On March 04th, I volunteered to be a part of the surveying exploration members for the trip to Kampong Speu. The exploration’s main focus is to conduct a survey which consequently not creating any bias answers while asking the questions. The whole survey was about education, loans, and healthcare. We were interviewing the villagers in one main village and the other two adjacent villages. The organization of the survey and the division of our team into each family were clear. For the whole day, I interviewed seven villagers and each interview took from 45 minutes to an hour. It was a hot and sunny day, but at the end of the day, the team managed to receive a sample size of 105 people. By volunteering to join the team and surveying the people,
it was a worthy decision. I have learned a lot of from the villagers’ lives and their plights. In addition, I experienced how the survey exploration members were working with the conduction of each question in the survey. It is a difficult job of creating questions because, in Cambodian society, it is extremely important as young and bright Cambodians not to ask questions to elders that are deemed as disrespectful and sensitive. Overall, I think it was an incredible experience even though we were walking under a hot sun.
Journeys of Change _ Updates!
Have you forgotten Journeys of Change? I bet you are not because I have some updates! Currently, we have a total of 23 students (Seniors) who are interested to become a tour guide. This means that those 23 students have to go through a seven-week expertise course by becoming trainees. In order to become a certified tour guide, they have to cover up all the provided courses: Liger Tour Guide Handbook, Mission, Responsible Tourism, Emergencies, Customer Service, and Tour Script, go to a professional bike tour in Phnom Penh, test with a business manager, and go to two of Journeys of Change tours by becoming assistant guides.
This may seem to be a difficult journey for the 23 people, but so far, we already have a new certified tour guide, Rika. It is also seemed to be a long journey to certify all the trainees, but we are on our way.
Our first Journeys of Change tour was when the press team came to our school in November. We gave a tour of many famous journalists and reports. There were people from Good Morning America! It was not an official tour yet. We were giving the tour to them as a welcoming to our school. It was actually an honor for all the tour guides. Surprisingly, Ron Claiborne, a Good Morning America journalist, talked about Journeys of Change on the show! Overall, it was amazing.
Are you waiting for the official launch? We just launched our first official tour on January 13, 2018! It was phenomenal and it felt really good to have our first tour with full payment. Now, tour guides are able to make some profit to support their further education. Again, we met amazing people; there were people from U.S Embassy and SHE CAN.
Last updates from Journey of Change is that we are having many platforms to advertise the business now. We currently have our facebook page and Tripadvisor! If you are interested in going to our tour, you can book through our Facebook page and later on, you can give us a review through Tripadvisor and Facebook page. I hope you our tour, the Cambodian Insights: Past and Future.
- Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/BikeTourExperience/
- Tripadvisor: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g293940-d13449622-Reviews-Journeys_of_Change-Phnom_Penh.html
Gender Equity − Fight for the World
I came out to people about my sexuality about two months ago and now, I am a part of something big−something could potentially change my life forever. I thought revealing my identity was the final step of my life; in fact, it was not. I thought of wanting to expand my love and passion of promoting the positivity for the people who struggle with their gender. Well, that opportunity communicated to me. I got the chance to be in exploration called, “Gender Equity.” My team and I created a mission which “is to raise awareness about global gender issues with a focus on Cambodian society. In order to affect positive change, we must examine the past to transform the future. Through communication, passion, and risk-taking we will investigate various aspects of gender discrimination and inequalities by sharing stories, exchanging knowledge, and interacting with others to create a healthy and constructive dialogue about gender equity.” Personally, I do extremely love this mission because before, I have thought that what is the best medium I can use to impact change within this area? The answer is dialogue. Conversation and discussion are the keys to empowered people to be opened and always be themselves.
For the first week of the project, I already felt like a professor or wizard that is skilled in the is topic. I had a lot of memorial times when my facilitators, teammates and I had many thoughtful and philosophical family discussions about the differences between equality and equity, common stereotypical statements (e.g., women are weak) gender problems in distinguished areas of society across the globe (e.g., culture, religion, education, etc.), poems, and different media (e.g., videos and photograph). More specifically, we discussed deeply about gender stereotypes and their origins, sexual orientation, boy and girl’s behavioral expectations and roles, physicality, etc. My best highlight from the first week is the discussion we had that based on the question: “Where is the origin of all the gender stereotypes and problem?” It turned out that this is an extremely philosophical and deep thinking-required question. I said that “The most accurate origin we could say is us. We are the one who creates all of those dramas because we see our own flaws, but we are not embrace it.” There were even more answers from my friends and facilitators. Some were said, “Men.”
