Leang Seckon Catalogue Preview

I've received my copy of Leang Seckon's Heavy Skirt exhibition catalogue, and I have to say: it's been a really long time since I was this excited about a publication. It's gorgeous. In honor of the show, opening this week, I've posted an excerpt of my essay "Flowers Come from my Mouth" over at the new, revamped Democracy Guest List. Check it.

Women's History Month Exhibition at the Chicago Public Library

I was honored to be offered an Advantage and Disadvantage of Zine exhibition at the Bucktown Branch of the Chicago Public Library for Women's History Month. Although the exhibition comes down in a couple days, I only got the chance to document it now. Rush on down and see it! Unless you live in Cambodia. Then you have to settle for these pictures.

Camblogdia FAQs, of a sort

I was recently asked to do an interview with a reporter in Cambodia, and while I have yet to hear whether or not the piece has been published, I wanted to post the QnA for new readers to this blog. Although it focuses on the recent publication of Holiday In Cambodia, it answers fairly succinctly a few questions I'm always asked when I describe what I'm interested in about Southeast Asia.

When did you first come to Cambodia and why?

In 2007 I was invited to come and be a leadership resident at the Harpswell Foundation Dormitory and Leadership Center for University Women. My sixth book had just come out, Unmarketable from The New Press, and it was not an ideal time to take on something new. Still, I'd always been fascinated by the place. I was given an open-ended invite to live and work with these 32 young women on "leadership skills" and the way I developed my own feminist leadership skills in the US was through the mid-1990s radical punk subculture now called Riot Grrrl. Back then, it was not unusual for a young woman in the US to raise her political voice by self-publishing a zine, often that remixed or collaged images and text from mass media to create her own new messge, often one that was equal parts silly, political, and personal. My own long-running fanzine was called AnneZine, and was devoted to the needs and interests of people who shared my same name. It was a joke on the term "fanzine" although no one uses the term fanzine anymore.

Why did you think it was important to start a literary zine here?

Well, I didn't start a literary zine, not at all. What I did was lead a series of self-publishing workshops, which is a totally different thing. I taught the young women of the dorm to self-publish, not unlike what you-all do over there at the Cambodia Daily, it's just that each girl gets the chance to make her own Cambodia Daily, and decide whatever she wants to put into it, who will read it, and what it will look like. So instead of one single, unified thing, we created in the end over 50 small, individual pieces of media that each girl could so with what she wanted—distribute publicly, share among her peer group, keep for herself, or have me send back to the United States with the vast network of people there who do this all the time. They became really popular in the United States, and since my return, with 17 new zines from the new dorm, I've had many requests for them, in addition to the various exhibitions already set up to show them off. As you may know, informationa botu Cambodia's a bit hard to get in the US, and it's so much more intersting to read when created by actual Cambodians, as opposed to filtered through some boring American journalist like myself.

Was it hard to teach the girls how to write for a literary zine?

Well, it was difficult to teach them to make their own zines, because of the unique way that media is viewed (with suspicion) and education is conducted (often without critical thinking skills). But, in the end, all girls want to write about things they love. So what did they make their zines about? How wonderful Cambodia is. Rice. Boys. How happy they are in school. How much they love their parents. Zines have always been about passion, and these young women are passionate about their country and its traditions.

How many Cambodian women were involved? And this was with the Harpswell Foundation, correct?

That's the interesting part. The project started at the Harpswell Foundation, and I had 32 students there. Then I did another workshop at an organization outside of Phnom Penh, and had about 18 students there. Then I dropped off the "How to Make This Very Zine" in Khmer (available for download at this very site!) at a few other places around town, and did a lecture at Pannasastra University. And I sent the zines back to zinesters in the US. The US zinesters started making zines in response, and sending them back to the girls in Cambodia, and I was invited to come speak to groups of girls around the US who are in a similar situation as some of the girls in the dorm: poor, little access to education, few creative outlets, and they made zines in response too. All in all I have no idea how many hundreds of zines changed hands over this project, but I have about 300 little documents that would never have been created if the young women at Harpswell hadn't put their hearts out there in this way.

What did you think of the final product? Was it the way you imagined it or did take a life of it's own?

When I work alone, I develop very specific expectations for each project that I do. But when I do something like this, with a totally new audience in a culture that's foreign to me with concerns I cannot possibly understand, I really just try to impart the skills I have the best I can, and leave all final decisions up to the, in this case, young women making the editorial decisions. Cambodia's a place where there's a lot of fear, a lot of sensitivity, a lot of self-censorship, and a lot of censorship, and so any Western expectations can really quickly become mandates without anyone noticing. This most recent batch of zines, for example, were hindered a little bit by a really well-meaning person who thought she was telling the girls what good writing is. I wasn't living in the dorm, so I wasn't able to interfere, which is unfortunate. But it does just go to show that good intentions can cause damage. 

