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Cambodia's Most Famous Blogger Coming Home?

According to recent news reports, Cambodia's former king Norodom Sihanouk,  plans to move back to his homeland soon.  The ailing ex-monarch and one of the more famous Cambodian bloggers left the country for Beijing for cancer treatment, and later moved to North Korea.  He  has accepted an invitation from Prime Minister Hun Sen to return home.  Sihanouk abdicated in October 2004 to his son Sihamoni due to old age and health problems.

He continues to update his blog, including lots of vlog posts.  Check out this one of his royal singing. I suspect these videos are not recently taken.

Can anyone point me to the letter he wrote saying this -- most of the posts are in Khmer and can't quite read it?

AP News Story about the King's Blog

Today's Boston Globe and Chicago Sun Times ran a longer version of the AP article about King Norodom Sihanouk's blog similar to the one I saw in the Taipei newspaper.     Some new paragraphs:

Sihanouk's site doesn't have all the technical bells and whistles that fit the purist definition of a Web log -- the computer term from which the world's 10 million bloggers derive their title. That caveat aside, says David Sifry, whose company Technorati tracks blogs, Sihanouk is making "incredibly innovative use of the Internet to be able to communicate directly with the people of Cambodia and the people of the world."

That's true for sure.   Sihanouk is 82 and had cancer.  He is undergoing treatment in China.  There is a post on the site entitled "Results of Laboratory Examination of His Majesty Norodom Sihanouk" that contains information on everything from his serum immunoglobulins and blood urea nitrogen to his cancer antigens 199 and 125 and his urobilinogen levels.  Notes Steven Streight on Vaspers the Grate: Wants to prove he is still alive.

And, given that many Cambodians do not have access to electricity let alone the Internet, the King is savvy about digital divide issues:

Sihanouk's Web site, which incorporates his blog in French, Khmer or English, attracts about 1,000 visitors daily from around the world. After serving as king, president and prime minister at various times, he now calls himself "a senior citizen who hasn't any official power," but his views remain relevant enough to be summarized in the Cambodian press for the benefit of the many Cambodians who are too poor to have access to the Internet.

I couldn't resist sending an invitation to the King to the "Cambodian Bloggers Group" in flickr.  If you blog about Cambodia from in-country or faraway, come join us!

I googled the King and also found this earlier blog reference from Dan Gilmor.

Technorati Tag: Sihanouk

I posed the following question on Tharvum's blog (a cambodian)

How do Cambodians view the King's blog? 

                     Sopheap  said...            

 

As a Cambodian, I for one wish most of the time the ex-King should keep his royal mouth shut. I get goosebump when I read his blogs. For example when the tsunami hit Indonesia, Thailand, and others in January, the ex-King took credits that Cambodia was spared from the catastrophy because he conducted a praised ceramony to the Hindu gods. He said he knew the great impending disaster was comming. And the praised ceramony would keep Cambodia safe. I would say this is nonesense.                      

       

    ThaRum said...          

 

  At some points it is good to learn from older generation.

When we look back at the history of philosophy we are astonished to realize Aristotle, a great phileasopher, views women as an incompleted men in a society. But, of course he also contributed a lot to our present society. The worse is that some philsophers did not write a piece of their thoughts.