DPA
Wednesday October 4, 2006
Phnom Penh - Cambodia's first and only foodie website has been banned by China, and its Australian administrator said Wednesday that he was mystified as to the reason why. Phil Lees, 29, of Melbourne said http://www.phnomenon.com/, a non-political site that focuses on the Cambodian restaurant scene and cuisine, had apparently been blocked by the Chinese government on September 12 - a fact he only became aware of when deprived China-based food bloggers tipped him off by e-mail.
"The only reason I can think of is that I mentioned the word 'democracy' in passing last month," he said. "Maybe it tripped a filter. The word wasn't used in any political way. The site has nothing to do with politics."
Lees joked that he couldn't even recall giving a Chinese restaurant a bad review.
The Australian volunteer, who assists a local micro-finance organization by day and blogs on the country's burgeoning food scene and its unique local cuisine on weekends and by night, said he set up the website about a year ago when he arrived in the country and realized no one else was addressing a thriving market.
"Almost every other country has at least one food website," Lees said. "Cambodia has so many restaurants and the food scene is moving so fast, I decided I wouldn't be one of these foreigners who just blogs about my day in Cambodia and that I wanted to put Cambodian food out there."
He said the site attracts up to 1,000 visits per day, mostly from people outside Cambodia who are interested in new and exotic cuisines or who want to know what to expect on the food front when they visit the country whose hospitality and tourism industry is one of its most important sectors.
Meanwhile, however, Lees said he is puzzled by the blocking of his website: "I would like to approach the Chinese government and ask why, but I don't know where to start."
"I would like to think there is a logical explanation," he said. "Maybe it's as simple as a disgruntled government bureaucrat out there in China somewhere who fell in love with the country's beer during a Cambodian holiday and just got annoyed at my consistently critical reviews of the stuff."
