A Cambodian blogger asked recently whether former King Norodom Sihanouk should be considered the country's founding father of blogging.
He got no definitive answer. Cambodian blog watchers say the 84-year-old monarch may not have known he was blogging when he unveiled his Web site, updated daily by his staff since 2002 with his views on national affairs, correspondence with his admirers and news about his film-making hobby.
But it is clear that young, tech-savvy Cambodians are joining Sihanouk in embracing blogs. The trend is changing their lives and their communication with people abroad - even as electricity remains an unreachable dream for most households in this poverty-ridden nation of 14 million.
"This is a kind of cultural revolution now happening here in terms of self-expression," said Norbert Klein, a longtime resident from Germany who is considered the person who introduced e-mail to Cambodia, through a dial-up connection in 1994. "It is completely a new era in Cambodian life."
Cambodians with the skills and the means to blog are discovering a wider world and using the personal online journals to show off their personalities and views about the issues facing their country, from corruption to food safety.
"Blogging transforms the way we communicate and share information," said 25-year-old student blogger Ly Borin.
That for me is the huge appeal of blogging, whether it is here on this blog or one of my political blogs, it's a way to communicate and share information at a level never before possible.
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