Calling for Love is a photo essay that follows a young indigenous couple living in different rural Cambodian villages. Their relationship dating by phone, illustrates changing indigenous culture, and traditions such as Kreung “Love Huts”, which have now become redundant due to modern technology.
As a National Geographic Explorer telling the story of changing indigenous culture in Cambodia, I researched how conflict impacted their world, as well as documenting how modern technology impacts the lives of minority people as part of my photo project.
I followed a young indigenous couple between rural villages, showing their separate lives apart, and how they stay connected through the use of mobile technology.
Cambodia is home to just over 20 ethnic minorities, with an estimated 200,000 people spread across 15 provinces. The Kreung are one of the countries largest groups, part of the Khmer Loeu — highlanders in the northeast provinces of Ratanakiri, Mondulkiri, and Stung Treng — residing in Ratanakiri Province. Ratanakiri, one of the most sparsely populated provinces, is also home to the highest number of indigenous people in the country. More recently, many of these communities in Ratanakiri have had their ancestral lands grabbed for economic land concessions (ELCs) leaving community members working in rubber and cassava plantations for large companies.
“Bride and Groom huts” — often incorrectly referred to as “love huts” were once an indigenous Kreung custom, where young girls and boys approaching adolescence were given their own private huts outside the family home. Here they could live independently, court the opposite sex to find the correct life partner, as well as experiment with premarital sex without judgement or social stigma.
With villages being so sparse combined with bad road conditions, traveling between villages was exhausting and could easily take days. After the labor of travel, it would be common for visitors courting from other villages to stay for the night and be accommodated within young peoples private huts. Often women chose their partners, inviting inside whom they wished.
Now this tradition which was once a key part of Kreung culture no longer exists. These huts have not been used for the past 10-15 years, being made redundant within indigenous society due to technology and better road conditions. As people are increasingly more exposed to Cambodian culture, their traditional practices are being altered and viewed as “taboo” in contrast to Khmer society. From their growing exposure to mainstream Khmer culture, the youth are developing a new perception of what’s “right and wrong”.
Dating has become easier with the use of mobile technology, as well as traveling to neighboring communities being cut significantly due to better road conditions and infrastructure within the province making it faster and simpler to communicate with potential love interests. Now there is no need for young people to stay overnight in personal huts, as they may have previously done before like their parents and older generations.
For young indigenous people, mobile technology plays a key role in dating, and keeping youth connected between villages. Many young couples meet and communicate first by phone, speaking for lengthy periods of time before meeting in person. Or brief encounters are followed by a number exchange, and mobile courtship.
YOUNG LOVE: CHANNY + RA
Channy, now 15, goes back and forth to her hut in the dark, eagerly checking her smart phone on charge. Villages away, Ra sips on cheap rice liquor, playing with his friends old beat up Nokia phone.
Channy and Ra, 17, met one month prior, as he briefly visited her village to plant cassava on a plantation. A month later, they speak almost every day on the phone. Young and thinking about the future, they are thinking about getting married. Coming from different indigenous Kreung and Tampeun villages, it is now normal for different minorities to marry.
Walking through both villages, there are no traditional bride and groom huts in sight.
Channy, an indigenous Kreung, lives in Samross Kem village. Like many young girls in the village, she is eager to find a boyfriend and to get married. Young and in love, she misses Ra. Only seeing him once or twice per week if she’s lucky at the end of the day after laboring, picking cassava and collecting rubber on the plantation.
At sunset, after she finishes work on the rubber plantation, she baths in the open well, eats with her family by an open wood fire, then eagerly heads into the village to watch television with the other girls. Playing with her friends and ducking out from the group, she speaks with Ra on the phone. Owning a phone is important for Channy to keep in contact with other young people. Like most youth in the village, Channy has owned her own phone for over a year and would be lost without it.
Despite her age, Channy wishes to marry Ra, but would first like to find another job outside the plantation so she can support her family. Now she wakes up every morning at 4 to collect rubber from the trees on the plantation site where her family live and work. As village life changes, young people are more aware of opportunities that are available outside the village.
Following traditional views, Channy says with little romance, that marriage is important, as you can find someone to support your family.
Ra, an indigenous Tampeun, lives in Ping a few villages away from Channy. Unlike the other young people in the village, Ra does not own a phone of his own as he cannot afford one. Instead, he constantly borrows the phones of other workers and villagers, throughout the day and night.
Like most young indigenous boys in the province, he enjoys drinking strong locally made liquor at night, getting drunk and traveling around different surrounding villages, visiting different girls of interest.
Ra met Channy when visiting her village to work. He says she was very pretty, and continued speaking with her by phone after he left.
Despite speaking to three other girls in three different villages, he claims he loves Channy, though he does not want to get married soon.
Having access to mobile technology, Ra does not have to directly see the women he is dating and can stay connected and in contact with them via phone.
As young people were able to experiment with partners in the past, like before, Ra also experiments … Instead of using huts, Ra experiments through technology.