Khmer (高棉) or Cambodia (柬埔寨)-3

Day 3  Stop 1 Ta Phrom Temple (塔普倫廟)

Cambodia was surprisingly hot. Temperatures during the day could easily rise to 40 degrees Celsius. Though protected by a cap and armed with a towel-type handkerchief and two bottles of distilled water, I nearly had a stroke. A quarter of an hour under the merciless sun and I would look like someone who had just come out from a shower with his shirt and trousers on. But the ruins at Ta Phrom and Angkor Wat were breathtakingly beautiful. There I saw an unending tug of war between the forces of human civilization and the forces of Nature. Both are equally formidable.

Entering Ta Phrom Temple

The entrance to another enclosure



A close up of one of the 4 faces

The entrance to the inner enclosure of the ancient temple. This temple was originally a Buddhist temple but many of its original sculptures had been removed by the Hindus after the death of King Jayavarman VII, leaving only very few bas-relief of Buddhist mythologies. There are three inner enclosures but many parts have collapsed and the greater part of the temple's 650,000 sq.metre grounds have been colonized by giant trees mainly the "strangler fig" or gold apple and silk-cotton or thitpok trees.. Part of the ruins were used in the film Indiana Jones. There are entrance gopuras (entrance pavillions) at each of its cardinal points but nowadays because of the condition of the buildings, access is restricted to just the east and west entrances. Its construction started in 1186 AD but there were some additions in the 13th century. Originally known as Rajavihara (Monastery of the King), Ta Prohm was a Buddhist temple dedicated to the mother of King Jayavarman VII. According to an inscription there, some 80,000 workers were involved in its construction, including some 2,700 officials. There are 5 rectangular enclosures and 3 of its inner enclosures have galleries. At one time, it had a library and there were satellite temples on the north and south sides of the 3rd enclosure. At its eastern side, there was once a Hall of Dancers between the 3rd and 4th entrances and also a House of Fire.



The entrance to the inner enclosure



Tree growing through the rubble

many of the structures have tumbled down

A giant tree growing in one of the enclosures

Tall trees everywhere at the temple

Another giant tree growing right in the middle of the enclosure

Another tree has taken over part of the walls

This tree has taken over another part of the temple

One of the central buildings in there

One of the entrances to the building with sculptures depicting various mythical tales.

Many of the bas reliefs have been eroded and other parts of the temple have fallen down

Some of the figures decorating the temple wall

The lower portion of the figure has fallen down

Ruins everywhere



A view of one of the towers from one of the corridors

A corner of one of the structures

Another corridor

The roof of the corridor are heavily eroded

Another part of the collapsed building

To prevent further collapse, some of the buildings have to be supported by wooden girders and beams

Some of the collapsed stone decorations from the top of the structures have fallen into the spaces between the different rooms or halls

We have to walk through the rubble in the courtyard



The temple walls are decorated with carvings and figurines.



Some are on the top of the columns



Some lower down



Many have been destroyed or damaged either by war or by natural erosion



But some are relatively intact



Here are two which have been better preserved



Some appear to have been done in sections and then later reassembled



Each statue has a slightly different facial expression and posture

Some of the galleries

More of the galleries. They look massive



The entrance is guarded by the face of the King facing each of the four directions of the Khmer kingdom

He is supported at the base by various gods. The king fancied himself the representative of the Buddha on earth

Day 3 stop 2 Temple for Pre Rup (變身塔)

It's the state temple of Khmer king Rajendravarman and dedicated in 961 or early 962. It is a temple mountain of combined brick, laterite and sandstone construction.It's where the dead bodies are turned whilst being cremated as the funeral service went on. Pre Rup's extensive laterite and brick give it a pleasing reddish tone that is heightened by early morning and late afternoon sunlight. The temple has a square lay-out and two perimeter walls. The outer enclosure is a platform bounded by a laterite wall, 117 meters N-S by 127 meters E-W. A laterite causeway gives entry from the east. The four gopuras are cross-shaped, having a central brick section (consisting of three rooms flanked by two independent passageways) and a sandstone vestibule on both sides. To either side inside the eastern gate is a group of three towers aligned north to south. One of the towers appears to have never been built or to have been dismantled later, however they are later additions, probably by Jayavarman V. Further ahead, through another gate, libraries lie to either side of the walkway on the second platform. Just before the entrance there is a stone "cistern", but scholars believe it was a basement for a Nandi bronze statue rather than being used for cremation . There is a stone cistern at the base of the three-tiered pyramid, measuring 50 m at its base, rises in three steep tiers a dozen metres in height to a 35 m square platform at the summit. The lowest tier is symmetrically surrounded by 12 small shrines. At the top, five towers are arranged in a quincunx, one at each corner of the square and one in the center. Deities carved as bas-reliefs stand guard at either side of the central tower’s eastern door; its other doors are false doors. The southwest tower once contained a statue of Lakshmi, the northwest tower a statue of Uma, the southeast tower a statue of Vishnu and the northeast tower a statue of Shiva. The last one has an inscription on door jambs that dates from Jayavarman VI and is the only proof of his reign at Angkor. The temple is dedicated to the Hindu God Shiva, and it is probably located on a former shivaite ashram, built by Yasovarman I in the previous century.

An overall view of the temple from one of its sides where we entered

The temple was built in three tiers each higher than the other

The steps are guarded by lion gods.

A view of its various structures

As in the other temples, many of its walls and structures have collapsed.

The three middle towers

A view of the entrance from the middle tier

A lion guarding the step

A veiw of the left hand side of temple from the third tier

One of the rebuilt doors

its highest tower

The towers have all got openings for sunlight

This is the "cistern" which some believe was used for cremation where the corpse of the dead was "turned" during the Buddhist ceremonies or sending the dead on their way to whatever place it was destined to go depending on whether the deceased had accumulated sufficient good "karma". 

