ON ON4 SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2013 TORONTO STAR⎮WD3

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PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA—As a reed flute wails, two fighterscircle the ring, offering prayers to each side andcorner. Bets are made in the stands. TV cameras roll.The bell rings, the women touch gloves.

Yun Pala starts the fight with a left hook to oppo-nent Som Somnang’s jaw.

“I don’t think I’m the best,” Pala says, “but most ofthe time, I win.”

Pala, 18, has won eight of 10 televisedfights since moving to the capital inJune. She is one of four women livingand training alongside male fighters atClub Odem, on the outskirts of PhnomPenh.

“As soon as I could think, I wanted tobe a boxer,” she says.

As she pummels a sand-filled sackhanging from a rickety beam, the alumi-num roof rattles with each blow andstartled chickens dart in and out of theopen-walled gym.

Veteran kick-boxer Khum Pesethwatches from the sidelines.

“This one,” he says, pointing to Pala, “isgoing to be very famous.”

When Pala works the bags again, hershyness dissolves into a methodical ferocity.

“I love boxing more than anything,”she says. “Nothing can make me stop.”

CAMBODIAN KICK-BOXING (knownas pradal serey) traces its origins to themartial arts developed during the 9th-century dawn of the Khmer empire. To-day, it is Cambodia’s national sport, anda half-dozen television stations airweekly matches. Only one, however,

regularly hosts women’s fights.Somnang, 25, has been fighting profes-

sionally since Bayon TV opened itsdoors to women in 2006.

“I’ve loved kick-boxing since I wasyoung,” Somnang says. “It’s the feeling itgives me: a mix of being nervous andhappy.”

Twice a month, she travels more than300 kilometres to Phnom Penh to fight.At home, she sells freshwater snails inher provincial market.

“I would fight every week if they’d letme. It’s not only the money — it’s mypassion.”

But the money is decent. Women netaround $100 per victory. Experiencedmale fighters (who are in much greatersupply) battle for $80 purses. By con-trast, many of Somnang’s peers labour

in garment factories for just over $70 amonth. Pala sends most of her winningsto her family, who watch each matchfrom their village.

Somnang’s father was a kick-boxer, yether parents considered the sport un-becoming for a woman. “At first, myfamily forbade me to fight,” she says. ButSomnang persisted. “We have the samerights and we are equal,” she says. “Youcan fight, so I can fight.”

Noun Pirom, a Cambodian BoxingFederation (CBF) judge and referee,says women’s fighting has become verypopular over the past year. “Havingwomen involved in the sport is good forour organization,” he adds.

And the predominantly male crowdsseem filled with wonder.

“They fight very well, just like the

men!” one spectator says.“Women are usually considered to be

weak,” says another, “but here they are,fighting each other! I really admirethem!”

About two dozen women currentlyfight at Bayon, Pirom says, and withtraditional attitudes thawing, and teen-age girls increasingly showing up fromthe provinces, their numbers are quick-ly growing.

Pirom speculates that with the new-found enthusiasm for the sport, otherstudios will begin airing women’s fightsin the coming year. He also hints thatthe CBF plans to start licensing femalecoaches.

“Right now,” Pirom says, “it’s just likethe blossom of the tree.”

For Somnang, however, one goal re-mains elusive.

“There are still no title matches forwomen,” she says. “I want to be thechampion.”

BACK IN THE RING, Somnang dom-inates the fight in clinches, kneeing Palarepeatedly in the gut. In the fifth andfinal round, Pala comes back with a flur-ry of fists and elbows. Her efforts, how-ever, come too late — Somnang wins bydecision.

The crowd erupts in cheers and curses.Money passes hands in the stands.

Dripping with sweat, Pala descendsfrom the ring.

“I only had two days to train because Iwas helping my family harvest theirrice,” she says. “Next time I fight Som-nang, I know I will win.”

Yun Pala, left and below, and Som Somnang are among a growing number of female kick-boxers in Cambodia. They can earn more in the ring than men.

