PHNOM PENH

While the war in Iraq and fear of SARS have greatly reduced the number of foreign tourists visiting the ancient temples of Angkor Wat, Cambodia's biggest cultural attraction, some of the most interesting things happening in the nation's capital lately have been very much of the modern variety. From the "obscure" (to some) soundtrack of 1960s Cambodian music in Matt Dillon's film City of Ghostsfamiliar tunes to most Cambodians over the age of thirtyto "Phnom Penh: New Khmer Architecture 1953-1970," an exhibition on view at Hotel Le Royal in May, Khmer culture after Angkor is finally achieving recognition, both within Cambodia and overseas.

Sovanna Phum, a collective of Cambodian performing artists that operates on a shoestring budget, has managed to be not only the first Cambodian company to perform at LIFT (London International Festival of Theatre) but also the first to put on at least one show in Phnom Penh every week. For the last two months, Russey Dek, the show that was being performed at LIFT in June, has been stunning audiences in Phnom Penh with its astonishingly beautiful mix of traditional dance, music, and shadow puppetry. The company's use of traditional forms to create a piece that is unmistakably contemporary in feel is a landmark for the performing arts in Cambodia.

The most striking development in Phnom Penh's arts venues, however, is not in the theater but in the half dozen cinemas that have appeared in the last year. On the main streets of the city, vast and strangely violent hand-painted posters of blood and vampires, reminiscent of the illustrations on the covers of 1950s pulp horror novels, entice Cambodians to film screenings, which usually take place four times a day. The majority of the films are imported from overseas, but since it was only a few years ago that Phnom Penh had no film-projecting cinemas with regular screenings at all, the gory posters are a welcome sight; they are especially popular with foreigners, who are attracted to them for their kitsch value.

Cambodia's favorite song for what seems like the last four months has been the wittily titled, so long as you know the Khmer, "Payat Oa Men Dial Koeung Do," which means both to have not yet changed the shirt and to have not yet seen the breasts. Cambodians love plays on words, and they are constantly moving syllables from one word to another for comic effect. So on that level, and with the popularity of bawdy humor here, the success of the song is no great surprise. What is more surprising is that the band behind it is Khmer Surin. Surin is a province in Eastern Thailand that has an ethnic Khmer population. The song is sung in Khmer, but when the karaoke VCD first appeared in Cambodia, the lyrics were in Thai script. Coming a month after the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh was burned down in a riot, and when all businesses were hastily painting out any real or perceivable Thai connections on their signboards, the song's success would be a surprise in a country less contrary than Cambodia. Here, contrary as ever, no one thinks twice.

Jane Martin

SEOUL

Korea is traditionally known as the "Land of the Morning Calm," but the moment anybody steps into the nation's capital, they know that such a designation is deceptive. With a population of over 10.3 million and growing, Seoul is anything but calm. Adding to the colorful sights, sounds, and smells of the city was the "Hi! Seoul Festival," which took place at the end of May. While the festival was intended to be international in scope, due to fears over the SARS epidemic, many overseas performers canceled their trips, even though to date South Korea has not had a single confirmed case of SARS. Nevertheless, the two-day festival, which was attended by an estimated 200,000 people, brought together young and old, traditional and progressive, native and foreign, and even human and nonhuman populations (there were various pet shows and competitions). Some of the main events included a minimarathon for expatriates in Korea, traditional song and dance performances, calligraphy demonstrations, international food and culture exhibits, and rock and fusion performances by both professionals and amateurs.

On the cinematic front, of the top five box-office hits in May, only one was a Korean movie; this is common in Korea, where domestic films are often overshadowed by Hollywood blockbusters. Following Matrix Reloaded and Wild Card was Memory of Murder, directed by Bong Jun-ho. Bong Jun-ho's first film, Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000)a comedy that recounts extraordinary events that occur in a very ordinary apartment complexreceived international attention at film festivals in Buenos Aires and Rotterdam, among others. Memory of Murder is based on a true story of an unsolved series of murders that occurred in 1986. There is also much hype over a soon-to-be-released horror film called Janghwa Hongryun, a modern adaptation of a classic Korean horror story.

The very first sex museum in Korea recently opened in Seoul. The Asia Eros Museum features some three hundred articles from different regions of Asia, including Korea, China, Japan, India, Nepal, and Tibet. Other notable exhibitions in the city's museums and galleries include "Pick and Pick and Pick," an annual project that features works by eleven young artists, selected by that year's chosen veteran artist, and "D.I.Y: Beyond Instruction," which celebrates the twenty-seven-year history of the Total Museum of Contemporary Art by displaying the works of some seventy Korean and foreign artists. Yoko Ono was planning to visit in the third week of June to launch an exhibition of her work and to perform a piece entitled "Blue Room Event."