Day 3 Stop 3 Banteay Srei (女皇廟)

We next visited another small temple called Banteay Srei, which has low walls surrounding peaked structures of deep red
sandstone. Banteay Srei  is so called ("Citadel of Women,") because the reliefs on
this temple are so delicate that they could only have been carved by the
hand of a woman. The well-preserved relief carvings on the central
buildings depict scenes from ancient Hindu tales.Completed in 967,
Banteay Srei was the only major temple at Angkor not built for the king;
instead it was constructed by one of king Rajendravarman's counsellors,
Yajnyavahara. The temple was primarily dedicated to Shiva (the southern
buildings and the central tower were devoted to him, but the northern
ones to Vishnu). it was further rebuilt and expanded in the 11th century
and came under the control of the king and was rededicated to Shiva and
has remained in use at least until the 14th century.Originally called
Tribhuvanamahesvara — "great lord of the threefold world" — named as
usual after the central image (in this case a Shaivite linga). The town
of Isvarapura was centred on the temple.

The entrance to the temple

The same entrance from the opposite direction

We've got to walk through a central path which passes through various enclosures

Another entrance to a further enclosure

There is a small pond to one side of the temple

My first glimpse of the inner sanctuary to the temple

This is the heart of the temple

A structure to one side of the temple

Another view of the same structure

Two of the statues guarding the steps up the temple

The intricate carvings on the façade

One of the carvings

Another finely carved relief

The women look voluptuous

Another relief showing a many fanged lion

Some of the buildings are overgrown by weeds

The top of one of the entrances being carefully reconstructed from fragments close to the entrance

Another view of the same

Day 3 Stop 4  Angkor Wat (小吳哥窟)

 Angkor Wat is the largest Hindu temple complex in the world, built by King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century in Yasodharapura (present-day Angkor), the capital of the Khmer Empire, as his state temple and eventual mausoleum. Breaking from the Shaivism tradition of previous kings, Angkor Wat was instead dedicated to Vishnu. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious centre since its foundation – first Hindu, then Buddhist. The temple is at the top of the high classical style of Khmer architecture. It has become a symbol of Cambodia, appearing on its national flag, and it is the country's prime attraction for visitors. Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture: the temple mountain and the later galleried temple, based on early Dravidian Architecture, with key features such as the Jagati. It is designed to represent Mount Meru, home of the devas in Hindu mythology: within a moat and an outer wall 3.6 kilometres (2.2 mi) long are three rectangular galleries, each raised above the next. At the centre of the temple stands a quincunx of towers. Unlike most Angkorian temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west. The temple is admired for the grandeur and harmony of the architecture, its extensive bas-reliefs, and for the numerous devatas adorning its walls.Its modern name, Angkor Wat, means "Temple City" or "City of Temples" in Khmer; Angkor, meaning "city" or "capital city", is a vernacular form of the word nokor which comes from the Sanskrit word nagara. Wat is the Khmer word for "temple grounds", derived from the Pali word "vatta" . Prior to this time the temple was known as Preah Pisnulok (Vara Vishnuloka in Sanskrit), after the posthumous title of its founder.  As neither the foundation stela nor any contemporary inscriptions referring to the temple have been found, its original name is unknown, but it may have been known as "Varah Vishnu-lok" ( literally "Holy Vishnu Location", Old Khmer Cl. Sanskrit") after the presiding deity. Work seems to have ended shortly after the king's death, leaving some of the bas-relief decoration unfinished. In 1177, approximately 27 years after the death of Suryavarman II, Angkor was sacked by the Chams, the traditional enemies of the Khmer. Thereafter the empire was restored by a new king, Jayavarman VII, who established a new capital and state temple (Angkor Thom and the Bayon respectively) a few KMs to the north.In the late 13th century, Angkor Wat gradually moved from Hindu to Theravada Buddhist use, which continues to the present day. Angkor Wat is unusual among the Angkor temples in that although it was somewhat neglected after the 16th century it was never completely abandoned, its preservation being due in part to the fact that its moat also provided some protection from encroachment by the jungle. It was first mentioned by a Portuguese monk called António da Madalena,who visited it in1586, saying that it "is of such extraordinary construction that it is not possible to describe it with a pen, particularly since it is like no other building in the world. It has towers and decoration and all the refinements which the human genius can conceive of." In the mid-19th century the temple was visited by the French naturalist and explorer, Henri Mouhot, who popularised the site in the West through the publication of travel notes, in which he wrote: "One of these temples—a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michelangelo—might take an honorable place beside our most beautiful buildings. It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome, and presents a sad contrast to the state of barbarism in which the nation is now plunged."

This is where we got off our tourist coach

My first view of Angkor Wat from a distance

A closer view



Another view of the huge moat

Entering the monument

A long gallery

Another part of the temple

The entrance from the West

The entrance is guarded by the naga  (the sacred serpent)

The entrance to the main structure

The path leading to the main temple one side of the temple park



In the middle of some of the corridors we would sometimes find statues of Buddha

This is another of such Buddhas

Some of the figures of beautiful dancers on the  mural

Another one of the dancers

And another one. The Khmer appear to like curved lines

The figures at the side of one of the doors to the long corridor of the gallery. At least one of their arms would be curved.

The women all have ample rounded figures.

This figure adorns one of the outer walls, curiously turned half white half black by dirt.

Figures on the outer wall depicting war. How ferocious they look

The body posture are forceful yet graceful. 

A long corridor with mural about various battles



Another corridor full of carved murals

Ancient chariots. The horse does look a little like Han horses but more sturdy

Another chariot in the midst of chaos of battling soldiers.