Having discussions was powerful, and our teams wanted to make sure that we
can document those words. Furthermore, we thought that dialogue does not exist in only an oral form but in written form. Therefore, we decided that we can write articles, but where can we share it? As a change agent, we finally came up with an idea of establishing a digital platform: blog. We named it as “CHANGE.” It is abbreviated from the name and theme of our summit we hosted (I wrote about the summit in the post; check it out) which stated that “Creating Humanitarian Awareness for the Necessity of Gender Equity.” There are many categories that we chose as importance. So far, we have a fair amount of articles on the blog. This project was widening itself to our literacy class. Basically, every senior student contributed towards this blog. Here is the link: http://changeforequity.ligeracademyblog.org/
Asides from all of these in-class activities, we even took the opportunity to have experience outside the class. We went to a social enterprise called, “SHE Investment.” This enterprise wholeheartedly working many Cambodian women to improve their family economy and break the glass ceiling of what the society always expect them. It was such an incredible moment for me. I got to ask many questions and made a lot of comments which potentially help their project. I also wrote a whole article about SHE Investment. If you are interested, please check it on our CHANGE blog and my blog. Besides this meeting, we also had another meeting two Cambodia teenage activists. They were both girls who strongly passionate about gender problem as we do. It was an honor to get to know them and have many discussions with them. In my perspective, meeting with them and seeing them as the activists like us give me the encouragement to change Cambodia and the world. I feel like I have an actual team who I can communicate and work with all the time. Amazingly, we can share our personal stories that we have confronted with each other.
Talking about having a discussion, I remembered that one discussion my teammates and I had in class. It was about how our holiday was. Everybody shared their fun moments and allusions about gender problem with their parents. Interestingly, I thought I was alone who attempted to talk to my 
parents about this. It was my turn to share. I felt my eyes were watery and my vision was blurry. I was crying. I told my friends how I tried to tell my parents about my sexuality the fact that I am bisexual, but I could not do it. I brought up the fear I had at that time to friends. Tears were flowing from everyone’s eyes. I fear that my parents will abandon me or negatively comment me. To be honest, it was extremely difficult to come out to our parents until now. The matter is that I need to find the right moment. RIGHT MOMENT.
Finally, we collected all the moments and discussions and summed it up into a summit−as I stated earlier, it is called, “CHANGE.” It was incredibly a phenomenal day for everybody, including me, my friends, facilitators, and guests. We ran it as a bilingual summit: English and Khmer. It was the way to approach two different audiences. Again, if you want to know more about the summit, you can visit our CHANGE blog and my blog, to get to understand expressly about it.
Journeys of Change – The Bike Business Leads to the Glorious Path
I was just certified as a scuba diver and now, I have just certified as a tour guide−I guess a professional tour guide. I am certified just because I am a part of a new exploration, the bike business. This is a business hosted by our facilitator. To be honest, this is a new startup for everybody. We know that this is an entrepreneurship involves with bikes by providing a tour to any tourists. Most of all, we do not know and have not figure out what is our mission for this business.
For the first week of our business, we did a quick research of all the standout tour companies around Cambodia: Grasshopper Adventure, Vicious Cycle, and Soksabike. The purpose was trying to discover the uniqueness of each company. Simultaneously, we were trying to see their business model including prices, tour services, and missions. This was actually a great start to brainstorm our business by answering some essential questions.
- Why a bike business?
- What is a bike business?
- What are the long-term opportunities for this bike business?
The next step was, we divided everybody into three distinguished teams: business plan, marketing, and tour. Each team has a different responsibility. The business plan team was responsible for writing a report that includes every aspect of a business model and generating a liability waiver between the clients and the business. The marketing team was responsible for establishing a booking system, searching for platforms to advertise the business, networking with other places (restaurants, hotels, etc.), and designing business cards, posters, and flyers. For the tour team, they were responsible to create a full bike route and write the tour script.
