“Madame Cigarettes? Yes, of course, she’s still working,” Patrice, a Frenchman and restaurateur who has lived in Battambang for 11 years, tells me. And at 75 years old, Madame Chir Kim Hao, alias “Madame Cigarettes,” still enjoys undeniable notoriety because she continues to practice a trade—cigarette rolling—of which she is one of the very last representatives in Cambodia. This portrait will also serve to recall the turbulent recent history of this country.