A ball of orange fired up the Cambodian sky, casting heat on the makeshift market stalls lining Phnom Penh’s Veng Sreng Road. Cars dotted the road and yawned past the protruding awnings, pop-up shops and pedestrian consumers. Veng Sreng slowly stretched itself awake as the clock rolled around to nine in the morning. AFESIP Fair Fashion’s Executive Director Rotha navigated his truck towards the AFESIP workshop and spoke of the grisly not-so-distant history behind Veng Sreng’s serene façade.

Samurai swordfights, strutting Geishas and the Seven Gods of Fortune were images conjured up when I first read that Sakura, the Japanese town where I lived and taught English, would hold its twelfth annual Jidai Matsuri: Festival of the Ages.