Khmer

Now, one thing to note here is that with layer, it doesn't work on foreign text.

So they actually tested this out in Cambodian, right, using Khmer, which is like their language.

And so the model actually got 0%, right, 0%.

And it said it was 95% sure and wrong pretty much every time, right? So one of the things to know is that it doesn't work in other languages if you're trying to use it like that.

I'm gonna vomit

... and so we literally just took this to, like, people, like, it was, like, an ethnic minority group, so they're not Khmer.

They don't speak, like, the local language.

Like, they live in the bush, and they live in houses on stilts, like in shacks and whatnot, and, like, the first house we pulled up to, they were like, "Hey, do you wanna make this dish for us? Like, we have the ingredients." We're like, "Hell yeah." [laughs] And so they just, like, they made it up for us.

That's so sick

... across the river, and then, like, just, like, dude, to get places, like, you had to go on, like, small little dirt roads with, like, little ethnic villages.

Um, and then, like, dude, there's certain, you know, like the Khmer Empire or whatever it's called, like one of the craziest, like, emperors or empires in all of history, like, dude, you'd literally find-

Oh, the Khmer Rouge?

And it was going great, obviously, for maybe 15 years until obviously the Vietnam War happened and their neighbours and the US started a kind of a bombing campaign on Cambodian soil, even though Cambodia were trying to remain neutral.

And anyway, what sprang out of that was the Khmer Rouge.

I think we've all probably heard of them, but we never really know what they are.

But it was kind of Pol Pot's fucking group of fucking psychos.

And her children starved on the side of the road.

Pen Ren was a punk rocker.

She was executed by the Khmer Rouge.

There was any amount of them, like...

Sanskrit continues.

Old Khmer appears more visibly.

Land is still being assigned to temples.

Political names change faster than the material world underneath them.

The inscription records functioning religious and economic institutions.

Fields, animals, orchards and dependent labour continue to be organised.

Old Khmer is being written.

There is no sign in the text of a society reduced to ruins by foreign conquest.

Next time on My Right Leg is Tastier Than My Left.

How do you say hello in Khmer?

In Khmer, I'm going to make, sorry, I'm going to correct you there, is Khmer.

Ben, why don't you go? Okay.

Well, it depends.

From here, You can see the entire bay of Dum Dong, a sprawling mix of fishing boats and resort yachts bobbing in the choppy water.

It is easy to forget, standing here, that Koh Troll was once Khmer territory, a refuge for prince Nguyen An in the 18th century.

The history of this land is layered, much like the sediment in the Gulf of Thailand, and today the sovereignty debates echo quietly in the background, even as the island focuses on tourism and trade.

I head west towards Noi, the southern port district.

I want to see in this capital city probably something.

From the community of growing up in a refugee community, did you know much about the regime, Pol Pot's regime, and the Khmer Rouge? Can you educate any of our listeners about what the movement, who they targeted, and why?

It's like a double-edged sword.

America trying to defeat the communists.

So I will murder all of you so you don't stand up against me, right? Or retaliate or form a coup or destroy my dreams.

It's like I said, because he wanted good for a gambler, but it turned out bad.

He wanted them to be strong and powerful like before, so he forced everyone to slave labor and farm, and then instead of giving food back to the people, sent it to China to get weapon for his army, which was the Khmer Rouge.

I guess rouges in French is red, so red Cambodians.

Angkor was built around water, not merely beside it, not simply dependent on it in the ordinary way that every farming society depends on rain and rivers.

Water was the organizing principle of the Khmer world.

It shaped the fields, the roads, the temples, the sacred geography, and the political power of kings.

Between roughly the ninth and fifteenth centuries, the Khmer Empire created one of the largest urban landscapes on Earth.

At its center stood Angkor in what is now Cambodia.

This was not a single compact city surrounded by walls.

Too little water and crops fail.

Too much water and crops fail differently.