What Was Your FIRST POST on CEO/Khmer440.com Expat Forums?

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General Mackevili
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Re: What Was Your FIRST POST on CEO/Khmer440.com Expat Forum

Post by General Mackevili »

John Bingham wrote:It was a bit of a nightmare. An old friend of mine had gotten involved in some messy business in Manali, and I let him stay in my apartment. This was the mess he had gotten involved with: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... r-way.html
http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/ ... magazine17

It had nothing to do with me, I was thousands of KM away, but when 10 or so central division detectives kicked through my door and tore my house to bits I was a bit freaked. They didn't even know anything about the dead chick in India, they just knew that my friend had been trying to shift some dodgy substances locally. My flatmate was well pissed off with me. It doesn't matter anymore because they are all dead now. RIP.
Holy shit! That is a crazy story from beginning to end!

"She disappeared from her parents' comfortable home in September after being offered the chance to earn some more "easy" money, just £1,000, by smuggling drugs into Dubai."

:facepalm:

It doesn't say how she was caught. Do you know? I hope it wasn't her previous "Goa" stamps in her passport, as I have one now. Image
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Re: What Was Your FIRST POST on CEO/Khmer440.com Expat Forum

Post by General Mackevili »

Samouth wrote:If I remembered it correctly, my first post was something about Khmer idiom, in which I shouldn't have posted, so that people might not be able to find out that I am Cambodian. :)
Ha! You should be proud! I think many/most Cambodians that sign up get too easily offended by random things and don't hang around long.
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Re: What Was Your FIRST POST on CEO/Khmer440.com Expat Forum

Post by flying chicken »

Cant remember most of what I posted -- I was wasted most of the time.
EVERYONE BOW DOWN AND PAY EXTREME HOMAGE TO HIS MAJESTIES flying chicken©
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Re: What Was Your FIRST POST on CEO/Khmer440.com Expat Forum

Post by LTO »

Given the tone of the forum at the time, I chose this as my first post on 440, in 2006 or so. I had written it a year or 2 earlier right after it happened and posted it originally on LPTT-TPWDY, but in a much rawer form. When I posted it on 440, I kind of used it as an editing platform and edited that post for grammar and style like 10+ times. My first post on 440...

Creepy Motivations

One evening last year I was relaxing over a beer after a late dinner at a bar & grill on the riverfront here in Phnom Penh. It was about 10:30 or 11:00PM. At the bar sat a 50-something Western tourist and a Vietnamese taxi girl chatting and laughing together. Four young tourists strolled in and sat at a table near the open front of the restaurant - two couples, 20-somethings I think. I was sitting at the near end of the bar between the two groups and after a short while noticed that the tourists at the table seemed to be grumbling about the guy at the bar. They were leaning in together, speaking in low raspy tones, shooting occasional sharp glances and other pointed little gestures in his direction.

Distracting their attention momentarily, a pair of tiny 'flower girls' wandered in from the street - perhaps 8 or 9 years old, barely tall enough to see over the tables, ragged but clean and laden with doughnut-shaped flower rings and broad Cambodian smiles. They approached the tourists and began their sales chant, pleading "flower, 1500 riel, 1500 riel, flower, OK?, mam, OK?" The tourist women were immediately captivated by the little girls. "They're so cute," one of the women commented, stroking the girl's cheek. "How old are you?...What's your name?" they queried in cutsy sing-song tones. The girls leaned into the women, giggled, batted their eyes and repeated their sales chant. The couples inspected the flowers and gently bargained them down to 1000 riel each (25 cents), eventually buying a couple of the flower rings.

After admiring their purchase, the tourist women quickly fell back to talking about the guy at the bar, now a bit louder but still difficult to understand over the usual pub din, "blah, blah, sex...blah, blah, older than ...blah, blah, disgusting..." Meanwhile, the males at the table had begun bargaining with a Vietnamese shoeshine boy who was about 12 years old. The boy wanted $1 to shine their shoes. They were only willing to pay 50 cents (the 'right price' is 12 cents, but I am not saying anything). They struck a deal. The boy took the shoes outside where he squatted next to a puddle in the street for a little water to clean the mud from the soles.

As I was watching the boy work, my attention was jarred back into the bar by a loudly-spoken "CREEPY!" echoing across the room. The guy at the bar had his hand on the taxi girl's knee and one of the tourist women was glaring at him intently, talking loudly to her friend, her face turning red with anger. As she spoke, her volume progressively increased so that everybody in the bar could hear, "...CREEPY ...sick ...HER FATHER ...police ...children ...SEX tourist ...ped..." The guy at the bar ignored them, or didn't hear them, and carried on. Continuing to talk amongst themselves, the people at the table seemed to get more and more agitated. Finally they called over the bartender, pointed at the guy at the bar and made some sort of demand. The only words I heard clearly were, "sick old bastard," "police" and "sex tourist." The bartender shrugged and looked like he was trying to explain something to them. Abruptly, the tourists stood up, threw a twenty on the table and left in a huff, forgetting the flowers in their haste.

