Hello Phnom Pen

1. What did I find out during the cooperation project? What did I find most interesting, strange, funny, akward?

I learned about some aspects of Cambodian culture during my research and by reading some of the blogs. The blog by Boramey was very interesting to read for example, especially her article about the new year celebrations. The video about insects as food was interesting as well. I am not sure if I would like to try eating insects myself, but I didn´t find it disgusting. I guess “normal food” just means something different for people coming from different cultural backgrounds.  

2. What was easy, what was difficult in the communication process?

The moodle forum worked fine and I got used to it quickly. The e-mail communication between me and my Cambodian partners worked fine too, but I thought it was a pitty that nobody was able to skype with me the other day. It would have helped to make the  exchange more real to talk to each other “face to face”. I also commented some blogs and two of the students wrote me back (Kounila and Boramey) but nobody commented my blog or my video.

 3. What would I still like to find out from the other students?

I would like to learn more about Cambodian traditions as well as their different ways of life today. Is religion an important topic for Cambodian people? How does religion influence their lifes? Is corruption really widely spread in the Cambodian education sector? (as I read in a traveler´s guide about Cambodia)

Yesterday the strike on our campus started. I also put up my tent to support the opposition against bad educational policy in Germany. Unfortunately many of our German politicians seem to think, that it is a good idea to save money in the educational sector by announcing positive changes which are actually nothing more but ideas on how money can be saved. This of course is a desaster for schools and universities lacking money.

I particularly liked one of the proposed paroles for our flags which said: “If education was a bank you would have saved it a long time ago!”  Part of the strike is the Campus-camp behind the universities main building. Most tenting strikers had a lot of fun, a teenaged band was playing coversongs, some students had a small barbecue others played frisbee or like me and my son viking chess also known as cub. This is a funny game where two teams throw sticks against the other teams pawns. After the pawns are out, the king can be attacked. I´m not particularly good at this but I like the game anyway since it is tons of fun.

We helped to cut the cloth for the flags and paint them for the strike. There will be students walking through town carrying these flags on June 17th. More information can be found under http://www.bildungsstreik2009.de

The band played untill late at night so me and Jeremy had to leave since he was very very tired and needed some rest.  We were a bit sad that staying overnight was impossible for us but I hope the strike will be continued and more people come and put up their tents too.

As a child my first favorite media were books. After I had learned how to read I became a bookworm and read all the books for children and teenagern in our library. Our library was not very big, it was only one of the classrooms at school that had been turned into a library. I even read some of my favorite books twice. On the little island where I grew up, there was no particular CD-shop. In one shop which mainly sold vacuum cleaners and coffeemachines where as well a few CDs, but they rarely had anything for teenagers, so I spent most of my pocket money on books. Back then I didn´t have the possibility to buy a CD via internet or to download music, so I had only three CDs of Bravo Hits and some Oldies until I was 16 or 17. If I wanted to listen to something “new” I turned on the radio. My sisters and I made a lot of tapes with music we recorded from the radio. We also played first cocollmputer games as a teenager I liked to play “slot” on my mothers computer sometimes, it´s a game where you have to collect waste that can be recycled and shoot waste that can´t be recycled. 

In 1999 things changed for the better: I got my own computer and it had internet access! A new world was out there and music was as free as air. I got napster (a program to share music with other users) and often turned the computer on to download some music while I was at school. The connection was very slow back then so it often took 45 minutes to download three songs- and a lot longer for a whole album. Still this was great, I collected quite a lot of music on my computer, however I rarely burned anything on CDs. I also liked chatting at first, but soon I discovered that these conversations are quite superficial most of the time and I lost interest.

My TV had only 4 channels and everything was in black and white so I used it as a table most of the time. This wasn´t too bad, since I was mainly interested in music anyway and went to the cinema with friends whenever we had the money. Two years later the catastrophe happened: My computer broke down and all my music was lost. I felt like my house had burned down! It was unbelievable to me that everything was gone from one day to the next.

