By Dipika Kohli Northwest Asian Weekly “Where are you from?” he wants to know. The tour guide. It’s 7:45AM and I’m rubbing my eyes in the morning in Dalat. “Asia,” I say, mindlessly. It’s a lifelong question, this sense of fromness. Identity, the search for “who am I?” all that existential angst that only recently […]
The Village Report — Observations and sketches from Kampot
By Dipika Kohli Northwest Asian Weekly Three guys who talked like Eastenders asked me what I wanted. Pasta. Did they have that? Kind of. In a set. “Ok. I’ll have that. The special. But can I substitute the beer, please? Do you have milk? Yes. Yes, thanks.” I was not in the mood for beer […]
Learning in new languages — Dengue Fever: From Cambodia to the Triple Door
By Andrew Hamlin Northwest Asian Weekly Dengue Fever, a band well known for combining Cambodian pop with Western-style pop and rock, will be performing at Seattle’s Triple Door on Tuesday, Feb. 10th, They will be touring to support their new album “The Deepest Lake.” Singer Chhom Nimol took some questions over e-mail.<!–more–> NWAW: Where in Cambodia […]
Viewing through plastic and glass in Cambodia
By Dipika Kohli Northwest Asian Weekly Yellow sun cooks the layers of dust off the edges of the curbs. So many curbs, so few sidewalks. Bits of brick and paper and cane juice plastic cups (biked over, ripped) compete for attention. They poke up from the dirt, insist themselves into the light.
This is Street 63 — Sounds and images of Phnom Penh now
By Dipika Kohli Northwest Asian Weekly The dogs are yapping, the breeze is crusted over with exhaust, the bicycles and” tuk tuks” and whistles from the
The Village Report — A new Cambodia emerging
By Dipika Kohli Northwest Asian Weekly Our giant French doors are open today. There aren’t many other things in the room to distract, but even if there were, the balcony and the white rain beyond it command all of one’s attention. It looks and sounds like a television set that’s always on with loud static […]
The Village Report — The ins and outs of crossing borders in Southeast Asia
By Dipika Kohli Northwest Asian Weekly Our brown bus got to Phnom Penh right at 4 p.m. as promised. My son, husband, and I alighted on Monivong long before the official depot in the center of town. This was going to be a different kind of arrival, without the swarming of a thousand and one […]
Nonpermanent residents — Part 1 of a three-part series on Cambodian men who are facing deportation for crimes committed when young
By Stacy Nguyen Northwest Asian Weekly “I burglarized a gas station. I was young, naïve. I just — wasn’t thinking,” said Ram Son, a Cambodian man who lives in South Seattle. <!–more–> Son’s parents fled Cambodia’s killing fields and the genocidal Khmer Rouge. He was 7 years old when their family arrived in a Thai […]
The Village Report — Breakfast in Cambodia
By Dipika Kohli Northwest Asian Weekly Little fish, a pooling of about 30, butt about in their prism while my son looks on, mesmerized, chewing a bit of salty fish head. On the far side of the tank, someone has painted spindly leaves, stones, a castle, and a starfish. Akira, the other member of our […]
The Village Report — Lost in the cacophany of Asia
By Dipika Kohli Northwest Asian Weekly Phnom Penh is hot, but not terribly so, and the air has a softness to it. People from around the world are here to invest, do business, and see the potential.