Hair-dyeing is enormously popular in Seoul, not only with adults, but also with children and even pets! Colors range from platinum blond to turquoise to pink. On the first weekend of June, a number of soccer fans were seen with streaks of fire-engine in their hair. The fans were participating in the "Oh! Peace Corea Festival," which coincided with ceremonies for Memorial Day, June 6, and a celebration of the first-year anniversary of the 2002 World Cup, which was jointly hosted by Korea and Japan.

Adding to the many wheels that travel the streets of Seoul are two new typesroller heels and motorboards. Roller heels, or "wheelies," as they are known here, are sneakers with wheels attached at the heels. Popular with elementary- and middle-school-age children, usually boys, roller heels allow kids to combine roller skating and walking; roller heelers can be spotted at subway stations, whizzing down the long corridors and then effortlessly changing to "walk mode" to get on escalators. Motorboards, which are essentially motorized skateboards, are less common, but visually much more impressive. These contraptions are usually ridden by twenty-something males, with the hippest skater or snowboarder look to match. Motorboards can be a convenient way to get around in the highly congested city, but one only wishes they were not quite so loud; the cacophony in the streets of the "Land of the Morning Calm" can certainly do without a new source of noise.

Junhee Kim

TAIPEI

Taipei's cultural life took a turn for the worse because of the recent SARS epidemic, as the public's growing phobia of enclosed places clashed with the city's crowded environment. Movie theaters emptied, and public events were canceled, delayed, or moved out of town en masse. The sixth annual Taipei City Aboriginal Cultural Festival, for example, was summarily stripped down from a gala celebration to a modest photo exhibition.

Over the past few months, most people have preferred to stay home in the company of their television sets, their enhanced appetite for news feed by relentless SARS coverage on the six major news channels. But soap operas have provided some distraction. The enduring Qinqi bu jijiao (Close Relations Don't Fight) offers lighthearted drama set in the Taiwanese countryside. Qing long haohan (Green Dragon, Stand Up Guy) provides a long-winded, nineteenth-century martial-arts romance. In a similar vein, author Jin Yong's famed historical gongfu sagasShediao yingxiong zhuan (The Eagle-Shoot Heroes) and Yitian tulong ji (The Heaven Sword and the Dragon Saber)present intricate plots, strong characterization, and prodigiously varied fighting techniques. Viewers with more jaded tastes welcome the weekly alternative of Meigui tongling yan (Eye with a Rose Pupil), featuring unsubtle stories of psycho killers, "betel-nut beauties," gangsters, betrayal, adultery, and hauntings.

Reclusive urbanites have also been reading. Popular are best-selling collections of romance stories, such as Wu Danru's Zui lan de lan (The Bluest Blue) and Wu Ruoquan's Huanchang beige (Sad Songs Cheerfully Sung), although medical and health literature have increasingly caught the public eye. Homebody inclinations likewise lit up the recent launch of the Pingguo ribao (Apple Daily). This gossip newspaper, which spotlights movie-star romances and politicians' peccadillos, is targeted toward those who cannot wait for their weekly dose of the infamous Yizhou kan (Next Magazine).

Even with the thinned crowds created by SARS, Taipei's public culture has not disappeared. The city's IT Park art gallery recently hosted "Room Air," a Japanese exhibition on the esthetics of tourism and travel. The Lin and Keng Gallery showed the "forgotten" paintings of George Chann (1913-95), a Chinese American artist from Los Angeles who sold hardly any paintings during his lifetime but whose posthumous reputation is growing. The National Museum of History is celebrating fifty years of the art of Chen Zhengxiong, an accomplished impressionist painter. And in music, the Chiang Kai-shek Cultural Center presented an eclectic collection of Taiwanese compositions performed by the Chung-Hua Chinese Music Orchestra. Efforts to preserve cultural life have been persistent and are paying off, particularly among the young. Of all urbanites, young people have exhibited the least fear of SARS. Unsurprisingly, they stand in the vanguard of an urban reawakening, responding to the recent easing of the SARS scare. The marketing area XimendingTaipei's teenybopper centralis ahead of the rest of the city with its reinvigorated clientele of shoppers, movie-watchers, and KTV heroes. On June 1, the Asian boy band TENSION drew a large crowd to the district. After months of caution and cabin fever, this is a welcome sign, indicative of a city finally on the mend.

Daniel McMahon