Arrival in Asia - Phnom Penh

Well hello to you and welcome to my blog! I am thrilled that you have started reading and hope you will continue to join me again and again periodically over the next six months while I am in Cambodia for the field work of my PhD.

While I was descending in the airplane towards Phnom Penh's international airport the view out of the window was quite striking and it was a good introduction to the reason I am here. I saw a lot of rice fields. A LOT of rice fields, and on the horizon Phnom Penh, the country's capital. In 1975 when the Khmer Rouge took power they emptied the city with its two million inhabitants and refugees from civil war. Subsequently they forced every Cambodian to work the fields and build dams, endure draconian punishmens for minor infringements of their codex, altogether turning their country into the largest ever prison camp with totalitarian oversight.

Since my arrival a few days ago I have been getting settled into Phnom Penh, as this will serve as my base for the next six months, and have been kept busy during the day prepping my translator in my theoretical framework, discussing interview techniques and practicing and meeting up with other researchers who have worked on related topics; I even managed to squeeze in a visit to the ECCC, the international tribunal trying the highest leaders of the Khmer Rouge for the crimes committed in the late seventies (a particularly interesting time as the judgement will be spoken this week on Thursday 7 August). I have found a room to live in, I know where to go in order not to starve, I even know where I could go to do some sport (but have yet to set foot in the building) - the groundwork is laid for me to be able to use Phnom Penh as a home away from home, while I spend most of the time in the provinces, returning only for short gasps of fresh town air in between.

Tomorrow I will be embarking on my first field trip to Kampong Chhnang - I will be conducting the first proper interviews with former Khmer Rouge - and I will be reporting back to you on my blog. I would love you to read my blog for the next six months and would love to hear from you. Finally, a short but important thank you to all those who have made this trip possible: my amazing crowdfunding stars who have paid for my translator and his expenses, the Heinrich Böll Foundation who has paid for my flights and living stipend and whose office space I can use when in Phnom Penh, my mentor Susanne for her academic guidance, and to all my colleagues, friends and family in Marburg and around the world for their inspiration and support - and endurance in listening a lot about a lot of gory research!

That's it for now. Over and out.