the capital of cambodia is a mix of extremes. large, austere government buildings line the two long, wide main boulevards. the other streets, the work-a-day streets, are filled with small family businesses and shops along dusty roads.
during our time in cambodia we were introduced to the day-to-day nature of dealing with being a cambodian. namely, this country is second only to north korea in terms of corruption. nothing happens - nothing - without a kickback. not only do the small businesses have to pay protection money, but families are basically blackmailed into paying for unrequested, expensive extras in the public schools lest their kids be given poor marks.
to get a cushy government job, you either have to know someone or get lucky. in either case though, you still have to pay thousands of dollars to get into that government job. and all this effort will earn you just over $100 US a month.
but that’s a good gig. this in a country where 85% of people earn what amounts to less than a dollar a day.
as we spent time here the understanding of this corruption became more apparent, more heavy, and more cruel. our tourist dollars don’t make it back to average cambodians. of the billions of dollars that come in, some 20 million is accounted for annually.
people speak openly though guardedly to us about all of this. they want us to know how it is, and they want us to know they want it to change. i truly hope it does. cambodia is a beautiful place with warm people who deserve a hell of a lot better than they’re getting.
prisoners were trucked in and immediately executed.
up to 300 people a day would be killed. if the executioners were tired, prisoners were put in a shed overnight to be killed the next morning.
clothes and bones resurfacing
a view across the fields
clothes and bones resurfacing
memorial monument for the bones unearthed
glass enclosures going up the height of the building contain the bones of 8,000 people
phnom penh, cambodia: the killing fields
the history behind the cambodian genocide that i mentioned in my S21 post earlier becomes brutally vivid at the choeung ek genocidal center just outside the capital.
according to our guide, these types of mass graves where not known about during the genocide and were only found after the end of khmer rouge rule. with 167 torture sites like S21, there are 343 of these killing fields throughout the country.
it was as overwhelming to visit as one would think. but i was not prepared for the reality that most of those 20,000 people who were killed at this particular field were still buried here, just under the dirt paths we traveled across. and that their remains were resurfacing all the time, as pictured in the images above.
as with places like S21, as soon as this site was discovered, it was made available for people to visit so that what had happened here would not be forgotten.
"Sometimes you will need to make decisions that direct the course of your life, and not every decision in life can align with some flowery quote from Instagram. Not every decision is a dinner party story. Not every decision is something you proudly proclaim on social media.
We’ve pushed ourselves into this peculiar ideal where we’re not living unless we’re euphoric all the time, but some kinds of happiness are harder won, some of the best things in life come from places of pain, some of the truest joys are meant to be kept small and secret.”
Architects: dEEP Architects
Location: Beijing, Beijing, China
Architect In Charge: LI Daode
Area: 600.0 sqm
Year: 2013
Photographs: Courtesy of dEEP
From the architect. ACE Cafe is a famous london R&B themed restaurant. For its first branch in China, the original 751 train station within the 798 art zone was chosen to be renovated into its first face. Apart from the heavy metal theme, we hope to revitalize the cold building through digital technology and mechanic engineering techniques, to fill the atmosphere with breathing space and digital charm, as well as to achive a long dreamt deformable architecture for architects.
Maintaining the major structure of the 751 train station as much as we can, as well as the current industrial style, we reconstructed the north facade of the building with operable windows of glass, using the same segmentation as the one in ACE london. As for the west facade, in consideration of occasional car entrance during function times, we designed a deformable metal facade controlled by the bar. When the metal wall is completely open, it turns a flat wall into a complex metal structure like a blooming metal flower, in memory of the punk and R&B culture.
The same we applied on the interior wall behind the bar, rise from a flat metal wall, bloom, and then return to its initial stage, like the breathing of a vivid life. All of the deformation are achived by the gears behind. Inspirated by the old steam locomotive right by the site, it also illustrates our understanding of the punk culture.
Based on the respect and protection of the existing building, no perminant architecture could be added on site and thus, we use containers on the west side of the train station to assemble to whole structure, and form a composite composed of cafe and car repair zoneon the first floor, platform and office on the second floor. And the design matches the style of original train station.
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bastards. Just include it in the rate for the room.
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The NSA's idea of a Christmas present, it seems, is to release multiple reports detailing 12 years of improper conduct. The heavily redacted accounts reveal many incidents of misuse (both accidental and intentional) of the NSA's Signal Intelligence (...
Getting to Mars is never going to be cheap. But a couple of mathematicians have figured out how to shave some significant bucks off the price tag. Rather than fly to the red planet when its orbit brings it closest, the craft will "meet" it on the way...
The battle between hotels and hotspot-toting travelers isn't over just because Marriott settled a complaint that it blocked personal WiFi -- far from it. Google, Microsoft and a US carrier lobbying group (the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet ...
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