A new beginning.
Well, I’m restarting this blog, this time is for real (hopefully). I always want to keep my domain active just in case I feel like writing again like today. The biggest change is the entire theme. I loved the old theme, the visual style, the banners, and the slogans. But admittedly, with the advance of WordPress and social media, the old theme starts to show its age and is not flexible enough for modern internet. Any good times have to come to an end some day. If you want some nostalgia, you can still find the old look in the internet grave yard, I mean archive.
That’s being said, it’s not like the new theme is any bad. Its minimalist style and bright color are great for useability and friendliness. Most importantly the layout is responsive. You can try with your mobile devices to see how it works. Also it comes with complete set of social media junkies. Whether I’m into it or not; Facebook, Twitter and such are great ways to spread random crap information. It helps that the fact that more people use all these medium actually feed my stomach.
I remove many of the old posts as most of them are neither applicable nor reflecting my current point of views. In a politically correct sentence I’d say “I’ve grown a bit more mature”. In layman terms, it means that “my wife would kick my a**, if I keep all those posts”. The only thing remained from the old theme is the logo. Please don’t read too much into its meaning. I just happen to like it.
I’m fully aware that at this space age, this blog can’t possibly reach decent audiences without a bit of help from Facebook. Problem is that “Bong no have Facebook” and probably never will. Wait! “Bong” got a plan:
- login to my wife Facebook account
- start clicking like in all my
random crapposts - ???
- profit
Please don’t tell her!
Introducing a new alumni club.
The good thing about leaving school is that you can pretend to care a little bit about the well-beings of your ex-school mates and friends by doing something useful such as forming an alumni club. I too pretend to care of beloved friends… how are they doing? have they found a job? or worse are they still virgin?
So I came up with this amazing idea of alumni club. Voilà , welcome to the club! Our activities are:
- Football this saturday, beer afterwards.
- More football this sunday, more beer too.
Now I know that’s not prestigious enough. Club & associations nowaday need to look or pretend to look high-class to improve the social status of its members. Just ask most khmers with a Lexus Range Rover. Well then, shall we invite some Excellencies to join our football session too? We’re pretty sure the Excellencies would be more involved rather than bore themselves to the oblivion with hour-long speeches by some random unknowns like us.
Talking about invitation, we hope you don’t mind we cannot put up the invitation in the national newspaper like other prestigious clubs. We’re only used to caveman means of communications through the things called letter, email or phone. It’s a bit lame and cheapo, but hey you’ll get football and beer. What else can you ask for?
An idiot guide to Khmer official speech!
Back in 2004, during an official ceremony, the organizer politely requested me to do a public translation of the guest of honor’s speech to then foreign guests joining the event. I politely refused. The foreign guests were left in the cold and bemused as to what the hell the guest of honors were talking about.
Hope that with this guide, those who cannot followed would have some ideas of what going on. Not to say it’s always correct, remember it’s just a guide.
- First 10 mins: Salutation to each guest in the event, name by name completed with name title followed by cheers and clappings. (forgetting the name title may get the speaker fired)
- 10-30mins: Nice complimentary speech on the speaker boss, upper boss, big boss, all the bosses up the heirachy followed by cheers and clappings. (in related news, the TV seems to broadcast only this part)
- 30-50mins: History lessons and reminders of the past between 1975 till now followed by cheers and clappings.
- 50-55mins: Summary of the acheivements of the speaker’s team followed by cheers and clappings.
- 55-70mins: Classic text-book pledges for the better future followed by cheers and clappings.
- 70-80mins: Nice complimentary speech on the speaker boss, upper boss, big boss, all the bosses up the heirachy followed by cheers and clappings. (I’m wrong, the TV loves this part too)
- 80-90mins: Thanks to each guest in the event, name by name completed with name title followed by cheers and clappings. (forgetting the name title may get the speaker fired)
Khmer are patient. not?
They say Khmer are generally quiet quite patient, in a way that we tend to accept whatever given or forced on us. But the common wisdom is that if you’re good at something, you’re bad at something else, or in this case, if you gain something, you miss on something else.
Khmer are patient, good thing or bad thing? Let see!
Told you already, Khmer are awesomely patient!
How to keep blog running!
A never-ending source of ideas is the only way to keep blogs running. I too have one…never-ending source of ideas, that always keeps coming. Sometimes, it’s diluted, sometimes, it’s more solid… ! bit by bit my blog kinda keeps going, well sort of. Here it is!
Ideas lie deep, think dig harder, they’ll come out!
*Warning: Do not try this with your blog!
An idiot guide to Cambodian Media & Entertainment
Ever wonder why the media & entertainment are the two most popular pastimes in Cambodia rather than…say sports or gaming? This guide will show you the awesomeness of media & entertainment in Cambodian popular culture, a handy guide for everyone.
