Showing posts with label cambodia thai border temple dispute. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cambodia thai border temple dispute. Show all posts

Thursday, 7 August 2014

Angelina Jolie in Buddhist Cambodia (video)

Amber Larson, Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Nat Geo; U.N. Ambassador Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie meditates, contemplates, and waxes philosophical in Cambodia.

(KJ09) 3-D animation of the central temple in the massive city and suburbs of Angkor, Cambodia. Angelina Jolie appears at Min. 4:50 and talks of her son, the U.S. wars on Vietnam and Cambodia and how it now taught in American schools.

Jolie's adopted son is Cambodian, and she is the United Nation's "Goodwill Ambassador," and even a dual citizen of the U.S. and Cambodia. Her interest and/or karma brought her to the Theravada Buddhist nation when she was working on the "Tomb Raider" franchise as the character Lara Croft, which sealed her worldwide fame as a stunningly beautiful and eccentric celebrity.

 
But what's the real story of Angkor, Angkor Wat, and the ancient Khmer Buddhist and Hindu empire of modern Cambodia?
 
Some power took Buddhism and Hinduism from Afghanistan deep into the jungles of Southeast Asia and across the sea to Indonesia in the south, leaving some of the largest and most magnificent Buddhist temple complexes in the world. The largest is at Borobudur, Indonesia, but the extent of Angkor, Siem Reap, and other lost temples in Cambodia are massive beyond belief using more stone than was used for the pyramids of Egypt.

Angkor Wat (National Geographic)

Jolie's Cambodian tats
(National Geographic) Where Lara Croft raided tombs in fantasy, there really are magnificent Buddhist and Hindu temples sunk in jungle thickets once hidden to the world. Now some are exposed, as others remain lost in the jungles of Southeast Asia and the former Khmer empire that extended east of India to Vietnam.

Tuesday, 3 December 2013

Trouble in Thailand (video)

Temple gargoyle guardians, Wat Phra Kaew Thai Buddhist temple (Naxerdam/flickr.com)
(Bravo, June 2013) Follow the work of police in Southeast Asia as they deal with British travellers who are experiencing trouble with Thai authorities.
  
Thai Buddha (Earlsy1/flickr)
Theravada Buddhist Thailand is one of the world's greatest spiritual tourist destinations. It is also  famous for other kinds of tourism. Unfortunately, it is not safe for either at the moment.

Bangkok, after enduring many troubles in the restive and tsunami-damaged south, is being rocked by political uprisings to oust the prime minister and create more socioeconomic equality.

In addition, the "Free land" is cracking down on mostly European foreign (farang) tourists.

Thailand is surprisingly devotional and pious.
There is also a long standing rivalry erupting again with neighboring Buddhist nation Cambodia and a long simmering border dispute. These rivalries extend back to the time of feudal kings and previous kingdoms.

Now with tourist dollars on the line for the lucrative spiritual-tourist trade, due to the ancient jungle temple on that border, nothing is being taken for granted or resolved amicably.

Our monks protest, too (stuff.co.nz)
Western investment and influence are steering Thailand to follow the tried and true belligerent model of western expansion as it rivals Japan and China for top Asian economy, a title which slips further away due to external currency manipulations, accusations of corruption versus fresh promises of reform and an increasing political rivalry between the Red Shirts (UDD, presumably the good guys opposing dictators and coups) versus the Yellow Shirts (PAD, the economic elites, "patriotic" conservatives in league with the military).

In 2010 there was blood on the streets as police state tactics (with paramilitary forces trained by the West) were deployed to squelch social unrest as a result of corrupt elections and growing inequality. 

Friday, 11 October 2013

Cambodia: "A River Changes Course" (film)

Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Kalyanee Mam; Film Festivals and Indie Films; LA Times
Theravada monks in front of Angkor, once the world's largest religious monument


Legacy of the CIA and Khmer Rouge
Twice a year in Theravada Buddhist Cambodia, the Tonle Sap river changes course, while the metaphorical river of life flows in a perpetual cycle of death and rebirth, creation and destruction. Working in an intimate and cinema vérité style, filmmaker Kalyanee Mam (director of photography for the Oscar-winning documentary "Inside Job") spent two years in her native homeland following three young Cambodians struggling to overcome the crushing effects of deforestation, overfishing, and overwhelming debt. A breathtaking and unprecedented journey from the remote, mountainous jungles and floating cities of the Cambodian countryside to the bustling garment factories of its modern capital Phnom Penh, "A River Changes Course" traces a remarkable and devastatingly beautiful story of a country torn between the rural present and an ominous industrial future.
Amazing discovery in Cambodia!

"River" reveals a Cambodia in crisis
Susan King (latimes.com, Oct. 10, 2013)
Filmmaker Kalyanee Mam grew up with an unbridled passion for her native Cambodia. Though she was just a toddler when she and her family fled the country in 1979 and settled in Stockton (California), her parents would tell Mam and her siblings about the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979, tempered with stories of the country's rich culture, history, and beauty. "I always had this strong sense I wanted to return to my homeland and to understand..." More

(TheLipTV) Kalyanee Mam talks about her documentary MORE