Cambodian

Peace has not been kind to practitioners of the 2,000-year-old tradition, which holds that magic tattoos can make you invisible, divert bullets and boost your net worth. In a haze of incense, clients approach Kol Sambo and humbly request his help, sometimes seeking rush jobs for an imminent crisis. He listens and asks why they require added force. If he thinks they'll abuse the power, he turns them down "in a nice way." Kol is a practitioner of magic tattoos, a 2,000-year-old tradition some call the "soul of the nation."

The Cambodian men gather near a parking lot hunched over chessboards, some contemplating their next move, others squeezed in closely, offering strategy. Some tease opponents or cheer on players. The ages range wildly from 18 to 70, but all share an obsession with Cambodian chess, which varies subtly from the game commonly played in the U.S. They come together every day on a sidewalk on the eastern cusp of Long Beach's Cambodia Town. The smell of tobacco hangs heavy over the group, and a small heap of sunflower seeds sits within spitting distance.

Eang Long cried for many days after the Khmer Rouge soldier beat her brother and his three children to death. She vividly recalls how the soldier threw the youngest child, a 3-month-old, against a tree until the baby died. "My eyesight started to get terrible after I saw the tragedy," Long said. "Because I was crying so hard and long, my eyes were red and started to swell up. Then I started to have problems with my eyesight." A decade later, Long, 65, who now lives in Long Beach, still has days when shadows--like silent phantoms of the past--obscure her vision.

In Long Beach's Cambodia Town, restaurants are measured not only by the heat of their ground pork curries or the tartness of their sour catfish soups but also by the brilliance of their chandeliers and the strength of their karaoke-capable sound systems. For years, La Lune was such a place, a restaurant where birthday parties were celebrated, anniversaries were commemorated and mayoral campaigns were launched. But in April, a fire wiped out La Lune. Losing the restaurant tore open a void in the Khmer community, one that the Saing family worked quickly to fill.

A bloody clash at an ancient Hindu temple on the Cambodian border. Security forces deployed in the capital to quell tens of thousands of anti-government protesters. A popular former prime minister calling his country a "dictatorship." And a beloved 81-year-old monarch hospitalized for the second time in four days. These are some of the scenes from a tumultuous weekend in Thailand, prompting Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to call for peace and lament his nation's image in the world.

I was fascinated to see Jeane Kirkpatrick of all people complaining about the situation in Cambodia ("Blocking the Path to Killing Fields," Op-Ed Page, Aug. 1). The current negotiations highlight above all the hypocrisy and cruelty of the Reagan Administration's position on the Vietnamese occupation of that country, and the sleight of hand with which the media have obscured its consequences. From 1975 to 1979 Cambodian dictator Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge killed over 1 million people.

I just read the letters (Sept. 13), both pros and cons, with regard to Frank del Olmo's article (Editorial Pages, Sept. 28) on the implications of Proposition 63. As an English-as-a-second-language teacher and one who also possesses a bilingual certificate, I am naturally concerned about the fate of such a measure to make English the official language of our state. No doubt there are areas of the country in which this initiative appears to be of no concern or an unnecessary effort.

Re "Toxicity of Waste from Taiwan Angers Cambodians," Dec. 26: A discrepancy exists between international media reports and Formosa Plastics Corp. with regard to the toxicity of the waste. Media reports have quoted a Cambodian government official as saying, "I think it is toxic, but I cannot say for sure today." Formosa Plastics has maintained that the mercury level of the waste was well under internationally accepted levels and that the shipment was inspected and passed by Cambodian customs authorities and was disposed of at the Sihanoukville landfill in full accordance with Cambodian environmental protection regulations.

I agree the two Cambodian refugees should be persuaded to share our scruples. After all, to paraphrase Mark Twain, we would only be adhering to that great American principle that nothing needs reforming so much as other people's habits. The Cambodian methods are inefficient. They kill only one dog and have to do the deed themselves. We Americans, on the other hand, have them killed by the thousands in institutions where we can comfortably ignore their whimpers. And killing for food?

As one who has made more than 20 trips to Cambodia since Operation California's first emergency medical airlift to famine victims in that country, I want to take strong exception to Marvin Ott's plea (Editorial Pages, March 13) for continuance of an inhumane armed conflict that has caused the Cambodian people much unnecessary suffering. Recent military actions have resulted in a renewed outflow of 250,000 Cambodian civilians into border refugee camps in Thailand as a three-pronged Cambodian resistance has crumbled in the face of a superior Vietnamese-backed military offensive.