The pillars in one of the corridors

Two of the lion gods

The front of the lower one is already broken

The temple grounds



In front of a temple are various columns waiting to be restored, replaced or rebuilt



Another view of the same temple

One of the sides of the main temple. Some restoration work is in progress

Some of the heads of statues awaiting restoration

One of the corridors looking out on to other temple structures

By the time we finished the tour, it was already near sunset

The tourists were making their way back where they came

One of the corridors at right angles to the main entrance

Sun set at the West entrance

Another view of the sunset

Sunset over the moat

Angkor Wat sunset taken from our coach window

Saturday Fun (星期六笑話)

Just came back from a holiday in Cambodia where I experienced both pleasure and shock. I'll leave the shock for another blog. Isn't it bad enough that there wasn't any Saturday fun here last week? I'll do my penance here.  But for the shock it gave me, the fun this week will be at the expense of the country that so shook me with its horrors.

How do you tell if you're a Cambodian? Here's what some people say:

    You think you are the king of gambling but lose all your money just like the others.
    You are really embarrassed when some white folks ask you serious questions about Buddhism but you can't answer more than one or two.
    You think you only have to wear expensive clothes to have class
    You call all white people Frenchmen
    You hate white people even if you are in their country
    You think it's the white who have to follow your own rules
    You really think that the more gold you wear the more chicks you get   
    You know that most of the girls who go to a temple are bad girls who want to prove to their family and community they are good clean girls
    You don't even know that Angkor Wat was not a Buddhist temple at first
    Your favorite past time is talking behind the back of people
    When some people ask you on which side you fought in the Khmer Rouge and you don't answer because you are embarrassed.
    You think Buddha is sort a god that can make you win money at the lottery or casino
    You make your wife walk in front of you whenever you go to the countryside
    Whenever you go into a tourist area, you'll either be pestered by or pester others with the question: "Tuk tuk?"

The weather may not be all that one desires. But there's nothing to stop you from trying  to have a nice weekend.

Khmer (高棉) or Cambodia (柬埔寨)-2

A map of Cambodia at the height of its powers at the 12th to 13th centuries

Cambodia Culture

Cambodians eat
rice as their staple food, supplemented by noodles and
fish from Tonle Sap and use kaffir lime, lemon grass, garlic, fish
sauce, soy sauce,  tamarind, ginger, oyster sauce, coconut milk and
black pepper for seasoning. They also eat plenty of red curry and French
bread.Traditionally, the Khmer people recorded Khmer legends, prayers
and the origin of Buddhism on books made with Tra leaves, wrapped
carefully in cloth to protect them from moisture and the climate.

Cambodian dance can be divided into three main categories: stylzied
Khmer classical dance, folk dance done to the tune of mahori music
whilst court dances are like those of Thailand. The dances are performed
by intricately costumed, highly trained men and women on public
occasions for tribute, invocation or to enact traditional stories and
epic poems such as Reamker, the Khmer version of the Ramayana Known
formally as Robam Preah Reach Trop ("theater of royal
wealth") it is set to the music of a pinpeat ensemble accompanied by a
vocal chorus.Social dances are those performed by guests at banquets,
parties or other informal social gatherings. Khmer traditional social
dances are analogous to those of other Southeast Asian nations. Examples
include the circle dances Romvong and Romkbach as well as Saravan and
Lam Leav. Modern western popular dances including Cha-cha, Bolero, and
the Madison, have also influenced Cambodian social dance.

The
most celebrated holiday every year is the Bon Om Teuk (Festival of Boat
Racing), the annual boat rowing contest, held at the end of the rainy
season when the Mekong river begins to sink back to its normal levels
allowing the Tonle Sap River to reverse flow and engages in
cockfighting, soccer, and kicking a sey, which is similar to a footbag.
Based on the classical Indian solar calendar and Theravada Buddhism, the
Cambodian New Year is a major holiday that takes place in April.

Day 1 of the Trip

The independence Monument, a stupa, at Phnom Penh. Cambodia became independent from France again on 9th November 1953. In 1863, when Cambodia was then under the joint suzerainty of two of its powerful neighbors, Thailand and Vietnam, their king Norodom I sought protection from France and in 1867, he signed a treaty with France in 1867 whereby in return for France giving control over the two provinces Battambang
and Siem Reap where over a million Khmers had settled but which
officially belonged to Thailand in those days, he surrendered suzerainty over the country to France which undertook to defend it against Thailand and Vietnam but these two provinces were returned by France to Thailand in 1906. In 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge forces  attempted to regain control over these two provinces which had by that time come under Vietnamese control.

Our first stop was the highest hill in Phnom Penh, the 27-metre Gold Pagoda Hill

The palace wall

The
entrance to the Royal Palace with the Silver Pagoda (Preah Vihear Preah
Keo Morakot formerly called Wat Ubosoth Ratanaram) popular called Wat
Preah Keo in the background

A pattern on the gate to the palace

A royal window shade

a mural on the wall of the royal palace

The
Silver Pagoda which is the royal temple.The vihara houses many national
treasures such as gold and jeweled Buddha statues. Most notable is a
small 17th century baccarat crystal Buddha (the "Emerald Buddha" of
Cambodia) and a life-sized gold Maitreya Buddha decorated with 9584
diamonds, the largest of which weighs 25 carats. It was created in the
palace workshops during 1906 and 1907. The Silver Pagoda was inlaid with
more than 5,000 silver tiles and some of its outer facade was
remodelled with Italian marble. However only a small area of these tiles
are available to be viewed by the public on entering the pagoda.

