Railroads, Train, People

The setting sun was painting the view of Phnom Penh into bright gold. Standing from here, a railroads system in Tuol Kork area, I could see the skyscrapers, Vattanac tower and Canadia bank, standing side by side; their glasses was reflecting the light of the sun beautifully.

The brightness of the sun also reached the railway. Lying beside the railroads, abandoned trains were colorfully painted into graffiti. These rusty trains' skin was damaged, showing some parts of the engine where were covered by dust.

You might think the trains and the roads just lay there, lonely and happy to have each other; however, they got more than that. Standing in front of the trains were lines of houses made from zinc roof. A small brick building which seemed to had once been the train checking point of the railway was used as a storage. There was a community there.

A group of kids and teenagers were playing around that area so energetically and cheerfully when all their toy was just a balloon. Their genuine laughter seemed to make the neighborhood lively. Nearby were carts for selling shellfish; there were shellfishes all over the ground too. Maybe it was one of the reason why the smell there was not very pleasant. Plus, I did not see any proper toilet around.

Once in a while, there were modern motorbikes riding pass the area, probably they were taking the railway as a shortcut. We saw a little kid wearing school uniform walking by and we asked him about school and stuff. He was unwilling to answer and very introverted; he kept his head down and look to the ground when he talked. Pointing to his house which was not very far ahead, he was still looking at the ground. After a few moment of silence, he walked away quietly.

I was there with my seniors to shoot a short film. The equipment we brought along seemed to attract a lot of attention for us. Almost every child asked us the same question about the boom mic. We did not think it was a tough job to shoot a video there. However, the cameras, tripods gathered a lot of "fans" to spectate us. 

The family we asked to let us film in their house(well, since there house was so small, like 1 meter by 1.5 meter, so we have to film in front of the house) lived a couple. The wife was always frown and seemed annoyed by everything, though she did not speak very much. She was always busy with the house chore. The husband was so cheerful and helpful for us. Well, maybe that was because we promised to pay some incentive to them before filming, or maybe not.

During the filming, trying to keep them away from the frame and asking them to keep silent when the cameras were rolling were not the difficult part. There was a seemingly drunken man dragged a middle-age woman toward us, and saying: "Shoot some video about her. She's so poor. Barely can feed herself." The woman was crying and shaking her head constantly, and going back to where she came from. Some people in the crowd asked us whether this film would probably bring donation to them or whether this film would broadcast globally to inform the world about their hardship in surviving. Some of them even jokingly said they would ask for donation from Red Cross.

At the end of the day, we managed to finish all scenes and finally said goodbye to this community. I found all the things there were quite controversial. The laughter, the tears, the elders and the youngsters, the abandoned trains in colorful coat, the contradicting view of the zinc roof houses and the skyscrapers, the unpleasant smell and the passing modern motorbikes.

Chicken Bone Production

Credit to: Nhem Piseth