Cambodia: Be the first to tell · Global Voices
Tharum Bun

Too often, most people, want to be the first to be informed of events and situation happening around them or anywhere else in the other of parts of the world. In the world where technology is changing the way we live, we want to do more than just being the first person to read and watch the news. We also want to report and explain any issue we have in mind or things we encounter using web tools to publish text, audio, and even video clip. The matter may be professional, personal, a story that touched our heart or anything else in our own backyard. We are ready to be the first ones to tell. It is no longer that we demand news at our finger tip, but we also want to post opinions, thoughts, and stories with just a few mouse clicks.
The rapidly changing cityscape of Cambodian capital city Phnom Penh, once under French colonial rule, attracted the attention of Sopheak. The local blogger, surprised by the new buildings springing up recently, posted his comment with a series of pictures.
The 24-year-old local blogger also talked about the issue of misspelling in Khmer language as he wrote with concern that:
Perhaps Harvard University in the United States is very much known to most Cambodians that there is a high school in Cambodia named after it. But for the blogger who posted a picture of the English and computer school is note sure why the name was chosen. The banner reads: Hard Word High School offers foreign languages class: English, Chinese, Thai, and Computer.
Wait … It’s not the prestigious Harvard University but it’s Hard Word High School. I really don’t know what they mean by naming it “Hard Word“. Photo is courtesy of Mungkol
Tom, a Cambodian computer programmer in the United States, is proud of his father. His father's book is titled ‘The life of a physician under the Khmer Rouge Regime’. Based in Missouri, the 26 years old Khmer-American hopes the book will be available in English and that the world will learn about the 1975-1979 genocide through their own eyes.
“This book, which was just published recently in Cambodia, was written by my father. As the title suggests, the book is about his surviving experience during the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979 that killed almost 2 million Cambodians.
As a son, I am very proud of you and your work Pa. It makes me appreciate life more after reading about your hard life during those years. Thank you for this wonderful gift. I hope it will be published in English soon. I want the world to read it and see the Khmer Rouge regime through your eyes.”
Somongkol was so thrilled that he began his weblog post with the words “Dengue fever, an acute mosquito-borne tropical disease with a geographical spread similar to Malaria, rocked Pailin City Restaurant in Lowell, Massachussetts, tonight,”. Somongkol was reporting on the show of a Khmerican music band at a Khmer restaurant in Lowell, U.S.A.
The Cambodian Fulbright scholar talks a lot about his student life in the United States as well as Cambodia affair in the news.
“Somehow the charismatic force that holds this fantastic band together is a famous Cambodian singer, Chhom Nimol, whom the band recruited after scouring the scene in Long Beach , which is home to the largest Cambodian population outside Cambodia, for a front woman to interpret the Khmer-language songs that so compelled them.”
Reacting to the  death sentence of infamous dictator Saddam Hussein, local blogger Vanak commented
The strongman dictator Saddam Hussein of Iraq was hanged. He was operating the country like he was running a mafia business. Corrupted to the core. The army was his. The police was his. The court and the law were his. His family, brothers, sons appointed in high government positions.
And do you want to know how Cambodian news reporters in newsroom of the Cambodia Daily – Cambodia's leading English newspaper take their lunch-break?
Juan Antonio Giner posted two pictures to tell the story.