ROAMING HAN CHOK

In the 2020s, as the Cambodian economy continues to do well, the emerging middle class can engage in some conspicuous consumption. Just as the late eighteenth-century French queen Marie Antoinette delighted in playing ‘rustic farmer’ at her Hameau de la Reine farmhouse built in 1783, so do Khmer today enjoy ‘the good old days’ when farmers sheltered during the midday heat under a small hut called a han chok. Canny businessmen now mass-produce the shaded pavilions as a wooden framework with bamboo accessories and a roof of rice-stalk thatching.

The finished shelters sell from USD 250 (KHR 1,000,000) and are chug-chugged through town, delivered to customers using the popular single-axle, multipurpose tractors.