Meta House: a bastion of cinema and art in Phnom Penh

Andy Hill

The cinema and gallery Meta House is facilitating and evolving Cambodia’s exciting and budding young art scene

My experience travelling in places usually involves exposing myself to a great many examples of local cultural interests. When I arrive in a new place, one of my favorite things to do is to go to the important museums, a library (of the public as well as the often NGO-sponsored type), art galleries, and events such as Pecha Kucha nights and lectures.

Meta House: cinema, art gallery, bar, and community space

The Meta House of Phnom Penh has been promoting international, but primarily Cambodian and German, art and film since 2007.

Founded by Nicolaus Mesterhern as a makeshift film appreciation society at a house in the city which had a rooftop well-positioned for showing films, it has grown into a major purveyor of new art in this inspiring and fascinating city.

At a typical night, one might find a documentary from Khmer film students about the aftermath of the Pol Pot regime, or any array of documentaries from other young filmmakers from Southeast Asia

Meta House is now in a modern, stylish location on Sothearos Blvd. in the center of the city. The lower level is a gallery featuring work by artists from all around the world.

The upper level has a small theatre in an open-air space that overlooks the city, and a slick but refreshingly comfortable bar at the back provides all the booze and nosh needed for a night out to see a feature documentary or just to grab a light lunch or dinner.

The main purpose of Meta House is to showcase up-and-coming Cambodian artists and filmmakers, as well as those from around the world.

Manager Johannes Kast has been involved with Meta House since 2009, and has watched it flourish through the years, which have been anything but unproductive for the local art scene and Meta House itself.

He expressed that the work Meta House was doing was “more serious, more professional, with expanded horizons.” He said that the ideal situation would be for Cambodians to be operating completely the gallery, cinema and bar/restaurant in the next year.

When asked about contemporary trends he sees in Khmer art at present, he describes a kind of realism, an ‘everyday life’ element to what many up and coming Khmer artists are creating.

As for Meta House’s mission, Kast said “there is always a social and educational element to what we do.”

For more information on Meta House and the work they are doing in Cambodia, please visit their website here: www.meta-house.com

It's fantastic to be back in Cambodia

Andy Hill

My unexpected jaunt to the kingdom of wonder has been fantastic, as I enjoy fewer places more than the charming metropolis of Phnom Penh

Because of several randomly-timed events in my girlfriend’s life, as well as the need to leave Indonesia because of my visa, and also because it’s perhaps my favorite place in the world, I’ve returned to Cambodia for a short sojourn.

The reasons why I wanted to come back are ephemeral. I like walking around in the Central Market. I like walking down the riverside. I like the simplicity of the currency. I like being able to hop on the back of anyone’s bike and get where I need to in five minutes, for less than a dollar. I like how friendly it is, how gentle it feels. I miss seeing films at the Meta House, and eating insanely good Mexican food at the Alley Cat.

I found a ridiculously cheap flight from Bali which included a night spent convalescing on recliners in front of CNN at the Singapore airport.  

I’ve been at the guesthouse I normally stay at on the heavily-backpackered Street 178 for several days and am pleased to say that the city has lost none of its charm, and everything still costs the same amount at all the usual places.

A plate of fat, handmade noodles fried with beef, chili sauce, greens and an egg still costs seventy five cents, and you can still get your tooth extracted for $30 (including the consultation).

I’ll make my way down to the coast soon to see what Otres Beach looks like, and stomp around up at some of my favorite bars in Siem Reap as well. I also intend to see the Phare Ponleu Selpak Circus in Battambang.

On Monday September 2 the bi-monthly “Nerd Night” is happening in Phnom Penh, where people make presentations about things they are passionate or nerdy about. The format comes from the Pecha Kucha system, where presenters have 20 Powerpoint slides to use for twenty seconds each. I will be doing a presentation called “Evoking the Creator Within: What I Learned About the Creative Process by Writing a Book.”

I will also drop in on some old friends, as well as try to do some major promotional work for my book, Mystic Fool (like stumbling around the streets, passing out flyers, and saying ‘hey man- buy this!’)