How did you get in contact with Annalemma for "Holiday In Cambodia"?

I'm asked to speak on my work a lot, and I guess I'd spoken on my history as a self-publisher in a class Chris was in when he was in college, so he contacted me after he started up Annalemma in Brooklyn and we did a little work together. When he found out about my Cambodia project he just flipped, and suggested this title and project, a reference to my former magazine Punk Planet and the larger punk community. I've loved working on it. It has been really fun, nd involved this international team of renowned people from the zine community that it's just been great to work with. I mean, people are excited about the work I do in Cambodia--especially US zinesters--but it's rare these days for someone to be like, this is cool, so I'm gonna work hard to make it happen. 

What will the proceeds go toward?

I just returned from the country, and this was set up as a fundraiser for that trip. Likely these funds will go toward my Women's History Month exhibition of the recent batch of zines, that will be held at one of the Chicago Public Library branches. So, photo printing, display materials, copy costs. This project is also set up as an alternative to the rampant development overtaking Phnom Penh, so whenever I do an exhibition, all the zines are free. Here in Chicago, Cambodian girls' zines are really popular, which means it's incredibly expensive for me to do all this stuff. But very frequently, some Cambodian American will find me and say, "My parents never tell me what Cambodia is like, so can you get me some more of these zines?" And that's why I do it: to make sure the people who want information can have free access to it.

Do you plans to come back to Cambodia? What are you working on right now?

Yes, always. I'd like to do more self-publishing work with women at the garment factories, and I'm looking into ways of getting that funded. My next book will also likely somehow involve Cambodia, and so I'm working out the details of that now. I could be back as early as this summer, but it might not be until next winter. Until then, I'm teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, preparing exhibitions, and writing writing writing. 

I should add that the Holiday in Cambodia fundraising project by Annalemma brought in almost $500, which filled out my original fundraising demands precisely, and as predicted went toward the current Advantage ad Disadvantage of Zine display at the Bucktown Branch of the Chicago Public Library. Documentation coming soon.

The Tiny Rascals Gang

I'm looking a bit into the Tiny Rascals Gang, the mid-1980's Californian street gang largely made up of Cambodian immigrants, inspired by the Sacramento shooting death of a cop and the 17-year-old gang member accused. I came across this delightful entry written by someone with vague memory of a TV program:

Tiny rascals gang was origionally a group of people who came to america after they lost there parents in the killing fields of combodia, they had been tought and bred on violence so they made a gang called tiny racals gang (TRG), at first they only accepted other asians and asian americans, after a bunch of the members broke off and created the asian boyz (ABZ) they started accepting all kinds, both members of ABZ and TRG alike have tatoos showing which gang they belong to, they have that tatoo kinda like a signature, they also "tag" building with different symbols, ABZ usually does ABZ with AK-47s on each side of the letter, TRG usually does 7126 (its written in a fassion so that the 7 looks like a T, the 1 and 2 look like a R, and the 6 looks like a G) . the ABZ and TRG are still bitter enemies to this day, calling eachother roaches (TRGs name for the ABZ) and apples (ABZs name for the TRG) they still accept anyone who is willing to tatoo the gangs symbol somewere on there bodies, most people who quite are killed or beaten mostly to death. thats really all i remember aboutt he topic, the tv show "GangLand" did an episode on TRG and ABZ history, you might wanna check that. 

Slightly better spelled is the Urban Dictionary entry:

buy tiny rascals gang mugs, tshirts and magnets
One of the largest Asian street gangs in the United States. Don't seem to mind having a gang name that does little to inspire fear. Have lots of Cambodian and Laotian members.

And here's YouTube, weighing in (note AK-47s and Playboy logos):

Garment Factory Work

I have two new pieces up on Truthout, a glimpse into garment factory work and its follow-up, an interview with The Messenger Band (including audio!).

I'm doing some research toward another piece that delves into the difficulties behind the term "sweatshop" and Cambodian labor organizing, and am just completing a video. More announcements coming soon!

Discussing about corruption [from Democracy Guest List]

I'm not sure why I posted this on DGL as opposed to Camb(l)o(g)dia—perhaps because it relates more to the language issues that underly the problem of corruption than anything unique to Cambodia—but I wrote up some notes on a short conversation I had yesterday with a few young Cambodian ladies that may be of interest here too.

Cyclos!: The BBC gets on board

This slightly overearnest report this morning from the BBC on the cyclo situation in Phnom Penh does feature plenty of charming Cambodian cyclo drivers getting nervous in front of the camera.