New travel, new midset

Day 3

floralicia_ — Fri, 3 Jul 2015 03:58:00 GMT

Today is July 3rd. This morning started off by the usual , having breakfast at the hotel. We headed off to the Royal University of Phnom Penh to meet up with our tour guide of the university. He had a few cambodian stuents from that university speak to us about themselves and how they ended up going to the university. Ou guide was explaining to us about the education system in Cambodia. It was honestly one of the most upsetting things I have ever heard .Most of the children start going to primary school but some children don't get the same opportunity because they can't afford it. Then rates drop and most stuent just dont go to high school.While in college some students will cheat their way into recieving their diploma . So how this worked was while taking their exams they would pay the monitors to look away while they cheat. And now to improve the education systemthey havehired better monitors and actually made the test harder because they want the students to understand the subject ot just to remmeber it. Then we got a tour around the university. After this we had a light lunch at a hotel near us. We met Buddhist monks and they had a presentation for us . It was very interesting! After this we had free time and I decided to go to a shopping center and visit the FCC .

Day 2 in Cambodia

floralicia_ — Thu, 2 Jul 2015 22:41:00 GMT

Its is July 2nd . We had breakfast and headed to the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia(ECCC) more comonly referred to as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal . This is a special Cambodian court set up witht he inter ational support through he United Nationsto prosecute two categoriesof alleged perpetrators for alleged crimes commited between 17 Apil 1975 amd 6 January 1979. During that time Cambodia was ruled by the Democratic Kampuchea,that was the name of the goverment of Cambodia under Khmer Rouge. We went to the hearing of case 002/01.This case was for crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.After the hearing this case we went into a conference room and met with representatives from Prosecution, Defense, and Civil parties.After this we went to go eat lunch near the Choeung Ek Center for Genocide Crimes (killing field). We then walked to the killing site and looked around and heard about specific places at the site. Children were held by their feet and were hit on the tree until their skulls were broken . After this we visited the Toul Sleng Museum of Genocidal Crimes.It was a formal high school that served as a security prison for Khmer Rouge cadres accused of being traitors to the Khmer Rouge regime . Believed that 14K to 17K prisoners perished there. After visiting the museum we headed to the hotel and got ready for the formal welcome dinner at a nearby hotel.As we got back from dinner we were assigned to interview one student a nigh reflcting on the events that occured that day and by the end of this trip we should have interviewed each student.

I learned so much about the Cambodian history and wars today.

Day 1 in Cambodia

floralicia_ — Wed, 1 Jul 2015 21:36:00 GMT

It was July 1st as we arrived to Phnom Penh airport . We were welcomed by Namji , member of the East-West Center whom have sponsored this trip.

We took a van to Sunway Hotel and were checked in. I was roomed with one of the students from Honolulu and one from New York.Later that night around 6 we went to go eat at a local restaurant named Khmer Surin . Fun fact : cambodians don't use chop sticks , but because it is a stereotype by westerns , most restaurants give them anyways. We enjoyed the food we hadfor dinner there. We actually had to take our shoes off before we entered the dinning room and were sat on the floor with pillows. we then rode TukTuks back to the hotel. We soon fell asleep.

Photos: Cambodia 2015

floralicia_ — Wed, 1 Jul 2015 15:43:00 GMT

Join me to my journey in Cambodia