As I mentioned before, there are certain items of clothing which are typically Khmer. You can buy a plain pastel coloured rain mac or something a little bit more decorative. Similarly, you can wear daytime pyjamas in a very fetching orange or lime green, scattered with pictures of flowers or teddy bears, or perhaps a pair of fake Abercrombie & Fitch shorts. Trouble with the latter is that if the offending article is found on you when you travel abroad, you may very well be taxed three times the price of what an original item would have cost - i.e if you paid 6$ but they would have cost, had they not been fake, 65$, you end up paying 6$ + $195 in tax - not really the point - (so I am told by a reliable source - friend Caroline, surveyor and magistrate).
That's not to say that Khmer people wear only rain macs and pyjamas, it's just that these are three particular themes. What many people do is create their own wardrobe by getting copies of barang clothes made up either in the markets or outlets.
Speaking of Caroline, she thankfully opted to come and see me by way of a Gap Adventures Tour covering Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. Two days in PP and then off to Bangkok. Whilst she was here, she went for the day long Frizz cookery course, and joined me for a boat trip on the Mekong. Strike three, twice previously has the trip been planned, and on each occasion the rainy season has asserted itself in an all too torrential way. This time, Me, Caroline, our driver Sopphong and a refreshing breeze drove down the Tonle Sap and round the Mekong. Sopphong, who couldn't help but comment on our English beauty, told us about his life living on the boat, his wage of $30 dollars a month, and the specific place where we should leave a tip so that it is not claimed by his boss. Sopphong told us that he was studying English and proceeded to prove this by producing the detail of his curriculum. I want to buy Sopphong a dictionary, they cost about $5 dollars.
Caroline is another gifted friend. However, you do have to question her rationale over the use of malaria tablets. Caroline and I met in Peru a while back and bonded over the shared experience of altitude sickness in the Andes. In Peru, Caroline was the only person who bought with her boxes full of malarone, to stave off attacks from all the mosquitos trailing us from Lima to Cuzco to Arequipa. Maybe we were so focussed on our altitude sickness that we just didn't see them. Or maybe there just aren't any in Peru. Anyhow the point to this tale (there is one!), is that Caroline arrived in Phnom Penh similarly equipped. She had returned to the lady who had sold her the malarone for the Peruvian highlights trip and yet again been (at the time of writing) wrongly advised! It doesn't come as too much of a surprise that malarone are the most expensive of the anti-malarial drugs on the market (so I believe). Caroline needs to shop around or alternatively, she needs to select holiday destinations for the next decade that cover areas of the globe where malaria is prevalent. Let's gloss over the fact that I had planned with military precision for Caroline to be picked up from PP airport this coming Sunday rather than last Sunday. Oops. What's that about time flying when you are having fun?
You might be wondering why I have called this posting "aesthetics" etc, particularly as my blog, increasingly goes off on a frolic of its own, the title giving nothing away as to content? The reason for this is that a few weeks ago I did a photography course with Nathan Horton, a photographer based in PP and with a very prestigious (in terms of named publications) history. The course involved a morning of theory about the basics of photography and the afternoon saw us take a trip to Kampong Chang and Udong, a few kilometers outside PP. The course was really accessible and if I had to pick one thing of note from the wealth of Nathan's experience that he shared with the group, it would be that if you create a black and white version of your photographs you can more clearly see where your technical expertise needs work. Apparently and on reflection this rings true, the human eye is drawn above all else to the colour combination in a picture and this can in fact distract you from other aspects. On closer inspection or to the eye of a professional, pretty colours won't hold your attention for long.
I have several canvases in my mother's garage in Hertfordshire, which used to hang, colourfully on the walls of my flat in Cambridge before I left for Cambodia. My mother's garage is conveniently located next to the wheely bins. Unfortunately no amount of Nikon equipment can disguise a second-rate shot. However, I am happy to report that the beauty of digital is not lost on me, there is something very gratifying about being able to correct as you go along so that you get something which looks okay in the end, even if you do have to use up an entire memory card to get it.
