By Yuka Noda
Staff Writer
Many people throughout their lives aren’t given an opportunity to go to other countries especially to countries where the history is still alive and fresh and where many had been left devastated from the reigns of oppressive rulers.
From Apr. 1 to Apr. 12, 17 media arts students from Costa were given an opportunity to go on a self-funded trip to Cambodia as a part of their media arts project as well as for community service projects.
“Going to Cambodia was shocking, but a major part of the journey has been coming back home and readjusting to life here,” junior Claire Hunt said. “There is so much that I never realized I had until I went to Cambodia. It has been really overwhelming.”
Students were divided into groups and were guided to choose from a selection of topics which they were to cover in their documentary. Some of these included topics such as the emotional effects of the land mines planted during the Vietnam War on the citizens to sex trades.
“My documentary topic was about the female sex trade in Cambodia,” junior Erica Wenger said. “It was very difficult to find people who could articulate and speak about their emotions and times in the industry. We did everything we could to show our sensitivity and make them feel comfortable.”
To film their documentaries and to gather adequate information, the students always had to be on the ready for potential interviews. The different topics chosen by the students rendered different interviewees.
“One day when we were supposed to be making wheelchairs for landline victims, a man named Tun Channareth came, who had no legs,” Hunter said. “Both were blown off when he was a soldier during the war. We asked to interview him on the spot, but we had no questions or anything prepared. So I sat down with him and a cameraman, and interview him for a half hour or so, and it was amazing. It was truly a humbling experience.”
While many students only see the end product of these students’ works, those who went on the trip also were assigned the task to research before they left for Cambodia. They were also able to contact members of non-governmental organizations for an interview.
“I researched many of the NGOs that aid the people of Cambodia as well as the history behind the country,” junior Scott Schaffer said. “I prepared for my documentary by making several detailed outlines and analyses of the messages that I wanted to share in my film.”
While the students were not filming their documentaries, they were out helping the Cambodian society and people in need. These tasks consisted of taking time to help the disabled, volunteering at monastery elementary schools, and collecting funds.
“Most trips are the typical wealthy American tour,” media arts advisor Michael Hernandez said. “We go to museums, eat food and go home. I wanted to expose the students to people and lifestyle who are less fortunate than us to hopefully open their eyes to how the rest of the world actually lives.”
Although the students took the trip to Cambodia as a part of their school project, they were also given an opportunity to enjoy different landscapes such as the Angkor Wat as well as different culture and weathers. They were even able to enjoy exotic foods, such as tarantulas.
“On the trip, we ate a ton of fruit like mangoes, passion fruits, pineapples, dragon fruit– pretty much everything we ate was fresh,” Hunter said. “There’s no prices for anything, so you negotiate everything. Within our group we had a contest to see who could get the best deal on things. My best deal was that I was able to negotiate an $18 shirt down to $6.”
The destination for next years all media trip is still yet to be decided. Although the trip is restricted to only media students, the rest of the school will be able to share in their experiences from their documentaries of these countries, which will be posted on the broadcast website in June.
“I feel like everyone should visit Cambodia or any other country in that region of the world so that they may share in this amazing experience and understand how grateful they should be for the quality of life that they have, if they don’t already,” Schaffer said.
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