Ok, I’m off to get a ride down to Toul Tom Poung, a notorious market in the south end of town, just to see what kind of bizarre shit is for sale. 

What it was like to get a tooth removed in Phnom Penh yesterday

Andy Hill

It was a long time coming, and I finally submitted to the pain and got a tooth removed in Phnom Penh

I had had enough. I was completely driven to the tether of my threshold of pain. This malignant force in my mouth, which initially was only a problem when I ate ice cream or drank ice-cold water, had now, months later, overwhelmed me, and I had no choice but to see a specialist in the area. The pain coming from a molar at the back of the left side of my upper jaw had reduced me to a useless, quivering, slobbering, barely verbal, heavily self-medicated specimen by the time I went out to the dentist.

And I wasn’t discriminate. I howled, hunched and slobbering, into the street from the front of my guesthouse, and sobbed and wailed down the street, searching for an end to this infernal agony. My girlfriend’s helpful advice that it wouldn’t ‘fix itself’ was resounding through my mind, and I respectfully took it on board and appreciated it, as I writhed and shrieked from the back of a tuk-tuk taking me ideally to a dentist.

When I finally got there, I pointed at my mouth and made a RAMBO-like grimace, and was slithering into a plastic-covered dental chair in seconds. Over my harping demands for drugs, the 14 year old assistant was able to look at my teeth, scrape them, painfully spray them with water, and take an x-ray. As the medication slowly went through my bloodstream, I went into a more dependent, romantic mode, and nearly held his face as I asked what we could do.

He came back with radiographic evidence that my tooth was indeed fucked.

“Root canal work no.”

“Is it bad?” I squirmed.

“So too bad. We need extract. Take out.”

“Take it out. Get it. Fucking destroy it.”

Another man walked into the room like he was just about to perform his money shot on a porno set. Fumbling around with some instruments, he muttered some things back and forth to the kid who’d been looking at my mouth, and carelessly shot me full of more novocaine. I didn’t complain.

Then he took a pair of pliers in his hands, which I regretfully saw. He stuck them in my mouth and began to wrench the furthest-back molar on the left side of my skull out of its socket. After it creaked and groaned several times, and he even repositioned himself for more fulcrum, it was finally brought free from my long-suffering, now very drug-addled head.

He dropped the pliers on the little steel tray next to him, and went back to the waiting room to watch more of a Khmer soap opera with his extended family.

With my mind blown, and a new, intense life experience to add to my belt-notches, the kid gave me a piece of paper with prescriptions elegantly written across it.

“How mu-?” I verbally staggered.

“Thirty dollars, sir.”

“Oh shit. I’ve got to go to an ATM, bro. Can you hold onto this and...I come back?”

I pulled out my ATM card, and thrust to him the contents of my wallet, which now contained only an old picture of my girlfriend, as collateral. I raced off to find an ATM to pay him for the extraction. He half-smiled and watched me run off.

The amazing thing was that all the pain was actually gone. Between the anesthetics and the removal of the tooth, I felt like a newborn.

I finally found an ATM, and was really excited to know that I’d been paid for various freelance writing jobs that week, raced back, and put the money in his hands as his (probably) grandparents re-wrapped themselves in blankets for another rousing half-hour of television.

“I love you man. Thank you.”

My words were mixed up.

“I love you, sir. Thank you. Eat this in your mouth for the blood.”

I took a plastic bag of gauze from his hand and stumbled out in the street, feeling as redeemed as Saul of Tarsus.

Phnom Penh's triumphant reemergence

Andy Hill

Far from its tragic past and seedy stereotypes, Phnom Penh is an amazing place to bask in progressive, artistic, and inspiring things happening amongst a people keen to grasp a bright future. 

Phnom Penh is one of those places which, having undergone a horrific mass-tragedy, the stigma of that historical wound may threaten to overwhelm anything else it may have to offer. The shadow of the Khmer Rouge’s terrorizing campaign colors the perception many have of Cambodia. 

Also, many might picture a city riddled with slobbering, red-faced, neanderthalic perverts trying pathetically to arouse the attention of the bar girls who are paid paid to act interested in them, or washed-up, drug-addled freaks stumbling along the alleys looking for someone to rob.

