Ancient bronze back boat returns to Cambodian National Museum

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AN ancient bronze boat prow ornament from the finest flowering of the Khmer empire has been handed over to the National Museum of Cambodia by retired Thai-based collector Douglas Latchford.

The intricately cast bronze, dating from between 1080-1181, is the only one of its kind ever found.

“This particular one is also depicted in the stone relief on the south wall of the Bayon temple,” said Latchford, who has been collecting Khmer and Indian art for the past 50 years.

ASEAN-China youth leaders to form association

[NOTE]: Taken completely and directly from http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/7421476.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

The youth leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China (ASEAN-China) on said he will establish an ASEAN-China Youths' Association aimed at building closer relations and cooperation and sharing experience.

Speaking at the closing ceremony of a two-day ASEAN-China youth leaders symposium on Sunday, Sok Theavuth, youth leader of Cambodia, said that the meeting agreed to work toward the establishment of the ASEAN-China Youths' Association in order to promote linkage, share experience, and to ensure that the voice of youths remain be heard, considered, and recognized by respective governments of the ASEAN member states and China.

"We will give our suggestion for the establishment of the association to the ASEAN-China leaders at the 14th Summit in Indonesia in November 2011," he said.

Meanwhile, Cambodian Secretary of State for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Kao Kim Hourn said that youth leaders are playing an important role to further nurture and boost the relations between the ASEAN-China.

"As the future leaders, they can be a valuable asset to further build trust and promote mutual understanding between and among our peoples of ASEAN and China," he said during closing the symposium.

The symposium was attended by approximately 65 youth leaders from the ASEAN countries and China aimed at building closer regional friendship relations and cooperation.

Wu Jing, associate professor at China's Guizhou University, said that ASEAN and China are good neighbors and good strategic partners.

"We are confident that with concerted efforts of all parties, China-ASEAN will hold out immense prospects of development toward a regional prosperity," she said.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Source:Xinhua

The Lost Pop Music Of South East Asia

A large portion of Asian pop music from the 1960s and 1970s has been lost.
Asking the locals about Asian pop music from the past is a bit like asking about ancient archeological treasures..... not easy to find. Nontheless it did not stop me from trying to hunt down some of these lost treasures. My travels have taken me to little Indonesian backstreet shops and markets.
Due to the extreme rarity of early 60s/70s rock'n'roll music from SE Asia, I would not dare to hope that any true collector would ever sell me any good condition tapes or vinyl records. As for the original master tapes, if they still exist, they would be beyond my poor man's bank account. But I would be very happy to have a transfer to CD of the original recordings. A good home computer can make a relatively nice transfer from old records to the CD format.
Hmmm...... then again, if any of you folks out there should come across a groovy looking record in a second-hand shop....... let me know, OK.
Even though it isn't Indonesian, I'll tell you this little music snippet.
In Australia I tracked down the obscure folk/rock duo Fred Dyer and Terry Fielding, who in the late 60s/early 70s, had recorded some psych/fuzz Carnaby Street-ish stuff, as well as music with a folk or country sound, including their ode to Moby Dick. The song was simply called "The Whale". This song tribute to the great whale and author Herman Melville, was something I had wanted as badly as Captain Ahab wanted revenge upon the whale that took his leg. I was obsessed with the search for this song. I remembered hearing it as a kid on the old car radio, sort of like a theme song for our dawn patrol surfaris, as my father drove into the darkness, on our way to the surf beaches. With the doom laden chorus echoing in my head, I would ponder the enigmatic ocean, as I lay on my surfboard.
Many years later I tried to find this song, but no CD shop had any information about it, and they had never heard of the musicians Fielding & Dyer. Even a long search on the internet, over many years, revealed nothing. Vanished like a ghost.
By pure chance I came across the lyrics and guitar tabs in the Mudcat Folk Music Forum. Best thing - it was posted by Fred Dyer himself and included his email. From there on it was easy. Mr Dyer was surprised that someone still remembered his obscure independent release from 38 years ago, and more than happy to transfer his old record to CD on his home computer and send me several copies, autographed by himself and his old music mate Terry Fielding.

So my point is that the old Indonesian and other SE Asian pop music is definitely still out there........ somewhere.
It is just a matter of finding the right person to ask.

My Sincere Apology

To Those Who May Concern

First of all, I would like to express my regret in my inability to response to your emails which have been sent to me in between July 2010 until now. I was away from our official email, and as I returned to manage it, I found myself miss lots of interaction opportunity.

This is my complete mistake as the main contributor. I am sorry that those who had sent me email did not get the appropriate response from the blog. We hope you would not find this disturbing as we are now also facing difficulty in running this blog.

But we still keep our believe in this blog, this movement. And thus, THIS BLOG WILL NEVER CEASE TO EXIST.

As the main contributors, I have nothing but my proclamation that there will be new posts coming, sooner or later. AND also that from now on, the MAILBOX WILL BE MONITORED IN A MORE REGULAR BASIS.

I hope this post can ensure all of you out there, who wish to send us articles for posting.

I sincerely apology for my lacks of commitment and I therefore vow to perform better as the team captain.

With Friendship, True Love or Brotherhood

Chhaly Samsokrith, Main Contributor of Asia's Perfect 10