I started collecting records and buying my CDs in stores instead. Then napster became forebidden anyway. Since I live together with Tom I watch TV too, but we don´t really like most of the stuff on TV, so we borrow movies in the internet at lovefilm.com and send them back after seeing them. I also think that TV is too time consuming since there is sooooo…much advertising and I prefer to decide when a movie starts and take a break when I need it instead of being ruled by the TV program. About seven years ago I also liked to play final fantasy a computer game for the playstation. I guess I´m too old for that now

I still use the internet nearly every day, but mainly to write emails or skype with friends who live abroad. I have a friend who has moved to Rio, another friend lives in the USA and most of my friends from school have moved to bigger cities in Germany too by now. The internet is great to stay in touch with all of them.

I sometimes check my page at studivz too, still I prefer email or skype for everything that is more private.

I have had 12 years of general knowledge education (primary, secondary and high schools) I started school at the age of 4, finished high school at 17 but worked for one year. Then, I started university at 18… now I’m a third year student, so I should be 21 … And I just turned 21 in March this year. What about you?

Would you like to see a funny picture of me? I hope you can send me one too I don’t in fact wear glasses and those were just used for fun.  

 

 

 

This is what I replied:

Hi Kounila!

Thank you very much for your email. I like your picture – it is so funny!  I send you a funny picture of me too.

Well, about school-: I have had 13 years of general knowledge education primary, secondary and grammar school, but like most children in Germany I started school at the age of 6, some children start school at the age of 7 if they have just turned 6 when school starts. Their the parents can decide wether or not they should go to school that year or next year. Me and Tom also think about waiting one more year until our son goes to school (he is one of these so called “can-children”). 

That’s a very funny picture of you!! Sveja, can you explain what a grammar school is in yrou country? i have heard of it many times, but didn’t have an inspiration enough to get to know it more.

“Can-children”?? Oh, I’m curious to know more about this.
So, were you a secondary school teacher now?? How was it like? Actually, I have two cousins living in Germany. My female cousin is teaching small children at the kindergarten in Munchen, as i remember it clearly. So besides study now, what else do you do like what you do in ur free time? How is your son like and what is his name? … And how do you feel to be a mom now, Sveja?

I hope my questions aren’t too much.. hehe.. but I am interested to know more about you.

Cheers, Kounila

That´s me, I am 27 year old and was born on a small island in the north sea that is also where this picture was taken. I lived there with my parents and two younger sisters until I was 16 years old. We had many animals: Some horses, pigs and chicken and my grandparents who lived in the house next to my parents also had some sheep.  After 10th grade I moved to “the continent” to finish school. Our school on Amrum ends with 10th grade so everybody who wants to continue has to leave at the age of 16. I still like to visit my family. Here you can see some pictures of the island: http://fotos.porthoern-amrum.de/ . In my holidays I sometimes worked at a fish-restaurant on another island. That´s where I met Tom, who is now my husband. We also have a son. His name is Jeremy, he is five years old and very cute. I can bring him to my lessons when I teach English to children in the afternoon at the “Haus der Familie” http://www.hausderfamilie-flensburg.de/

I study Culture-Language- Media at Flensburg University too,  just like Anna-Lena, Maya and the other guinea pigs   it is very interesting. In summer I´ll do an internship at the CTA in Wageningen. This is a link if you are interested to find out more about it: www.cta.int I am very excited already and look forward to live in the Netherlands for 3 month then.

 I like this picture. Jeremy – my son - took it in March I guess.

 My little family lives in a flat in the house that you can see behind the car.

Hi everybody,

I am very happy about the possibility to do this seminar and learn something about your culture and your country. Cambodia and Germany may seem very different but I think there are as well things that we share. Some aspects of Cambodian and German history are quite similar – I´m thinking about the sad episodes during the civil war in your country and the Nazi regime in ours. It would be interesting to find out if people in our cultures deal with these topics in the same way or if stategies differ from each other and how? In our country the time of Nazi Germany is still very present since the media never gets tired of it and I learned a lot about it in school when I was 15-19 years old. One history teacher spent a whole year on this topic. This semester there even is a seminar on holocaust literature at university. How is it like in your country?