This week’s Rose Café focused on Cambodia. The substitute speaker was well versed in the topic and very funny as well. My main takeaway from the talk was how he was able to conduct his research, gather sources, and interpret those sources. I thought it was fascinating to learn about his ability to gain relevant documents and his determination to understand the value of each document that he collected.

The speaker talked about how his search to find relevant documents for his research took him to China ad Cambodia. In China he was not allowed to access the documents that he needed and then he went to Cambodia. In Cambodia he was welcomed with open arms. This was partially because some of the employees of the Cambodian National Archives were trained at Cornell. The speaker was also able to rent out the entire Cambodian National Archives during a holiday to collected the needed documents.

Once he had the documents he needed to interpret the documents. One lesson I learned from the talk is that you never know where help will come from. By luck and coincidence, one of his students had a relative who was able to help him interpret the documents and connect him with other knowledgeable people. This connection ended up being critical for the success of his research.

Overall the talk was very interesting and well worth the time. I think his talk contained valuable lessons about resourcefulness.