Sunday, May 02, 2004
Hello from Sihanoukville!
Sihanoukville is a primitive beach resort on the Gulf of Thailand, approximately 250 kilometres south of Phnom Penh. We are here for a well-deserved couple of days of rest and relaxation. There are very few westerners visiting Sihanoukville. It is mainly a place for residents of Phnom Penh to spend the weekend. Many for them drive down here in their cars or take a regular air-conditioned bus. However, others pile into overcrowded vans for the 4-hour drive. Yesterday, I saw approximately 30 people getting into (and onto) a mini-van built for at most 8 passengers. At least ten people were sitting on the roof!
We arrived in Sihanoukville in grander style. Due to time constraints, we decided to hire a driver for the weekend. Our "chauffeur" is Matty and his "limousine" is an old used Toyota Camry "imported" from the United States. You often see cars here with stickers on them from automotive dealers in US cities. I am convinced that these cars are hot-wired in the States and driven straight into a shipping container bound for Southeast Asia.
In any event, Matty ably guided us down National Highway number 4 after dark on Friday evening. The road is a well-paved 2-lane undivided highway where speeds can sometimes reach 60 miles per hour. However, unlike similar roads back home, drivers here – particularly at night - have to contend with pedestrians, bicycles, motor scooters and ox carts that suddenly appear out of the darkness and have no reflectors. In addition, we nearly got run off the road by a high-speed bus carrying some sort of dignitaries and being escorted by a police car. Then, to top it off, a violent thunderstorm began. Needless to say, I did not sleep during that drive!
Friday was a particularly exhausting day (but also a very satisfying day). In the morning, we taught at the judges' school and then in the afternoon, we taught our fifth and final class at the Lawyers' Training Center. Then to top it off, we had the afore‑mentioned harrowing 4-hour drive to Sihanoukville.
The Royal School for Judges and Prosecutors is located on Street number 466 (part of which is not paved) in Phnom Penh. It is actually a nicely renovated building and is completely separate from the Law School where we taught in the afternoons.
There are 55 students in the judges' school, only six of whom are women. In all of Cambodia, there are currently only 180 judges, many of whom have no legal training. The system is notorious for being corrupt, with cases being decided in favour of the highest bidder. In order to counter the problems of corruption and the insufficient number of judges, it was recently decided to open the judges' school, based on the French system of the "école de la magistrature" where students in their 20`s and 30`s who are interested in the law choose at the outset of their careers whether they wish to become lawyers or become judges and are then trained accordingly. The entrance exams for the judges' school are more stringent and this fact was evident from the high number and high quality of questions posed by the judges-in-training.
The classroom at the judges' school was relatively modern, with new wood-framed windows along either side of the room, light blue walls, 3 ceiling fans and decent air conditioning. There was an elevated stage for the teachers at the front of the classroom, with a blackboard and above that, of course, the requisite photographs of the King and Queen of Cambodia.
We spoke into a cordless microphone when we taught. I noticed that the amplifier was actually designed for karaoke. (Karaoke is very popular here; there is even a karaoke channel on television; however, a couple of years ago, prime minister Hun Sen ordered all the karaoke bars in town shut down and threatened to bull-doze them if the owners didn't comply. Perhaps they gave their amplifiers to the universities?!!)
When we entered the classroom, the 55 judges-in-training rose to their feet out of respect (like when a judge enters a courtroom). I could get used to that!
We gave the student judges an abbreviated version of the one-week course that we were giving at the Lawyers' Training Center. The session was very interactive. Although we had a translator, the students seemed to have a better understanding of English than did the students at the Lawyers' Training Center.
I did my part to fight corruption: When I was discussing the enforcement of foreign judgments in courts in the developed world, I sternly, but politely, warned that if a Cambodian judgment were not rendered in accordance with internationally-accepted standards of justice, it would not stand up in the courts of places Canada and therefore would not be enforceable on assets located in places like Canada. Rendering a crooked judgment would therefore do a disservice to Cambodian companies doing business abroad. My message seemed to be well received (I was direct, but diplomatic).
At the end of the class, we were thanked profusely on behalf of the students by a class representative who spoke decent English. We were then given a standing ovation. Again, I could get used to that!
In the afternoon, at the end of our final class at the Lawyers' Training Center, the school director, Mr. Ang Eng Thong, made a speech thanking us for traveling so far to come teach and for being so informative and so forth. He then presented each of Stefan and myself with a carving of a Hindu goddess. The students seemed very appreciative and gave us several rounds of applause.
