The value of the newspaper to travel

Granada, Nicaragua

Granada, Nicaragua

One morning in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, as I sipped coffee in the pleasant open-air environment of the Foreign Correspondents Club, I read this: “Yeay Mao was a strongly passionate, sexy woman who always needed a penis. So after she died her spirit still likes the penis, and people bring her offerings of wood or stone penises.”

Yes, the morning was off to a fine start, for in my hand was the Phnom Penh Post, an English-language paper that in so many ways would shed light on the nation I was passing through. As a traveler who didn’t speak Khmer, I could still get around just fine in Cambodia. But I’d have been fooling myself if I thought I “knew” Cambodia just because I could get around. The excerpt above, for example, came from an article titled “Sexy legend behind the travel shrine on Route 4.” Route 4 connected Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville, a road I had recently traveled. But at the time I knew nothing of this shrine. When my bus trundled past I saw only generic joss sticks and praying, but I imagine the Cambodians in the bus knew that this was the Yeay Mao shrine, and that they knew something of the legend behind it.

Other articles in this issue of the Phnom Penh Post (January 30-February 12, 2004) informed me about the tragic assassination of Chea Vichea, a trade union leader, a mile or so north of my hostel. One article had the headline “The begging question: to give or not to give?” and featured the opinions of several prominent local personalities on the issue. I learned how shadow theater was being used to educate villagers about HIV (“When the amorous shadow puppet waves away a big shadow condom during his meeting with a prostitute, a spiky HIV germ chases him down and there is a gentle sigh of disappointment from the crowd.”), and was fascinated to scan the police blotter (“The victim was Hang Yoeun, 40, a construction worker, who was knifed twice in the face and then his head cut off while drinking palm juice with his three other neighbors.”).

A passing traveler will never “know” a country in the way a local or a long-term resident will. But picking up a newspaper is one way to grow in knowledge of a place, as well as a nice accompaniment to a cup of coffee. For a partial list of English-language papers around the world, visit Yahoo’s newspaper directory sorted by country.

Posted by | Comments (3)  | February 4, 2010
Category: Asia, Images from the road


3 Responses to “The value of the newspaper to travel”

  1. Nicolaï Says:

    If you live in a place and go from not speaking the language to mastering it, you’ll know that place in ways the locals can’t. But until you speak the language you’re just a guest or outsider.

  2. Zach Says:

    I love being in a foreign country and trying to read the newspaper in its local language over breakfast.

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