SAMJAM PHOTOS FOR THE TORONTO STAR

Cambodia

“I would fightevery week ifthey’d let me.It’s not onlythe money —it’s mypassion.”SOM SOMNANGCAMBODIANKICK-BOXER

DANIEL OTISSPECIAL TO THE STAR

Freelancer Daniel Otis last wrote for WorldWeekly on the fate of Cambodia’s royalty.

Where women are heavy hitters

BEIJING—London-based Zaha Hadid, widely regarded as one ofthe leading lights in the constellation of avant-garde architec-ture, has become a superstar in China, where her latestdesigns radiate out through architecture schools and studiosacross the country.

On a recent trip to Beijing, 15,000 artists, architects and otherfans swarmed to a talk she gave for the opening of thefuturistic Galaxy SOHO complex — just one of 11 projects sheis designing across the country.

But the appeal of the Pritzker Prize winner’s experimentalarchitecture — especially since the unveiling of her glowing,crystalline Guangzhou Opera House two years ago — hasexpanded so explosively that a contingent of pirate architectsand construction teams in southern China is now building acarbon copy of one of Hadid’s Beijing projects.

What’s worse, Hadid said in an interview, she is now beingforced to race these pirates to complete her original projectfirst.

The project being pirated is the Wangjing SOHO, a complexof three towers that resemble curved sails, sculpted in stoneand etched with wavelike aluminum bands that appear toswim across the surface of the Earth when viewed from theair.

Zhang Xin, the billionaire property developer who commis-sioned Hadid to design the complex, lashed out against the

pirates during the Galaxy opening:“Even as we build one of Zaha’s projects,it is being replicated in Chongqing,” amegacity near the eastern edge of theTibetan plateau.

At this point, she added, the pirates ofChongqing are building faster than SOHO. The original is set for comple-tion in 2014.

Zhang has issued an appeal for help incombating this massive counterfeitingoperation. “Everyone says that China isa great copycat country, and that it cancopy anything,” she lamented.

PIRACY IS PERVASIVE in China, wherecounterfeit iPods, iPhones and iPads aresold openly, and even entire fake Applestores have proliferated across upward-ly mobile cities. Although China has aseries of laws to protect intellectualproperty, on paper at least, enforcementof these rules is wildly sporadic.

You Yunting, a Shanghai-based lawyerwho founded an online journal coveringintellectual property issues, said China’scopyright law does include protectionfor works of architecture. You said hehas studied the copying of the Hadidproject.

“The two versions of the complex arequite similar.

“SOHO could have a good chance ofwinning litigation in this case,” he said.“But even if the judge rules in favour of

SOHO, the court will not force the defendant to pull the building down.But it could order the payment of compensation.”

ZAHA HADID is not the first Westernerto see her architecture mimicked inChina. Last year, citizens of the Austrianhillside hamlet of Hallstatt wereshocked when they inadvertently dis-covered Chinese architects had surrep-titiously and extensively photographedtheir homes and were building a dop-pelgänger version of the UNESCOWorld Heritage site in southern China.

Hans-Jörg Kaiser, an Austrian repre-sentative on the International Councilon Monuments and Sites, which advisesUNESCO on heritage preservation, saidHallstatt residents were upset that theirhomes were being secretly cloned half aworld away.

Chinese architects involved in repli-cating the Austrian town, wedged be-tween snow-covered peaks and a vasthigh-elevation lake, apparently createdthe simulacrum of Hallstatt by usingimagery software to create an intricatemontage of the site, and then trans-formed these images into a 3D model.

But Zaha Hadid said she has a philo-sophical stance on the replication of herdesigns: If future generations of thesecloned buildings display innovative mu-tations, “that could be quite exciting.”

Piracy’s newest frontier:China’s copycat architectureKEVIN HOLDEN PLATTDER SPIEGEL

A model of the Wangjing SOHO,top, and its clone in Chongqing.

AFP/GETTY IMAGES