Campuccino #80
Forget about gold medals – VannDa sang at the Olympics Closing
Sou Sdei and welcome to Campuccino, your fortnightly dispatch of key headlines in Cambodia with a dash of opinion.
To new subscribers, welcome! I’m Darathtey, a communication consultant, writer, and researcher. Learn more about my work here.
When I chose VannDa’s Time to Rise to be the opening paragraph of a small humble book that I wrote, I knew that it was a launchpad for Cambodia’s music culture. However, what I could not have imagined in my wildest dreams was waking up to the news that VannDa appeared singing alongside a bunch of famous musicians at the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics 2024. I thought it was fake news because it was that surreal. More on this in the culture section below.
It is an interesting coincidence that my past few weeks have been centred around the topics of representation and nationalism. We had the opening of the canal which was a bizarre spectacle that I’m still trying to wrap my thinking machine around, and then VannDa and his team pulled the Olympics surprise stunt which sent me speechless for days. Let me try to unpack this in our usual rundown below.
I hope you all are keeping well wherever you are.
- Darathtey
For better or for worse, the inauguration of the Funan Techo Canal went ahead very ceremoniously. The entire nation got one free holiday to celebrate it, so who’s going to complain, right? At the ceremony, it appeared that people were asked to wear the same t-shirt the front of which is imprinted by the faces of the PM and his father. That was quite a sight. Apart from the official launching ceremony, there was a massive concert and a whole lot of fireworks. It felt like a national holiday. Oh wait, the government did make it a national holiday. You can watch the previously live footage of the event here. For those who might be interested in cultural analysis, the celebration concert can be viewed here.
Next up, let’s talk about the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development Triangle Area, known as CLV-DTA. If I’m being honest, I did not know about this agreement until very recently. The term CLV has been floating around my social media feed this week so I started digging. According to a research paper written by Sau Sisovanna in 2012 for the Bangkok Research Center Research Report No. 11, the establishment of the CLV-DTA was decided by the three governments in 2004. The area comprises 10 provinces, three of which are in Cambodia (Ratanakiri, Mondulkiri, and Stung Treng) In 2009, Kratie was added as well. I think this is enough context to set up for what I’m going to talk about next.
Recently, according to CamboJA News, there seem to be multiple protests from Cambodians in South Korea, Japan and Australia condemning CLV-DTA with a concern that Cambodia is surrendering its territory in the northeast provinces to Vietnam. The government, of course, lashes back by labelling these protesters as extremist groups with a threat to root them out. Upon learning this, my first question is why now? The CLV-DTA has been there for quite some time. So, why are they protesting against it now? My next question is why is it that the protesters seem to be concerned about territorial threat from Vietnam and not Laos? There are three countries in this agreement. Now, I’m not an economist; and therefore, not knowing enough to give my two-cents about whether I think how much Cambodia would benefit from such an agreement. However, I can say with my knowledge from an international relations degree that I don’t find anything unusual about an agreement of this kind. Do I think the government overacted with their army power flexing? Yes. Did I expect a different kind of reaction from my beloved government? Nah. But hey, the silver lining of this whole thing is that I now know what CLA-DTA is. Happy days.
Visually Pleasing
Arts & Culture
This section is going to be a bit different from previous issues because I want to unpack my thoughts a bit more on the topic of identity and representation, the two topics I love yapping about.
A week before my waking to VannDa performing at the Olympics closing ceremony, I devoured a novel by a British-Cambodian writer Kaliane Bradley, titled the Ministry of Time. While the novel is a concoction of multiple genres set in Britain, the writer did a brilliant job of leaving many Easter eggs of her Cambodian identity throughout the book through one of the main characters who has Cambodian heritage. This weirdly made me feel very full and seen, or should I say represented? Kaliane’s way of dropping the genocide history so nonchalantly in some chapters, or just casually mentioning a few Khmer dishes such as borbor and yao hon, without using the way of capitalising or italicising the words makes me respect her and her writing even more. I find this kind of identity reclamation and representation to be a breath of fresh air.
Which leads us to the VannDa performance. The news did not make me feel more Cambodian than I already am, immediately after I saw the news. After sitting with the news for a few days, I have some thoughts to unpack. Without hesitation, I am super stoked for VannDa and his team for pulling this off. It is unarguably a ginormous deal. Does it make me want to wave a Cambodian flag and shout out my Cambodian pride? Yeah, nah, not really. To simplify this feeling I can’t put my finger on, let just say that I feel more represented by those small references to Cambodia in the Ministry of Time, than that short performance by VannDa on the world stage. HOWEVER, VannDa’s performance at the Olympics gives me a big exhale and a sense of relief which I can only describe with this sentence: “Finally, people will ask where he’s from. And for the first time in a very very long time, many people will know Cambodia through its music first, and not the genocide.” This thought took me three days to process and countless views of the less-than-one-minute performance. It might also have made me choke up with tears of joy, just a little. One particular black and white photo of VannDa and his manager sitting among other musicians, captured by Rolling Stone, brings me flashbacks of many B&W photos I remember throughout our recent history of peace negotiations. This is a moment that I’ve been waiting to say, it is not “same same, but different”. Despite what is going on in the country today, the contrast I see in those B&W photos makes me able to say “it is different now, very different.”
If you’re interested in digging a bit more what leads to VannDa’s performance at the Olympics, check out the article by bandwagon here or billboard’s article here.
Worth Reading
From karst to cement: Cambodia’s infrastructure boom puts ecosystems at risk | Mekong Eye
The article explores how the extraction and production of cement in a southwest province of Cambodia is threatening the area’s karst landscapes and biodiversity.
Campuccino is a fortnightly dispatch of key headlines in Cambodia, written by @DarathteyDin.
I’d love to hear from you. If you have feedback or content ideas, please write to me at hello@darathteydin.com
I too was so excited about Vannda (who isn't? he is incredibly talented and "Time to Rise" is such a powerful song), but then I saw that Barack Obama had MINISTRY OF TIME on his summer reading list- and I was even MORE thrilled about that. (I am halfway through the book so far and also really enjoy it) Love these recaps!