Cambodian comedy
on Phnom Penh Pal (Cambodia), 29/Aug/2012 10:49, 34 days ago
I'm sitting at my desk typing away when my boss steps out of the bathroom in our room and says "Mr Bean. He's from England, right?" Slightly hesitant of where this was going and what had happened in the toilet, I replied that yes Mr Bean was from England."Aaah, so you have two famous comedians in Cambodia."This did not give me a clue as to what had happened in the loo to prompt this conversation, but now I was trying to guess who the heck might be the other famous English comedian in Cambodia. Michael McIntyre sells more DVDs than people in China but I didn't think it was him. Billy Connolly's accent would definitely have barred him from being understood, so I wondered whether it was somebody like John Cleese, given the international following of Monty Python."Charlie Chaplin. He very popular here. I think even funnier than Mr Bean. Oooh, very clever, smart things."Sitting back in wonder, I agreed that yes Charlie Chaplin is very funny and clever. One thing bothered me though. My boss's English is amazing but he was talking about Chaplin in the present tense. It could be that Chaplin is still alive in Cambodia and I wasn't going to kill him.I should have guessed it would have been Chaplin as I had seen a TV in a restaurant with a Chaplin film on, and having seen Cambodian comics on TV, they definitely favour physical comedy. So while England has given Cambodia Chaplin and Bean (and yes, my boss, Rithy, was the first to tell me about Mr Bean in the Olympic opening ceremony - as well James Bond and the Queen), their favoured American comedians are......Tom and Jerry.Whilst in Kompong Cham when we first arrived the night receptionist and his mates used to settle down and watch a good Tom and Jerry cartoon. Fair enough I thought, he might not be that educated and TV might be a bit rubbish at this time of night. However, I was surprised to see my boss (who has two degrees and travelled internationally) watching it on the internet in the office one day, having a right good chuckle to himself.In keeping with how this blog started, here is a picture of a sign in my toilet at the hotel I was staying in last week. It might give us a clue as to what had happened in the toilet to prompt this little exchange.The signs says - please do not stand on the toilet. In English of course, although most folk who can read English are probably not the same ones who might be tempted to stand on a toilet. GordonAlso, in another blog, I wrote about a family in a poor neighbourhood who were devoted to teaching their kids English. Well, Claire found the picture (voyeurism I know...) that we took of the scene. You can see it on thisblog posting: