Tag Archives: travel

What 2011 means to me

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(Note: This is a very personal blog, so please bear with me, as I am trying hard to tone down the excitement.)

When my friends asked me what could be fun, I said nothing beats blogging. I believe that if things aren’t fun, they’re not worth doing. Since early 2007, blogging has been my favourite pastime. Journalism is merely something I do for a living. I kicked off my first blog journey by writing about what happens around me, and I still do this till today. With this absolutely fun and knowledge-enriching tool, as a self-publisher or blogger, I put down my thoughts into words. Have I told you that it feels incredible to be able to see how much you’ve grown up? I still spend time reading my old blog posts sometimes!

It’s even more amazing and rewarding to find out that my blog is read and talked about by people and the media in Cambodia as well as other countries. As of early 2012, I have been blogging for 5 good years. There’s hardly anything else in the world that can replace blogging in my life. Aside from my offline or real life, blogging has been a big part of my online life. I might sound as if I were exaggerating, but if you want to find out whether you’d ever feel the same way, I dare you to blog. <3

They say learning by doing is the best of all, and I concur that by keeping blogging despite busyness and negative feelings that sometimes exist, I certainly acquire a whole new feeling about myself and the know-how of writing and living alike. A few words to sum up my blogging experiences would be: I’ve gained friends but never enemies, love but never hate.

2011 flies away so fast. I know you feel the same, but I am not ready for it yet! Politically and socially, 2011 is a year of transition and the year of omnipotence of social media worldwide. I have heard a lot about the Arab Spring in the middle east that has attracted tremendous attention from people and the media. I have met a person who protested at Tahrir square to help oust Mubarak from his long-standing grip on power. Why should we ignore the good things that social media bring to individuals, companies, organizations and countries?

Personally, 2011 means so much to do providing that the most memorable persons, things, experiences and memories came into existence. I have promised myself to post things I have and have not achieved at the age of 23, one day before 2012.

Best thing I’ve done

 I incessantly and excessively applied for many programs, fellowships, conferences and courses online. And, I really meant it.  You would find me with my laptop typing away my answers together with detailed information about myself and sending my applications off immediately while waiting for a reply in anticipation. [I was suggested to write about how to successfully apply for a fellowship or program abroad. Will do soon.] As a result, within 2011, I have flown 10 times out of Cambodia to 11 countries and have been to about 40 cities ( USA, Germany, Czech Republic, Italy, France Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Qatar, Indonesia.) I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, which is fine.You don’t have to be a millionaire to travel, do you?  Because I couldn’t afford to go to those places with the income my writing job earns, I chose to rely on applying for grants to study, travel and work for them.

Best person of year 2011

Person of the Year: his smile is irresistible! (2011)

A lot of people inquired how I met Ani. We both met at a blogging conference in Malaysia, but we had quite known each other way before that, well, since 2008, as Facebook friends. Anirudh has been a very huge part of my happiness this year and years to come! He has been a loving boyfriend, a guru who teaches me all trades, a friend I laugh with, a comedian who entertains me when I am bored and sad, a pair of warm shoulders for me to cry on, and a teddy bear to hug when I want warmth and comfort. Above all else, he came to Cambodia for me. Doesn’t he deserve this honorable title? <3

 

We are playmates, too! (May, 2011)

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ASEAN Bloggers Conference in Bali

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I am selected to announce the declaration resulting from the meet-up among ASEAN bloggers in Bali

A month ago, I landed in Bali for the first time in my life! Hey, I am not trying to sensationalize this. :-P Just as Anirudh and I were properly seated at a cafe in KLCC airport while transiting in Malaysia, we were surprised by the presence of Vietnamese bloggers: Tai Tran, Anh Minh and another blogger from Brunei, Kamurul.

I was invited to attend a blogging conference in Bali, along with others. Sadly, the blogger fellows from Myanmar couldn’t join us because they were stuck at the airport. They weren’t allowed to board the plane in Thailand by “mean” officials >__<.  They transited in Thailand, and were supposed to fly from Thailand to Bali. Actually, this time we missed them, not again in the future, I hope. And, the bloggers from Singapore didn’t turn up for some personal reason.

We were taken to Pop Harris (see the picture below, colorful, huh?) and just right after 6 hours of rest or so, we had to get ready for breakfast and took a bus to Museum Pasifika at Nusa Dua. Right over there, there were around 200 bloggers with about 10 people from other ASEAN countries in total.

Pop Harris  This was a high-profile meeting. ;-) The conference was also honored by the rather short speech of the Indonesian Minister of Telecommunication who hoped that the conference would unite the bloggers communities from different countries by being represented with a single voice before 2015. :)

Indonesian Minister of Telecom

All the representatives from ASEAN were given 10 minutes each to brief all the participants about the blogging and social media scene in their respective countries. Indonesia led first after which the Philippines was to speak next; then Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and finally Brunei. Seated at my place listening to the speakers, I was amazed at some facts and figures given out by them. About 43 million Indonesians are on Facebook, making it one of the biggest FB nations in the world, not to mention 2.7 million bloggers from various communities existing in Indonesia alone :P . Even though freedom is being restricted in Vietnam, Tai Tran and Anh Minh told me that there’re nearly 2 million bloggers in Vietnam. I was struck dumbfounded. What Indonesia, the Phillipines, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand have in common is an abundance of large online communities where bloggers and micro-bloggers or social media lovers meet and hold talks. Though the size of online communities in Singapore, Brunei, Cambodia and Laos might be small for now, but this thing will change. Well, I’ll explain below by giving an example.

one-day event in Bali

Well, in Cambodia, I’m not sure we might have one thousand or ten of thousand bloggers. :-P There’s no directory that records the number of all cloggers (Cambodian bloggers) yet. Shouldn’t we have one? There’s some prediction that micro-blogging such as Facebook and 140-charactered Twitter is killing blogging, but I think bloggers can use micro-blogging tools to improve traffic of their blogging contents. Heh, more round-table discussions should be raised to shed the light on this. A threat or a synergy? Then, I told the quite bulging crowd that Cambodia’s Internet penetration is like from 7% to 10% as of 2011 (whole population ~15 million), and Cambodian Facebookers account for more than 400,000, about the size of the Bruneian population. :P It keeps growing, I tell you! In provinces, some young people know Facebook before they are aware of how to use emails, Google or Yahoo :P . I can verify this, so come and meet me.

Indah, Agus, Nondita and two other Indonesian friends (Left to right)
The speeches given by each of the ASEAN bloggers were followed by short talks given by Google and some people who have experience in tech start-ups in Indonesia. I am so proud of Indonesia for doing so well with its own tech scene. Young people are so keen on entrepreneurial things. Then, the participants were divided into 3 groups as everyone was asked to form Bali Declaration. It was certainly a long discussion by ASEAN bloggers who chipped in with their own ideas. Finally we made it with respect to each other’s country’s rule of law and political situation. Read here for ASEAN Blogger Declaration in Bali and watch a video of ASEAN Blogger Declaration too.

Our dinner farewell party and ASEAN blogger friends :-)

ON|OFF event in Jakarta

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I had a great opportunity to join ON|OFF event, formerly known as Pesta Blogger, which hosted bloggers from nine of the 10 ASEAN member countries today.

The ON|OFF event on December 3rd attracted between 1,000 and 1,500 participants, most of whom are bloggers, social media users, tech enthusiasts, celebrities, fashion designers, entrepreneurs, writers and other Indonesian communities.

I heard that ON|OFF is a evolving form of Pesta Blogger, Indonesia’s largest annual gathering of the Indonesian bloggers having run since 2007. It’s interesting to note that the ON|OFF was picked to replace ‘Pesta Blogger’ because the organizing committee must be aware that there are other social media platform rather than just blog to express themselves.

We, bloggers from Southeast Asia, have been invited to share and exchange their experiences and perspectives about blogging and social media use in our countries. The only invited blogger who could not attend the event was from Myanmar because he had to take photographs of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s historic visit to his country.

Below is the list of the bloggers from Southeast Asia I got from the ON|OFF website: http://seasianbloggersxchange.onoffid.org/the-bloggers/

Muhamad Reeda Malik | Brunei Darussalam | Http://Anakbrunei.Com.Bn/

Reeda is the founder and Manager of #Brunei Channel on an Internet Relay Chat Network called the Undernet, which is one of the largest real-time chat networks in the world, with approximately 45 servers connecting over 35 countries and serving more than 100,000 people weekly. He is also founder of anakbrunei.org, a popular Bruneian photoblog with social commentary on the current events related to Brunei Darussalam and Bruneians both at home and abroad. Contributing writer from Brunei Darussalam for cnet Asia technology blog, Kurapak Teknologi.