Nathan also told us about his experience of photography for the Khmer commercial market. Some Khmer people associate wealth and prosperity with white skin. For this reason many skin products in Cambodia have a whitener in them and photographs of Khmer people are taken and extreme post picture editing takes place to give them a palid complexion. You see, beauty is clearly in the eye of the beholder. Must remind my mother to retrieve my canvases from the bins - some of them weren't so bad.
Speaking of Caroline, she thankfully opted to come and see me by way of a Gap Adventures Tour covering Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. Two days in PP and then off to Bangkok. Whilst she was here, she went for the day long Frizz cookery course, and joined me for a boat trip on the Mekong. Strike three, twice previously has the trip been planned, and on each occasion the rainy season has asserted itself in an all too torrential way. This time, Me, Caroline, our driver Sopphong and a refreshing breeze drove down the Tonle Sap and round the Mekong. Sopphong, who couldn't help but comment on our English beauty, told us about his life living on the boat, his wage of $30 dollars a month, and the specific place where we should leave a tip so that it is not claimed by his boss. Sopphong told us that he was studying English and proceeded to prove this by producing the detail of his curriculum. I want to buy Sopphong a dictionary, they cost about $5 dollars.
Caroline is another gifted friend. However, you do have to question her rationale over the use of malaria tablets. Caroline and I met in Peru a while back and bonded over the shared experience of altitude sickness in the Andes. In Peru, Caroline was the only person who bought with her boxes full of malarone, to stave off attacks from all the mosquitos trailing us from Lima to Cuzco to Arequipa. Maybe we were so focussed on our altitude sickness that we just didn't see them. Or maybe there just aren't any in Peru. Anyhow the point to this tale (there is one!), is that Caroline arrived in Phnom Penh similarly equipped. She had returned to the lady who had sold her the malarone for the Peruvian highlights trip and yet again been (at the time of writing) wrongly advised! It doesn't come as too much of a surprise that malarone are the most expensive of the anti-malarial drugs on the market (so I believe). Caroline needs to shop around or alternatively, she needs to select holiday destinations for the next decade that cover areas of the globe where malaria is prevalent. Let's gloss over the fact that I had planned with military precision for Caroline to be picked up from PP airport this coming Sunday rather than last Sunday. Oops. What's that about time flying when you are having fun?
You might be wondering why I have called this posting "aesthetics" etc, particularly as my blog, increasingly goes off on a frolic of its own, the title giving nothing away as to content? The reason for this is that a few weeks ago I did a photography course with Nathan Horton, a photographer based in PP and with a very prestigious (in terms of named publications) history. The course involved a morning of theory about the basics of photography and the afternoon saw us take a trip to Kampong Chang and Udong, a few kilometers outside PP. The course was really accessible and if I had to pick one thing of note from the wealth of Nathan's experience that he shared with the group, it would be that if you create a black and white version of your photographs you can more clearly see where your technical expertise needs work. Apparently and on reflection this rings true, the human eye is drawn above all else to the colour combination in a picture and this can in fact distract you from other aspects. On closer inspection or to the eye of a professional, pretty colours won't hold your attention for long.
I have several canvases in my mother's garage in Hertfordshire, which used to hang, colourfully on the walls of my flat in Cambridge before I left for Cambodia. My mother's garage is conveniently located next to the wheely bins. Unfortunately no amount of Nikon equipment can disguise a second-rate shot. However, I am happy to report that the beauty of digital is not lost on me, there is something very gratifying about being able to correct as you go along so that you get something which looks okay in the end, even if you do have to use up an entire memory card to get it.
Nathan also told us about his experience of photography for the Khmer commercial market. Some Khmer people associate wealth and prosperity with white skin. For this reason many skin products in Cambodia have a whitener in them and photographs of Khmer people are taken and extreme post picture editing takes place to give them a palid complexion. You see, beauty is clearly in the eye of the beholder. Must remind my mother to retrieve my canvases from the bins - some of them weren't so bad.
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