NEW CAMBODIAN BARNES & NOBLE

New Cambodian Barnes Noble -- Will It Threaten Cambodia's Small Book
Store?

SIEM REAP,
CAMBODIA--The paint is barely dry on the new Siem Reap Barnes Noble, a
gleaming, $6 million, 60,000-square-foot book store/coffeehouse that the
American bookselling giant boasts is the finest in this rural village of 2,100.
But already a serious question is being raised: Can the new bookstore--with its
enormous selection, discount prices and chic espresso bar--peacefully co-exist
with smaller, independently owned bookstores in the area?

Store manager Amy Kleinert believes the answer is yes. Barnes
Noble's presence will help local book sales, said Kleinert, who was
previously regional manager for Barnes Noble's Seattle-area stores.
Our store will stimulate an interest in reading, which can only be a good
thing for all area book sellers.

Less optimistic is Tuel Cheng, a used-book dealer and small-press operator
who was recently forced out of business. Hun Sen's troops came in the
night to burn my books and smashed my son's skull on the type racks, he
said. I ran and hid in the jungle. If they see me printing books again,
they will torture me to death.

But for all the debate, the new Barnes Noble has suffered from nothing
so much as overcrowding. At the store's gala grand opening Monday, employees
were pleasantly surprised to see thousands of Cambodians massed outside as early
as 4 a.m. The instant the doors were unlocked, thousands of eager new customers
charged through the doors to browse the latest best-sellers, check out CDs at
the music section's 35 listening stations, and wash their clothes in the men's
room urinals.

Open less than a week, the store is already drawing rave reviews from
countless Cambodian book lovers. There is good water here, said Lon
Nai, a Batdambang-area farmer who journeyed 150 miles for the grand opening.
I can keep my pigs free of the sickness with this water.

It is always the same temperature in here, not like the tent where my
family lives in the jungle, said Pursat resident Chun Baro from a secluded
spot deep within the bookstore's Wellness And Nutrition section.
I do not care if I am executed for being in a book store, as my father and
three brothers were in 1979. I am cool and dry.

In addition to the low prices and friendly atmosphere, Baro praised the
store's convenient hours, open until 10 p.m. weekdays and Saturday.
Nightfall is the worst time, he said. That is when the death
squads come out.

Speaking from Barnes Noble's New York headquarters, John Day, company
vice-president in charge of overseas expansion, said that Cambodia represents an
outstanding new market for the book chain.

Cambodia has all the signs of being a book-friendly country, Day
said. Did you know that only one Cambodian in 10,000 has a television set?
That, to me, is the hallmark of a literate culture.

Day said that Barnes Noble tends to do best in progressive,
left-leaning cities like Berkeley, CA, and Austin, TX, qualities he sees in
Cambodia. They have that same sort of open-minded, hippie culture
there--communes are very big in Cambodia.

Despite the company's enormous size, Barnes Noble is very much
committed to the communities in which it does business, Day said, and Siem Reap
is no exception.

The Cambodian government has established many exciting-sounding
're-education camps' where both intellectuals and everyday citizens can be sent
at any time, Day said. Well, we at Barnes Noble have always
supported re-education in America, and we intend to extend this policy to our
new customers. For every hardcover book sold, Barnes Noble will
donate a dollar to the Cambodian government to help re-educate local children.

The store has also worked hard to be accessible to everyone, offering a ramp
at the front entrance for its many legless customers.

It's a helping hand, sure, Day said. But we believe that a
helping hand is just plain good business.

As at other Barnes Nobles, the Siem Reap store has a Local Authors
section, which is dominated by the political tracts of noted late-'70s writer
Pol Pot.

So far, there hasn't been a whole lot of customer traffic going through
the section, assistant manager Ken Woodson said. Perhaps we need to
publicize it more. We've tried to get Pol in for a book signing, but we haven't
been able to find him.

The community-centered approach is paying off: Shoppers have packed the store
since opening day, taking advantage of Barnes Noble's encouragement of
casual browsing.

This a friendly store, Woodson said. Some places frown on
what retailers call 'camping,' but we actually have a policy of putting comfy
seats at the end of each aisle. They're very popular--I've seen entire families
share one of our overstuffed sofas. Sometimes it seems like our regulars never
leave.

So what books have been the biggest sellers at the new store? According to
Woodson, most popular are 2,000-plus-page items, such as the Norton anthologies,
the collected works of Proust, and the two-volume Riverside Shakespeare.

I like this one, said Cheun Norresaprong of Phnom Penh, holding
up David Foster Wallace's hefty, critically acclaimed novel Infinite Jest.
It will burn for hours, enabling me to cook life-giving grubs and twigs
for my children.

Like Norresaprong, farmer Chira Samrong is also a voracious reader--and a
serious lover of Tolstoi, to boot. Loading his ox cart with 54 copies of War
And Peace, he said, If I can obtain 200 of such books, I can build a
house that will withstand the bullets of Hun Sen's guerrillas and Ranariddh's
royalists. My wife was shot in the face last spring.

While Barnes Noble officials would not comment on the possibility of
additional Cambodian locations, store manager Kleinert foresees a bright future
in the country.

Everything about Cambodian bookselling has offered me an incredibly
fresh challenge. It's wonderful to enter a market where your customer base has
such a diversity of needs, Kleinert said. The future holds bright
promise. For Barnes Noble in Cambodia, this truly is Year Zero.

• 
  

  YOU KNOW YOUR A CAMBODIAN WHEN

  
  

  You know your a Cambodian when :->You think you are the king of gambler but lose all your money like the other ones.You gamble with no strategy in the casino like a chick with no headPeople think...

  
  


• 
  

  CAMBODIAN AND BAKED BEANS

  
  

  Cambodian And Baked Beans->What does a Cambodian does with a tin of baked beans?He opens up a supermarket chain!NEW CAMBODIAN BARNES & NOBLENew Cambodian Barnes Noble -- Will It Threaten Cambodia'...