Cambodia Diary

Greetings honourable citizens of the free states of the world. Welcome to today's broadcast of South East Asian News, with me, your honourable presenter, Fa Chao.
Today we investigate the issue of Prostitution in Cambodia; Regional Development issues around the Mekong,ahaah! .. and finally ... some literary nonsense about the plight of Hill Tribes.
So, sit down, buckle up and SHUT UP cos I'M TALKING, alright? Right.
First in todays news, we bring you a report on prostitution in Cambodia. Over to our man on the ground, our very own Taxi Boy, hello, can you hear me, Sum Yung Guy?

[fzzz]

Thankyou Fa Chao. Suor s'dei, and welcome to Siem Reap, western Cambudge. I'm in a bar called Martinis, with some young Cambodjen men, and a farang called Mr Gordon. Behind me you can see the dance floor, where later on 10s of young men will be gyrating to an unheard beat whilst the 4/4 techno beats pound away in a fairly obvious and regular rhythm. We're just waiting for the arrival of the first Taxi Girls - as soon as they get here, we're promised the place will be, in the words of farang, "jumping". At the moment, its rather dead, although we're quite amused by the continuous hovering presence of the Beer Girls, whose mandate is to make sure that no-one ever has a glass less than three-quarters full. The manager here, a member of the local mafia, tells me that the best way of ensuring beer glasses remain full is to fill them with huge chunks of ice, to keep the beer cool and watery.

Whilst we wait for the Taxi Girls to arrive, let's talk to some of the young men at the table. To my left is Jee. Good evening Jee. What are you hoping to get out of tonight?

Jee: Well I'm hoping to get away with not paying for any beers, by duping the farang we're out with into paying for all of our beers. The way I'm going to do this is to get my two mates to disappear halfway through the night, then I'll carrying on drinking, and when it comes time to pay, I'll tell the farang that I've got no money.

A very good plan Jee. Do you have any other hopes for the night?

Jee:Well, I really want boom-boom tonight, so I think I'll ask the farang for 10 dollars on top of the beer money.

Thank you Jee. Turning to my right now, I have a visitor from Scotland, in England; Mr Gordon, you're new here, what are your thoughts?

Mr Gordon: This is the most bizarre night club I've ever been to! There are disco balls hanging from the ceiling, plastic patio chairs arranged around tables, and women wearing different beer costumes. I think that if I want, say, a Stella Artois, I have to ask the Stella Beer Girl for it.

You don't have beer girls at home Mr. Gordon, in Scotland, England?

Mr. Gordon: No, we go to the bar and get them ourselves. You know what is interesting is the music - I've noticed that it starts slow, with traditional music, then after 10 minutes goes onto upbeat traditional music, then turns into pounding techno, and then all the music goes off for 10 minutes. Is it like this all night?

Well, Mr. Gordon, let's see ...

[slow fade to black, caption in white: TWO HOURS LATER]

[shouting a bit over loud repetitive beats] Well! As you can see, the place is really moving now! Behind me, where you saw an empty dance floor before, you can now see its full of young men and women. I understand that this is a usual sight for you citizens out there in the liberalised countries of the free world, but what's different about this is that all the women are single, and all of them are working tonight. The men you can see might be single or married; whichever, they're all here for one thing - Boom-Boom.
Just before we came to air, I was offered this very pretty girl over here for three U.S. dollars for an hour, or thirty five for the whole night; I was assured that for thirty five, and I quote, "she do everything".
The South East Asian News budget doesn't stretch to that level of investigative journalism, so I spent some time with the young lady on the dance floor, learning to dance Kampuchean style. For the uninitiated, this involves walking slowly in a circle, and twisting your hands in slow complex shapes. Its a very relaxing method of dancing, and even the men here seem to be able to do it, although as you can see, they haven't quite got the hang of dancing techno-style.

Here comes Mr. Gordon. Let's ask him what he thinks of the disco-party now. Mr. Gordon, the place is jumping, there are girls everywhere, the music is thumping - are you enjoying yourself?

Mr. Gordon: Err, I think so. This is a really weird place, strange atmosphere. You can tell that all the guys are here to pay for boom-boom, but all the girls keep looking at me, because I'm a tall, white farang. I went up to dance earlier, and women kept rubbing themselves against me, and then loads of men started hanging round hoping to get the girls when I moved away. There's a sort of predatory, but also pathetic charge to the air.