These young tourists, particularly the women, were absolutely blinded by disgust for what they saw - an 'old white man' with a 'young Asian girl' in an apparently sexual relationship. They completely missed the plight of the 8 year old flower girls, working 10-hours shifts, late into night, hawking 1000 riel flowers for some unknown flower girl pimp. They did not think to ask why an 8 year old is working at 10:30PM. Or why an 8 year old is working at all. Or who is controlling these children. Or where the money is going. Or whether they were indentured servants or abused or even slaves as they might very well be. In fact, these tourists happily contributed to the plight of these child laborers, buying their trinkets (and bargaining them down 12 cents,) ignoring their situation and sending them on their way into the night.

Nor did they raise any questions about the 12-year-old shoeshine boy, who is probably an illegal immigrant living on the street, not going to school, not getting enough to eat, perhaps sniffing glue to pass the time and assuage his hunger, and certainly paying tribute to a street gang for the privilege of shining shoes in a tourist area. Where will these children be after 5 or 10 years working the street for pennies? These tourists didn't think to ask, let alone do something about it. They were preoccupied with sex. They were blinded by revulsion and rage at the sight of a middle aged man with a much younger woman.

In fact, I've known this particular taxi girl for more than 4 years. I've never used her sexual services but I have played pool with her at the bar dozens of times, we've had drinks together a few times and we occasionally share a plate of noodles on the street at the end of the evening. She is at least 25 years old, divorced and has a three year old daughter. She's not particularly young looking for a Vietnamese girl, but to the unaccustomed eye she may look younger. She works as a prostitute because she needs to support herself and her child, because it's what she knows, and because she has no other options if she wants to make that kind of money. And these tourists preferred to try to 'save' this adult woman from the 'old man,' and perhaps from herself as well, rather than give one thought to the 8 year olds that sold them the pretty flowers or the 12 year old that shined their shoes so well.

One has to wonder about the motivation of many of these westerners who seem so focused on the SEA sex scene. If asked, these people would probably say that they are against the exploitation of women and children, or trafficking, or pedophilia, or slavery, or some such worthy ideal. Yet when confronted with actual cases of child exploitation and even slavery, they ignore it in favor of the 'creepy' sexual practices of consenting adults. Some might say that it can be blamed, at least in part, on their ignorance, though IMO it shouldn't take too much thinking to realize that there is something seriously amiss about 8 year olds hawking flowers in tourist bars in the middle of the night. No, it's not ignorance. It is their fixation on sex and the sexual behavior of others that distracts them from the real problems of real people. Yes, of course there is exploitation and other horrible things going on in the SEA sex business. But the focus on sex is so intense for many (if not most) of these western do-gooders, it is to the exclusion of real abuses and exploitation, and to the reasons that all of these people end up in these difficult and exploitive situations.
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Re: What Was Your FIRST POST on CEO/Khmer440.com Expat Forum

Post by StroppyChops »

Great post LTO
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Re: What Was Your FIRST POST on CEO/Khmer440.com Expat Forum

Post by Username Taken »

My first post on Khmer440 came under attack from the usual suspects, and I was branded a conspiracy theorist. In fact, BubbleT (at the time an Admin/Mod) even changed the Subject from 'Koh Pich Cover-Up' to 'Koh Pich Conspiracy'. I changed it back again.
Koh Pich Cover-Up

Here’s a time-line of events that led to me concluding that some sort of cover up has taken place. You read, you decide.

Monday 22nd 9:30 pm:
My wife calls to tell me that she is stuck in traffic near Independence Monument, and has been for almost 2 hours, so she probably won’t be home by 10 pm as planned.

Just after midnight:
My wife arrives home with tales of death and tragedy. She said that not long after talking to me earlier, the power momentarily went off and back on again, like a power surge or something. [Can anyone living down that way confirm this?] When she got to Koh Pich, she was told that people had been electrocuted on the bridge and others had died while attempting to escape electrocution.

Tuesday 23rd am:
I checked the on-line news and read about the events of the previous night.
From the New York Times:
Quote: “Many died of suffocation, were crushed underfoot, or were electrocuted by loose wires.”
And, “One survivor, Chhin Chenda, 16, was lying on a cot at the hospital. She said, “At first we were frightened of an electric wire. After that I fell and people ran over me.””
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/world ... bodia.html

Next I started watching Cambodia Stampede related videos on Youtube. I watched around a dozen different videos, one of which clearly showed the police firing a water-cannon at the crowd on the bridge and clearly showed what appeared to be sparks as the water hit the bridge lighting.

Tuesday 23rd /Wednesday 24th:
My wife spent most of the days watching the Telethon on Bayon TV. During the telethon they were constantly switching between videos from the previous night, to interviews with survivors, as well as the reading of donations from the studio. One thing that I noticed in the interviews was that most of the interviewees mentioned electrical wires, shock, sparks flying, etc. This seemed consistent with what I had already seen and heard.

