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“Resurrecting Bokator Khmer, The Nearly Lost Martial Art of Cambodia. A new DVD introduces the world to the pride of Cambodian martial arts, while preserving a piece of history, which was almost lost. The Ancient Khmer martial art of Bokator is something which belongs only to Cambodia. The proof is written in stone, on the walls of Angkor Wat. A thousand years of war with Thailand and Vietnam, followed by the Khmer Rouge Genocide nearly wiped this art off of the face of the Earth. Film maker and Khmer genocide survivor, Tim Pek, and martial arts author, Antonio Graceffo, have teamed up to create the DVD Bokator Khmer. Shot on location in and around Phnom Penh, the DVD introduces the world to this fascinating martial art, which is a complete fighting system of more than 1,000 separate movements.
Bokator includes striking, grappling, ground fighting, and weapons. The DVD also features Master Sam Kim Saen, who fled the Khmer Rouge, and arrived in the USA as a refugee. After returning to Cambodia, more than twenty years later, Master Sam Kim Saen opened the first modern school of Bokator. The Master works tirelessly, trying to teach as many students as possible, in the hopes that the art will live on. If we had more time they could specialize. Said the Master. But I want every one of my black belts to know every single movement, form, and weapon, so when I die, no portion of the art will be lost. See the DVD.
Foreign workers needed but alienated
November 26, 2007
Subhatra Bhumiprabhas
The Nation (Thailand)
Immigrant workers from neighboring nations, especially Burma, are seen as troublemakers, unlike those from the West. Looking over some 1,000 stories dating back to 2004 in 13 local newspapers, researcher Kulachada Chaipipat found the news media too often portrayed migrant workers as statistics, victims, criminals and vectors of disease, rather than human beings with lives and hopes and dreams. Kulachada cited headlines such as “Fear aliens will take over flat building in Mahachai”, “Ten thousand migrants raid police sports stadium”, “Unlawful Burmese workers intercepted and arrested”, “Foreign workers found dangerous”, “Number one among diarrhoea cases”, “Hunt for killer of six Burmese workers: Chumphon deputy police commissioner confirms murderer is not Thai”, “Tsunami effects cause rise in crime”, “Aliens losing jobs turn to thievery” and “Point to illegal migrants as a cause for people’s panic”. Kulachada last week revealed the findings of a three-year project between 2004 and 2006 on local news-media coverage of migrants and mobile-population issues. The forum was hosted by the Thai Journalists Association, the Migrant Working Group and the Canada South East Asia Regional HIV/Aids Program-me. Most editors and reporters she interviewed, however, dismissed claims the news media itself played a role in creating and stereotyping negative images of foreign workers from Burma, she said.” They said negative attitudes [towards migrant workers and neighboring countries] already existed in society. It wasn’t the media that placed such attitudes in society,” Kulachada said. She spoke with 11 editors and reporters of eight newspapers. However, she found many negative words were unnecessarily used in coverage to “separate” migrant workers from others. “For example, words like “unlawful”, “dangerous” and also the word “migrant” had been repeatedly used to describe workers from Burma, Laos and Cambodia,” she said. Though agreeing that there are both positive and negative sides of migrant workers, editors saw them as more negative than positive. Editors believe readers paid little attention to migrant workers; some of them said news media attention of their plight would upset readers, Kulachada said. Editors said migrants should not be given equal space in newspapers. Most reports about migrants over the past three years were about government policy toward them in terms of national security and crackdowns on undocumented migrants. Huhtman rigs are not considered in local reporting about migrants, Kulachada said, citing only 50 cases of human rights violations against migrant workers out of 1,189 stories she researched. Publishing comments from those with negative attitudes towards immigrants was another issue that made reports unbalanced, she added. Editors conceded, but defended reporters for, limited sources, saying they could not communicate in migrants’ languages. Speaking in Thai, a Cambodian worker Sia, spoke at the forum. She said her employer had raped a colleague.” When learning she was pregnant, the employer called police to arrest her. The woman filed a petition to the Cambodian Embassy in Bangkok but failed,” Sia said. The woman was eventually paid two months’ salary as compensation and was deported. Sa, a Mon worker in Bangkok, said she was forced to flee her male employer. “I worked as a nanny for his child and he called me to take care of the baby in his bedroom,” said Sa, who has been working in Thailand for 12 years. Most editors, however, believed human rights of migrant workers had improved, compared with a decade ago and before the government introduced registration, Kulachada said. Some editors said the image of migrants had changed from abused to potential abusers of the system, she added. The media sees reports as two sides of a coin that depends on readers’ views, Kulachada said. Source: http://ki-media.blogspot.com/
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I am Khmer(Cambodian). Yes, I am a Khmer with light skin. I was asked millions of times if I was Chinese, Vietnamese, Philippine, or Japanese. NO, I am not Chinese, Vietnamese, neither Philippine nor Japanese. I am simply Khmer. Khmer have many colors; light, yellow brown and dark, our skin color varies depending on how much we expose to the sun. Well, actually most Asian have yellow to dark skin to those Asian who think they are born with white skin or unless they’re mixed with Caucasian. And most Asian prefer their skin white by covering layers of clothes and thick sun tan lotion or dropped down hats, which we prefer ours to be natural. The reason I mentioned from the starting of my writing because I am very disturbed by some foreigners who discriminate against Cambodian’s skin color. We’ve been always labeled as black and ugly, what to expect after so many decades of war, most of Cambodian have been extremely exposed to outside heat. Not that it matters, any color is beautiful to me. Whatever race it is, color is color. Really…. why it should be the issue? What matters is one’s heart. Questions which I found to be so annoying and very ignorance when I meet other Asians:
After decades of war, very little is known about Cambodia. Our food, culture and history have been abandoned by the invaders. Our books were rewritten according to their desire. Our history were taught in such a way that is not Cambodian, nothing but genocide. As they glorify their history, Cambodia’s beauty became darkest of the darkest of all. they teach their children about their pride and we were told from thier books to hate ourselves. It seems that our richness, our luxury, our golden land have been their sources of evil, endless invasion still continue. Genocide is still going on in Cambodia, not a loud bombing, but this time a silent and deadly one. Land grabbing from the local people is a trend in ‘new era Cambodia” and land encroachment still going on from east and west. Such tragic in our blood. They have gone very far annihilating Cambodia. Enjoy to your fullest, have her(Cambodia) as the way you want, draw all your mighty greeds, but don’t forget that you must pay great price in the end. If not now, children of Cambodia and good friends of Cambodia will stand and fight for her right, if not today, it will be tomorrow. “You can run but you can’t hide.”
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