Do you disapprove, Mr. Gordon? This is very different to Scotland, England isn't it?

Mr. Gordon: Hmm. I don't think its my place to say. I mean, the country's just come out of 30 years of war, and the girls are earning money for their poor, rural families, who may have several members unable to work due to landmine injuries. And also, if these girls keep exploiting these men, there's going to be a huge shift in economic power from men to women ... hmm. Strange country. I talked to those guys, Jee and the others, and they say that when a man gets married, he has to pay upto US$2000 to the girl's family, and she has to be a virgin. I'm wondering who the Taxi Girls marry, if all wives have to be virgins when they marry? I think there's going to be a huge women's movement in this country in the next couple of decades. By the way, Scotland isn't i ..

Well, thankyou for that very perceptive insight, Mr. Gordon, although quite frankly, as a South East Asian man I have to say I have no idea what you're talking about, as women are either saintly mothers or sluts, and should be treated accordingly.
Back to the studio

[fzzz] Thank you Sum Yung Guy. For those viewers interested, we understand that Mr. Gordon will be taking a boat along the Tonle Sap, one of the largest floodplains in the world, which is currently reaching its maximum size as the wet season brings water down the Mekong, where it is backing up into the Sap, enabling fast boat transport through the amazing mirror-like lake-river. If you rich westerners are bringing your helicopters out here, you may see Mr. Gordon sitting on the top of a fast longboat for 5 hours whilst he traverses the waterway to Phnom Penh.

Which brings us to the Mekong Development News.
Your roving reporter recently travelled up the Mekong River, through the town of Kratie, to the northernmost Kambodian town of Stung Treng, or Stoke-on-Treng as farang from Britain, England are calling it.
Following the war that lasted 30 years, many citizens of Cambodia have been worried that they may not be able to earn enough money to live on, and give their children a better life.
However, in our journeys up the 12th largest river in the world, we have found some enterprising business men who are bringing much needed foreign currency into the country, through an ingenious method. Earlier today, I talked with Maw Do-Lah:

[cut to pre-recorded tape]

Mr Do-Lah, just four years ago, you say you were starving, and that you couldn't afford to feed your family. You have told me of how you would beg for scraps and old rice from other families in the town. And yet now, you look healthy, and you can afford to keep your children in school past the age of 10, when most families would get them working. How have you achieved this amazing turn-around?

Mr. Maw Do-Lah: Well, it was easy really. I noticed that white people were starting to travel by boat up the Mekong, and that none of them could speak or read Khmer. So I got to thinking - if I buy a boat, and take passengers up the river, I can charge the farang about 10 to 30 times more, because they're all rich, and they can all afford to pay, say twenty five dollars, whereas a local would pay just two dollars.
And I've got the market cornered as well, because the roads are just pot-holed dirt tracks plagued with bandits, and even I won't take them, and I survived the S-21 detention centre in Phnom Penh, where I was tortured with electrical whips, had my fingernails pulled out, and was then forced to work the land to grow rice.

Is that where you got the idea, when you were in S-21?

Mr. Do-Lah: No, when I was there I was kept in a wooden cell, about 1.5 meters by 0.75 meters. I thought I was lucky too - the others were chained to iron bars along the length of a wall, and had to ask the guards if they could change positions in their sleep, otherwise they'd be tortured. I was lucky to make it out of the Killing Fields alive. I went back there recently, and looked at all the skulls displayed in the Buddhist stupa; you can still see the pain and confusion of the people etched into the bone structure of the skulls.

Sobering words indeed. But back to your business. Don't you think that it will discourage people from travelling if you charge them too much money?

Mr Do-Lah: Not really; the farang love it. They think the Mekong is a beautiful waterway, with amazing jungle scenery on everyside, and deep chocolate brown waters that look so still, and yet hide fast currents and whirlpools. Farang are like that. Personally, I see it as a way of making money. I've got my wife catching fresh fish from it everyday. See all those deoderant canisters floating in the water? They're holding up fishing nets. Sometimes we're lucky enough to pull up a dolphin, but there aren't so many of them anymore. There's good eating on a river dolphin.
The other good thing is that I can throw all my rubbish in the river, and its gone straight away. No more problem! Its great.

It sounds like a very promising business venture, honourable Sir. What do you think of the plans by the Chinese and Lao to dam the Mekong at several points to generate electricity? Won't that affect your business?

Mr. Do-Lah: What?

Well, that was an interview I conducted earlier today. Onto other news now.

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