AsiaLIFE

“Cambodians don’t like to read.”
“There are few books in Cambodia.”
“Cambodians don’t write.”

These statements reveal common perspectives on the reading culture in Cambodia. Yet through the efforts of some individuals and organisations, Mai Lynn Miller Nguyen finds signs of hope for books in Cambodia.

After travelling for some time, the bookmobile turns down a dirt path wedged between rice fields. A few turns later, and the minivan pulls up in front of a concrete house on stilts. A cow is snuggled up a few feet away. This is the village of Chhmapoun, located around 30 kilometres south of Phnom Penh.

A couple of children are waiting for the mobile library's arrival. They start cheering as the vehicle approaches, and by the time the volunteers start unloading straw mats to spread on the ground, about 20 more kids have come running. The total trickles up to around 50 within the next hour. Most of the children are between the ages of six and ten, although there are also a few toddlers and teenagers.

First, the mobile librarian reads a story about Tonsay, the mischievous rabbit who plays a central role in many Cambodian children’s stories. The kids are excited, fidgeting on the mats, but keep their eyes on the pictures. One little boy, around five years old, calls out “Tonsay!” every time a picture of the rabbit appears, and a couple of his friends start chiming in.

After the story ends, the volunteers distribute stacks of books, and the kids enjoy individual reading time. The smallest children, who can’t yet read, are thumbing through picture books, whereas the older ones are murmuring words aloud while focusing on the pages before them.

“People say that children don’t like reading. That’s not true,” says Socheata Huot, editorial coordinator for SIPAR (“Soutien à l’Initiative Privée pour l’Aide à la Reconstruction”), the NGO that operates eight bookmobiles “They love reading. People say that you have to encourage children to read, but you don’t have to. You just bring books, and they will read by themselves.”

More Than Literacy
According to the World Bank, Cambodia’s rate of literacy is estimated to be around 78 percent of the population aged 15 and up. Although it’s one of the lowest levels of literacy amongst ASEAN members (second only to Laos), it’s an improvement since 1998 when the statistic was 67 percent.

But although a growing number of Cambodians can read, whether or not they do read is a different question. Functioning literacy is believed to be much lower than the literacy statistic.

“In Cambodia, a lot of people don’t like to read,” says Hok Sothik, director of SIPAR. “A lot of Cambodians think that reading is only for the people in the upper class, the intellectual people. The majority of Cambodian people consider reading as work, only a small number of people read for leisure. People prefer to pass their free time in the house watching TV.”

Besides the social context, another reason for a lack of reading has to do with economics. As William Bagley, general manager of Monument Books, points out, the cost of some books can be a barrier.

“Pricing for books is still very high for Cambodians,” Bagley says. “It’s a big leap for the majority of Cambodians to basically pay a quarter or a fifth of a monthly income for a book.”

Bagley compares the lack of a strong publishing industry in Cambodia to neighbouring Thailand, where native language books are much more prevalent and sold for more affordable prices. In the case of Cambodia, it could all be a matter of time and development.

“I’m told that 60 years ago in Thailand, reading was a pastime [only] for very well-off and well-travelled Thais,” says Bagley. “Now they have a thriving publishing industry in Thailand. I think that’s down to education policies, people had started reading because of the education that they received.”

Encouraging Youth
Hok Sothik believes that the more books are published, the more people will be enticed to read. Over the past ten years of its publishing programme, SIPAR has produced more than one million copies of its 85 titles. The various collections target beginners up to adolescent readers.

The publishing programme works in conjunction with SIPAR’s implementation of libraries and communal reading centres in places like hospitals and prisons. In addition to the eight mobile libraries, SIPAR counts more than 200 in-school libraries throughout 24 provinces, intended to supplement the activities conducted in the classroom.

As the NGO found it difficult to find appropriate children’s literature, the publishing programme was created to help stock the libraries. “[At first] we imported books from France and Thailand, which we translated by hand into Khmer,” says Hok. “We decided to create this publishing programme to develop books in the Khmer language and also train the people working in the publishing activities.”

Hok thinks that recreational reading is overall increasing in Cambodia, judging by the greater amount of books on the market now compared to ten years ago.

“We think that in the future children will be more used to reading and will continue to develop their curiosity,” says Hok. “Maybe we contribute also to the development of individuals and society. But it takes time.”

For literacy-oriented NGO Open Book, which operates a free reading room on Phnom Penh’s Street 240, getting children interested in books is also the key focus, with the aim to spur lifelong reading habits.

Activities at the Open Book reading room include storytelling in Khmer and various craftmaking, singing and writing workshops for children. Cambodian volunteers have translated of more than 100 books into Khmer, and the organisation publishes books in several languages, whose sales help fund various programmes. There is also a lending library.

“For reading books, most of our visitors are Cambodian children—especially the ones who live in the 'village', meaning the whole block behind Street 240,” says Catherine Cousins, Open Books founder. “Some of them have been coming since 2002 and feel 'at home' in the middle of the books.”

Including orphanage and school trips, the average number of children visiting the reading room each day is around 50, according to Cousins. The Open Book volunteers work with children to respect books, and the room's quiet environment.

Cousins finds that the children's books appeal to adults as well. “Most adults have a hard time concentrating and tend to choose reference books or National Geographics,” she says. “They think reading is for school work or bloody scandal newspapers. But a lot of them are attracted by the coloured illustrated children books that they did not have as children in Cambodia.”

