I recently attended an academic conference on English teaching in Phnom Penh. It was the stereotype of academic conferences: plenary sessions by imported invited experts, parallel session by local presenters, panel discussions, etc. Participants know exactly what to expect. I’m not knocking it – there were some interesting and thought-provoking sessions, and I came away […]
Category: Cambodia
THE THAI-CAMBODIA BORDER – WHAT’S GOING ON?
Thailand announced on Monday (Nov 10) it was suspending the implementation of a peace agreement with neighboring Cambodia after a landmine blast injured two Thai soldiers near the border. The Peace Agreement had been widely praised, not least because of the involvement of U.S. President Donald Trump. (In fact, Trump had nothing to do with the Agreement.) […]
HOW WILL CAMBODIA HANDLE THE CYBERSLAVERY SCANDAL?
Recent events have beamed the spotlight on Cambodia’s massive ‘pig-butchering’ scams. Cambodia is in the international news, especially in Korea (a Korean student was tortured to death) and the United States (the leader of Prince Group had 15 billion dollars in illegal money confiscated). Prince Bank is undergoing a huge bank run, as investors try […]
COULD PIG-BUTCHERING HAPPEN IN AMERICA?
I’ve been watching events unfold in Trump’s America – rampant corruption, cruelty, disregard for the rule of law, etc. However, I live in Cambodia, reputed for years to be one of the most corrupt nations on the planet. In recent weeks, the ‘pig-butchering’ scandal has emerged. (look it up for details, or read my previous […]
CAMBODIAN PIG- BUTCHERING IS A REALLY BIG DEAL
“Pig-butchering” is cruel cyber-slavery. Cyberslavery, or “pig-butchering”, as it is known colloquially, has become really big business in Cambodia, although most Cambodians are unaware of its existence or influence. The criminal industry kidnaps and forces into slavery as many as 100,000-200,000 individuals from various countries. According to Business & Human Rights Resource Center, “scamming has […]
TRUMP’S AMERICA AND THE KHMER ROUGE
A lot of media sources are pointing to similarities between Trump’s America and Hitler’s Germany. Here’s a different take: compare Trump’s America to Cambodia’s Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge auto-genocide. Victims of the ‘Killing Fields’. Coming to America? Most historians agree that the horrendous Khmer Rouge phenomenon was caused by resentment of rural people towards city […]
A US Govt Website? Unsafe?
A couple of months ago, I wrote in this blog about how the U.S. Embassy in Cambodia had insidiously blocked me from registering my 1-year-old son as an American Citizen. Their website, mytravelgov.org, would not allow me to enter because I hadn’t linked to an Authenticator app. So I set up the authenticator, which gave […]
PCHUM BEN AND SOCIAL SOLIDARITY
From time to time, my wife takes me on deep dives into Khmer culture. Every September we travel to her native village to celebrate Pchum Ben, the highest religious holiday in Cambodia. Very briefly, Pchum Ben is the festival of offering food to the ghosts of ancestors who leave hell for a fortnight. Indeed, when […]
I WITNESSED CRITICAL RACE THEORY AT THE U.S. EMBASSY
The system was invented to discriminate while appearing to be fair. I wanted to apply for U.S. citizenship for my half-Cambodian son. I assembled a vast amount of documents for the big interview at the Embassy. However, the rule states that I must pay for the interview online, through a website called MyTravelGov. In order […]
THE THAI-CAMBODIA BORDER DISPUTE IS A SMOKESCREEN FOR CYBER SLAVE TRAFFICKING
I fear that the Cambodian media have once again oversimplified the recent fighting with Thailand. The simplified view of the cease-fire is that Trump threatened Thailand with high tariffs if they didn’t stop the fighting, so Thailand caved and signed the cease-fire. Cambodians are now praising Trump as the Great Peacemaker. I have maintained all […]