Drinking And Drugging with the Dead – Literally

Thanks to Lokkru Frank Smith, of the excellent online Khmer language study site, studykhmer.com, and also the main teacher and coordinator for Khmer language study at the Southeast Asian Summer Study Institute (SEASSI), and teacher of Khmer at UC-Berkeley, for pointing this out to me.

NAKHON SRI THAMMARAT: In the latest drug craze to hit the south, youths in Nakhon Sri Thammarat’s Muang District are reportedly drinking a concoction that includes the ashes of recently-cremated corpses and extract from leaves of the krathom tree.

‘Phon’, a 17-year-old from Muang District, said he and his gang of about 10 friends had tried every known concoction of krathom leaf available until they stumbled upon the new formula.

The mixture is made by boiling the leaves and then adding ashes taken from beneath funeral pyres following cremation ceremonies.

The youths believe the mixture confers physical strength as well as spiritual protection from the ghost of the person whose ashes were drunk, Mr Phon said.

The drink has an indescribably amazing taste and anybody who tries it becomes instantly addicted, he added.

To satisfy their thirst for the elixir, the youths drive around looking for funerals. When the cremation is over, they sneak in to steal the left over ashes, he said.

The mixture is known as ‘Avatar’ after the hit film or ‘tai hong’, which means ‘violent death’.

This is all really classic stuff.  The notion of ‘instant addiction’ is of course completely fictional, like the supposed instant addiction of crack cocaine or methamphetamines.  That said, I imagine that if these kids really are mixing cremains into their krathom extracts, this drug might be somewhat healthier than either of those alternatives (!).

SOUNDING on Southeast Asia, 4 February 2010

Prime Minister Hun Sen, who is about to make his first trip to ព្រះ​វិហារ (Preah Vihear) temple in the midst of the run-up to the dry-season offensive (military potential, but it’s going to be loud, at minimum), has also been preaching parables to people in his client-base.  This parable is all about a good Buddhist elder and a bad Buddhist elder, and how at some point, the good guy eventually gets tired of being good to the bad guy and the bad guy stops getting what he asks for, gets leprosy, and dies.  Just sayin’!

Meanwhile, just across the Thai border, the cold-hearted bastards at Reuters who analyze trends for investors have started warning about a possible coup.

Economic indicators in Cambodia: a brand-new, purportedly high-quality modern Rice Mill has opened in Battambang Province.  The president has a Khmer name; is the company owned by a Cambodian and do profits stay in country? Meanwhile, pawn shops are becoming legal.  That’ll help. Cause god knows, there aren’t enough opportunities to buy second-hand, stolen commodity goods in Cambodia right now.

Human Rights Watch has released a 93 page report which is very hard to read.  It details the horrendous abuse taking place in Cambodia’s Drug “Rehab” centers, largely of young children from the streets.  Beatings are not the worst of it.  HRW recommends that the centers be monitored by the UN. I think they should be destroyed and ripped down to the foundations.

Oh, and that cool image from the MMAP folks of what appears to be a burial urn?  It was.  And that’s the second one evah.  Awesomes.

Cambodia Asks for US Help in creating a War on Drugs

Via the Mirror (which should be read religiously, especially by those who don’t have access to Khmer-language media, or who don’t read Khmer):

“The National Authority for Combating Drugs has asked the US Embassy to create an office for the enforcement of the anti-drug law in Cambodia, in order to train the Cambodian anti-drugs authorities in different skills, and in order to help them to combat drugs worldwide.

Right. Because the USA’s War on Drugs is working really, really well over here. See for instance, the mayor of this American town’s dogs: