Hun Sen Library, Royal University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

The Hun Sen Library opened in 1997. With furniture constructed from Cambodian trees, the library relied on generous donors. Before it opened, the university’s collection of about 10,000 books were stored in a single room. Now the library is used by students as well as visitors and researchers from the Phnom Penh area. Books were donated by America’s Asia Foundation, the Japan Foundation, Japan Relief for Cambodia, Britain’s Book Aid International, the French Cultural Center, and the French-Cambodian Association, as well as local governmental and non-governmental agencies. This helped the collection to grow to around 39,000 books. Over half of these are in English, less than one-fourth in Khmer, and smaller amounts in French, Thai, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Chinese. Israel’s Ex Libris Group donated a library automation program to help find, manage, and distribute print, electronic, and digital materials. The library’s launching an online public access catalogue (OPAC) was another major milestone. The Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP) is Cambodia’s oldest university, with an enrolment of more than 12,000 students. As its website states:

The Royal University of Phnom Penh will continue to be the leading higher education in Cambodia, focused on excellence in teaching and learning, committed to research for the development of the country and making a contribution to Cambodian society.

Its mission, it is further explained, is

   to educate graduates who strive for excellence in their chosen academic fields and in their capacity to put this knowledge to work;

   to foster high-quality research which will assist the development of new knowledge and create paths for national development;

   to provide research and service to the public and private sectors for the advancement of national self-reliance;

   to continuously expand its programs to respond to emerging needs in Cambodian and regional society; and,

   to promote cultural preservation, exchange and development.

RUPP first opened in 1960, but as all readers know, between 1975 and 1979 the Khmer Rouge regime closed and demolished universities throughout the country. Many university faculty were killed and the library was mostly destroyed. Only gradually did different parts of the university reopen, starting with a French-speaking Ecole Normale Supérieure in 1980, followed by an institute to train students as teachers of Vietnamese and Russian. In 1996, what had been called Phnom Penh University since 1988 was renamed the Royal University of Phnom Penh. The rebuilding continues, as the university added other departments and launched a master’s degree program in 2001. In 2011, an extension to the Hun Sen Library was designed by Pyle Consult UK, funded by the World Bank. The architects described the new building:

Located on the Royal University of Phnom Penh campus between the existing main library and the primary teaching block, the banked site is dominated by a number of mature trees which have influenced the design of the building. Several of the trees were protected during construction and now provide cool spaces around the building and shade to the building itself. The large glazed and vented North and South walls, which have been fitted with fins and shading devices to reduxce solar heat gain, promote cross ventilation and draw air from the cool air sinks around the site; flood the interior with diffused natural daylight; and, give views to and through the surrounding tree canopy. Trees that were cut from the site were milled and the lumber was used for the construction of the sunshades.

Offering a sheltered area, the new library entrance welcomes students above street level to protect against floods. Ramps were included for access by wheelchair-bound readers. This thoughtfulness is in dramatic contrast to the events of four decades before, as Pierre Evald, an emeritus professor at Denmark’s Royal School of Library and Information Science, noted in a blog:

[The Hun Sen Library is] the most modern and frequently used of all libraries in Cambodia, housed in a two-storeyed designed building with computer cabling and a large reading room area. First library in Cambodia to offer Internet access from the very beginning in 1998, with in-house computer education courses. Outside Phnom Penh the high level of telecommunication costs is in general prohibitive for Internet access.

Thailand and Cambodia

The long history of relations between Thailand and Cambodia, sometimes involving border disputes, dates back to the 1200s and the Angkor Era. Last year, Greg Raymond, a PhD candidate in the Politics Department of La Trobe University, Australia, wrote an assessment for East Asia Forum of Thai–Cambodia relations. One year after the International Court of Justice’s reinterpretation of its judgement over the Phra Viharn temple, Raymond implies that the two sides have agreed to disagree. This marks a development from previous hostilities. In June, Her Excellency Mrs. Eat Sophea, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Cambodia to Thailand, told The Big Chilli:

By the contemporary historical record, Thailand and Cambodia established diplomatic ties in 1950. However, it is a well-known fact that a close relationship between our two peoples has been in place many hundreds of years. We have so much in common. Buddhism is the main religion in both countries; our clothing, customs, performing arts and the food we eat are difficult to tell apart. I am pleased to say that the relationship between Cambodia and Thailand is currently warming up, after a tense period from 2008 to 2011…The Cambodian and Thai foreign ministers co-chaired the night meeting of the Joint Commission on Bilateral Cooperation held January 15-16, 2015, in Siem Reap.

Total trade between Thailand and Cambodia reached US$4.6 billion in 2013 and US$5.1 billion in 2014. The majority of these transactions were from Thailand to Cambodia. Thailand exports petroleum, machinery, beverages, construction materials, steel, fruits and vegetables, textiles and consumer goods to Cambodia. In turn, Thailand imports relatively few products from Cambodia, apart from agricultural and fish products. The Ambassador added:

About one million Cambodians are inside Thailand on any given day, according to official figures. Of these, around 700,000 are undocumented workers and their dependents, about 20,000 have been recruited through the formal process and are residing legally in Thailand, and the rest cross the border for a short time before going back. I do not have figures on the number of Thai people living in Cambodia, but certainly it is comparatively small.

Among cooperative ventures have been a three-day bicycle ride for charity from Bangkok to Siem Riep, Cambodia in 2012. The following year, Thai and Cambodian students attended lectures together at Angkor Wat as part of the ASEAN Youth Research Programme. In January, The Nation reported that Thai-Cambodian ties are warming. In June, a further report in The Nation explored strategies for small and medium-sized enterprises in Thailand to succeed in Cambodia. Lecturing at a seminar about business opportunities in Cambodia organized by Chandrakasem Rajabhat University, the marketing expert Somphob Ritthikulprasert, executive adviser at ARS Chemical (Thailand), offered advice about developing future business ties.

(all images courtesy of Pyle Architects and Wikimedia Commons).