The fact of the matter is that Phnom Penh is a very different place than all that. The collective suffering this gentle country experienced from 1975-1979 seems to have been altogether moved on from. That is the feel one gets when strolling through its charming streets and making casual conversation with complete strangers. 

And, although it would be quite easy to find a prostitute to spend an hour with, the city contains far less sex tourism than one would find in many parts of Thailand, or countless other places in the world.

Actually, there are many inspiring, fresh, and progressive things happening in Phnom Penh, which when you’re there, seems completely natural.

At the Meta House (http://www.meta-house.com/), there are documentary films and other fantastic educational and artistic events happening throughout the week, many of which are free. They feature many of the young Cambodian filmmakers, musicians, and painters coming up in the local art scene, and organize many other community-oriented events.

Every month at the Beeline Arena, the remarkable Battambang-based theatre and circus troupe Phare Ponleu Selpak (http://www.phareps.org/) deliver their trademark, Khmer-inspired feats of acrobatic, juggling, dance, contortion, and storytelling prowess. The troupe is comprised mainly of former street kids who are able to find training and a way to apply themselves creatively within the exciting atmosphere of a circus which combines traditional Cambodian folklore with avant-garde theatre.

These are only two of a laundry list of examples of why this is such an inspiring place.

Finally, it’s just a really friendly city. My girlfriend and I lived there for nine months, and there are few cities that I have more enjoyed strolling about in side streets, haggling in markets, and spending an afternoon drinking beer in front of convenience stores.

Having spent hundreds of hours in classrooms with teenaged and adult citizens of that fair city, I was blown away by how many of them were forward-looking, impassioned people who want nothing more than to make theirs a more green, just, and all-around better country.

This sense of reaching into its resplendent ancient past while simultaneously being certain of a brighter, more novel, more exciting future characterizes Phnom Penh to a higher degree than any tragedy from the past ever could.

I'll never again take water for granted

Andy Hill

While on the smoldering bus from the Thai border to Siem Reap, I befriended a guy who told me about a group that made water filters there. They were made out of concrete, gravel and sand, and took ground water and purified it. My interest was piqued. We got into town late in the evening, and did a grand tour of nearly every single bar in the French Quarter.

The next morning I shuffled into an internet shop, emailed the foundation, and got a phone call an hour later. One of the founders gave me directions and said I could stop by anytime, preferably before noon.

I slurped down some noodle soup on the side of the road and grabbed one of the thousand and one motorbikes hanging around. We sped east through town to the Crocodile farm, made a right, and then another right at the Angkor brewery about a half kilometer down. After a skip down a wide, dirt road, a flesh colored gate approached on our left, with a sign that said “Trailblazer Foundation.”  I paid the driver way too much for the trip, thinking it cheap, and went inside the gates.

There was an office and several people milling about. I approached one and introduced myself as the guy who’d emailed that morning. He said hello and motioned for me to take a look around the place. Past the front area was a large garden with experimental-looking irrigation pipes, then a smaller area with large piles of sand, gravel, and sifting apparatuses suspended above and gathered about.

Just beyond was the area where the concrete was mixed and the water filters were built, finished, and stored before being distributed to local villages. Two Khmer guys were washing gravel and mixing concrete, while an intern sifted sand. Several others were doing some work with the pipes in the garden. There were a few dozen completed filters along a wall, waiting to be loaded into a truck and taken to a village.

The Biosand water filters can purify up to forty liters of water an hour, have no moving parts, require very little maintenance, and last for decades. In a country of 14,000,000 which has 9,000,000 cases of diarrheal disease, the work the Trailblazer Foundation is doing is absolutely vital. So far, they have created access to clean drinking water to over 100,000 Cambodians.

It is absurd that anyone on this planet, with all our technological wizardry, should lack access to clean drinking water. Especially when a Biosand water filter costs roughly $60 via donation, and produces enough for several families.

Anyone who wants to can show up and help them build and distribute the filters. They also dig pump wells and provide rural Cambodians with other life changing tools to improve sanitation and access to water.

Visit the website of this remarkable organization, and if you can, make a donation.

http://www.thetrailblazerfoundation.org/