Sinn Sisamouth

It's strange how certain music can take you back to a place or time. Sinn Sisamouth is a classic example of this phenomenon.

Sophee Oeur, the nice Cambodian lady who works at my school, gave me a CD of Sisamouth's music. Whenever his high-pitched voice blasts through the computer speaker, I'm immediately transported to the village of Prek Pdao, or I'm stepping off a bus into the street of Phnom Penh, the smell of incense wrapping itself around me.

It's fair to say that the act of traveling creates a space in the traveler's mind that is open to new culture (i.e., music, art, dance, theater, or whatever else makes a culture hardly exciting). I have discovered Ros Sereysothea. This amazing Cambodian singer--who unfortunately died during the Khmer Rouge regime--sounds heavenly as she accompanies Sinn Sisamouth in their duet of the song "New Year's Eve."

This song evokes images of what it must have been like to be a Cambodian living in Phnom Penh during the 1960s--the glitz, the glamour, the fashion--and yet, a sense of untainted culture. 

Music has this strange effect, of transporting a person through time. It's as if music itself were the time machine. A person can listen to J-Lo's "Waiting for Tonight" or the Backstreet Boys' "I Want it That Way" and be transported to a totally different time and place. It's strange--as an eighteen year old, I'm considered young. But I feel that my experiences are as vast as Marco Polo!