Tasty Dog in the Kingdom: This Cambodian Life #69.  Delilah invites another special guest to the show.  Today, we hear from Howie the Dentist, who has a hobby that has a life of its own.  But you are welcome to venture into the world of an avid twitcher, where you can hear a bit about the orange necked partridge, the green jungle fowl and the giant ibis, just a couple of the plethora of birds of Cambodia.  Not to mention hearing what special poop a special dog found in Mondulkiri. 

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Just a little bit of Sin Sisamuth to keep you company because I know you missed his golden voice. 

TD-TV#9. Lucky the Dancing Elephant.  You too can pay a few dollars to see Lucky sway back and forth to the hits of yesterday and today.  If you want another, I have one more.  Lucky also collects money from the audience after his performance.  You really think I’m kidding about this being the Kingdom of Wonder, don’t you?

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Tasty Dog in the Kingdom: This Cambodian Life #55. Part 2 of the Cambodian Odyssey as narrated by Delilah’s parents.  Back safely in Phnom Penh, they take in the city’s restaurants, rivers, exercise venues and a cool Phnom Penh architecture tour (www.ka-tours.org) that takes you into inner alleys of Phnom Penh.  

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For the musically inclined, we have a lovely listen of those rockin’ Cambodians from the 60s and 70s, an ensemble of some of the hottest heartthrobs from the time singing Only You I Love.  Swoon.

Tasty Dog in the Kingdom: This Cambodian Life #54.  Delilah welcomes two special guests on the show (come on, you knew this was coming).  Yes, you have the visiting parents doing a recap of their trip.  This being part 1, topics covered include the trip to Kampot, Kep and the Cardamom Mountains.   Transportation horrors take prominence – for all her complaining about roads, there are many more things that Delilah doesn’t even notice anymore.  But food, accommodation and other activities and hazards are covered as well for a genuine account.  However, Delilah did edit out anything that sounded remotely like a parental lecture.  Artistic license.  

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The  music is Keot Ran singing Anorn in the Smot genre, from the archives of Cambodia Living Arts (www.cla.org). 

Tasty Dog in the Kingdom: This Cambodian Life #40.  Delilah returns with the predictions for Cambodia’s harvest for 2008.  Do we have weeping widows or skipping children?  The Venerable Somnieng returns and tells us about the life of the playboys that become monks.  He also gives some insight into his childhood and why he became a monk and why he remains a monk to this day.  I swear, I don’t think he has a dark side.  

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The opening music is of the Pinpeat genre from the archives of Cambodia Living Arts (www.cla.org).  Yun Theara, Saom Vanna, Soy Sareth, Proeun Pruon, Nhok Sinat, Chum Prasoeur and Pumtheara Chenda are performing Damneou Khnong.

Tasty Dog in the Kingdom: This Cambodian Life #39.  Cambodia has 25 national holidays, and this week there is Visak Bochea day and then the Royal Ploughing Ceremony.  Delilah also welcomes a guest in orange to the show, the Venerable Somnieng gives an overview of Buddhism, the two traditions of Buddhism and describes how Buddhism is really integrated into Cambodia’s past and present.  You hear about Noble Paths and Noble Truths, though enlightenment isn’t covered.  Nirvana is elusive, isn’t it? 

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I think you need some chanting monks to open up this special Buddhism edition. 

Tasty Dog in the Kingdom: This Cambodian Life #31.  Part 2 of Mr. - or shall we call him Dr. - Jack’s interview.   And you thought development issues for the general population was depressing, conflicting and oh-so-many shades of grey, wait til you hear about the issues with the indigenous minorities tucked innocently into the mountains of the border regions.  Yes, depressing but I still find it thought provoking and interesting, so listen and learn.  Will try to go lighter next week.  A visit to Phnom Penh Waterpark!  Buying pig’s ears in the market!  A visit to a brothel!  So many to choose.  So little time.  

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The opening music is the Krueng Ensemble from Ratanakiri (in keeping with the THEME), and it’s a bit different from the other stuff I’ve been playing.  The music is from the archives of Cambodia Living Arts (www.cla.org). 

Tasty Dog in the Kingdom: This Cambodian Life #30.  Delilah gets a smaht person on the show.  And guess what? Even somebody smart desires anonymity when spouting on Tasty Dog.  And somebody smart also wants to be named after their dog.  Welcome to Mr. Jack, who in part 1 of 2 (yes, two weeks of smart) discusses just a glance of development, what it means for the developer and developee.  The topic ranged a bit wider than I thought so next week, we will actually discuss a bit about the ethnic minorities as promised in the beginning of this episode.    

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The opening music, which I also stuck on some more on the end, is one of my favorite Cambodian oldies, and I mean it this time.  It's called Cyclo and it's about the cyclo (pedicab).  When my friend was buying this CD in the market, all the Cambodians started singing every word when she was testing it out.  Let me know if you need the guitar solo. 

Tasty Dog in the Kingdom: This Cambodian Life #20.  Tasty two-oh.  Part 2.  We welcome Chean back to hear the rest of his Odyssey.  If you don’t laugh and cry, you don’t have a heart.  He sees American wrestling for the first time (who’s not psyched about that cultural export?!), gets three girlfriends at once, and then the whole family gets tossed out of Singapore with nothing but some dry noodles and an apology. 

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Tasty Dog in the Kingdom: This Cambodian Life #19.  Part 1 of 2.  From the frying pan to the fire (remember I did food last week?) More delving into the past.  We hear from a new guest who details his experience following the Vietnamese invasion? Liberation? (It’s all in your perspective) of Cambodia as he and his family seek a NEW LIFE IN AMERICA.  Hear some of his story as his family escapes a hail of bullets at the border and gets into one refugee camp only to sneak into another camp and how he made some cash in a Thai prison as his family tried to gain refugee status.  Which will leave you wondering how this could have happened to a 13 year old.   And just try to remember what you were doing in 1985.

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 The opening music is Chek Mach and ensemble playing Sorlyong, of the Bassac style, from the archives of Cambodia Living Arts (www.cla.org). 

Tasty Dog in the Kingdom: This Cambodian Life, #9.  You get a brief history lesson, uncited, unreferenced and hopefully not too mangled before launching into more of Dara’s personal story, covering his final years under the Khmer Rouge where he took the correct turn to work on the dam, and how he found himself, alone with a bag of books at 15 years of age, back in Phnom Penh and finally found a place in school.

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The opening music is some contemporary Cambodian srey-srey sa-aht (lovely lad-eee) singing probably about love, loss and fermented fish.  I went into the CD shop and said, Oh, I want some music from srey-srey sa-aht and pointed at a picture.  And now off to you.