The gold Buddha dressed in royal regalia, commissioned by King Sisowath, weighs about 90 kilos

A gold tree inside the temple

Two golden elephants at the museum attached to the temple

A silver flower at the museum

A small shrine behind the temple

The recreation hall of the King



The King's Palace



The Cobra is as the sacred serpent (naga) the National Totem

A god holding up the roof of the palace

National lady's costume for formal occasions

Various tombs of Cambodian kings and queens

A close up of one of the royal tombs



A statue of the king in front of the tomb

A statue at the royal garden

A royal boat cart to be pulled by two elephants

Tradtional farm implements on display at the side of the temple museum

musicians playing some traditional instruments outside of the temple museum. They invited me to play the drum with them. I did!

We were taken on a tour of the river on one of these boats

Another cobra sculpture at the pier

The Mekong River seen on a boat during water tour of the river

On the bank we can see some new buildings on the left of the new photo. Otherwise, there are not very many tall buildings

These are the boat people who came from Vietnam

More boat houses in the Vietnamese water village

Khmer (高棉) or Cambodia (柬埔寨) 1

Easter last year was completely dominated by the HKIFF. This year, it was taken up entirely by Cambodia. It was a mixed experience: surprise and shock. I was surprised at the level of its past civilization and architecture and shocked by the horror the country went through when it was terrorized by an ideologically driven  Communist general Pol Pot who wiped out 2 of its 7 million local inhabitants in half a decade back in the 1970's. During this trip, Its history took on added authenticity for me because I could hear it with my own ears, through the mouths of two local tour guides both of whom were actual victims of those days of unbelievable atrocity.  It is not as if I were reading a cold, objective and merely factual academic account of its history written by someone who had nothing personally to do with what he is writing about. They were part of the lives of our two guides who lost most members of their own immediate or extended families and friends.
 
It's practically impossible to understand what I saw on this trip in any meaningful way without first learning a bit of Cambodian history because its very complicated and checkered history is intricately and intimately related to the rise and fall of various dynasties ruling over different parts of the present day Malaysia, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand and one of the most horrible episodes in human history.

The Country

Cambodia ( Kampuchea) is now a constitutional monarchy of 24 provinces headed by King Norodom Sihamo  occupying nearly 70,000 square miles in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula, bordered in the northwest by Thailand, in the northest by Lao, in the east by Vietnam and the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest. It now has a population of some 15 million, 95% of whom are Theravada Buddhists (some 4400 temples in the country), 1% Christian, of which Catholics make up the largest group (20,000) followed by Protestants like Baptists, Christian Missionary Alliance, Methodists, Jehoveh Witness, Apostolic or United Pentecostals, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. About 10% of its population are ethnic minorities: Vietnamese (740,000), Chinese (700,000 ).), Cham (220,000.) who are mostly Sunni Muslims, living mainly in the Kampong Cham Province, more than 300,000 Muslims.and Khmer Loeu (550,000) and another 20 odd minority hill tribes.

Its political, economic and cultural centre, its capital Phnom Penh (金邊)  with a population of 2.2 million, however has only about 5 main streets. All political powers are now concentrated in the hands of Hun Sen, one of the former members of the Khmer Rouge previously led by its cold-blooded dictator Pol Pot,who was initially supported by both Mao Tse Tung and the North Vietnamese as fellow communists. Originally the Khmer Rouge's power base was in Northern Cambodia. At one time, power was shared between three rivals: Lon Nol, Sihanouk's cousin Sirik Matak, and National Assembly leader In Tam., After Pol Pot took control of Phnom Penh in 1975 following 117 days of fighting, he declared the establishment of the People's Republic of Kampuchea, a reign of terror began which did not end until 1979 when Pol Pot was overthrown by one of his former subordinates, Hun Sen,(who has Fukinese blood in his ancestral line) who disagreed with Pol Pot's hardline policies of racial genocide against the Cham Islamic population, the native Khmer tribes and Chinese. Pol Pot then fled to the jungles of northern Cambodia and died in April 1998. Historians estimate that Pol Pot killed off some 2 million people in various massacres all over Cambodia. Hun Sen has since remained the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia until today.

Brief History of Cambodia

Cambodia's ancient name is the Sanskrit word "Kambuja". Its formal name is "Khmer Preah Reacheanachak Kampuchea" and is popularly called called "Srok Khmer: (literally "the Land of the Khmers") or more formally "Prateh Kampuchea" ( literally "The Country of Cambodia", Cambodia being the Sanskrit transcription of the word "Kampuchea") and further shortened into Kampuchea and is now popularly known as Khmer (高棉).

According to Chinese chronicles, after Jayavarman I of Chenla died around AD 690, turmoil ensued which resulted in division of the kingdom into Land Chenla and Water Chenla which was loosely ruled by weak princes under the dominion of Java.The Khmer Empire grew out of these remnants of Chenla becoming firmly established in 802 when Jayavarman II (reigning  c790-850) declared independence from Java and proclaimed himself a Devaraja. He and his followers instituted the cult of the God-king and began a series of conquests that built up an empire which flourished in the area from the 9th to the 15th centuries.

Around the 13th century, monks from Sri Lanka introduced Theravada Buddhism to Southeast Asia.The religion spread and eventually displaced Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism as the popular religion of Angkor. In or about AD 802, Its most famous Emperor Jayavarman II declared himself king and then started Khmer Empire which lasted some  600 years, dominating much of Southeast Asia, including at its height parts of present day Malaysian, Burma, Laos and Vietnam. Historians believe that it was during the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries that the Indianized states of Funan (扶南) and its successor, Chenla (暹羅), coalesced in present-day Cambodia and southwestern Vietnam. Even today, we see the influence of Hinduism and Buddhism in the architectural styles in many of the temples found in Angkor (meaning "capital city") Wat (meaning temple) and we can see much similarities in the written form of the language of Thailand and Cambodia.

