My assignment today 31August, 2011

Today, I have two assignment following two reporters at the Star publication for a feature story related to dog breeding and a review of a night club in KLCC. Below are some photos from me today. More infor will upload soon. Cheers,

I went to sleep so late last night at 5am, so I got up super late at 12pm. Arriving the office at 3pm, I felt a bit shocked at first seeing not many people in the whole building and most of the light turned off because today is the public holiday, Independent day. There were only two people in my working place, metro section,  a reporter I have to follow for my first assignment and another reporter. I left the office at 4pm with her to my interviewee house. He is a man who has a lot of experiences in breeding dogs, especially a dog from German. You can see some photos from the interview below:

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Then, I back to the office with her and arrived there at 7pm. Now, there is one more person in the room. She is the reporter I have to follow for another assignment today. We left the office immediately and there were four people now: my friend from Cambodia, two reporters, and me. She brought us to China Town first to have dinner. After having dinner, we walked around buying some staffs for about 2 hours before we left for the club we have to do a review for our newspaper. You can see some photos below when I was in China Town.

We arrived at the club at around 10pm seeing the manager there, interviewing him, and going around. There was another person in the team. He’s our photographer for this story. We all chitchatted until 11pm because the performing time started from 11pm to 3am. We all went inside the performance and dancing room and quite enjoyed there. I’ve taken some video which you can find it below.

I can say that I have a lot of fun today and really enjoy today assignments. My supervisor told me yesterday when he assigned me to follow the reporters that he wanted me to understand how nightlight in Malaysia is. I really like my supervisor because he cares for us as an interns.

I think it should be time for me to go to sleep because it’s late already. I have to finish writing these two articles as soon as possible and hand it in to the writers I followed to help checking information and editing before they were sent to the editor. Good night everyone and see you again soon.

31/08/2011

By: Dara Saoyuth

Going to Fazleena’s house celebrating Hari Raya

Dear Student Blog visitors,

That’s such a long time that I haven’t updated my blog because I’m busy managing another website named CambodiaCircles. I miss all of you and I really thanks for those who still come here to check if there is any new post from me.

I’ve been here in Malaysia for almost a month, but I haven’t shared any of my experience here via my blog. I promise to tell the story back here to the first day of my arrival because I wrote every single day here into my journal before I go to sleep every night.

Let’s start from today.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Today, I got another wonderful experience here in Malaysia because it’s the first time for me to join a Hari Raya celebration at Fazleena Aziz’s house.  Fazleena is one of the star’s reporters in Metro Section.

I’m off at work today, but I didn’t stay home. Since I went to sleep very late last night at 4am, so I got up super late at 11am. I arrived at the office at 12pm.

By: Dara Saoyuth

30/08/2011

 

 

Young people remain blissfully unaware of the hidden dangers of mobile phones

ACCORDING to a 2008 census, Cambodia has a population of 13,395,682, with a growth rate of 1.54 per cent a year.

BuddeCom, a telecommunications research website, has estimated that this year, Cambodia has 8.4 million mobile subscribers.

With the rise in modern technology, and especially the introduction of the “smart” phone, mobile phones can be used for many purposes. People use their phones to take pictures, capture video, record sound, play music, listen to the radio, watch television and, perhaps most pervasively, surf the internet.

Cambodia now has nine mobile operators, up from a mere three in 2006.  These companies are competing constantly to provide the best calling rates and lowest mobile internet charges.

Those charges can be based either on data transferred or based on a package deal.  The former usually cost  about one cent per 100kb; the latter are usually around $3 a month.

These rates are not too expensive, especially compared with rates in neighbouring countries such as Malaysia.

Thanks to these reasonable rates, mobile-phone manufacturers have recently churned out a number of internet-capable phones at affordable prices around $30.

Some phone manufacturers co-operate with mobile operators by allowing users to surf the web free of charge within a given period of time.

All this means that today, there are more Cambodians, especially young people, using mobile phones than ever before.

In the past, people needed to take their laptops and USB internet modems with them whenever they wanted to access the internet.  Now, simply having a mobile phone is good enough, even for editing and emailing documents.  This is a good sign: it allows people to be more productive, even when they are on holiday or outside their office. Social networking sites have also grown in prominence now that your average phone can access the internet.

This has helped transform traditional methods of communication, with Facebook messages and/or text messages replacing letters and even email.

Nevertheless, technology  works well only when used as intended.  If not, it can lead to problems that are difficult to control.

In local newspapers across the country, stories are telling how students used their mobile phones to cheat during the recent national high-school exams.In a story titled “Ministry admits some exam proctors were bribed”, published in the Cambodia Daily newspaper on July 27, May Sopheaktra, a member of the Cambodian Independent Teachers’ Association, was quoted as saying:  “Mobile [phones] are popular in exam centres this year.  They’re used to make calls and get answers through the internet.

Students call friends to pass on the exam question, then call back during an exam break to get the answer.”

On the one hand, this is nothing new.  An article published by AFP on August 18, 2010 detailed how Cambodian students used their mobile phones to call for answers during an exam.

What’s new this year is that students are using their internet connections to acquire answers. This is only a suggestion, but I think  stricter rules should be placed on mobile-phone use during next year’s national school examinations.  Students should not be able to bring their mobile phones into the testing centres.

As chatting via mobile internet becomes more popular among young Cambodians, we need to make sure we are using the technology responsibly, or it may have drastic effects on our academic, professional and personal lives.

In some cases, reports have surfaced of students simply stepping out of the classroom to talk on their mobile phones if the subject being taught doesn’t interest them.