Of course, for the tour team, they would not able to do any works if we were 
not going an actually bike adventure. Therefore, we rent bikes, prepared our equipment for that day, and were ready to go on actually bike trip. The purposes were to figure out the route for the tour and selecting some stops of the entire route. It was an adventure; there were many interesting locations we would love to bring the tourists to visit since we were in a quite-rural area of Cambodia. After the bike adventure, we decided the total distance of the route (22 Km) and the total of 12 stops. Take a look at our 22-kilometer route!
I was in the business plan; with no doubt, it was extremely challenging. Business is not my kind of interest, but why would I join? I join this business because I wanted to build the love out of this dislikeness. Basically, I was trying to take risk of challenging myself to confront thing I do not like, specifically, the business planning. In this team, there were many works involving with the calculation (numbers). I did not enjoy it for the first time, but after a while, I do love it. I ended up in a team until we finished the whole business report and I am proud that I took the risk to be in the business plan team. Here are the links to the whole report and the liability waiver.
- https://docs.google.com/document/d/118n2YGPbY3RPkPoMZLQBl_khKk3oVL0oQAhR-IlbiUc/edit?usp=drive_web&ouid=106695336239515847880 (Report)
- https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DhO3xIIpTn89I34x2iSz_MeMV7EjiwtE9C2U20_gDbk/edit (Liability Waiver)
We could not have done all of these amazing works without the help of our mentor, the Soksabike, a bike business in Battambang, Cambodia. We went on a one-week trip to visit Soksabike to have many mini-lessons and to gain some knowledge from their business. We went on their bike tours (half-day tour); it was remarkable to observe the guides and the organization of the whole tour. The tours were extremely incredible in term of promoting Cambodian culture and we would love our tour to be the same.
During the trip, we were able to name our bike company too. We were in the situation of brainstorming the names during our bus ride to Phnom Sampov. We used “Soksabike” as a good example of the name. If you were wondering, “Soksabike” is sounded similar to our Khmer phrase, “Sokasabay.” It means “fine.” This is really clever of naming the business. We were actually coming up with some names. One of the names was “BikeKong.” In Khmer, “Kong” means bike, but when we combined “Bike” and “Kong,” it sounds similar to our Khmer phrase and it means “flat tire.” Overall, it was a funny name.
Finding the right name for our bike business was a challenge. There were many good and cool names brainstormed, but we wanted to have the name that communicates “change.” This is not just a simple bike business; we wanted to promote change to the clients, the fact that they are joining our bike tour is actually impacting change. After many brainstormings, we finally came up with a name: “Journeys of Change.” This means that every tourist who comes to our tour are on the journey of creating change or being the change. Of course, here is our logo that is designed by our teammate, Niron.
Overall, it was a great trip with the Soksabike company and its people. We learned a lot from them especially with the business planning, and the tour. We have gained all the aspects of providing a professional service for the clients,
maintaining a sustainable business, and becoming a good networker. There is a fun fact, during the trip, we also trained to become a bike mechanic and now, we can fix any bikes!
After getting through the phase of understanding everything in business, we are ready to enlarge the business. We actually do not want to run Journeys of Change by the 13 of us alone. We would love to provide this opportunity to our friends who are willing to be part of this. The tour team has created a whole training for the other students who would love to certify as tour guides for Journeys of Change. In addition, we also created applications for the people who wanted to become the business manager and marketing leader. Obviously, we would not want the other students besides the Journeys of Change member to apply for these roles yet because it is a new business. Therefore, it is the right thing to do by hiring someones from Journeys of Change to become a business manager and marketing leader. The twos were Sreypich and Chhoeu.
Last, we already planned that all the incomes we made from the tour will be the support for our further education. This is mean we are making a profit for our future! The exploration is only running for seven weeks, but for Journeys of Change, it is not a seven-week long business. It is a continuous business that 
we will be running until our graduation at Liger. Therefore, we planned a schedule of meeting up with the board (all the involved facilitators and Journeys of change students) and has a member meeting (all the interested students and the board) every week to update with the business. Currently, we have created a platform, a blog for our Journeys of Change. http://journeysofchange.ligeracademyblog.org
Angkor Empire Civilization
Venghour Than
April 1st, 2017
Literacy D
The Golden Age of Cambodia History
Research Synthesis
Civilizations always approach to the world with a thrilling view and curiosity of phenomenon culture, including attractive arts, aesthetic architectures, strange religion and systematic social structure that are stained on the page under the title of “History.” Most of all, one of the conspicuous civilization in Southeast Asia is the Great Angkor Empire, known as the Golden Age. This is one of the civilizations that is shown the most brightness of its culture with a vast believing in many religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism and the extension of its territory throughout Southeast Asia. This civilization is the most memorable era in Cambodians and people’s mind.