 

Kounila Keo | Cambodia |  Http://Blueladyblog.Com/

Kounila is a graduate of Media & Communication at the Department of Media & Communication at Royal University of Phnom Penh. She has been freelancing for Agence France Presse and some international media publications since 2008. So far, she has attended workshops and conferences on traditional and new media in Asia and Europe. When she does not write, Kounila blogs prolifically about Cambodia at Www.Blueladyblog.Com. New media is her newly-found passion.

 

Iman Usman |Indonesia | Http://Imanusman.Com/

Iman is a 2nd year student of Universitas Indonesia majoring International Relations. His passion in social activism and community development takes him to lead Indonesian Future Leaders and Youth Parliament Indonesia. In his spare time, he also actively contributes to promote ASEAN Community as ASEAN-Indonesia Youth Ambassador. In the beginning of 2011, his blog was named as the 1st winner of Microsoft Bloggership 2011 Competition, and he is invited to New York as one of Recipients of Global Teen Leaders 2011 by We Are Family Foundation.

 

Sounay Phothisane |Laos | Http://Blog.Sounay.Com/

Sounay is a website design freelancer who loves to dedicate his time and effort on building websites, blogging, and utilizing social media for the Lao community. Besides being a temporally employed specialist lecturing in Mahasarakham Business School in Thailand, he has contributed to his talents by promoting Laos to the social online community. He has published websites relating to Laos and its rich culture,VientianeHour.Com.

 

Marcus van Geyzel | Malaysia | Http://Www.Loyarburok.Com/

LoyarBurok.com is the only community blawg in the known universe. In 2006, Lord Bobo Barnabus, the Wonder Typewriting Monkey, mind-controlled several homo sapiens with the Lord’s awesome powers of telepathy and got them to start LoyarBurok, to provide a forum for everyone with an interest in anything and who do not wish to take themselves too seriously – to pontificate (with their tongues firmly lodged in their cheek) on frivolous issues such as those concerning the state of the world, human rights, government, legal profession, judicial system; and to to create awareness and activism on issues of concern such as to help redress violations of human and animal rights, and to seek improvements in the way they order and structure their lives. Continuing their quest for world domination, there are now more than 300 LoyarBurok writers from around the world, steered by more than 20 faithful editorial MastHead minions. LoyarBurok has also birthed on-the-ground activities, advocating human rights and justice.

 

Flow Galindez | Philippines | Http://Angsawariko.Com/

Flow is a blogger and a proud advocate of UN World Food Programme, WFP’s Philippine Connector and advocates causes like climate change and HIV/ AIDS awareness, education, child and women’s rights. He blogs about various topics, such as advocacy, entertainment, events, lifestyle, news, tech and gadgets, movies and theaters and foodie stuff.


Zheng “William” Wei | Singapore | Http://T.Qq.Com/Zhengwei_zaobao

 

William is the online editor / Assistant Vice President for Zaobao – the largest Singapore-based Chinese-language newspaper. In 1994, the newspaper launched its online version, Zaobao.com, and today it serves a a news portal that also draws news from other parts of the region. William developed this online news portal even more, increasing its pageviews more than 5 times since he took over, and brought Zaobao to win “Best Print Media Website” for 3 consecutive years.

 

Arthit Suriyawongkul | Thailand | Http://Bact.Cc/

He’s an avid blogger from Thailand, and is very active in promoting freedom of expression, and creative commons in Thailand’s social media sphere. He is a Pedestrian-in-Residence at Opendream, Coordinator for Thai Netizen Network and also a board member of Creative Commons Thailand that works in providing licenses for creative works on the internet.  He’s working in the areas of ICT for developments, internet freedom, journalism, and information rights. Right now he’s approaching his final year as a graduate anthropology student. Traveling regularly in Southeast Asia.

 

Tai Tran | Vietnam | Http://Www.Taitran.Vn/

Tai blogs about finance, investment, fund management as that is his passion. He has three-years experience as Business Consultant and Analyst. He’s also a Funds Management postgraduate with top score and scholarship. Possesses solid domain knowledge of Technology. He has been blogging about his area of expertise since 2002.