Bunly Meas

It is said that one could learn best of foreign culture when he or she involves in communities of that country. However, the way I learn is to start with people from the same country as mine to hear what they have experienced with the new land. That was my motivation to search for Cambodian communities in Amsterdam this weekend. Although the weather was not with me, my journey from Diemen (another Dutch city) to Amsterdam began. I was guided by a map from google showing me directions to a Cambodian restaurant. I thought it was a good start to check where people meet and eat so that I could follow the track to bigger communities. After wandering around and asking people, I found the restaurant. It was exciting to see the word "Cambodja City" on two boards hanging outside. The place was not large but it looked massive to me. This is because it is really hard to find Cambodians living in Amsterdam since this city is not one of the favourite destinations for Cambodians. I entered...

The journey to Brussel last week was a great chance to gain both personal knowledge and professional development. First of all, it was very interesting to learn how the EU works. The EU is one of the most ambitious and largest projects to bring European nations to a round table and discuss on matters affecting them. Started from an initiative of not repeating what Europe was in the World War II, this organization becomes larger and more complicated. However, it fits very well with the current sophisticated world. Secondly, it was very knowledgable to listen to EU journalists about their expericences of how to interprete this EU complicated information to understandable pieces of news to European citizens. The journalists in this case seem to be much intergrated in the EU system and live with it. However, they are not official EU spokepeople. In addition, the journey enabled me to meeet and listen to the real EU spokeperson about their communication and strategy to make EU easier to acc...

The Phnom Penh Post's article "Game over for Cambo Six", published on February 26 about the government's closure of Cambodia's legal betting company Cambo Six revealed another major development of the Kingdom's policies towards gambling. It is more focused on long-term results of social improvement by eliminating contradictory forces such as gambling. The new policy will save a great deal for the government's poverty reduction plan, for public spending and for improvements in education. Firstly, the closure will remove the forces that contradict poverty-reduction efforts. This means at the same time the government and civil society are running programs to make people richer, gambling makes them poorer. Secondly, the government's order saves the country's public spending. The government, of course, loses tax income from gambling. But they do not need to increase the budget to cope with social problems resulting from gambling. Domestic violence, ro...