Ten years ago in Phnom Penh DVD’s in the hshops weren’t organized in alphabetical order. The videos were all just randomly set upon the shelf, regardless of title or genre. Attack Force Z was right there, between Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and Trading Places. And the staff, who did nothing but watch movies all day, didn’t know the titles of any of the movies. They were completely useless at helping you find a particular title. Eventually, the Chinese family that owns most of the DVD shops along the riverside, which cater to foreigners, learned about alphabetical order. A few years later, they even had genre sections for Westerns and Comedies and so on. As the years passed, their youngest son, who was extremely well-educated, took over. He knew the names of movies and would even make suggestions, “If you liked this, you will probably like that, by the same filmmaker.” I just took it for granted that watching this kid and this business develop over the last ten years was a representation of how the whole of Cambodia was growing. But I guess I was wrong. Today, because of the Water Festival, I couldn’t get to the riverfront area, so I went to a huge DVD shop in one of the major shopping areas. It was like stepping back in time. Just like ten years ago, the movies were all randomly scattered upon the shelves, with the original Ben Hur, right next to the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I told the worker, “I am looking for the movie, The Maze Runner” which got me nowhere. But even if you spoke perfect Khmer, it wouldn’t be any help. The title would be the same English title, which they didn’t know. The only part that would change would be “I am looking for the movie, “ And that wouldn’t help. They already assumed that when you walked in.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 09:44:17 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015