After the fall of Angkor to Ayutthaya in the 15th century, Cambodia was ruled as a vassal between its neighbors. In 2007 an international team of researchers using satellite photographs and other modern techniques concluded that Angkor had been the largest pre-industrial city in the world with an urban sprawl of 1,150 square miles.The city, which could have supported a population of up to one million people and Angkor Wat, the most well known and best-preserved religious temple at the site.Angkor was sacked by the Ayutthaya Kingdom and abandoned in 1432 because of ecological failure and infrastructure breakdown.This led to a period of economic, social, and cultural stagnation when the kingdom's internal affairs came increasingly under the control of its neighbors.The Khmer court moved the capital to Longvek where the kingdom sought to regain its glory through maritime trade.

Cambodia was first mentioned in European documents in 1511 by the Portuguese. Portuguese and Spanish travelers described the city as a place of flourishing wealth and foreign trade. The attempt was short-lived however, as continued wars with Ayutthaya and the Vietnamese resulted in the loss of more territory. In 1594, Longvek was conquered and destroyed by King Naresuan the Great of Ayutthaya. In 1618, a new Khmer capital was established at Udong south of Longvek but its monarchs could survive only by entering into what amounted to alternating vassal relationships with the Siamese and Vietnamese for the next three centuries with only a few short-lived periods of relative independence. By this time, the Khmer penchant for monument building had ceased. Older faiths such as Mahayana Buddhism and the Hindu cult of the god-king were then supplanted by Theravada Buddhism for good.The empire, though in decline, remained a significant force in the region until its fall in the 15th century.

In the 19th century, a renewed struggle between Siam and Vietnam for control of Cambodia resulted in a period when Vietnamese officials attempted to force the Khmers to adopt Vietnamese customs. This led to several rebellions against the Vietnamese and the Cambodians appealed to Thailand for assistance. The Siamese–Vietnamese War (1841–1845) ended with an agreement to place the country under joint suzerainty. In 1863, King Norodom, himself installed by Thailand, sought the protection of France from the Thai and Vietnamese control, after tensions grew between them. In 1867, the Thai king signed a treaty with France, whereby in return for for the control of Battambang and Siem Reap provinces which officially ere part of Thailand, he renounced suzerainty over Cambodia. These two provinces were ceded back to Thailand by a border treaty between France and Thailand in 1906. In 1941-1945, it was occupied by the Japanese but after the end of the WWII, it reverted to French as one of its colonies.

Independence

Cambodia only gained complete independence from France in on 9th November, 1953 when the French-educated King Norodom Sihanouk, was chosen to be king by the French because he was thought to be easy to control but they could not be more wrong. Sihanouk negotiated with them for independence, something he achieved when he signed the treaty in Paris. Two years later, Sihanouk abdicated his kingship in favor of his father in order to participate in politics and was elected prime minister. But upon his father's death in 1960, Sihanouk again became head of state, taking the title of prince. As the Vietnam War progressed, Sihanouk adopted an official policy of neutrality in the Cold War although he was thought sympathetic to the communist cause. Thus he first allowed the Vietnamese communists to use Cambodia as a sanctuary and a supply route for their arms and other aid to their armed forces fighting in South Vietnam. But  when he told an American journalist in 1968 that he would not object to
US bombing the Vietnamese communist sanctuaries provided that no
Cambodians were killed, the Americans started to do so, he caused widespread resentment in the government and army because of his vacillating policies. Therefore in 1970, whilst he was on a visit to the PRC, he was deposed by General Lon Nol and Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak in a military coup immediately after which he demanded the Vietnamese Communist army to leave Cambodia, much to the delight of USA.

Rise of Khmer Rouge & Civil War 1970-1975

In 1972, Cambodia
adopted a new constitution with an elected parliament and Gen Lon Nol
was "elected" President. But the new government was paralyzed by
disunity and widespread corruption and by the task of transforming a
30,000-man army into a national combat force of more than 200,000 men.

In the meantime, wanting to regain power, Prince Sihanouk encouraged the
Vietcongs and Khmer Rouge in northern Cambodia to attack the new
government and this led to civil war in Cambodia between 1970 and 1975
which ended only when the Khmer Rouge under General Pol Pot seized Phnom
Penh (who was initially supported by the North Vietnamese (whose armies
entered Cambodia at the request of the Lon Nol's second in command Nuon
Chea )  and Vietcongs, adopting their methods ideological warfare and
torture, But from 1973 on, the Communist Party of Kampuchea ("CPK)
armies were already fighting government forces with little or no North
Vietnamese support and Pol Pot and his second in command Ieng Sary were
already getting more and more independent from North Vietnamese control.
They  purged many Vietnam-trained communists, the way Mao Tse Tung
purged the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of Soviet influence in 1935 at Chun Yi. At that time, he already had 60% of the Cambodian
territories and a quarter the Cambodian population under his control.

To
stop the advance of the Vietcongs and Khmer Rouge upon Phnom Penh but
principally to weaken the North Vietnamese, South Vietnam and USA
carried out numerous bombings of Cambodia between 1969-1973 but met with
only limited success. To prevent full scale civil war, Gen. Lon Nol made
3 attempts to negotiate with Pol Pot but all such attempts failed. By
1974, Lon Nol's control was reduced to the small enclaves in various
cities and the main supply routes. On New Year's Day 1975, the Khmer
Rouge launched their final attack on the capital, where about 2 million
refugees from Khmer Rouge were then living. After some 117 days of last
ditch resistance, on April 17th 1975 the Republic army under Gen. Lon
Nol surrendered to Khmer Rouge force, just 5 days after America
evacuated from Cambodia. Lon Lol fled to France. Pol Pot then announced the establishment of
"Democratic Kampuchea".

