Imaging Our Mekong - Culture

CAMBODIA: Chinese Language Courses Popular

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 05:34:37 -0500

PHNOM PENH - While English remains the most popular foreign language among students in Cambodia, Chinese, Japanese and Korean are fast catching up as young Khmers increasingly view them as a gateway to better jobs in the country’s growing industrial and tourism sectors.

Reading Media in the Mekong Region

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 05:13:08 -0500

Johanna Son

BANGKOK -- Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia. What images might these words conjure up in the minds of international consumers of news? Perhaps war, maybe the Khmer Rouge. Or they might say, ‘Oh, it’s that those countries that had that war some time ago. . . they’re near one another, and they’re all the same’.

Border Ties Chip Away at Historical Hurts

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 01:24:13 -0500

Ung Chansophea

Cambodian workers cross the border to work in Vietnam

SVAY CHRUM, Cambodia – A flurry of bicycles starts from 6 a.m. onwards in Chambak and Kruos communes in this district in Cambodia’s Svay Rieng province, on the border with Vietnam. Drivers pedal frantically toward the Tanou border post, named after the stream that separates the two countries.

Despite Openness, Prejudices Persist

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 01:28:50 -0500

Ung Chansophea

Cambodia has buried the hatchet with its Vietnamese neighbour, but many scars remain today from centuries of conflict, and the occupation of the Kingdom during the decade that followed the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge by forces of the NUFSK (National United Front for the Salvation of Kampuchea) and soldiers from Hanoi. Today, the often-silent discrimination against the Vietnamese people has gotten the better of more than one mixed marriage between Cambodians and Vietnamese.

MEKONG REGION: Good for Business, But. . .

Thu, 29 May 2008 07:57:06 -0500

Nguyen Dai Duong

QUANG TRI, Vietnam – Ho Long’s family farm has 2,000 banana trees, from which they can pick some 20 bunches of the fruit each day. But unlike other families, Ho Long does not sell the harvested bananas in his mountain farm. Instead, twice a day, he hops on his Minsk motorbike and drives some five kilometres to the crossroads to sell their produce.

‘Small, but Big’

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 04:33:16 -0500

Last year, four theater groups got together to plan how to make an impact on the Thai contemporary theatre scene. Now, the plan is in operation, and a number of small theatre spaces have emerged around Bangkok. The question is: How big will this impact be? Paul Chen finds out.

THAILAND: By Women, for Women

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 04:22:19 -0500

Many women in Thailand’s theatre industry have not always stepped up to the challenge of writing and directing their own plays. Paul Chen talks to four of them that have, and are inspiring others to do so through the Women in the Moon Festival.

CAMBODIA: For Many, Khmer Rouge Trials Taking Too Long

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 03:58:42 -0500

Rithy Heng

PHNOM PENH, Jun 6 (Newsmekong) - It was just 8 a.m. on a Sunday
morning, but 78-year-old farmer You Song had visited almost all the
places inside the Royal Palace here in the Cambodian capital.

A Hundred Years on the Platform: Notes on Yunnan-Vietnam Railway

Fri, 30 May 2008 23:46:47 -0500

Photo Essay by Li Lang, 21^st Century Shangye Pinglun Magazine

It was more than a century ago, in 1901, that French colonialists began to build a railway from Hai Phong in Vietnam to Kunming, in China’s south-western Yunnan province. By the time the railway construction reached the terminal in Kunming, it was Mar. 31, 1910.

A Peek Into the Changing Values of Vietnam

Thu, 29 May 2008 09:04:11 -0500

By Sha Sha, Feiyinyue Magazine

For a country that only opened its tourism doors not too long ago when the government’s free-market reforms took effect, Vietnam has come quite a long way. A foreign tourist finds it very easy to travel and live in the country what with English being widely spoken here.Apart from English-language signboards and street signs, people engaged in business and the service industry speak English and all merchandise are tagged both in the Vietnamese dong and U.S. dollar.

Up and Downs of Chinese Volunteers in Laos

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 00:30:58 -0500

By Wen Junhua, Guangzhou Daily*

Six months are neither long nor short. For most people, life is ordinary, with nothing too exciting. Study, work, rest… it’s the same everyday. Time passes by like this. However, for the sixth group of 13 volunteers who went to Laos from Shanghai, the six months from October 2006 to April 2007 were a unique and unforgettable experience, during which curiosity, joy, difficulty, homesickness, exchange and conflicts were interwoven into their medical and health service and in their teaching of English and Chinese. Reporter Wen Junhua paid a visit to Laos in October 2006 and got a full picture of the sweetness and bitterness of the life of the volunteers.

Lao Protests Knock Drama Off Thai TV

Wed, 14 Feb 2007 06:18:49 -0600

BANGKOK - Channel 7 television and Workpoint Entertainment gave in under pressure from the Lao government and on Feb. 13 suspended indefinitely the airing of a controversial soap opera.

Two Dai Villages: Culture and Materialism

Mon, 09 Oct 2006 03:26:44 -0500

By Zhu Tong

MAN ZHA, China - Yan Hua, 39, wakes up at 6:30 a.m. each day and jogs in the Dai Park here. After having breakfast at 8 a.m., he fixes his hair in front of the mirror, then puts on his black hat.

Amid the fog that encircles this area on a plateau along the Lancang River, he takes a six-minute walk to work, where he starts the day by cleaning the pool in the Water-Splashing Square in the Dai Park. The park features a daily Water Festival show meant to show tourists how the Dai ethnic group marks the new year each April.

The Akha Identity across Borders

Mon, 09 Oct 2006 02:41:13 -0500

A Photo Essay By Myo Myint Swe

About 2.5 million of the Akha ethnic group live in a 3,000-square-kilometre-wide area in the Mekong region -- in Yunnan province of south-west China, northern Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. Historically, they migrated from Yunnan about 500 years ago.

On the Trail of Khmer Antiquities

Mon, 28 Aug 2006 23:17:27 -0500

Photo Essay by Khem Sovannara

SIEM REAP, Cambodia — The huge statues at the entrance of the Bayon temple in the Angkor complex here exude an air of strength, in contrast to other statues in the other temples and sites that have arms hacked off, or heads missing.

Bayon was the last state temple to be built in the 13^th century at Angkor Thom, on the banks of the Siem Reap river here in north-west Cambodia. The Bayon is home to 200 huge faces carved on more than 40 towers, among other images.