very beautiful. They might have half blood of Chinese, and they made most of us frisky. One of my friends, named Por, was playing a love song from his cell phone to flirt with the girls. And their parents looked at us again and again and we got scared so we changed the subject. We just played cards instead. Anyway, a few of my friends still looked at the girls.

Next time I will write about how we got to Sihanoukville.

12:38 PM ICT Permalink |

Traffic Police Incident

Last Thursday when I was riding my motorbike to my English School I saw a crowd on the corner of Sihanouk Boulevard and Pasteur Road. I asked some people: "What was happening?" And they told me there was a driver who punched the face of a traffic policeman because that policeman tried to stop him and almost made him fall off his motorbike.

Then the police arrested that man and just locked his motorbike. So he used his mobile phone to call his friends and relatives to come and help him. There were about three or four police there and they were very angry, and the driver was very angry with those police too.

The man was shouting at the police that: “You almost made me fall of my bike!” And the police was shouting at him: “Why didn’t you stop your bike?” And then the driver’s friends arrived, and the crowd shouted at them: “Fight! Fight!” I would have liked to stay and see what’ll happen but I couldn’t because I had to go to my school.

I think that guy will have a big problem with the police because he punched a policeman, and also because he called his friends and that made more of a big crowd. The crowd didn’t like those police at all. Maybe because they think the police are corrupt. I took some photos sort of secretly, because I didn’t want to make the police angry at me too.

03:21 PM ICT Permalink |

New House Ceremony

Last Saturday some friends and I went to a party on the other side of the Japanese Bridge in Phnom Penh. That party was held for a new house ceremony. The new house, by the Mekong River, belongs to the grandmother of my friend Pearom.

I went with a lot of friends, about 15 people, to hang around at the back of the house before the ceremony. There is very nice view there, and I could see the tip of Koh Dach Island (“Koh” means island in Khmer).

At three o’clock we joined the ceremony. We listened to the monk talking about the Buddha and his teaching. At the same time while we were listening we also had a meal of rice porridge and some bananas. We ate two big pots of porridge. Everybody seemed very hungry. At the end of the ceremony Pearom’s mother asked us to stay there overnight, but some of us could not because we had to go to school the next day. That’s too bad for us, because the party overnight is more fun, with singing and dancing, and pretty girls. There is also big drinking too.

Pearom’s mother told us that it’s dangerous to go back to Phnom Penh at night. She said there are robbers and ghosts, and it’s very dark. She tried to hide our motorbike keys because she wanted us to stay, but in the end we just had to come back home. But about seven friends of mine did stay there overnight - because Pearom’s mother hid their motorbike keys! She’s a very funny lady. The friends of mine that stayed there told me that the party was very nice and they had no regrets.

12:23 PM ICT Permalink |

Accidents will happen

Last Sunday I went to my mom’s house. I go there every Sunday. Her house is on the west side of Phnom Penh Airport, it’s about 15 kilometers from where I live.

I was riding my motorbike along at about 40 km per hour with my brother sitting on the back, when suddenly a car pulled out of the sidewalk right in front of me. The driver didn’t show any blinker, so I didn’t know that he was going to come out. I couldn’t go around him because he blocked the road. I tried to put on my brakes but it wasn’t strong enough to stop me and I crashed in the front wheel of the car very badly.

The driver got out and asked me “Are you alright?” and he looked round his car and then just said “Ok! You fix your motorbike and I’ll fix my car!” But I didn’t agree because it was not my fault at all and I would like him to pay to fix my bike. Then I checked my motorbike; it had damage to the front wheel which was smashed and the part that holds the wheel was bent very badly. I could not move it. His car just had a flat-tire where my spokes had punctured it, and a little dent.

He didn’t want to pay for my motorbike so I phoned my brother-in-law. I told what happened then he came right away. And that other man called his police friends. So everyone was there arguing and shouting and my brother-in-law just called a guy he knew (I didn’t know who that guy was) and then two more police came. When these two police came the driver of that car looked scared and one of his police friends just gave me some money ($25). I looked at my brother-in-law to say it wasn’t enough, but he say to me in a loud voice so they would hear: “Take that shit money and just walk away from shit”.

So we found a cyclo to take my motorbike to get fixed. I didn’t enough money with me so I had to borrow money from my mom. My brother and I were very lucky because we weren’t hurt too much. I just hurt my leg a bit bad and my brother get a little bit hurt. I was wearing my helmet.

10:38 AM ICT Permalink |

Morning Soccer

On Sunday I was woken up by my friend Riya. He called to ask me to go to play soccer for his team. First I thought I wouldn't like to go because it was too early in the morning and a bit far from my home, and also I was not really awake. But he bagged me to go because his team didn’t have enough players.

The football field is on the other bank of the river, so we had to go across the Japanese Bridge. There is really big field and has very nice views. I had never met the people in Riya's team before and they didn’t know me either.

Before we started the play the game we did some training. We started about 6:00 a.m. In the first half the other team scored the first goal. Then we rested for awhile and waited for the second half. Then the manager changed the roll and I had to play close to the goalkeeper. After almost ten minutes in the second half our team scored the second goal by the captain. So now each team had the same score. Then at the end of the game Riya's friend scored another goal. It was very nice. He wore shirt number 7, and the goal he made by using his head was very strong. We won the game by the score of 2 – 1.

I was sorry for my friend Riya that I didn't score any goals, but he said it was okay because he didn't score any either. The captain of the team said to me that I played well and I was fast so he would like me to come again next week.

12:48 PM ICT Permalink |