Vann Nath, whose talent as an artist helped him survive Cambodia's most notorious prison during the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror in the 1970s and whose later paintings bore witness to the prison's many horrors, has died. He was 66. Vann Nath, who suffered chronic kidney disease that required regular dialysis treatment in recent years and who was hospitalized with a hemorrhaging ulcer in 2010, died Monday in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, after falling into a coma in late August, his daughter, Vann Chan Semin, told the Associated Press on Monday.

Fifty years of civil war have left Cambodia a desperately poor and damaged nation with about a third of its 15 million people below the poverty line and a per capita gross domestic product of $739 a year. When Brandon and Andrea Ross started Journeys Within, a tour company and B&B just outside Siem Reap, in 2003, they also were struck by the living conditions, especially in the countryside where people lack clean water, healthcare and all but rudimentary education. Living here made Brandon, an American who grew up in Park City, Utah, appreciate his good fortune.

"Turn left, turn right, go back!" her friends urge as she leads her avatar, a pet dog, into a lethal trap and the sound of an explosion rings out from the computer. In the virtual game world, players can always hit restart, but 11-year-old Chamroeun Chanpisey gets the point. "The game is different from real life," she said. "People have only one life. " The video game, called Undercover UXO, shorthand for unexploded ordnance, is a new tool aimed at educating young Cambodians about the dangers of land mines and other explosives across the war-pocked Southeast Asian country.

In numerical terms, "Gods of Angkor: Bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia" ? opening Feb. 22 at the J. Paul Getty Museum ? is a small exhibition. It consists of a mere 26 sculptural objects, about 4 inches to 40 inches tall, displayed in a single gallery. But the cultural significance of the show is beyond measure. The selection of Hindu and Buddhist statuary and ritual objects includes some of the finest examples of historical Cambodian bronze work at the nation's primary art museum in Phnom Penh.

Cambodia asked U.N. peacekeepers Monday to intervene to help end fighting along the Thai-Cambodian border after a fourth day of gunfire killed at least five people near a disputed 11th century temple. The wrangling over the 2-square-mile complex, a World Heritage Site, has fueled fears of a protracted border conflict between the wary neighbors. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen requested a U.N. "buffer zone," adding that the conflict threatened regional stability. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on both sides to exercise maximum restraint.

Reporting from Phnom Pehn, Cambodia ? On an unseasonably cool evening last month, nearly 700 people filed into the Chenla Theater for the final night of the inaugural Cambodia International Film Festival. The four-day event had drawn sizable audiences to films from more than 30 countries, but it was the premiere on this night of a Cambodian film called "Lost Loves" that attracted the festival's largest crowd. As TV crews angled for shots of the well-coifed cast members stepping onto the red carpet, inside the theater multigenerational families chatted excitedly and students snapped cellphone photos and waved to friends.

A retired Marine Corps captain was found guilty by a federal jury in Los Angeles on Thursday of traveling to Cambodia to engage in sex with children. Michael Joseph Pepe, 54, was convicted of violating the federal Protect Act, which strengthened laws against predatory crimes involving children outside the United States. Pepe was accused of drugging, raping and beating seven Cambodian girls ages 9 to 12. Six of the girls flew to the U.S. and testified during the three-week trial in front of U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer.

Yasith Chhun never made a secret about his plans to overthrow Cambodia's government. The Long Beach man boasted to reporters about his role in a rebel attack in Phnom Penh in 2000 that resulted in the death of at least three people. In interviews, Chhun denounced the government as tyrannical and said his group, Cambodian Freedom Fighters, would try again. Chhun and his supporters drew up plans for another attempted coup from his office, where he worked as a tax accountant.

On a muggy evening last week, a crowd of thousands gathered around a temporary outdoor stage in this city's Cambodian Vietnamese Friendship Park. As with most nights, the manicured grounds had a carnival atmosphere, with mobile vendors selling sweets wrapped in banana leaves, and rows of middle-age women stepping their way through aerobics routines during the respite from the blazing sun. But this night was different, because the Los Angeles band Dengue Fever, which takes its inspiration from Cambodian rock music of the 1960s, was scheduled to perform a free show.