The nights now are cool and humid, alive with the whisper of insects and the chk-chk of tiny geckos. I am sitting on my balcony after a long spell of wine-induced sloth, staring down at the pin-pricks of moto headlights and the tumult of the fountains in Hun Sen Park. After just sixty days, fragments and experiences of this city have begun to cohere into new shades of feeling, distinct shades, unlike the powdered oyster grey and emerald of Edinburgh, or the electric blue of Australian summers. No: Phnom Penh is the sulphur-orange of streetlights and the dim discordant yellow of Buddhist wats, dusted with fragile parchment and the charcoal of cloud-cities pregnant with rain.
The monsoon has broken early this year, bringing respite from the searing heat of April and a rich new palette: storm clouds rolling across the city, blackening the sky and unleashing batteries of torrential rain; forks of lightning, soundless and salmon-pink, with their colourless recoil of thunder. Often I gaze westward over the park towards Wat Botum, where the cascading rain catches the silver of passing traffic, the light rising around the neck and shoulders of the pointed stupas.
It’s been a busy week. On Thursday, we shifted from the cramped villa-office of the Post to the ice-cold facilities in the Phnom Penh Centre (meaning: wifi, acres of desk-space). After a function at the Australian ambassador’s residence on Thursday and the new office launch last night — both oiled by red wine and canapés — I spent the afternoon in, listening to the sigh of the daily thunderstorms and finishing off the third season of Six Feet Under, which rallied after a sluggish start — like the Vics in Saturday’s AFL Hall of Fame tribute match — to uphold the amazing standard of the first two seasons. (For a brief moment after finishing the last episode I regret having not followed through with scriptwriting after writing Crime & Punishment: the Musical with Hugh and Robin in 2003. I’ll never forget the after-party of that show, a bacchanalia of Jägermeister and cheap wine book-ended by house-brick Jenga and barbecue-black eggs. It’s frustrating that I won’t be in town for the five-year reunion in August: I’m sure if we could dredge up even half a cast it could be a bender for the ages).
Work at the Post continues to be interesting. As the July 27 national elections approach, all manner of obscure political parties are coming out of the woodwork to mount hopeful challenges against the incumbent CPP. One such pretender, the Khmer Republican Party (KRP), was founded last year amongst the Khmer diaspora in California, and is led by Lon Rith, the eldest son of General Lon Nol, who seized power in a coup in March 1970 and ruled until the fall of the country to the Khmer Rouge in 1975 (I’ve written about Lon Nol’s regime elsewhere). Rith arrived in Phnom Penh last month, and I interviewed him at his party headquarters in the city’s southwest, where photocopied pictures of his father (who died in Fullerton, California in 1985) line the walls.
Aside from the usual questions about the KRP platform — Rith, unlike his republican father, is in favour of retaining the monarchy — it was fascinating to talk with Rith about growing up in 1970s Phnom Penh, which he visited during each vacation from school in the States. When in town, as I later discovered on the web, Lon Nol’s children traveled under the protection of Buddy V. Amato, karate Grand Master and host of TV’s Amato’s Fight Nights, now based in Keansburg, New Jersey (you can visit his bad-ass personal website here). After Rith’s arrival in Cambodia, King Father Sihanouk posted a reminder on his own website that the Lon Nol leaders were ‘world champions in matters of corruption’. But Rith has fond memories of those times, and said that despite the tragedy that quickly engulfed the Khmer Republic, many of the republican leaders had noble intentions. ‘Many people did all they could in order to prevent the [Khmer Rouge takeover],’ Rith said. ‘And I have to give them credit for that’.
5 comments
Yosh says:
May 12, 2008
Many of your reflections on Cambodia have been truly gorgeous, Seb, but the first two paragraphs of this post pretty much set the bar. Simply beautiful.
Jessica Anne Friedmann says:
May 13, 2008
I don’t know about the scriptwriting. Somehow I have committed to writing and performning a poetry striptease at Dante’s. That is, performing a poetic monologue whilst taking my clothes off. It will be cold. And possibly quite awkward. That is what you get.
I can’t believe you’ve been gone for two months already. The dumpling restaurant is getting cold and sad and lonely. Charltons, however, soldiers on.
Amy D------- says:
May 13, 2008
Wow; I agree with Yosh.
gill says:
May 16, 2008
You know, when young’uns ask about the mysterious, globe-trotting fourth editor of ’07, I always bring up the fact that you turned Crime and Punishment into a musical. It never fails to impress!
p.s. Your blog is ridiculously well-written, but that’s noi surprise!
Sebastian Strangio says:
May 19, 2008
Lovely to hear from you all!
Yosh/Amy — thanks a lot. I think I wrote this after finishing one of the books of Lawrence Durrell’s ‘Alexandria Quartet’ (highly recommended, by the way).
Jason — Poetry striptease, eh? Dante’s? Wow. Let me know how it all goes. Dumpling restaurants are pretty much the same here, right down to the Richard Mark/George Benson/Henry Mancini muzak and cheap prices. But Charlton’s never looks back. All the way over here in Asia, I feel like its unloved, illegitimate son. Sob!
Jelly — Young’uns! Sunrise, sunset. And I must say, now that I’ve got fast internet at work I’m able to catch up on all your blogs and man! that post about the Golden Girls was very funny. I saw a great article in the (I think) Chicago Tribune, which included a cut-out get-out-of-seeing-SATC-with-your-girlfriend card. lol