Thursday 25th:
I came home for lunch to find my wife still watching the Bayon Telethon. Today, during lunch, I would see an interview which would make my jaw drop in amazement, bewilderment and total disbelief.

The previous interviews had the usual on-lookers watching, or hospital staff in the background, but this interview immediately caught my attention by the throng of police surrounding the guy being interviewed. He was in his late twenties and clean cut. The senior cop standing beside him was holding a green gift wrapped box. Oh, yes, what’s all this about then? I asked my wife, “Who is this guy?”

She said that he was caught up in the bridge tragedy and had hurt his arm, and now he was confirming that there were no electrocutions, no sparks or shocks. The stampede had been caused by people hearing creaking sounds under the bridge, but definitely no electrical problems.

And what about the gift? Oh, he gave that to the police to thank them for the good work they had done.
Of course, the immediately thought was “WTF?”

Saturday 27th:
Having spent the previous 36 hours shocked and saddened by the so-called official line, I recalled that I had clearly seen a video showing the water-cannon and electrical sparks. So I went through my browsing history for the previous Tuesday, and opened every stampede related Youtube video in separate tabs. They all loaded, except for one! I watched the ones that opened, but the video in question was not there. The title of the video was ‘Cambodia stampede kills hundreds’. The url,
Clicking on the link redirects to a Youtube login. Try it.

So I searched Youtube for the exact title, but, alas, it no longer exists.
A google search of the title did find it, with the exact same url as above, but once again it redirects to a Youtube login. However, the people at Google kindly provide a cached version, which sadly I cannot get it to play, but it does prove that the video exists and has been pulled for some reason.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... en&ct=clnk

Sunday 28th:
Disappointed with yesterdays searches I decided to try searching the web. Surely someone somewhere has uploaded a copy of the video to somewhere. A search for ‘Cambodia police watercannon’ did come up with what looked promising at http://www.liveleak.com, but guess what? The video has been removed by the uploader!

In my opinion, the police firing the water-cannon acted in good faith, and had no intention to harm anyone. The police didn’t do anything wrong. The electricians did!

But why the cover up? The video evidence was only on-line for 24 hours, during which time it was viewed by around 50,000 people. Surely someone must recall seeing it. Hopefully someone out there has a copy of it to share with the distraught Cambodian public.

12 months later CCHR Cambodia released their report on the incident. You can find a copy here.

That report seems to confirm that there is something on video that the RGC doesn't want anyone to see.
Thai Noraksathya, Secretary of State for the Ministry of Culture, said that a working group of ministry and police officials had confiscated a number of VCDs from vendors in various provinces around the country.
The videos reportedly contained an hour of footage from local and international broadcasts, including scenes of the rescue efforts, relatives searching for loved ones and a mourning ceremony attended by Prime Minister HE. The crackdown on the sale of such material seems to show that the RGC authorities were (or are) trying to limit the dissemination of information about the crush.
The last I'm saying on the subject. It's long forgotten now.




Of more interest might be my very last post on K440. I've got a copy of that as well. (Another time perhaps). :wink:
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Re: What Was Your FIRST POST on CEO/Khmer440.com Expat Forum

Post by Secret Squirrel »

That's a very interesting post LTO. If it is still there I am sure many of us would appreciate a link to peruse the replies. Thanks.
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Re: What Was Your FIRST POST on CEO/Khmer440.com Expat Forum

Post by LTO »

Secret Squirrel wrote:That's a very interesting post LTO. If it is still there I am sure many of us would appreciate a link to peruse the replies. Thanks.
Might still be there, probably a slightly different edit. It was posted under the handle fopro. Don't remember if I actually entitled it 'Creepy Motivations' or not, but that's what it was on LPTT.
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Re: What Was Your FIRST POST on CEO/Khmer440.com Expat Forum

Post by Samouth »

Great post LTO. This is a really well written article and indeed reflected the real society of Cambodia. i have learned a few points from your article.
បើសិនធ្វើចេះ ចេះឲ្យគេកោត បើសិនធ្វើឆោត ឆោតឲ្យគេអាណិត។

If you know a lot, know enough to make them respect you, if you are stupid, be stupid enough so they can pity you.
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Re: What Was Your FIRST POST on CEO/Khmer440.com Expat Forum

Post by Samouth »

General Mackevili wrote:
Samouth wrote:If I remembered it correctly, my first post was something about Khmer idiom, in which I shouldn't have posted, so that people might not be able to find out that I am Cambodian. :)
Ha! You should be proud! I think many/most Cambodians that sign up get too easily offended by random things and don't hang around long.
Oh yes. i like the forum. Hearing people talk about my country and sharing with them about my thoughts and opinion are wonderful. i guess i am gonna stay here a lot more longer. :lol:
បើសិនធ្វើចេះ ចេះឲ្យគេកោត បើសិនធ្វើឆោត ឆោតឲ្យគេអាណិត។

If you know a lot, know enough to make them respect you, if you are stupid, be stupid enough so they can pity you.
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