After he gained power, Pol Pot started a Maoist
style Cultural Revolution, evacuated the cities, abolished the use of money, sent the entire
population on forced marches to rural work projects, attempted to
rebuild the country's agriculture on the model of the 11th century,
discarded Western medicine, and destroyed temples, libraries, and
anything considered Western and implemented a program of systematic
massacre and genocide against any one or any ethnic group whom he
suspected were against his regime of radical communism. He killed off
all fat people whom he thought must have grown fat because they
exploited the "people" ,and all people who wore glasses because they were
considered intellectuals whom he suspected of being petty bourgeoisie
siding with corrupt capitalists. About 25% the entire population of
Cambodia were exterminated in the process! Could that be one of the
reasons why we now seldom find any fat or short sighted people in Cambodia today? During those days of horror, more than half a million Cambodians fled to either South Vietnam or to Thailand but not many
made it. It is estimated that In the 1960s' there were over 420,000
Chinese and 250,000 to 300,000 Vietnamese in Cambodia but by 1984, only
slightly more 60,000 Chinese and slightly more than 56,000 Vietnamese
were left. Whether or not those figures are accurate, in 1993, after the downfall of Pol
Pot, who went back to the jungle between Thailand and Cambodia there were and still are some 20,000 mass graves all over Cambodia.  About
600,000 left Cambodia for Thailand or South Vietnam as refugees.

In
the meantime, November 1978, Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia in
response to border raids by the Khmer Rouge. The People's Republic of
Kampuchea (PRK), a Pro-Soviet state led by the Kampuchean People's
Revolutionary Party (a party created by the Vietnamese in 1951) led by a
group of Khmer Rouge who had fled Cambodia to avoid being purged by Pol
Pot and Ta Mok, were headed by Heng Samrin. They relied upon the support of
the occupying Vietnamese army and were under direction of the Vietnamese
ambassador to Phnom Penh.

In 1981, a newly created state, a
"government-in-exile" called the Coalition Government of Democratic
Kampuchea (CGDK) was formed from three factions: the former Khmer Rouge,
a royalist faction led by Sihanouk, and the Khmer People's National
Liberation Front. Its credentials were recognized by the United Nations.
The Khmer Rouge representative to the UN, Thiounn Prasith, was
retained, but he had to work in consultation with representatives of the
non-Communist Cambodian parties. refusal of Vietnam to withdraw from
Cambodia led to economic sanctions by the U.S. and its allies. Peace
efforts began in Paris in 1989 for the entire Cambodia which resulted in
a comprehensive peace settlement in October 1989.

On October 23, 1991,
the Paris Conference reconvened to sign a comprehensive settlement
giving the UN full authority under the name of United Nations
Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) to supervise a cease-fire,
repatriate the displaced Khmer along the border with Thailand, disarm
and demobilize the factional armies, and prepare the country for free
and fair elections.The UN was given a mandate to enforce a ceasefire and
deal with refugees and disarmament. In November 1991, Prince Sihanouk,
President of the Supreme National Council of Cambodia (SNC), and other
members of the SNC returned to Phnom Penh to begin the resettlement
process in Cambodia. UN Advance Mission for Cambodia (UNAMIC) was
deployed at the same time to maintain liaison among the factions and
begin demining operations to expedite the repatriation of approximately
370,000 Cambodians from Thailand .

On March 16, 1992, the UN
Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) arrived in Cambodia to begin
implementation of the UN Settlement Plan. The UN High Commissioner for
Refugees began full scale repatriation in March 1992. UNTAC grew into a
22,000-strong civilian and military peacekeeping force to conduct free
and fair elections for a constituent assembly. More than 4 million
Cambodians (about 90% of eligible voters) participated in the May 1993
elections, although the Khmer Rouge or Party of Democratic Kampuchea
(PDK) (whose forces were never actually disarmed or demobilized) barred
some people from participating. Prince Ranariddh's royalist FUNCINPEC
Party got 45.5% of the vote, followed by Hun Sen's Cambodian People's
Party and the Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party, respectively. FUNCINPEC
then entered into a coalition with the other parties that had
participated in the election. The parties represented in the 120-member
assembly proceeded to draft and approve a new constitution.
Restoration of Monarchy

The new Cambodian constitution, promulgated on September 24, 1993, established a multiparty liberal democracy under the framework of a constitutional monarchy, with the former Prince Sihanouk elevated to King. Prince Ranariddh and Hun Sen became First and Second Prime Ministers, respectively, in the Royal Cambodian Government (RGC). The constitution provides for a wide range of internationally recognized human rights.The new two tiered parliament consisted of a lower house, the 123-member National Assembly(Radhsphea) whose members were  elected for a maximum of 5 years through a system of proportional representation and an upper house, the Senate or 61-member Senat, two of whom are appointed by the king and two others by the National Assembly, and the rest being elected by the commune councillors from 24 provinces of Cambodia for a term of six years. All power was in the hands of the government established after the UNTAC sponsored elections. However political stability was shaken in 1997 by a coup d'etat led by the co-Prime Minister Hun Sen (a former Khmer Rouge Commander installed by the North Vietnamese Government) who has been in power since 1985 when he purged the government of noncommunist parties led by co-Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranardiddh whose powers were then increasing. Norodom Ranardiddh fled to Paris but many of his supporters were imprisoned and tortured and many noncommunist politicians were murdered by Hun Sen's forces.

