SYNOPSIS

NICE HAT! Five Enigmas in the Life of Cambodia

What does it mean when the royal crown has gone missing, when a single scarf serves both torture and joy, when peasant palm hats speak of ethnic division, when a cloth cap from another country defines a revolution, or when a dancer’s headdress survives 800 years? These are among the hats that frame the Cambodian face, and offer an intimate window on how the Khmer have withstood the worst and embodied the best of humanity for a thousand years. ‘Nice Hat!’ Is about finding complexity by the simplest of means.