The Drive to Write
For there to be books, there must be writers. In July, the Nou Hach literary association hosted two Saturday workshops entitled The Nature of the Writer, coordinated by US-based author Keo Chanbo. At the first workshop, over 400 people attended, far beyond the capacity of the Buddhist Institute conference room. People sat outside on the terrace, and a speaker was hooked up to outside so that they could listen to the speakers. The next week, an overflow of around 150 people came to the conference.

The majority of participants were university students, although the attendees also included working writers and journalists. The audience seemed enthralled, in particular when Keo Chanbo spoke in her lively manner, encouraging audience participation. During the break, a few people lined up to speak to the author, requesting an autograph of her latest book, which serves as a guide for aspiring writers.

“I can’t tell them what to do, but I tell them how I do it,” says Keo. “They have to try to find their own way. To be a writer starts from the word ‘write’. You need to learn to write, in order to write, you have to learn to think.”

Keo has written over 30 books in Khmer. A well-known writer in Cambodia, Keo strives to use her fame to help promote other writers, by publishing their stories in her books. One writer she has featured is Nop Hang Phalla, a Cambodian poet and writer living in Phnom Penh. He has a hopeful outlook on the development of the book sector in his country.

“For us as writers, we aim to promote literacy in Cambodia,” says Nop. “We want people to be able to read, we want everyone, not just the young, but people at any age. In my view, I think a lot of people are awakening, they are turning to books to read more than they have previously done in the past, especially after the Khmer Rouge regime.”

Facing Challenges
However, the reality is that a career in writing is difficult to sustain in Cambodia. A key issue for writers is the difficulty of earning a living. Most writers self-publish, paying for all the costs of creating, printing and distributing their books themselves. Profits from sales are uncommon, so writing is often more of a hobby—or as in Keo’s case, a mission.

“I sell for the same price I pay to publish,” says Keo. “I don’t want a profit. The profit that I want is change.”

But for many writers in Cambodia, the lack of income can be a deterrent. Although a copyright law was implemented in 2005, the law is rarely enforced, which means that writers run the risk of having their work copied.

“Authors expend huge amounts of time and money to write and self-publish, since there are no publishers in Cambodia,” says Tararith Kho, a US-based writer and former director of Nou Hach literary association. “After the initial book sales, if those books are good, readers will simply make copies and sell the books themselves."

The fact that copying of books exists implies that there is a market for books, and in many ways is a form of flattery. Yet the lack of enforced copyright laws is a serious obstacle to the creation of new books, and the possibilities of Cambodians becoming authors as a full-time, income-generating career.

At Monument Books, Bagley has a strict policy on any books that seem to be copies. “We have set ourselves a boundary beyond which we will not cross,” he says. “If the quality makes the books look like they could be copies of something else, we don’t stock them. If people start to think that [we sell] a copy of a legitimate publication, we will no longer have the reputation of protecting copyright.”

But in the markets and many bookshops, the rejection of duplicated books is not so constant. A survey by the Publishing in Cambodia Project found copyright to be one of the main concerns of Cambodian writers.

“Writers need help retaining the rights to their work but the Cambodian government has no funding to support writers,” says Kho, who adds that censorship and political intimidation is another impediment. "I want to see a Cambodia where writers feel free to write and publish what they want."

Bridges to Knowledge
Catherine Cousins of Open Book sees great potential for books to encourage change in Cambodia. “Books are important in order to think—that is why the Khmer Rouge regime destroyed them, as well as killing most Cambodians who valued them,” says Cousins. “The new Cambodian generation could become more creative thinkers than the ones who lived through the war. Being exposed to books is one way.”

Through reading, Cambodians can discover ideas that they are not generally exposed to in their schooling. Besides promoting Cambodian writing talent, Kho supports the translation of foreign texts into Khmer. “We need to be exposed to other civilisations and new ideas,” he says. “We need to be aware of the world outside Cambodia.”

Bernard Krisher, publisher of the English language newspaper The Cambodia Daily, has made it his mission to help bring classics from the Western canon to Cambodian readers. Krisher contrasts the current state of reading to his earliest visit to Cambodia in 1964, when Cambodians were reading French books and novels.

“I established The Cambodia Daily Press to publish translated books in Khmer because I noticed that Cambodians were not reading books after Pol Pot had tried to destroy the culture,” says Krisher. “Much of the world's literature was unavailable in the Khmer language.”

The premier publication for the Cambodia Daily Press was the first volume of the Harry Potter series, for which author J.K. Rowling agreed to donate the rights to publish for free at Krisher's request. Krisher says he went with the Harry Potter debut because it was the most popular book around the world at the time, and he hoped that it would help “propel Cambodians to start reading again.”

A few other books translated and published by Cambodia Daily Press have been chosen for a different reason, namely, their potential for influence. One is a biography of Abraham Lincoln, whom Krisher refers to as “a good role model for Cambodians to learn about.” Another title is about Albert Einstein. “We like to encourage our kids to do something, to try to become like Albert Einstein, come up with theories, innovate,” explains Krisher.

An Appetite for Books
Back in Chhmapoun village, Thida looks forward to the mobile library’s arrival each week. The 17-year-old girl is the commune’s most prolific reader, going through seven or eight books a week. Although she sometimes buys her own books from the market, she’s hungry for more.

“My school has a library,” she says. “But it is not enough for me, so I need to borrow books from the mobile library to have something to read.”

Thida likes that reading gives her knowledge, but she also likes it just because it's fun. Her reading level may be lower than her peers in more developed countries, but against the odds, she’s discovered a love for books.