Black humor
July 6, 2009
At the insistence of whinging foreigners, Cambodians are not allowed to laugh at Tuol Sleng.
At the entrance to the eerily preserved torture rooms in Tuol Sleng (the genocide museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia), there is a sign bearing the face of a distinctly Cambodian man who is laughing. Marked in red on his face is a cross, informing visitors that laughter is prohibited.
Our local host, from the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, tells us that some Cambodians laugh when they are confronted with something uncomfortable, as a way to deflect their uneasiness in not wanting to display their innermost feelings. ‘Deeply-offended’ foreigners made an official complaint when they encountered laughing Cambodians in this starkly preserved museum.
Who makes an “official complaint”? How bizarre.
July 7, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I think laughter at immediate horror or something which reveals evils visited upon others is a trait common to all. Minds must act for self-defence. It does seem a bit over the top, the complaining though. As an aside, it could be argued that Tuol Sleng (although a memorial and as part of the unit S-21, the distillation of Khmer Rouge terror) that it was a well-exploited propaganda tool for the incoming Vietnamese-backed regime. The Vietnam government perhaps wouldn’t have been too concerned about what Cambodians did to one another before the decision to invade, as long as it didn’t interfere with their own national sovereignty, including the massacring of villagers in the border areas which caused problems for reconstruction in the interior; and of course Khmer Rouge troops pounding the new economic zones with Chinese artillery.
July 7, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Looking at the sign, I can’t see how this is explicitly forbidding visitors from laughing. Maybe something more along the lines of “Please keep quiet” would be a better translation?
I wonder what would happen if they went to Auschwitz and laughed. Sure, people express different emotions in different ways, but as an ‘outsider’ can I go to Tuol Sleng and have a chuckle?
July 8, 2009 at 10:24 am
For years, the Tuol Sleng museum has had one of the most painful bad-English signs anywhere: “Please be silenced” it says. Is it still there?
July 8, 2009 at 11:12 am
“…one of the most painful bad-English signs…”
You’re no grammatist yourself mate
July 10, 2009 at 2:59 pm
What’s wrong with it?
And where’s your punctuation, mate?
July 12, 2009 at 1:13 am
Muckloi is Cambodia’s official Grammar Nazi.