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February 15, 2009
V-C Day
Valentine's Day in Phnom Penh is intense. Way more intense than in the states. They don't really know where it comes from, but seem to have picked it up from Thai and Korean movies. Regardless, for couples aged from 15-24, it is THE day to go out with your sweetheart, to bring her flowers, and to coax her into sexual intercourse. Some couples only have sex on Valentine's Day and, bizarrely, International Women's Day (March 8).
I've read the qualitative report mentioned in the latter article, and it's interesting albeit a little unsettling to find out about the sexual habits of people not unlike my students. There's such a divide between the very high-school attitudes and 1950s-style mores the girls seem to be locked into(or are willing to admit to), and the seamier exploits admitted to by the men. It reminds me a bit of the city of Lumberton from Blue Velvet: wholesome and staid on the surface, but hiding a lurid, violent, parallel world within. How many of my students, for instance, have taken part in the apparently widespread practice of bauk? (Bauk could be described charitably as "running a train," or more accurately as "gang rape." It's usually practiced as a bait-and-switch on sex workers, getting her to agree to go back to a guesthouse with one or two men, only to have 4 more guys waiting when they get to the room. According to the interviews, many young men don't consider it wrong, because they've "already paid for it.")
In other news, the first trial of the Khmer Rouge Tribunals is starting up with Duch, chief of S-21 (Tuol Sleng), the central interrogation and torture center of the KR...
Plenty of ink and pixels have been spilled on this, most of them by people better informed than I am, so I will refrain from saying anything other than that I have serious doubts about the ability of the KRT to bring any sort of justice to either the former KR leaders or the Cambodian people. They may be able to get Duch, but the rest of them will just keep dragging things out until time does the job we can't.
I just hope the trial sheds light on the inner workings of the Khmer Rouge, something that remains bizarre and puzzling to even the best historians.
Posted by flynn at February 15, 2009 4:25 PM
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Comments
"The Killing Fields" (1984) might be a pretty good start. For Valentine's Day, I don't know: maybe a mid-90s romantic comedy, with Jennifer Aniston or Cameron Diaz.
Posted by: John at February 16, 2009 2:29 AM