Local photographer to share pictures of Cambodia thirty years after the “Killing Fields”

By Anne H. Oman
Reporter-At-Large
Photos by Page Teahan
copyright protected

February 16, 2017 11:43 a.m.

As the small boat approached the fishing village of Kompong Phluk on Cambodia’s “Great Lake,” the Tonle Sap, Fernandina Beach photographer Page Teahan saw people bathing and washing their hair, children splashing, nets filled with fish. Children shouted “hello, goodbye,” the only English words they knew. Gazing up, she saw a mini-world built on stilts: a pig farm, a crocodile farm, a fish farm, and a whole village of wooden shacks – including the one where she would spend the night. She climbed the steep steps leading from the water to the house, and was greeted by her host, Mr. Hun. The house, with woven thatch walls and a corrugated metal roof, consisted of two large, open rooms furnished with hammocks and sleeping mats. The toilet was a seat with a hole emptying into the water below, and a barrel of water with a bucket and a ladle made up the bathing facilities.

“Fernandina Beach photographer Page Teahan saw people bathing and washing their hair, children splashing, nets filled with fish” Copyright protected.

Ms. Teahan will share her experiences – and her photographs – at an “Art Chat” at the Island Art Association on Tuesday, February 21. The program, which will begin at 6:30 pm, is free, and the public is invited.

The photographs – in color and black and white—depict the people and landscape of the small Southeast Asian nation, but this is no mere travelogue. Ms. Teahan journeyed to Cambodia in 2010 – thirty years after the Khmer Rouge genocide – to document the remnants of that reign of terror that killed some two million people as well as the day to day life of the people who survived it.

“My main inspiration for going to Cambodia was a book by journalist Jon Swain, River of Time,” Ms. Teahan told the Observer.

Jon Swain was in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, when it fell to the Khmer Rouge under the notorious Pol Pot in April, 1975. Some of Mr. Swain’s experiences were included in the film, “The Killing Fields.”

“I think he wrote the book in order to move through it – it was so painful,” she said. “Everyone was a victim of Pol Pot – he took out three generations. There are very few old people, and 80 percent of the population is under 30.”

Mr. Hun holds young granddaughter.

The family of Mr. Hun, Ms. Teahan’s host in the fishing village, did not escape the carnage. After his parents were executed by the Khmer Rouge, the family scattered – believing it was safer to split up. They hid important papers – anything that indicated they were educated – and wandered through the forest. eating whatever they could find.

“I remember being hungry all the time,” Mr. Hun told his guest. “Now I eat a lot.”

Mr. Hun is now the head of an extended family of about 15, including a young granddaughter (see photo). One sister was bludgeoned to death while collecting firewood. And Mr. Hun’s wife was killed when she stepped on a land mine. The family supports itself by catching the small fish of the freshwater lake and pounding them into fish paste, a staple of Cambodian cuisine. This is a noisy endeavor, as Ms Teahan found out.

“I was awakened by so much noise I felt it must be sunrise,” she wrote in her journal. “But I checked my watch, and it was only 3 a.m.”

The noise, accompanied by barking dogs and crowing roosters, was made by the villagers pounding the fish. The fishermen deliver the catch about 2 a.m., and the villagers work through the night so the paste, widely used in Cambodian cuisine, is ready when the markets open at 6.

A Monk at Angkor.
A huge piles of skulls on display at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

The saddest site Ms. Teahan visited – and documented in graphic, disturbing photographs – was the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh. Housed it a former high school, it served as a prison, and execution center – one of at least 150 such centers – for the Khmer Rouge regime. An estimated 17,000 people were imprisoned here, to be interrogated, tortured, and, almost inevitably, executed. Ms. Teahan’s photographs show mass graves of victims – buried without their heads — and huge piles of skulls (photo). Particular targets were educated urban dwellers, government workers, members of the military, and anyone associated with previous regime.

But the photographs also show happier scenes: a saffron-robed Buddhist monk at the temples of Angkor Wat, the sprawling complex built by the Khmers in the 12th century. A group of smiling boys on the top bunk in a Phnom Penh orphanage. A little girl holding a large bunch of pink lotus flowers.

Happier scenes captured by photographer Page Teahan.

“Her sister was in the water cutting stalks, and this little girl was picking them up,” recalled Ms. Teahan. “The flowers are sold to restaurants, and used in cooking. The mother was nearby, cooking some food. I wanted the girl to pose for me in front of the banyan tree, and the mother urged her to go over there … you don’t have to speak Cambodian, you just have to smile and gesture.”

As an icebreaker when taking photos of people, Ms. Teahan used a Polaroid camera: “I’d take an instant photo, and give it to them.”

How did she get started in photography?

“My father always played with cameras,” said Ms. Teahan, who grew up in Atlanta. “He had an 8×10 view camera, and a dark room, and by the time I was 12, I was working in the dark room on a regular basis.

After earning a degree in journalism, with minors in anthropology and fine art photography, at the University of Georgia, she vowed “to travel the world, to take off and go to a foreign country.” Instead, she moved to Colorado and worked as a photographer for the state board of tourism. A chance meeting on a ski lift led to marriage and 13 years in England, where she built up a photography business and won an award from the Master Photographers Association. A month-long trip to India proved “a life-changing experience.”

“I had a huge connection with that country, with the people,” she said. “I felt fantastic. I thought ‘why didn’t I go somewhere ten years ago?’”

For now, Ms. Teahan is focused on building up a photography business, including wedding and commercial photography, here and on building her website, www.pageteahan.com. But she hasn’t given up on the idea of traveling.

“I’ll never stop going back to India,” she said. “And I’d love to go into Pakistan.”

Also on her bucket list: Bali, Burma, Laos.

Anne H. Oman

Editor’s Note: Anne H. Oman was posted to Cambodia in 1963, not as a journalist but as a very junior Foreign Service Officer. At the end of that year, in the wake of deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Cambodia, she was transferred to Indonesia.

Anne relocated to Fernandina Beach from Washington, D.C. Her articles have appeared in The Washington Post, The Washington Star, The Washington Times, Family Circle and other publications. We thank Anne for her contributions to the Fernandina Observer.

Photos by Page Teahan, are copyright protected.

1 Comment
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Robert Warner
Robert Warner (@guest_48504)
7 years ago

This happened folks. The Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot did this, and it was horrible. I hope we can learn a lesson from Page Teahan – and Anne Oman – about the importance of a civil society that accommodates and resolves it’s problems through open and free discussion, not top down application of arbitrary force that desensitizes responsible people and commoditizes human life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot