Phnom Penh (Cambodia), 10/03/2009. A muscle and fitness centre recently opened in the Boeung Keng Kang area. There are about thirty gyms in Phnom Penh.
©Vandy Rattana
Teenagers, women, men or elderly persons... For more than two years now, greens and stadiums in Cambodia have been invaded by the population, who decided to take up sport practice. However, the initiative is limited due to the lack of grounds for exercising and the poor availability of sport equipment. The direct consequence is that gym clubs are jam-packed with people and keep springing up like mushroom, not only in the Cambodian capital but also in provincial town centres. This popular and dynamic enthusiasm for sport contrasts with the apparent passivity of the Cambodian State Secretariat for Sports, more keen on observing the phenomenon rather than really taking part in it.
4.50am, Phnom Penh railway station park. Nineteen year-old Chew Huei prepares his sound system on the esplanade running alongside the Naga Bridge, a stone’s throw from Wat Phnom on Norodom Boulevard. After a few limbering up exercises, he turns his music on. All at once, a dozen women dressed in a sporty outfit run up to him. As if they were in front of a mirror, naturally and without any fuss, the ladies start imitating their instructor’s gestures and moving following the dynamic rhythm of Khmer and Thai hits. Ten minutes later, another set of legs ready for the challenge join them. “I settled here four months ago”, Chew says, and it worked out instantly for me. I used to work at the Olympic Stadium, but there are far too many people there and spaces are expensive. I didn’t want to fight for something if in the end, the only space I can use is just 10 square metres. Here, there’s room for me.”
The young man of Chinese descent studies at the Phnom Penh Sport School and still looks astounded about his success. “I wasn’t confident when I got here and settled but eventually, it works out very well, my group is getting bigger every day. I also teach aerobics in gym clubs. I don’t have any problem finding a job, sports teachers here have recently started to be very popular.” And indeed, there is no denying that about two years ago, Cambodians have begun to... move their body.
General passion gaining ground
There is no single green in town which is not invaded or used by fellows longing for some sport. Every morning and evening, the Olympic Stadium is filled with a crowd of Phnompenhers in for a jog and an aerobics session with young teachers who will provide lessons for 1,500 to 4,000 riels per person for an hour of exercise. Also, when the sun just appears in the morningor disappears, at nightfall, when temperatures are still cool, the avenues surrounding the Independence Monument, the train station or the Ministry of Defence are slowly filled with “joggers” and elderly persons who go there to practise soft gymnastics movements. And at weekends, they enjoy the company of youngsters who play badminton next to them.
Ma Tok-Susdai, now 83 years-old, comes to the railway green every morning accompanied by a few friends in order to “relax her old bones”, in her own words. “My doctor advised me to practise a few movements. At the beginning, I didn’t feel really comfortable but I noticed that my back has been hurting less since I started...” To encourage her, her family bought her a pair of trainers: “I had never worn any before, they’re very comfortable!” Young or old ones, women and men, everyone seems to be seized by the sports craze. “It is mostly women in their thirties who attend my lessons, I haven’t seen any men yet!”, Chew explains. “They prefer running and following more dynamic gym courses, and they are mostly in their thirties too, or above. There are young ones too, but they are more into team sports like volley-ball or football, especially as there are no grounds or courts available at their university.”
Shortage of available space
Precisely, “available grounds” in Phnom Penh are almost non-existent, which does not facilitate the creation of new activities. The capital only has two stadiums – the Olympic Stadium and the Old Stadium – but their equipment, as it goes, is outdated. Many fear that sport areas might be devoured by property developers. “Look at what is going on around the Olympic Stadium: houses are being built everywhere”, Kao Yann, a 65 year-old physical education teacher for children who works for the NGO PSE (Pour un Sourire d'Enfant). “When I was part of the national volley-ball team, in the 1960s, many people practised sports and there was more room. There used to be a sports complex where the American embassy stands today, and it was very popular among Phnompenhers.” However, the lack of grounds doesn’t make outdoor sports amateurs happy. On the contrary, it is a delight for gym club owners: they abound in Phnom Penh...
