I've been in Cambodia for more than 1 year and have taken the initiative to start blogging about the anything & everything that i see and know about this 'Kingdom of Wonder'.
First, how did I end up here in Cambodia? Well it is a long story. To simplify it in one word :Opportunity, Rewards & moving here with my other half. We're both in the Media & Communication business. She's used to work for a local bilingual teen publications but have now started an Events & Activation company.
I on the other hand work in Phibious, a creative-led advertising agency with multinational accounts. I was initially interviewed for a position in Activation and events, buy was instead offered a Strategic Planning job, which i was really interested in while in college but wasn't able to pursue it further then. But again, I was also interested in creating events and activation ideas and watching them comes to live (gives me a sense of accomplishment).
Well, during my first few month here in Cambodia, Phibious was awarded a project by MTV. It was a to implement a series of concert across Cambodia to spread the message of NO TO HUMAN TRAFFICKING - which is a serious problem here in Cambodia. Cambodia was identified as a source for the Human trafficking syndicate, where womens and children was being trafficked from here to all over the world.
Not surprisingly, with my experience in Events & activation, I was asked to be involved in this project. It was fun to be travelling all over the country to look for suitable locations (Kampong Cham, Sihanoukville, Siem Reap & Phnom Penh).
It was a great exposure for me, to understand and see the culture and landscape of Cambodia. Working with the Khmers (aka Cambodians) sometimes gives me the challenge as there was a language barriers (but with a bunch of great colleagues that help me) I feel it wasn't that difficult.
We manage to get in Superstar artistes from the US, UK, Australia ( The Click 5, Placebo, Duncan Sheik, Kate Miller-Heidke) and also some of local Khmer celebrities (Preap Sovat, Sokun Nisa & Pou Khliang) to perform in all the concerts.
It was alot of serious work done to get the concert moving and 4 concerts on 4 consecutive weekends was a real challenge in Cambodia. It was a non stop planning, meetings, rehearsals & testing....but at the end it was a great achievement as it was the first time MTV has ever done any concert in Cambodia, with our support and working together with the MTV team, we are able to pull together the concert of a life time in Angkor Wat, which to me was the highlight of the whole event.