A few evenings ago, we were invited to dinner by Mr. Ang Eng. We ate at a restaurant built on 50-foot bamboo stilts over a marsh that serves as an overflow reservoir for the Tonle Sap River during the rainy season. Each table in the outdoor restaurant is located under a separate thatched canopy and waited upon by an army of attentive servers. The various thatched canopies are linked by wooden walkways – also on stilts. We dined on such local delicacies as elephant fish and Mekong River snakefish, along with fine French wine.
Mr Ang Eng is 65 years old and speaks very good French and some English. He is a renowned human rights activist in Cambodia. He was one of only a dozen-or-so lawyers to have survived the Khmer Rouge genocide. During that time, he was sent to work in the countryside doing hard labour on the land. He had to hide the fact that he was educated and spoke foreign languages. Otherwise, he would have been killed. He had to hide his glasses (since glasses make one look educated) and when handed French-language texts to read, he purposely held them upside down in order to feign illiteracy. He was also tortured.
After the Khmer Rouge era, the Vietnamese took over in Cambodia. Mr. Ang Eng spoke out about various issues and was then imprisoned by the Vietnamese communists for one year. His movements were then tracked by the communists for the next five years. Finally, when the United Nations took over Cambodia in the early 1990`s, he founded a human rights institute and a couple of years ago became the founding director of the Lawyers' Training Center.
In order to travel to and from work each day last week, we were driven in an air-conditioned vehicle. However, when we were on our own, we often walked or jumped into a "tuk tuk." A tuk tuk is a small two-wheeled canopied trailer pulled by a motorcycle with a not-too-powerful engine that has to strain to pull the trailer and therefore makes a popping sound that resembles the words "tuk tuk."
In the tourist areas, it is easy to find a tuk tuk. However, the other day, we were walking along a dusty street in the 38-degree midday heat and were fed up with walking. We were having difficulty finding a tuk tuk. Finally, stopped by the roadside, we saw a small canopied trailer attached to a motorcycle. We approached the driver, an older man who seemed quite confused by us. His English and French were non-existent. We kept shouting "Hotel Cambodiana" and "Two Dollars." Finally, he broke out into uncontrollable giggling and nodded in agreement, so we hopped into his trailer, which I must admit did not resemble the numerous other tuk tuks that we had taken.
As he chugged through the Phnom Penh traffic chaos, he continued to giggle uncontrollably all the way to our hotel. We eventually came to the realization that we had just commandeered a private vehicle. The driver may have been laughing all the way to the hotel, but in fact was also laughing all the way to the bank: Two US dollars is more than twice the daily wage of the average Cambodian!
Another time, we retained the services of a tuk tuk driver who spoke good English. He offered to take us to an artillery range near the airport where we could have the opportunity to fire off a few rounds with an AK-47 machine gun or throw some live hand grenades. If we really wanted to splurge, we could even play with a rocket launcher. He informed us that he had recently taken a couple of old ladies from England to the artillery range and they had enjoyed it and taken some nice pictures. We declined his offer.
Despite the availability of weapons to tourists for their entertainment, I have not actually seen any weapons in the open and have found Phnom Penh to be very safe, even at night. Apparently, in recent years, the authorities have been confiscating weapons from Cambodia's citizens.
The commandeered driver was not the only person we met with whom we had difficulty communicating. On Thursday, during the coffee break in our class, I desperately needed some soup to re-hydrate myself. I had been speaking for nearly 2 hours and the air conditioner in the classroom was broken. It was nearly 40 degrees Celsius outside and probably hotter inside. Beads of sweat were covering my face. I was slowly wilting away.
When I arrived at the school cafeteria in the field behind the school, the waitress could not understand my request for soup. I tried to say the Vietnamese word for soup ("Pho" - pronounced "Fir"), but apparently my Vietnamese is better than hers. Getting desperate, I then motioned for the waitress to follow me. I went by every table in the restaurant and finally found an empty soup bowl on somebody's table. I pointed at it. Finally, she understood that I wanted a bowl of soup. I then motioned for her to follow me back to the kitchen and quickly ran all over the kitchen pointing at the ingredients I wanted in my soup. She took mental notes and within 2 minutes, she served this crazy foreigner an excellent and re-hydrating bowl of fish, chicken and beef soup with rice noodles. I was saved!
My experience teaching law in Cambodia has been very satisfying. Obviously, I am enjoying my trip around the world, but I also know that I have contributed to re‑establishing the rule of law in this country that has suffered so much. It was nice to put my legal training to such a benevolent use.
Tomorrow morning, we will be flying up to Siem Reap to visit Angkor Wat and other nearby temples. Angkor Wat is the one of the world's largest religious monuments.
I will let you know how it is.
Regards,
--Larry