On October 4, 2004, the Cambodian National Assembly ratified an agreement with the United Nations on the establishment of a tribunal to try senior leaders responsible for the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge. Donor countries have pledged the $43 million international share of the three-year tribunal budget, while the Cambodian government’s share of the budget was $13.3 million. The tribunal started trials of senior Khmer Rouge leaders in 2008. Cambodia is also recovering from the land mines which were used heavily by the Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese; it will take approximately a decade to remove most of the land mines from Cambodia.

On October 14, 2004, King Norodom Sihamoni was selected by a special nine-member throne council, quickly put in place after the abdication of King Norodom Sihanouk a week earlier. Sihamoni's selection was endorsed by Prime Minister Hun Sen and National Assembly Speaker Prince Norodom Ranariddh (the king's half brother and current chief advisor), both members of the throne council. He was enthroned in Phnom Penh on October 29, 2004.

In July 2010 Kang Kek Iew became the first Khmer Rouge member found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity in his role as the former commandant of the S21 extermination camp, which we visited during the trip He was sentenced to life in prison.However, Hun Sen has opposed any extensive trials of former Khmer Rouge mass murderers because he thought this might cause political instability.

Currently the ruling political party is the The Cambodian People's Party (CPP), led by Hun Sun which controls both the lower and upper chambers of parliament, with 73 seats in the National Assembly and 43 seats in the Senate. The opposition Sam Rainsy Party is the second largest party in Cambodia with 26 seats in the National Assembly and 2 in the Senate. In addition to political oppression, the Cambodian government has been accused of corruption in the sale of vast areas of land to foreign investors resulting in the eviction of thousands of villagers] as well as taking bribes in exchange for grants to exploit Cambodia's oil wealth and mineral resources. Cambodia is consistently listed as one of the most corrupt governments in the world. Hun Sun is the effective commander in chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces of some 210,000 members, formally under the under the supreme command of King Nordom Sihamoni but in practice by the Ministry of National Defense which itself is presided over by Hun Sun as the Prime Minister of Cambodia.

In 2000, control of the armed forces was reorganized, the defence ministry formed three subordinate general departments responsible for logistics and finance, materials and technical services, and defence services under the High Command Headquarters (HCHQ) headed by General Tea Banh as the minister of National Defense, a post he occupied since 1979. The Secretaries of State for Defense are Chay Saing Yun and Por Bun Sreu. The new Commander-in-Chief of the RCAF was replaced by his deputy General Pol Saroeun, who is a long time loyalist of Prime Minister Hun Sen. The Army Commander is General Meas Sophea and the Army Chief of Staff is Chea Saran.

Country Afflicted by landmines

UNICEF has designated Cambodia the third most landmined country in the world, attributing over 60,000 civilian deaths and thousands more maimed or injured since 1970 because of the unexploded land mines left behind in rural areas.The majority of the victims are children herding animals or playing in the fields. Adults that survive landmines often require amputation of one or more limbs and have to resort to begging for survival.However, the number of landmine casualties has sharply decreased, from 800 in 2005 to less than 400 in 2006 and 208 in 2007 (38 killed and 170 injured), 271 landmine and unexploded ordnance casualties were recorded by the Cambodian Mine/UXO Victim Information System in 2008, 243 in 2009, and 286 in 2010. This rise is partly due to two major anti-tank landmine accidents in 2010 – in Palin province in May, and in Battambang province in November – that between them killed or injured 30 people. There were 211 total casualties in 2011, and the statistics for January–June 2012 numbered 104. 27% of the casualties in 2011–12 occurred in Battambang.

Cambodian Economy

After decades of war, Cambodia concentrated on
economic development, focusing on agriculture, mining of precious
stones, construction, garments, and tourism and attracted  plenty of
foreign investments and international trade. In 2005, oil and natural
gas deposits were found beneath Cambodia's territorial waters and it is
expected to start commercial extraction this year.  Based on the
Economist, IMF: Annual average GDP growth for the period 2001–2010 was
7.7% making it one of the world's top ten countries with the highest
annual average GDP growth. Tourism was Cambodia's fastest growing
industry, with arrivals increasing from 219,000 in 1997 to over 2
million in 2007. In 2004, inflation was at 1.7% and exports at $1.6
billion US$. China is Cambodia's biggest source of direct foreign
investment. China planned to spend $8 billion in 360 projects in the
first seven months of 2011. It is also the largest source of foreign
aid, providing about $600 million in 2007 and $260 million in 2008.
After textiles, tourism (more than 2 million a year) is now the second
largest foreign currency earner: Japanese, Chinese, Americans, South
Koreans and French more than half arrived through Siem Reap (Ankor Wat) 
and the balance through Phnom Penh and other destinations. Other
tourist destinations include Sihanoukville in the southwest which has
several popular beach resorts and the area around Kampot and Kep
including the Bokor Hill Station. The majority of the tourist souvenirs
are imported from China, Thailand and Vietnam. but some are produced
locally like Krama (traditional scarf), Ceramic works, Soap, candle,
spices, Wood carving, lacquerware, silverplating, painted bottles
containing infused rice wine. Cambodia is among the top 10 Kiwifurit
producers and the top 12 rice producers


Language and Education

The Khmer language is a member of the
Mon–Khmer subfamily of the Austroasiatic language group. French, once
the language of government in Indochina, is still spoken by many older
Cambodians and is also the language of instruction in some schools and
universities funded by the French government. Cambodian French, a
remnant of the country's colonial past, is a dialect found in Cambodia
and is sometimes used in government, particularly in court but English
is fast catching up. The civil war and subsequent genocide markedly
affected the Cambodian population; 50% of the population is younger than
22 years old. At a 1.04 female to male ratio, Cambodia has the most
female-biased sex ratio in the Greater Mekong Subregion. In the
Cambodian population over 65, the female to male ratio is 1.6:1. About
78% of the population are illiterate but 90% of boys (86% girls) those
between 15-24 are literate because the state now provides 9 year of
compulsory free education. According to our tourist guide, students who
don't attend special private tuition organized by the teachers seldom
got good grades. The average life expectancy is 60 years for men and 65
for women as at 2010.

