March 25, 2007
The Cambodia Weekly cambodiaweekly.com.kh
Science & Technology

Cloggers The story of how a small group of friends are revolutionizing blogging and networking in the Cambodian corners of cyberspace and beyond.

By Olivia Doerge Combine the words "Cambodian" and "blogger" and you get a "clogger" says the pioneer clogger Mean Lux, who coined the term in 2005 when the first Khmer blogs began to pop up on the Web.

Today, a quick surf on the Internet reveals a smattering of personal digital diaries in English and Khmer. These sites are full of poems, stories and daily going-ons of Cambodian students and techies.

Be Chantra is a techie. Chantra works for Open Forum, an organization that works on issues around Khmer Unicode and making software in Khmer, and in his free time on the weekends he updates four of the different blogs he works on. A couple are about Khmerizing technology, one is a personal journal, and he also has another blog dedicated entirely to writing jokes in Khmer, a site that receives on average about 1,000 visits per month.

"When people are at work they get stressed out. I thought maybe it would be nice to have a blog where they could go to read a joke and relax," said Chantra.

Chantra's passion for blogs goes beyond his post and his online postings.

Chantra and some of his "virtual" friends that he met through blogging met up and decided to host a series of workshops to teach blogging to high school and university students.

During the past six months the five friends, who have informally named themselves "Cambodia Blog," have presented blogging workshops to more than 3,000 students around the country.

Their presentation is called a "personal information technology workshop" (to read more about it look at http://pitw.wordpress.com). The first hour-and-a-half is dedicated to teaching the how-to's of basic blog-making and the second hour-and-a-half is for students to practice what they learned in the lab.

Some universities don't even have computers for students to use, but that doesn't stop the students from turning up in droves. Many of the engagements are standing room only.

All the courses are taught for free, in the bloggers' spare time. The Internet service provider Citylink, has also contributed to their cause by helping provide Internet services for some of the workshops.

The teachers range in the walks of life and age. Sixteen year-old Keo Kalyan, also known as "Deedee" a perky high school student with a natural knack for blogging. Her counterpart Keo Kalyan (no relation) is a 23-year-old student who just received a Fulbright scholarship to study at Syracuse University in New York.

"At Build Bright University the dean liked our workshop so much he invited us to do it at their Siem Reap campus as well," said Keo (23).

"The week after we do a workshop I am always busy with lots of calls and e-mails," she says with a laugh. "The more technical questions I forward on to my friends who are more technical than I am," said Keo (23).

As the number of blogs have increased, so have the friendships. Every time a new Cambodian blogger joins the blggosphere there is a chain of comment posting from site to site.

Not only is blogging connecting more Cambodians, but it is also serving as an interface between nations.

[photo]

Phatry Derek Pan works online at a coffee shop in Phnom Penh. His New Year's resolution goal is to add 10 more unpublished works to his blog before April 14.

BRIDGING THE OCEAN It's no secret the King Father, His Majesty Norodom Sihanouk, broke the digital divide with his almost daily posts on his personal Web Site, which registers in the neighborhood of 30,000 hits on its hit counter.

But not too far behind him was a popular Cambodian-American blogger, Phatry Derek Pan.

"For a while my blog was second or third place for receiving the most hits after the King Father," said the wiry and wired young blogger.

Phatry, who was born in Thailand and grew up in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, started his blog in December 2005 to chronicle his trip back to Cambodia for three years to learn about himself and his heritage.

"I include a lot of content about my traveling around Cambodia, the people I meet and the events I attend," said the aspiring law student.

A blog is a tool to understand more about Cambodian culture and get advice about the journey before you go.

Every two years on Khmer New Year, Khmerconnection.com relaunches with a new interface. It is one of the largest Cambodian networks online with more than 28,000 registered members and about 2.5 million page views per month.

It has articles, event calendars and newswires, but what really makes it popular is 15 different forums on everything from politics to romance.

It's created the kind of environment where the daughter of a four-star general living in Cambodia can mingle with a 20 something college student who doesn't speak Khmer and calls himself a "Khmerican."

"I think more and more people will start to blog and that in the future more (Cambodian) bloggers will express their ideas and get to know the larger world around them as well," said Keo (23).