Angkor Wat is the greatest legacy left from the Great Angkor Empire. This gigantic architecture was built up to dedicate to the god Vishnu which is a Hindu god, but there was an abundance of changes of religion believing throughout Cambodian history timeline. According to the Smile of Angkor information, there are four changes and transformation of religions throughout many different reigns of Kings. During the 9th century until 12th century, the religion was Hinduism under the reign of King Suryavarman II. Additionally, in the reign of King Suryavarman II, Angkor Wat Temple building project was started. Afterward, the end of the 12th century, King Jayavarman VII, the new ruler also known as the greatest skilled and most memorable king of Cambodia made a switch to Mahayana Buddhism. At this point of information, there are many temples built up with the implementation of Buddhist statues instead of Hindu statues. Then, at the beginning of the 13th century, the religion experienced a brief reversal to Hinduism (Shivaism), but at the end of this century, there was a second form of Buddhism, known as the Theravada Buddhism. Not to mention, Neak Ta is a type of religions that is a part of Cambodian’s practices too, it is about the respect to the guardians of the land and water. So, there were a lot of changes of religions during the Khmer Empire and consequently affect Cambodian’s practices and festivals annually with a mixture of Hinduism, Buddhism and Neak Ta.
During the Golden Age of Angkor Empire, many temples were built claiming with a specific reason. As stated earlier, Angkor Wat Temple is one of the greatest legacies all around the world and Cambodia that took about three decades to accomplish, but there are many other ancient temples, pagodas and sites constructed with gorgeous, inspirational arts, rock carvings and amazing building structures in many different regions. Bayon Temple is one of the most prominent temples in Cambodia with enormous faces that express the wonderful states of mind, which are Kindness, Compassion, Sympathetic, Joy and Equanimity (Darith Touch, Religions of Angkor, http://smiles-of-angkor.com). As a matter of fact, Cambodia has 4000 ancient temples and sites, but only 2000 of them had been found. The information of Khmerization stated that “There are 2603 temples and sites have been visited in 18 provinces and towns. Among the 2603 sites visited, 766 of them are temples, 996 are ancient tombs, 487 are ancient pagodas, 89 are ancient bridges and 265 are ancient walls and ancient sites.” This clearly shows how appreciable Angkor Empire is that it contains with many ancient sites and buildings with aesthetic arts and sculptures. Therefore, massive, blow minding architectures are taking a long time to construct, but they always come with the beautiful and enjoyable view.
As always there are many collapsing moments of civilization in the world history such as Akkadian Empire, Hittite Empire, Mycenaean Greece and Angkor Empire. In the 14th century, Angkor Empire suffered a tragic moment and steady decline. Regretfully, this civilization declined in the 15th century. There are many curious and acquiescent aspects claiming about this big settlement of this Angkor Empire. In addition, according to the article of Wikipedia claimed confidently that “Historians have proposed different causes for the decline: the religious conversion from Vishnuite-Shivaite Hinduism to Theravada Buddhism that affected social and political systems, incessant internal power struggles among Khmer princes, vassal revolt, foreign invasion, plague, and ecological breakdown.” In detail, there were many opinions and events which are might cause this devastated, collapsing civilization that there are many neighboring kingdoms were taking control of Cambodia, for example, the Thai Kingdom and Dai Viet, known as Vietnam. Also the calamity of religious divisions between nations which are Hinduism and Buddhism. Moreover, the lack of control and power of the Angkorian kings which made a union of nations and territory were breaking apart to other nations.
To conclude, as many believe that Angkor Empire is the best civilization that emerges to Earth planet. Also, throughout the information and evidence stated in this research clearly shows how great Angkor Empire is of displaying many best arts on the temples, specifically Angkor Wat temple and amazing construction structures of temples and different king reigns in the history which are really entertaining and fascinating. Sadly, this powerful empire declined with unrecognizable effects that left many great legacies to next generation.