The success of sports clubs
From a few gymnasiums scattered across the city at the beginning of the 2000 decade, the number of sports clubs has now gone onto forty places in the capital, including hotels with equipment for public use. Before, only expatriates and rich Cambodians could afford such services but today, as new gymnasiums open, prices become more affordable, at least to the growing Phnom Penh middle-class who are the first ones to rush on the treadmill.
In Phnom Penh, those new trendy places open here and there, from prestigious ones, like The Place, which opened in September 2008 on Sihanouk Boulevard and offers, for a US$750 annual membership, personal training with a diet suited to the customer’s needs, to popular ones like the Piseth Gymnastic Club, a small and basic gymnasium on Street 310 where for a monthly 10-dollar subscription, people can exercise on machines. It opened early 2008 and has about 90 members, all Cambodian.
“Demand is incredible”, says Charles Chea, the French-Khmer manager of The Place, where there are an alleged 800 members, out of whom 30 to 40% are Cambodian. “There is enough room for all the clubs that wish to open here. Before, they were only accessible to a small number of people but now, with the emergence of the middle class, more and more Cambodians subscribe. Here, we mostly see people from the government who want to lose weight and get toned up, but there are also many women in their thirties who look after their body. Youngsters also come here; they are influenced by cinema and foreign video-clips and want to look like their favourite star. Before, the physical model for Khmer people was to be chubby, because it proved that you ate well and that you were rich, but today, the trend has been reversed.”
In provinces too…
A similar scenario happened in Kampong Som, where Piere Lechauguette-Morera opened a sports centre three years ago. “More than 90% of my 150 members are Cambodian and that figure keeps going up. This is why we are currently moving to other premises to welcome more people. I notice that doctors encourage more and more their patients to exercise. And no wonder, they become more and more sedentary, they drink a lot of beer and have diabetes problems, and as a consequence, they put a lot of weight on. The fact that they are encouraged to become more active is good news, since there is no education on sports practice in Cambodia.”
Little promotion on physical activity
Cambodians are currently experiencing a true awakening regarding sport, yet these initiatives remain personal and individual. The State Secretariat for Sports has not answered our questions despite repetitive calls, and does not seem to be very active at the moment when it comes to the promotion of physical exercise. For instance, school curricula make room for an hour of physical education every week, but few schools actually stick to it. “We are not trained at all”, says Preya Nahim, a retired primary school teacher who now works in orphanages. “Which moves should we show children?” “The war had us impoverished and the government doesn’t have a budget to develop sports”, PSE teacher Kao Yann adds. “Besides, we only have one State Secretariat for Sports, not a Ministry and so we must manage by ourselves. But I am proud to see that youngsters take up sports spontaneously. In provincial areas, there are more and more volley-ball courts; this sport only requires little equipment.”
Others are more reproving towards the state. The former sport selector for the Cambodian basketball team remembers: “I had to choose players out in the street and organise games and competitions on my own. Once, I asked for a referee, and they sent me an electrician... The problem is that very few people at the State Secretariat for Sports are true sportsmen or have been, and as a consequence, they find it hard to understand the good of sport.”
Sports teachers’ popularity growing
Sports teachers are more and more popular due to the increase in sport activity. But with just 120 qualified teachers every year coming out of the Phnom Penh Sports School, supply does not meet demand. “Most teachers coming from the school become coaches for national teams, but there are not enough of them and their competences are insufficient. This is why foreign coaches are chosen as well”, Kao Yann, a sports teacher for the NGO PSE, explains. Sports clubs are also forced to call upon the skills of foreigners: “There are very few qualified teachers”, says Charles Chea, manager of The Place, in Phnom Penh. “Due to that, we even have to share them between several clubs.” For instance, Ros Chettra, a 21 year-old Filipino who now manages the VIP - a gym club not far from the Norodom Boulevard - used to work as a teacher at The Place. “Sports teachers don’t have any trouble finding a job here, and this is even less the case when they have studied another speciality, like food science, as demand is big concerning weight loss.”
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