A Fold in my Blanket (Chemi sabnis naketsi) (岩石的摺痕)

The HKIFF ended, as it began for me, happily. My 21st and last film A Fold in my Blanket (Chemi sabnis naketsi) (2013) comes from East Europe: the former USSR state of Georgia from a new scriptwriter- director Zaza Rusadze.

As the film starts, we see from the perspective of somewhere at the bottom of a dark cavern the light at the vagina-like opening above and we hear the grating sound of someone's shoes trying to find a foothold to get down and also the clear sound of water dripping drop by drop into an underground pool from the roof of the cavern. From time to time, the dark figure climbing down would click on his cigarette lighter when we get a glimpse of his face and the uneven rock face of the cavern.Next we see a long corridor with a row of identical doors which keep opening and closing as people in suit and tie emerge and walk past each other, unseeing, with a file under their arm with almost identical serious, blank and emotionless expressions on their faces. We see the young man entering a room attending an interview, not knowing what to expect and being told by a passing secretary that he could not enter the room just like that. After having seen his file, the young man Dimitrij (Tornike Bziava) who had dug out a suit and tie which he wore at a  London wedding expressly for the interview, was offered a position by a man dressed in a black lawyer's or judge's gown and was told to come to work the following day. He did. His job is make photocopies and then to serve court documents. We see him sitting on a chair next to an old fashioned copier waiting for one page after another of the photocopied document to tumble out slowly to the squeaky sound of its worn out mechanical delivery system with a bored expression on his face. We are next shown an old man delivering the national flags to various old ladies that he knows about in various apartments, one of which is that of Dimitrij's relative's house, people who hold tiny boring family party where they talk about old times, eat stale cake and listen to Italian opera singing. In the party are a doctor, a lawyer and some old ladies one of whom, his aunt, is suffering from Alzheimer and would tell stories about how one time long ago, she went on a trip to the countryside together with Dimitrij and a boy called Andrej,  with whom he was then sitting in a different part of the house, away from the old folks, trying to interest him in his favourite pastime--rock climbing but the others laughed at her saying that she was always making up stories but she retorted that even if so, her stories are less boring than their lives. In any event, we see Andrej (Tornike Gogrichiani ) agreeing reluctantly to give it a try. When Dimitrij went home, we see him studying an old photograph showing him with Andrej in the company of his aunt, intrigued and also in a different scene, her aunt flipping over an old photo album to ascertain whether or not she misremembered. Then we see the pair of young men rock climbing and how Dimitri showed Andrej his favourite cave at the bottom of which they found a wooden door. We learn later that Andjej was a drunk given to beating up people when he had too much and that he would soon have to face a murder trial. Dimitri was asked to be a witness for Andrej's family and asked if he could do the witness statement with Andrej and was told by his superior that he could not.  We are also shown Dimitrij visiting his aunt in hospital for the removal of a tumor. Amongst the tissue removed from her brain was a diamond which she was always accusing one of his relatives of having stolen from her. She asked the doctor who was at the party whether it was possible to put that diamond back into her brain !

It was a very beautifully made film: the pace is slow, the composition of the pictures very meticulously thought out, like painting with special attention to the effect of light and contrast, full of suggestive symbols: old fashioned car running on the road, the old flag promoter being beaten up by a drunken young man, Dimitri going up the craggy rock one hand grip and one foot hold at a time, going down a mysterious cave with a door at the bottom, the bear in the studio for taking a picture for his identity photo for his job, the diamond being found amongst the unwanted brain tissue of Dimitri's Alzheimer suffering aunt, court documents being coughed out from an outdated photocopier machine, two young men walking in the forest and climbing mountains etc away from the dull and monotonous lives of the older folks.  Perhaps the folds of the ancient limestone formed at the bottom of the sea is another symbol of how our past is folded into our present? The dysfunctioning of human relations in a small contemporary Georgian town is emphasized sonically by the sputtering of its outdated motors and worn out photocopier and the absence of any meaningful conversation which relates to the present at the boring family party. But whenever Dimitrij is out in the countryside, we hear the sound of some contemporary music either pop or classical and when Dimitrij is in the cave, we hear by contrast, the crystal clear sound of water dripping down from the roof,  evoking images of the purity of Nature. The obviously surrealistic images are linked together not by the conventional linear prose logic of cause and effect but poetically, by parallel themes, motifs and variations so that the boundaries between everyday social reality and the reality of the psyche are blurred as the film narrative unfolds with the life of Dimitrij as its focal point. Dimitrij is a stranger, an outsider, having returned from abroad: he obviously finds it difficult to fit into the mundane and colorless social and professional life in Georgia, amongst old men and women, with old habits and old traditions. What is significant is that we don't see him going out with any girl. He seems unable to relate to the old folks, except to his aunt: he appears the only one who visits her.  The film leaves us pondering. There are a lot of unanswered questions. Is Dimitri gay? Is he a symbol of the new Georgia fumbling to discover itself ? At one point, he was asked by the photographer taking his photo for his job application his name and he seemed confused! The film presents the problems but does not provide any answers. But it's no part of the job of an artist to provide easy ready-made answers. If that is what Rusadze sets out to do, he seems to have succeeded admirably When I talked to the director after the movie, he appeared so delighted at our conversations that he shook my hands vigorously and told me how he felt very encouraged and wished he had an audience like me for his next film which he said would be about ski-ing. I shall certainly go and see that if I got the chance.