Booksellers of Siem Reap chronicles a group of street children during a unique opportunity to participate in photography-dance workshop for one week. The children live in poverty and earn money by begging and selling bootleg books and dvds to tourists. This chance to cultivate artistic _expression in an organized educational environment is a stark contrast to their regular lives on the streets of Siem Reap.

A group of sixteen kids, ages ranging from six to seventeen, were selected. As the children of beggars, landmine victims and parents who are HIV positive, many are the primary income earners of their families – they roam the main tourist street begging for money and food. Older kids sell guidebooks and bootleg DVDs of western pop culture films. Like many destination spots throughout South Asia, the streets of Siem Reap are lined with restaurants, bookstores, massage parlors, bars, internet cafes and shops all catering to the thriving tourism industry in an economy advantageous to Westerners. The tourists dine lavishly in restaurants while the kids stand in the streets, hoping to earn enough money so that their families can eat. While many tourists take time to speak to local people, many do not see the Khmers beyond their supporting role the circus of tourism and certainly do not have privy to the hardships of their lives. Booksellers of Siem Reap explores this amalgamation of ancient culture, poverty, and global tourism through the lives of these children.

There are detailed profiles of the older kids, Rhet, Mum, Go, Vah, and Rom who work for long hours each day on the streets while observations of younger kids, Mo and Yun, reveal that life on the streets begins at an early age.

We see the kids with their families in their impoverished village, on the streets, and participating in the workshop.

The village in which the children live is like thousands of others throughout Cambodia and South Asia, comprised of small huts on stilts. The homes are close together and with minimal privacy. During rain, the area floods and the children descend from their homes into the flooded grounds and wade through water to reach the main road.

We see the village families conducting their daily lives, cooking on small fires, cleaning clothes and bathing from water pumps, and working at weaving baskets woven, carving wood, and collecting recycling. We see kids playing in the common areas and women talking around water pumps as they cook and wash. We see children helping with chores and caring for younger siblings. We see the community in action.

For long hours each day and into the night, the kids take to the streets to earn money. A barrage of restaurants, trinket shops, massage parlors and bars comprise the tourists’ area. Sounds are loud and lights are bright. Crowds of people move through the streets in pursuit of fun while the kids try to sell their wares to them. The tourists dine in abundance, shop for souvenirs, and often party to excess.

Go, Rhet, Vah, and Rom pull carts of DVDs and books from their village onto the main tourist strip, where they stand for hours, hoping to earn a few dollars. Book titles include ‘Pol Pot: Brother Number One’ and the Lonely Planet Travel Guide to Cambodia. The kids spend hours on the streets, hoping to make sales, day and night, during rain or sunshine. We see them reading to learn lessons, interacting with tourists, and mostly waiting to make sales.

The kids experience frustration and anxiety when they do not earn money. Tourists stop to browse at the carts and move on to enjoy themselves. The ground level restaurants have patios bordering the streets, with only a velvet rope separating the dining space from the painful theatre of the street. The kids wait, hoping for a sale when the tourists re-emerge on the street and are most often left disappointed, hungry, and tired. As night falls, the street life builds to a fever pitch from tourists partying in loud bars, while kids approach the stumbling revelers with hands outstretched, pointing to their mouths. We witness this tedium and the brutal reality of kids who are begging and starving amidst a decadent component of tourism.