The rising sun's rays over the continent may have changed many things, but they have not changed Phnom Penh's reputation as the pearl of Asia — a city of a million lights — hundreds of thousands of souls dancing on Kampuchea's center stage.

Established in the 5th century as a settlement of little note, it blossomed into an impressive village of renown, attracting the attention of others. This came in the form of a legend, where Lady Penh discovered a tree floating near the river bank that contained four Buddha statues and one of Vishnu. Believed to be a divine blessing, the Wat Phnom temple was constructed to hold the Buddha statues, leading to the city's name. After the Khmer Empire's collapse, King Ponhea Yat moved Kampuchea's capital from Angkor Thom to Phnom Penh after Siam captured and destroyed the former, becoming the royal's base for several decades. However, the city was abandoned following severe internal conflict between royal pretenders, leaving it isolated for 360 years until King Norodom I's reign.

Under French colonial rule, Phnom Penh became a Petri dish for the latest trends in architectural design, seeing a whirlwind of design choices to accelerate it into modernity. All this led to the city becoming one of the few beneficiaries of colonial rule, but irreversibly associating it with the French for some, a degenerate monument to modernity's ills. Japan's arrival has done little to change this, the sheen of glitter and sparkles hiding a festering decay. Sinor-Khmer businessmen are looked on with distrust, preached against by devout republicans and nationalists as a blight. Prostitution runs rampant, politics remain under lock and key, and drugs flow from the Golden Triangle at an ever-increasing rate. Sooner or later, something will break.