Last week Wednesday, I attended the Rose Cafe event with guest speaker Andrew Mertha. Andrew Mertha is a professor of government here at Cornell who specializes in Chinese and Cambodian politics. His talk focused on a brief history of Cambodia along with his own research that he conducted on the influence of China on Cambodia.

I really enjoyed hearing about the history of Cambodia during the Vietnam war era. I had heard of the Khmer Rouge before but I never knew who or what they were. I had no idea that Cambodia’s history was so bloody as the Khmer Rouge were an extremely violent ruling group. There were the one’s responsible for the Cambodian Genocide, which led to the deaths of nearly 3 million Cambodians. I find it saddening that in my various history classes I took in high school, not one of them mentioned the Cambodian Genocide. A lot of these smaller countries go through so much suffering and turmoil, yet they never get any attention.

Another part of Professor Mertha’s talk that I found was interesting was when he went to talk to a Khmer Rouge cook about some Chinese blueprints he had found. I find it amazing that Professor Mertha was able to make all of these connections just because he was fluent in another language. His talk actually makes me want to sign up for a foreign language next semester.