The day after I finished my last undergraduate final exam, I got on a plane and flew to Cambodia. The weekend before I left, afraid I would be denied American popular culture for the next four months, I had gone with my parents to see the movie Titanic.
Little did I know that for the next four months, I would not be able to escape Titanic no matter how hard I tried.
Shortly before I stepped off the plane and breathed in my first breaths of methol-scented tropical air, a bootlegged version of Titanic (dubbed in Khmer) had already aired on Cambodian television. Titanic fever swept Cambodia.
We lived in a small bungalow, behind the old Soviet Embassy. Our landlord’s home was in our backyard. All hours of the day and night we could hear their 13 year-old daughter singing “My Heart Will Go On” in Khmer. All. The. Freaking. Time.
One day we were watching TV during lunch at work when the Khmer video for “My Heart Will Go On” came on. The entire office stopped what they were doing to watch. The video was set in a Cambodian river, not the ocean. The boat was a river boat, not a cruise ship. There was no iceberg, but there were two Cambodian lovers who were chock full of angst. Then the boat sank, for some reason I couldn’t acertain. Just like in the movie, the two lovers clung to each other in the murky water. They held on to a board or something, but eventually the man slipped beneath the surface.
The video was kind of campy and funny over all, but the very funniest part of the whole video was when it was obvious they were shooting the video in a very shallow part of the river.
When the guy went under, you could seem him crouching down, obviously sitting on the bottom, barely able to keep his head below the waist-deep surface of the water for the remainder of the video.
It was awesome. I laughed so hard, the old ladies in the office were concerned that I would hurt myself. Watching that video was one of my very favorite days of work EVER.
Lucky for me, when we left Cambodia, a friend of a friend (who didn’t even know about my love of the video) gave me a lovely souvenier to remind me of our stay. Whenever I miss Cambodia or have a special longing to hear My Heart Will Go On in Khmer, I wear the shirt. It actually makes people stop and stare with awe.
I know they are just jealous.
Dude, put the soundtrack on youtube for us to hear!
I was just going to go search YouTube for the song in Khmer. Heh.
I googled every combination I could come up with before I posted. The only thing I could come up with was some references to people karaoke-ing the song. If anyone can find it, I would gladly post a link.
Well, there’s an MP3 of the song in Khmer at http://www.srpusa.org/music/index.htm but I’m scared to open the link.
Luckily, there’s a YouTube video of couple’s wedding in Phnom Penh that features the song as background/soundtrack at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg6Kj6I0TTk
You also get to listen to the wedding host talking the new couple through their first kiss. Uh, the groom really gets into it.
OMG I really need to go to bed already.
Okay, I think the link at http://www.srpusa.org/music/mp3files/titanic-khmer-version.mp3 is clean. It’s posted by a Cambodian advocacy group in the States and Canada. Definitely check out the video, but if you’re looking for a clean copy of the song, the Sam Rainsy Party is your place to go. (Check it out: the song makes their big list of Khmer-language songs. I learn something new every day.)
That video sounds hilarious!!
that is absolutely HILARIOUS!
why did you go to cambodia?
When I went to Spain in 1999, the first night I was there we walked around the streets of Barcelona. There, in one of the picturesque old plazas, I came across a group of street musicians dressed in traditional finery, playing “My Heart Will Go On” with a pan flute.
Truly, near…far…wherever you are, you cannot escape Celine Dion. Oh, the horror.
I was living in Ukraine when Titanic fever struck. It was also all encompassing. The movie aired on Ukrainian broadcast television about a week before it hit American movie theaters.
Scrolling across the bottom of the screen were the words, “IF YOU ARE WATCHING THIS FILM, IT IS AN UNAUTHORIZED COPY. PLEASE CALL 1800-SOMETHING OFFICIAL SOUNDING.”
I later realized that almost all of the high quality videos then available in Ukraine had this same message. They were sold in upscale stores, not even in the markets.
Thanks for giving me a good belly laugh today, I needed one
I have NEVER seen Titanic. It’s kind of like a badge of honor to me. When everyone in the world, from the guy spare changing me to the president of our board, was telling me I HAD to see it- I decided that movie was way too popular. So I have boycotted it. It was flipping channels one day when it was on HBO and I covered my eyes as I quickly moved to the next channel. The kids think it must be a slasher film the way I avoid it.
I need to see that Khmer video instead.
That’s funny. I was living in Korea when all the Titanic hype hit. One of my students sketched an absolutely fantastic drawing of Kate and Leonardo and put it in a frame for my birthday. I still have it! I know that if anyone saw it, they’d be jealous too.