1. Welcome to “Koh Aksontesok” daily news, Cambodia’s most read newspaper. Today’s headlines are:
- “Traffic accident at Kbal Thnol causing minor injuries and major jam”
- “Fake rape story causes national outcry”
- “Superstitious witch craft blamed for latest series of traffic accidents”
2. Welcome to “See Ot Ot” TV, Cambodia’s biggest Television network. Today’s show is:
3. Welcome to “Hear Ot Ot” radio, Cambodia’s most popular radio show. The first song of the day titled “Crying girls and heart-broken guys”, requested by the Man Who Lacks Heart, is going out to:
Ms. Ni (thomthom), Ms. Na (bigbig), Ms. Né (phone star in poipet) , Mr. Nonaké, Mr. Eyké, Mr. Sondouy, Mr. Hearbroken (fellow man who lacks heart), Mr. Keke (fish vendor at Tonlé sap), Mr. Ko (hunter in Ratankiri) ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ………………………………. 10 minutes later ………………………………………….. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. bang nis, bang nus, bang nak, bang nok, bang nao, bang nong, à jak, à jem, à jok, à jom, à lom, à la, and all listeners to this program as well as all 14 million fellow khmers at home and abroad”
This song is coming right up, but first let’s meet our sponsor:
[..after the break...] Due to time constraint, we’re able to play only 30 seconds of the song. Let’s welcome our next program “Phone-in Karaoke”.
4. Welcome to “Roeung Ké Té”, Cambodia’s most subscribed magazine. Biggest story of this issue is:
Mr. Z, a rich man, is married to Mrs. Y. A well-known actress is rumored to be having something on with Mr. Z. Guess what will happen next? Fantastic prizes to be won!
5. Welcome to “Proleung” cinema, Cambodia’s most popular theater and cineplex. Today’s program is:
- 16:00 – 18:00 : An affair with her spirit! (a horror movie based on true story)
- 18:00 – 20:00 : Spirit awaken! (a horror story based on true movie)
- 20:00 – 22:00 : Mirror girl! (a true movie based on horror story)
6. Welcome to “Ha ha ha”, Cambodia’s most popular comedy show. Today’s show is:
**** **** ******** **** ******** ******** **** **** **** ******** **** ******** ******** **** ******** **** **** ******** **** **** ************ ******** **** **** **** **** ******** ******** **** **** ******** ****
*Content could not be displayed due to extreme uses of profanity, drugs and mature references.
Out of place! Out of touch!
Went back home recently, and one of the things I got back from Cambodia was the confirmation of the theory on how out of place and out of touch I was with the so-called youth generation.
1. Music: music are hard to appreciate these days let alone listen to. CCNP (copy, cut n paste) perhaps sums up the music scene nicely. To spice things up a bit, add some half-Khmer-half-English to the mix. If there is one thing original about it, it must be that almost all of the songs are either about “crying girls” or “heart-broken guys“. Didn’t know that the youth generation were this kinda sad.
2. Movies: people are scared of ghosts, but people love scary movies. Ghost movies are in every cinemas at almost every slots, ghost stories are everywhere, ghosts are behind you while you’re reading this, by the way.
3. Arts: When was the last time you befriended with someone so inspirational or just have some tastes in arts? Don’t remember anyone though…
4. Social life: Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, Blogger. Oh wait, they don’t call Blogger, they call Cloggers. C stands for Cool, Calm and Collected Cambodia, I guess. Whatever…
5. Football: people with a good taste in football are rare these days, the rest either call themselves ManU fans or are simply clueless about football.
6. Public behavior: 3 guys meet up in public. One guy pulls out something black resembling a brick. No! it’s his new Nokia N series. Not to be outcooled, the other guy starts showing off his new crying-girl and heart-broken-guy songs in his latest iThis, iThat, iWhatever-whatever. The third guy cannot hear a thing. How can he? when his music headset is bigger than his a**.
7. Names: his name is James. Right, his name is James. Back in his hometown, they call him “Ah Sampoch”. James, my a**.
8. Hobbies: “Let’s have a party! Can someone bring the cards?”. What the hell, can’t we even have a party for once without the petty gambling? No we can’t. I’m sure without playing cards, someone might go crazy of gambling starvation.
Thankfully though the world is created so that everyone has a place (to hide). The things I see as lame may be the coolest things to those on the other side of the spectrum. Wait, I should be careful of giving opinions these days, who know such thing could cause oil price to hit record high. Don’t blame me if tomorrow headline reads “Oil Price Hits Record High after someone from somewhere making some random remarks”.
Oh well, whatever…back to something more entertaining.