A wooden house with a zinc roof stands on pillars black like charcoal, everyday items hang on beams, with a wooden boat tied to the stilts, as if floodwaters were just receding.

The house is two stories high and L-shaped, the first floor surrounded by plants growing in Styrofoam pots.

Signs of habitation are everywhere – a washing tub, cooking pots, a water jar, buckets, baskets for drying fish. Clothes hang drying on washing lines.

At first glance, it looks like a stilted house found in the floating villages around the Tonle Sap Lake that are a popular tourist draw.

But it is, on closer inspection, in fact a carefully designed model house artfully showcasing the talent of its builder, Jiang Hojilang.

This is the first such creation from the 38-year-old, who made the model frpm a passion to produce something unique. A nature lover, Hojilang, started off decorating fish tanks with plants.

“Having seen model houses like it in neighbouring countries, and with a passion for real-life traditional Khmer houses, I thought that if they could make them, Cambodian people also can. I want people to know about the abilities and talents of Cambodian people.

“It is not a model of any particular house. It comes from my imagination after having seen such scenes in the countryside. I started building this big house first. It is half a metre wide, more than half a metre tall, and almost one metre long,” Hojilang told The Post.

An interior designer and translator at a Chinese firm, Hojilang’s team focuses on designing houses and other buildings.

With its rusting zinc roof, uneven walls, fish drying in baskets and positioned near a stream, Hojilang’s wife said he called the first model he built a “Pteah Kantaing Koun Kat” traditional Khmer house.

“I can build all kinds of model houses according to customers’ orders, from ordinary houses, traditional houses and villas, even condominiums,” Hojilang said.

After completing some model houses more than a year ago, Hojilang’s creations received strong support from the public, with a number of sales. But despite these having dropped off recently, he said he would continue with his passion.

“When making these model houses, I use actual construction methods, just on a smaller scale. As well as building the basic structure and the exterior arrangement, the rooms and interior fixtures, including tables and cupboards, need to be made.

“It took me quite a long time fixing the bamboo panels on the walls of one house, for example.

“Even though there are no orders, I will keep making these models because it is a passion. If people want to buy them, great. But if not, I will still keep building them,” he said.

Hojilang said he closely followed the look of real rural houses, taking particular care to mix the paint to find the right colour and ensure authenticity.

“I am very careful in making everything as realistic as possible, including when making the kitchen, with the firewood, cooking stove and frying pans, even down to the ashes.

“The grocery shop house was also made with the utmost care and detail. Taking some time off from my busy schedule, it took me about half a month to finish. I worked on it every day from 6pm to 10pm.”

Hojilang said he wondered what his friends and workmates thought of his unusual pastime.

“I collected usable items from my workplace. I will take one or two cardboard boxes to make the ‘zinc’ roof, and I wonder if my colleagues think I am taking them to sell!

“Some people do not know what I do, so may they be wondering why I take these discarded items home. They might be thinking about me – are you a waste collector?” he joked.

All the houses he makes are uploaded to TikTok after completion, and they are all fully furnished and come with the rooms and toilets of a real house

The prices of these rustic houses vary due to size and detail, ranging from $25 to more than $300.

The smallest house costs $25, two larger houses cost $55 each, while the grocery house costs $150 and the large house $325.

“Right now I am building the basic structure for another big house, but I have not yet designed the interior. When I’m done, I will post it on TikTok along with houses from other model house builders overseas, such as in Indonesia.

“They have been doing this a long time and have millions of supporters, while I have just started. Right now I have only 13,000 supporters on TikTok.

“I want people to know that us Khmer people can do this as well as anyone,” he said.