Chronicle & Humor: Brigitte, Keeper of the Temple in Cambodia

Brigitte has moderated the Facebook group "Expats in Cambodia" for four years. She's never met most of its 47,812 members. She does, however, know exactly where to find the best comté in Phnom Penh, down to the gram.

Illustration photo only — © Cambodge Mag

The Charter

Brigitte wrote the group's charter herself, one Sunday afternoon, three years ago. Nine pages on mutual respect, kindness, and "the importance of reflecting the richness of our life here and our integration into Cambodia." She's very proud of it. She quotes it often, usually to put someone in their place for posting a visa question in the wrong thread.

Cheese Comes First

One Tuesday, a member posts a break-in warning for their neighborhood. Four comments in two days. Brigitte doesn't reply — she's busy that day moderating a thread of a hundred and thirty-four comments on where to find aged comté "without breaking the bank." She personally weighs in to recommend her supplier, with all the gravity of a sommelier presenting a grand cru. "Personally I go through Pierre, he brings it straight from Savoie, tell him I sent you." The post gets twenty-three likes. The break-in gets none.

The Local Cheesemakers, Never Mentioned

What Brigitte doesn't know — or prefers not to know — is that Cambodia is now home to several artisanal cheesemakers, some of them attached to restaurants that age their own cheese on-site: brie, young comté, tomme, made with local milk, and genuinely good. Someone mentions one, once, in the group. The post gets two comments, one of them from Brigitte: "Cute idea, but it's really not the same as real French comté, is it." She's never tasted any of it.

Julien Hadn't Read the Rules

A newcomer, Julien, posts an actual question: "Does anyone know a good beginner Khmer teacher?" The thread limps along at two comments for six days, until Brigitte, in her capacity as moderator, settles it: "You should ask in the Languages group instead, this one's more about community." Julien, a bit lost, asks what she means by "community." Brigitte answers with the confidence of someone who's just invented an obvious truth: "Well, you know, community. You'll understand with time." That same day, she pins a new post about the best Bayonne ham in Phnom Penh.

The Ghost Administrator

Officially, Brigitte shares moderation duties with Denis, the group's founding administrator. Denis left Cambodia two years ago to settle in Bangkok. A rather naive member points this out one day in the comments: "Wait, doesn't Denis not even live here anymore?" Brigitte's answer is firm: "Denis is part of the family, distance doesn't change that." Every week, Denis shares an article from Bangkok about the best Thai cheesemakers, "while waiting to find that here one day." Brigitte always approves it as a featured post. Nobody points out that "Expats in Cambodia" is, in practice, partly moderated from Thailand by a man who no longer lives there.

The Poll

Brigitte runs a poll: "What do you miss most about France?" Cheese, wine, bread, or "other." Cheese wins with 61%. In the comments, she adds her own answer: "Personally what I miss most is being able to talk to someone who's actually heard of comté" — a line she delivers with total sincerity, in a group of 47,812 people who, statistically, must include a few comté fans, and just a few kilometers from several cheesemakers who actually produce some.

The Ban

One member, fed up, dares to write: "Aren't we supposed to talk about Cambodia in this group?" Brigitte bans him within the hour, citing Article 4 of the charter on mutual respect. "Comments like this don't reflect the spirit of the community," she writes in the ban notice — without, once again, ever explaining what exactly that word means. She then posts, as she does every evening, her photo of the day: a platter of imported cheese on a teak table, somewhere in Phnom Penh, far, far from everything the charter claimed to stand for — and not much farther, in fact, from the local cheesemakers she's never once visited.