Last Wednesday, I was waiting for the Rose Café to start, and was wondering who was sitting on the couch, as he did not look anything the posters that had been up all week. Due to unforeseen circumstances, we were surprised with Professor Andrew Mertha who gave a talk on his work in studying Cambodia. As I wasn’t familiar with Cambodian history, it was very interesting to hear him give a brief summary of the major power shifts after World War II. There were definitely surprising facts and more I want to look up when I find the time to delve into a Wikipedia spiral.

Professor Mertha spent a lot of time looking into the role China had in Cambodian development and pointed out something that I hadn’t heard put together. It is illogical for people to think that China is capable of having extreme influence and taking over the world, yet at the same time point out the deeply convoluted and possibly inefficient inner workings of their government. I don’t know if it was just in my head or if I made a slightly audibly ‘oh’ as I took time to think about this.

He talked about going to Cambodia and looking for documents citing Chinese involvement, and after being turned away from a certain location, found a wealth of top secret documents in Chinese, detailing engineering plans for Cambodian development. While I’m sure it was stressful at the time for him, it was reassuring to hear that professors go through the same struggle of trying to figure out exactly what a source has to offer. He mentioned talking to those who were proficient in Chinese and engineering, but the gap between technology now and then is so different that they could not make any sense of it. Then with one momentous encounter with an advisee, he was connected with the key to unlocking the meaning behind the documents he found.

It was definitely an entertaining and informative talk, and while I wasn’t expecting a crash course in recent Cambodian history and a lesson in patience when dealing with work, I was glad I got to hear him speak.