Work Cited
Stark, M.T. (2006). From Funan to Angkor: Collapse and regeneration in ancient Cambodia. After collapse: The regeneration of complex societies. Pp.144-167.
“Khmer Empire.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 01 Apr. 2017. Web. 02 Apr. 2017.
“Religions of Angkor.” Religions of Angkor｜Smiles of Angkor. Web. 02 Apr. 2017.
Khmerization. “Cambodia Has 4,000 Ancient Temples and 2,000 Have Been Found and Located.” Khmerization. 01 Jan. 1970. Web. 02 Apr. 2017.
Khmer – Pjum Ben Ceremony
Throughout Cambodian calendar, there is many national and international ceremonies or celebrations filled in. Cambodia is a country that full of Cambodians under the practice of Buddhism. Relating to that, I just learned one of the ceremonies in Buddhism, Pjum Ben. It is a topic that almost Cambodian students learn annually. Generally, Pjum Ben is a ceremony for all family members to reunite, also to go to pagodas to pray for there ancestors. Personally, I’m happy to love, enjoy, and passionate to study expressly about this ceremony.
In Khmer class, we’ve been doing a lot of teamwork with many topics. For this topic, we joined in team and created a short presentation. Additionally, we also combined our research into a research paper in a larger scale where you can find all of the information details about this ceremony. All the students were researching through many Khmer books, websites, articles, and interviews. Moreover, we were getting the significant help from our Khmer facilitator, Sokha (So-kha).
Sokha had been working and facilitating us for quite a long time. He’d been bringing up many Cambodian learning concepts which are really thoughtful of him, also, it’s beneficial to all of us. We got to know tons of information about our history throughout many periods, folk tales, environment of Cambodia, etc. All the students are here today are very wise with Cambodian language and information, just by him. Also, it’s also our duty to create our own independent zone in order to improve our self independently.
Physics – First Lessons
The half of our last year, the physics essential was cancelled out the curriculum. We used to learn with our physic facilitator, Alli, but there’s a new facilitator, and her name is Samantha. She is a great facilitator most of the time. For the first class I took with her, she started with a basic learning concept which was “kinematics.” In kinematic lesson, we set up the different and basic kinematic equations with motion. Additionally, we also learned many others physic concepts such as: graph of motion, vectors, vector components, 2-D motions, graph problems, and static equilibrium.
Currently, we’re studying about force of friction and mainly focusing on static and kinetic. I can say that it’s a really confusing lesson in physics because there are many steps in a problem, complex comprehensions, and extra information. If you look at the picture below, this is how confusing it is to me, but simultaneously fun to learn.
Math – Pre Scholastic Assessment Test
On Saturday 14th, October, 2017, All of us took a Pre-SAT which is standing for “Pre-Scholastic Assessment Test.” It is an international test where students can assess their self of their study progression. On the day we took the test, I could see everybody’s faces were full of fear and anxiety, but at the end of the test, all of their faces were enthusiastic. This tough test was giving us stress and difficulty because you have to take it efficiently since there’s time limitation.
During the some sections of the test, I didn’t get a chance to finish all the questions that it provided because I could evaluate myself; I took a lot of time in each question. There were complex vocabularies that we never learn before. Moreover, this whole test is the starting point of my SAT adventure. The result will represent how well I did, and how bad I did, but that’s OK. It will the start for me, and I have to get prepared with all the lessons that I need to improve.
Basically, I felt happy about my result because I know my ability of how far I can go. I didn’t stress myself badly, but I’m just trying to confront with the truth. I heard some of my friends results, and it was turning out that I was really happy for them. I believe after taking this test, my math facilitator, Jeff, will work hard to get us prepared, but I would love to thank him a lot for getting us prepared and comforting us as best as he can.
Literacy – Coming of Age Narrative Essay
Generally, since the beginning of the literacy class until now, it has been covering up a lot of small lessons which are encompassing our narrative writing. Through the studies of mini lessons, I learned and review about grammar, especially sentence structure and parallel structure. Furthermore, our literacy facilitator, Cara expressly taught us about punctuation including semicolon, comma usage using with subordinate conjunctions. Also, I understood about the connotation and denotation; it was really interesting to observe how words can define in other meanings that are totally figurative instead of literal.
