poverty

Cambodia is a land of many stories, and one of contradictions. The Khmer people are incredibly warm, friendly and ever-ready to chat with strangers, despite the country's recent dark chapters. Drivers of the ubiquitous auto-rickshaws (endearingly called "tuk-tuks" because of the noise the engines make when idling) learn English and often speak it fluently, largely thanks to YouTube videos they watch in their free time; necessity forces them to do so in the face of mounting competition from the relentless onslaught of a tourism boom.

A chance meeting in an exotic land on the other side of the globe. A local guide trying to raise money to build a drinking well in his poor village. Hundreds of Cambodian school children who didn’t have a school to attend, or sometimes enough food, clean water, or medical care.

What unfolded next is truly amazing.

This is the story of the residents in a decaying slum in Phnom Penh called the White Building. It is a gritty dark story, full of the true struggles they face - hopelessness, unemployment and poverty. It is the story of the relationship between the honest, hard-working members of society and some on the seedier of the Building's inhabitants - gangsters, drug users, child abusers, pimps and prostitutes. This is a story based on the truth. Because as they say, the truth can often be stranger and more brutal than fiction.

Too poor to pay his pregnant wife's hospital bill, Vannak Anan Prum left his village in Cambodia to seek work in Thailand. Men who appeared to be employers on a fishing vessel promised to return him home after a few months at sea, but instead Vannak was hostaged on the vessel for four years of hard labor. Amid violence and cruelty, including frequent beheadings, Vannak survived in large part by honing his ability to tattoo his shipmates--a skill he possessed despite never having been trained in art or having had access to art supplies while growing up.