How to better understand Cambodia

Khmer Times, Opinion, 25 January 2023 (Link)

There are two ways to better understand a country and its people.

One way is to give up all prejudice and try to approach local people with naked eyes.

Another is to seek to understand the original thoughts, cultures and identities of local people.

Now let us discuss about the first way, the importance of seeing local people with naked eyes without predetermined frames of prejudice.

The approach towards Cambodia and Cambodian people should be in a learning attitude, trying to understand without prejudice and predetermined judgment.

For example, for Cambodian people, when asked what they think about Japanese, they often can accept Japanese as they are, not as the imperialist invaders based on historical and cultural prejudice even if Cambodian people like to watch Khmer-dubbed Chinese movies, Korean movies and American movies that portray Japanese as devil imperialists.

They just accept Japanese people as Japanese, as friends, as guests, as pure human being without any prejudgment.

Cambodian people know that there are also some rude and arrogant American, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. But they still approach those foreigners without discrimination.

Cambodian people rarely view Westerners in the historical frames, such as the past colonists, the past bombers over our grandparents, the past “sanctioners” over our parents, or as the past Khmer Rouge sympathizers.

Generally, we don’t have vengeful feeling against foreigners.

Such kind of approach by Cambodian people should be reciprocated by foreigners.

Now let us discuss about the second way, the importance of digging deeper by getting to know the original thoughts and ways of life of local people.

Cambodia-Thailand: The choice between building an iron curtain or a lasting, legal border

Khmer Times, Opinion, 23 January 2026 (Link)

The deadly border wars between Cambodia and Thailand in 2025 beg a serious question: Would the permanent neighbours prefer to build an iron curtain or a legal border between them?

There are several border models that Cambodia and Thailand should contemplate, considering they are eternal neighbours who cannot move away from each other unless one of them is wiped off the world map.

First, there is the iron curtain which was manifested in a few models during the Cold War.

For instance, there was the wall that divided Eastern and Western Germany, the heavily fortified Berlin Wall that stood for 28 years from 1961 to 1989.

And then there was the iron curtain in Hungary that was described in detail in a documentary entitled 1989 – The fall of the Soviet Union, produced by Anders Ostergaard and Erzsebet Racz.

In the documentary, the Hungarian reformist communist Prime Minister Miklos Nemeth (1988-1990) played a crucial role in dismantling the Hungarian Iron Curtain by opening the border with Austria in 1989.

He described how he had uncovered secret financial mismanagement by the communist state in the construction and maintenance of the electric border fence, which was constantly triggered by intruders, including wild rabbits, and thus constantly woke the border guards, depriving them of sleep.

Unnecessary spending, particularly on the construction of a superfluous border fence, had left Hungary bankrupt and heavily indebted.

Other models Cambodia and Thailand might want to emulate are the old Franco-German border model or the new Franco-German border.