For people who lack time-management skills, using a mobile phone can prevent them completing any of the tasks they set themselves.

In conclusion, people should be using mobile-phone technology in a way that brings them success in life, rather than simply for pleasure.

19/08/2011

By: Dara Saoyuth

This article was published on LIFT, Issue 84 published on August 17, 2011

Constructive Cambodian: The effect of wearing clothes of youth

I like to see them wearing short skirts, but I wouldn’t want my sister or my girlfriends to do it

Clothing is used not only to stay warm and preserve privacy but can also be an expression of personal identity and national culture. For example, traditional Cambodian fashion choices helped define our culture of modesty: small shorts, short skirts, and revealing tops used not to be very common.

But changes have begun taking place in recent years, especially among urban dwellers who began sporting more Western clothing styles. Even more recently, Cambodians have adopted styles from Korea and Hong Kong.

It’s now common to see young Cambodians wearing revealing clothes almost anywhere. Take a drive around the city, and you will see teens, some younger than 18, wearing very short, revealing skirts as if they couldn’t care less.

Even when going to school, some students would rather wear stylish shorts and skirts than obey formal Khmer student dress codes. Wearing these types of clothes can be thrilling and attention-getting, but can have negative consequences as well.

Female students wearing short skirts can distract male students, and even teachers, from doing their job, thus lowering the quality of education.

In an interview with the German press agency DPA, an English literature student said he had noticed many of his female classmates were wearing short skirts.

“We always turn back to see them,” he said. “I like to see them wearing short skirts, but I wouldn’t want my sister or my girlfriends to do it”.

On March 29, 2010, the Phnom Penh Post reported on a rally of more than 100 people who came out to urge Khmer women to dress more modestly. San Arun, secretary of state for the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, told the Post that: “Wearing short skirts and sexy clothes causes rape to occur, because all men, when they see white skin, immediately feel like having sex.”

Other voices would strongly disagree. Sim Socheata sent a letter to the Phnom Penh Post’s editor saying: “We are witnessing that women and girls are being blamed for being raped and sexually harassed for the kind of places they decide to go, the kind of dresses they decide to wear and the length of those dresses.

“Instead of calling for women to stop wearing short skirts, the Khmer Teachers Association could have marched against male perpetrators who rape women and girls, men who commit violence in the famil and male teachers who sexually harass their students.”

Still, there are other problems. It may sound funny, but wearing sexy clothing can cause traffic accidents. If they have the power to distract students in class, it is also highly possible that miniskirtwearing women could distract the attention of drivers on the road.

Besides these effects on other people, female students may elicit poor opinions of themselves by wearing lascivious garments.

In Bill Thourlby’s You Are What You Wear – The Key to Business Success, the author claims that when you walk into a room, even if no one there knows you, they will make 10 assumptions about you based solely on your appearance.

They may make many others, but you can be assured they will form conclusions about your economic level, your educational background, your trustworthiness, your level of sophistication, your economic heritage, your social heritage, your educational heritage, your success and your moral character.

So, wearing clothing that fits properly with your situation is very important because, as they say, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.

For better or worse, people will determine who you are by the clothing and styles you choose. So if you’re a student, don’t dress like someone working in another career.

Media can be a powerful tool for promoting culture, but it can also be harmful because people, especially teenagers, will follow what they see projected in the media.

In 2000, Prime Minister Hun Sen banned pop stars in Cambodia from sporting short, sexy skirts when they appeared on television.

Quoted by Agence-France Presse (AFP), Hun Sen said: “These singers who like to wear sexy clothes look like they have not enough clothing. Don’t bring them on to TV, let them sing in nightclubs or restaurants. This is not Cambodian tradition, and we have our own rich traditions and culture.”

And even if lascivious performances have stopped on television, sexy photos of some stars still appear in local magazines.

Recently, Cambodians have become more active on the internet, including social networking sites such as Facebook. I’ve seen many teens upload sexy and scandalous pictures onto the internet.

To conclude, all I’d like to say is that only you can choose who you are going to be, and what you want others to think of you.

19/08/2011

By: Dara Saoyuth

This article was published on LIFT, Issue 82 published on August 03, 2011

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Cambodia Circles – a new website specially designed for Cambodians

Sample page from cambodiacircles.com

Social networking sites have evolved and gotten recognized by the fact of keeping people from every corner of the world to stay connected; however, Cambodiacircles.com is more than that. The site comes from the word Cambodia + Circles, and according to the dictionary, the word circle means: A group of people sharing an interest, activity, or achievement.

Founded earlier this year by initiative members living in foreign country with the support of Cambodian taskforce in term of content providing, Cambodiacircles.com is struggling to be more than a social networking site for Cambodians by gathering 6 groups of people who share the same interest, activity, or achievement. They are professional group, civil servants, NGOs, Academics, Business Owners, and the rest of us who are still studying or unemployed.

Imagine that you were a student in a particular subject and want to get some advices from experts to solve your academic problems or want to seek for a job, where would you go for it? To deteriorate ever-experienced difficulties in searching for a particular group of people, Cambodiacircles.com provides easy platform for Cambodian to get to know each other and keep up with that relationship by chatting, messaging, documents sharing, etc. All Cambodiacircles.com members have to express their current position or expertise so that it’s easier for its users to look for a particular group of people.

More than that, Cambodiacircles.com provide variety of local news contents concerning with social development, technology, business, education and experience sharing from experts from different fields.

We strongly believe that knowing a lot of information will minimize your risks in making decision on everything.

27/07/2011

By: Dara Saoyuth

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