All of these listed foundation were helping us to be creative with writing the essay. The narrative essay I wrote was about my identity and it was really challenging and risk-taking to describe my identity because at the first time, I wouldn’t believe, I’ll decide to write this. The importance of writing the essay about my identity is that I need to stand my ground. I must be strong and confident with what I was stating in the writing to the audience with good evidence or meaningful and related moments as possible. Most of all, I’m in love with writing about my fantastic and beautiful paper.
The bold sentences below are my spotlights of my coming of age essay, and the title called “What an Unexpected Coming of Age.” I hope that it will approach and grab your attention of having a great desire to read my whole essay (Link) in your worthy time. My friends and I have been working on this essay for about seven weeks through writing many drafts, editing, and self-checking. The spotlights of my essay will be able to illuminate you with concise information of the whole, actual writing.
“If war is holy and sex is obscene, then we got it twisted in this lucid dream.” Dr. Martin Luther King inspired me, growing up as a young boy that felt different. […]
[…] He was laughing and turned to face me. “Hey! You’re gay!” I was shocked. I was lost in a deep, black hole. I got off the table immediately, ran to the house, and locked myself in the bathroom. I burst into tears and cried so hard, I was hyperventilating. This wasn’t the first time this had happened. Later on, I heard a knock from someone in front of the door. “Bong, I’m sorry.” […]
After being confronted by my close friend, I experienced a period of depression and confusion about my identity. I did not know how to feel and then one day, something very unexpected happened; I was attracted to a boy. […]
[…] I am now ready and comfortable with the person I am. I learned to forgive and provide second chance for myself and others, especially my one and only best friend. Also, learning to avoid the false statement about us because we’re the one who can shape our own path, describe who we really are, and conquer our own life with no hesitation.[…]
[…] I’m bisexual.
Animal Farm
On the last term of my fifth year in Liger, Claire, our literacy facilitator came up with a new, interesting lesson to all of us. It was “Animal Farm.” Personally, I was being enthusiastic about this last lesson with her since I used to test on it during my reading test. There were other students tested on this book too. “ Animal Farm” is a book written by George Orwell. This book reflect the tragic situation during the Soviet Union which was Russian Revolution.
The book was giving us of a lot of tastes of life experiences that we can it’s an allegory of the Russian Revolution. The author was being really creative about the characters in the story with its unique name that can relate to other famous people in the history or relate to the characteristic of each character. There were Napoleon, Snowball, Old Major, and Squealer as the pig, Mr. Jones as the farmer, Boxer, Mollie, and Muriel as the horses, Benjamin as the donkey and many more. In description, this is a book describing a life of all animals in animal farm trying to fight back the farmer or human who always takes the product that they made. They made the seven amendments, planned for the war to fight back to the owner, and working harder for the new invention.
All the students including me were really enjoying with the story, they were instantaneously responding where there were questions. This clearly showed the attractiveness of the story that approach audience with great detailed information. Also, there were some times in class, my friend, Niron and I were arguing with each other about the story, specifically about the Napoleon. We weren’t confront each other, but we tried to communicate and deliver our opinion. I thought that it was the remarkable time in literacy since we never had this kind of conversation in literacy class.
I also had the most memorable highlight in this lesson with my teacher. While everybody followed Claire’s reading and when it came to the dialogue part in the story, she made each distinguish sound for each character. I can say, she was impersonating. Sometimes, it irked me positively since it caused me to laugh so hard which I couldn’t focus in class. Another highlight is answering all the questions she provided us as an assignments or discussion in class. I really love it, it helps me to enhance my comprehensions.
Last, this is the last lesson that we learned with her and she’ll leave Liger with Liger great experience with her. We love her, she’s a great literacy facilitator because she pushed us so hard that sometimes we couldn’t hold find anything to hold like a wind tries to blow us. She helped us with her best effort. We wouldn’t be resilience without her offer to Liger. Back to Animal Farm, if you want practice or try to improve your understand and elaborate your idea about this story, here are some of the topics.
- The Contrast of Animal Farm After the Battle of Cowshed
- Allegorical Meaning of Animals
- Similarities and Differences Between Lenin’s and Old Major’s Speech
- What’s in the Name of the Characters