This Rose House Cafe Series was interesting to see how a researcher goes about searching for sources in writing his book. It is obviously not easy to write a book, but I had no idea the exact challenges that went into making one. The speaker’s adventures opened new insights to me about the research process.

I thought it was hard to select one specific topic that the speaker wanted to focus on for the book but how he involved so much history to support his main idea/point. He talked about the history of the regime of the Khmer Rouge and how people under the regime worked on construction and mechanical projects that brought upon great influence and connection to China. I liked how he made that connection in his research and presented that in the book.

It was interesting to listen to his adventure of finding Chinese documents on the projects worked under regime of Khmer Rouge. It was impressive in how he tried to use the documenter center in China but was not allowed access and did not give up and tried the national archives of Cambodia, where he stumbled upon numerous research secrets. It was a great lesson to see that even if one door closes another door opens for a new opportunity. Also, I thought his story showed a great lesson on the Cornell community where the librarians at the national archive actually were trained at Cornell and they helped him to gain access into the archives.

His story also showed the importance of networking where his post-doc student was able to gain him contacts with people who actually worked on some of those projects in the Khmer rouge regime and was able to interview with them. It was great to see how he enjoyed the interviews with the people.

Overall, this talk gave some great insights and lessons in how to pursue research for a book or anything in life in general.